My dad spanked me. My sis never spanks her kids. Spanking probably serves no real useful purpose. Spanking and pushing leaves in a childs mouth are as similar as apples and child abuse.
My point is more that would most parents be happy if teachers couldnāt be arsed dealing with their kids because they were not allowed to escalate punishment as far as parents did? How do you set up a dialogue- based system perhaps involving some sanctions or loss of priveleges if the kid sees that as only step one of the punishment scale? How do you teach that kid to deal with authority as a functioning adult? By hitting a kid, you are modelling an artificial social structure.
There is no constructive, responsible way to hit a child. What an absolutely inane statement.
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I disagree. I saw a mother slap a one-year-oldās hand after he repeatedly tried to reach for the power socket. Iām sure it didnāt hurt him but it certainly did spook him, which was for the best because the family had already tried basically every way of showing him you do not go near power outlets all to no avail. This is Taiwan weāre talking about, where cramped spaces make logic like ājust donāt let the kid near outletsā impossible.
And yet, millions of people in cramped big city apartments in North America and Europe manage to keep their children away from outlets without beating them. :loco:
My dad hit me a few times as a kid, in anger rather than in calculation ā and only when I was being a real little shit. Iām not sure it was helpful but I donāt hold it against him.
My wife and I have both smacked our son on occasion. When he was very small (around the two year mark) he didnāt seem to understand disapproval or anger on our part, but he definitely understood a light smack on the bottom or the hand. Now heās almost three and itās been a long time since we needed to. I just do the āokay weāre going homeā thing, and my wife has some horrific punishment involving standing on a piece of paper that Iāve never witnessed and hope not to, but the mere mention of it will stop him in his tracks.
Iām not sure that I have a point here except perhaps that (as with dogs!) being physical isnāt necessarily the same as being violent, and that the line between them is hard to define but pretty intuitive.
We humans use euphemisms to describe assaulting our children. No, we didnāt ābeatā them, we āspankedā them. No, we didnāt āhitā them, we ālightly slappedā them. But physically and physiologically, itās all the same. The adult is causing force for the explicit purpose of inducing pain. The hand, or instrument (tree branch, wooden spoon, leather belt, etc.) is swung through the air and makes contact with the childās person. The blunt force shatters capillaries underneath the childās skin, nerves become inflamed, and pain signals are transmitted to the brain. Maybe this is done ālightlyā, maybe not, but itās still the deliberate infliction of pain on a child. Itās wrong, period.
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Hereās one way to think about it. Imagine that a child grows up and becomes an adult. You then surrender all rights to inflict pain of any kind. If you grab your 18 year old daughter, yank her pants down and strike her bottom, then you have committed a battery. If you strike her hand, you have committed a battery. The law is clear; in the words of a Supreme Court justice, your right to swing your first ends at my nose. It doesnāt matter how ālightlyā you strike an adult. It doesnāt matter if youāre angry, or if you ājust trying to teach her a lessonā, or if you āhad no other choiceā. Itās a crime, plain and simple. And yet if you commit the same act of violence when the child is 17 or below, itās considered perfectly legal. Utterly absurd.
Millions of human beings manage to raise perfectly functional adults without ever once striking them, not once. There is absolutely no reason under the sun to ever strike a child.
Many preschools in Taiwan spank rambunctious kids behind the curtains. The teachers will gladly explain to the parents that they will ādisciplineā their children for them. Many Taiwanese parents and grandparents spank their kids in public also to show that they know how to teach their kidsā¦
Multi millionaire athlete?
NFL MVP?
Respected by his peers?
Yea Iād say heās pretty successful in life.
Everyones saying how they wont inflict physical punishment but no one is giving an alternative.
What are you going to do? Ground them? Take away their iphone and internet? Take away their XBOX?
Yell at them? what if that induces mental problems down the line?
What is your alternative to physical punishment?
As an alternative to physical punishment: Treat children like the human beings they are and rationally explain to them what is right and what is wrong. Itās how my parents brought me up since as far back as I can remember.
Itās clear youāre an advocate of hitting children for discipline. What age do you feel is the appropriate cut-off?
Treat them as a human beingā¦
But you still havenāt actually mentioned any form of punishment.
Okay, so what would you do if I (a human being) decided to spit in your motherās face?
Iād imagine you feeling angry enough to fight meā¦
What are you going to do when you try to carry a normal conversation with the child explaining his wrongdoings, as you would a human being, and the child is just ignoring and sticking his fingers in his ear and going LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALLALAL?
And youāre completely ignoring all the people (mostly parents) who have pointed out that punishment is almost never necessary. The single exception seems to be a clip round the ear that causes an immediate (reflexive) jump away from something imminently dangerous, and even then only when the kid is pre-verbal.
Yeah, kids do that, but there are other ways to get their attention except violence. Even if you canāt, they get the idea that youāre angry, and that matters. Also, remember youāre supposed to be the adult. Kids (in the long term) do copy your actions and attitudes. If you think youāre going to lose it, the best option is to walk away and leave him/her there doing his lalalalalala thing. Then deal with it later when youāre both in a better mood. Come to think of it, that works with adults too.
As Petrichor said, what kids want most in the world is parental approval. A smart parent can use that to his advantage.
Money and fame mean nothing if you go around attacking people to satisfy your own ego.
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The kidās not doing that because heās ābadā, heās trying out something he saw elsewhere. Heās also probably tired and overstimulated. Deal with that first, and let him know that there will be a loss of something he holds dear if he behaves like that again. Let him know that people he loves donāt behave that way.
Slapping a child for exhibiting a negative behaviour is making a high cognitive demand: you want to model positive behaviours and develop positive attitudes, not simply scare them into not expressing negative attitudes in ways you find unacceptable. A slap just communicates ādonāt get caught doing that againā, it doesnāt address the underlying cause of the behaviour.
Discipline also depends on th e childās cognitive level. Expecting a toddler to empathise is not useful, but demanding it of an older child is reasonable.
The man punished his child.
Yes, he over did it, but I would hardly call that going around attacking people to satisfy his own egoā¦
Its not like he mounted him and ground and pounded his sonās face or knocked out his fiancee in an elevator.
um.
It sounds like that is, pretty much, what he did.
Lefty, are you just winding us up for amusement value, or do you genuinely believe what youāre writing here?
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āA loss of something he holds dearā
So basically you are saying you will take away his phone, his video games, his tv timeā¦
No.