h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Children today (that means those surly 16 year olds too, remember) are generally ill-reared pups. Guess what they'll be as adults?

Schools can no longer keep adequate discipline. (You'll give me lines if I don't behave? What will you give me when I don't do them either Einstein?) When I was about 8 or 9 or so corporal punishment was banned in Irish schools, so I got to see at first hand the before and after of it. It wasn't better after the ban, it was worse. The ultimate sanction now became 'we'll tell your parents'. What a joke. If the little b*****ds parents cared then he wouldn't have been such a discipline problem in school in the first place would he?

Many American parents refuse to physically punish their children, and look what they've gotten themselves into now.

Spare the rod and spoil the child. Punishment should be appropriate, and should never be handed out casually. The child must be made to realise exactly why this punishment is being handed out.

To paraphrase Jesus (can't remember exact quote) Whosoever shall scandalise one of these [children] it were better for him that a mill stone be tied around his neck and drowned (or words to that effect). Many people believe that physical punishment *IS* child abuse, but I do not believe it is so.

The people who abuse their children will continue to do so despite any law to the contrary. All any law banning corporal punishment will achieve is to ban good parenting. If laws were so efficacious then surely the current laws concerning child abuse would be enough? How is adding unenforcible laws going to help the situation??

I think that physical punishment has permanently damaged your psyche, proving that it is a form of child abuse.

I was given a good eating at least once a week when younger and it did me no harm, well, I would probably got interested in fire and explosives anyhow, and, well, Eh, it did teech me to enjoy pain!!!(smile)(cough)(Milk)

tut, tut. Sticks and stones....

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips will only please me!
Actually, giving kids a good beating is the only way they can be taught a lesson, when appropiate..

My mother worked as a nursery-nurse in a primary school for quite a number of years. She told me that she had no doubts that, after corporal punishment was abolished, the standard of discipline in the school was reduced. She cited one occasion when a child, who was behaving in a very unsociable manner, was reprimanded, he turned to her and said that there was nothing she could do because she was no longer able to give him a smack.
My mum gave me plenty of 'smacks' when I was growing up and they never did me any permanent harm, though from their frequency I don't know if they did me any good either!! I believe, though, that I am a well adjusted human being (apart from my constant craving for extra-strong cider that is). I have never struck my child in anger and I don't think I ever will, though I have given her the odd tap to remind her that my experience as a human being is longer than hers. We get on very well even if she is not always well behaved...she is a child after all!!

Exactly.

God, is that all you can say? And I don't mean that I hold you as the creator of the universe etc. I know that I may have gone on a bit but I expected something more!!! This is very important to me, especially as I have just arrived home from a very satisfiying night in the local establishments of my home town!!

Sorry, I'me tired, but basically I agree to it all, sorry, with it all, and I think that lack of physical punishment counts for a lot more problems in society than most people probably realise, or give it credit for, I pitty teaches, god knows how they can control kids nowdays, without the use of a "smack" ETC.
Sorry, I got to go bed now..

I know you're tired but what the hell, having no other solution is NOT a reason to continue to box their ears just because you can't think of anything else to do!

You say "continue", because that is the case. Children haven't changed all that much over the years, even if society, and societys expetations has. It is still the case that a young child cannot understand logic as to why they should, or should not, do something. A smack, nothing major physical, is all that is required, it didn't do any harm in the past, it will not do any harm now. Punishment is reinforced with talking to the child as to why they are punished, eventually, as the child matures, the verbal message is all that is required. Its not physical beating of children, although this does go on, I despise the people that do so, but, unfortunatly, it always will. However, banning smacking, will never stop the sort of morrones who do that from doing it. But that is quite different from a small, controlled, use of force, in a controlled manner to punish young children.

I can't believe what I'm hearing. Or rather, I should. I should know advocates of corporal punishment are the types who don't believe others can feel pain. Or think for themselves, or be angry or hurt or sad because someone society forces them to trust and be with decides to give'em a whack.

I'll use this one. I use it quite often. For what reason has your child not obtained the basic rights that you do, simply becuase they're smaller than you are? Look at it this way, If you were walking down the street, and littered, or jaywalked, or whatnot, and a stranger decided to give you a spanking to teach you the error of your ways, said person would be charged with assualt. But since your child is a fraction of your size and strength, it's acceptable.

And here's something else. Since it's just dandy for adults to hit the children for whom they have responsibility, then it should be ok, through the same reasoning, for a Seniors Home attendant to spank or box one of the senior citizens, since the attendants have the same responsibilitys to the inmates as parents do to children. Or hey! lets apply your beliefs to the mentally disabled! That'll help! since they can't understand you, lets use violence. Oh sure, Amnesty International, and Unicef, and all those'll make noise, but if you didn't hit these handicapped people, then they might... the horror...
actually become less disciplined!

And on top of that! you can't realistically blame delinquency on the lack of corporal punishment. I mean, really. Look at it this way, since corporal punishment was banned in schools, we haven't had one world war! Genocide remarkeably rare, and I hate to tell you people, but, per 100,000 people, crime rates are at an all-time low in Canada.
Since corporal punishment has been outlawed, racial and ethnocultural people are more widely accepted in Canada!

What I meant to illustrate in the above paragraph is that you can attest anything to any event. Good or bad.

Statistics can't lie, but lies can be supported by statistics

But I don't think we are talking about physically beating a child that excesivly; just a smack; its quite different from what you suggested.
And forget the stuff about allowing a light smack leading to child abuse and excessive force being used; the people who do that are quite different and are just the people who will continue doing so whatever the law says.

that was the most intentionally ambiguous post I've ever seen

I don't care if it's a light smack. It still causes pain. If I were to cause you pain, I would be charged. If I were to have an infant and cause him/her pain, it would be, "a light smack." I don't care.
These aren't little automatons you're doing this to. These people
you're hitting can feel that. You're imposing your will on them through violence, and I don't care what you say, a light smack is still violence.

on one hand, imposing you're will on someone throiugh violence is a good way to impose you're will on someone, but on the other hand, It's a bad lesson for a kid.

It's not just that it's a bad lesson for a kid, but that it violates their rights to live without being hurt by other people.

We have a right to live without being hurt by other people?!

That one's new to me...

This posting has been going some time - thank someone (God) for that because it is important. When one has a child or children under one's care, then there can be no greater task, no greater endeavour and no greater honour. The child has a right to love and respect as an individual; not to be indoctrinated into one faith or another. Nor be abused, mentally or physically. We are their guardians. They grow into their own free spirits.