[quote=“Gao Bohan”]I have yet to see a convincing argument in favor of corporal punishment. I don’t just mean here, I mean anywhere. Here are the usual lines:
. . .
“I have no choice but to spank my children, especially when they’re really young, because they won’t listen to me otherwise.” - Then you’ve lost control of the situation. There are ways to regain control without resorting to violence. I’ve had to deal with difficult co-workers who wouldn’t listen to me, but none of my methods involved violence. If it’s unacceptable to strike an adult to “teach them a lesson”, why is it acceptable to strike children?[/quote]
I find this analogy strange. Do you think grounding children is also unacceptable? I venture most of us have also never resorted to false imprisonment when handling uncooperative co-workers.
While I don’t use physical punishment and avoid raising my voice unless there’s urgency, I’m also not convinced the case against physical punishment is that complete.
One responsibility of parents is to educate children to survive their environment. Although childproofing is an option at home, their can be lapses with other family members who use said sockets or when in the care of others. Allowing children to play with childproofed sockets could lead them to the conclusion that sockets are safe to play with. In this case, using physical pain would be the most immediate punishment and also more closely correlated with an actual electrical shock.
My daughter is less than two years old. Initially she was not afraid of oncoming cars or scooters. But after repeatedly hearing the stress in mine or my wife’s voice reinforced with the noise of the passing vehicle, she understands the threat they pose. Now without me speaking, she will reliably turn and insistent on being held with the approach of a motor vehicle. I’m confident she would not test her boundaries by deliberately facing an oncoming vehicle. On the other hand, while her interest in electrical sockets has passed for the moment, I don’t have the same confidence she won’t become interested in them again. Between seeing other people use electrical sockets and the similarity of non-physical discipline used in other situations, I don’t think she understands the severity compared with other actions her parents disapprove of and that she occasionally repeats from time to time.
Well, you’re wrong. The laws of those 40 nations are written to specifically ban all forms of physical punishment against children. They had public debates, hearings, etc., and decided to ban physical punishments against children. Why don’t they call it “spanking”? You realize that most nations in the world have their own languages, right? [/quote]
Really??? I was under the impression that EVERY nation literally used the term “spanking”…in English
Yes, I’m aware that most nations in the world have their own languages.
If “the act of spanking” is considered corporal punishment…why are parents not locked up for spanking their children? Why are teachers allowed to whack a child on the hand with a stick in class for talking back or getting a math problem wrong? Sure some schools may have been forced to close because of complaints, but the fact that they just re-open a few months later down the street means that the act of spanking is widely accepted by Taiwanese parents.
I’m not saying everyone should spank their children just because spanking and “physical punishment” is accepted by the Taiwanese people. Its not in me to tell someone else how they should raise their children. I’m simply stating that while the majority of you guys will agree that physically harming children is wrong and people who do should be labeled child abusers (although many of you who were abused hesitate labeling your own parents the same), Taiwanese people do not see it the same way. I would bet my hard earned money that if you randomly polled 10 Taiwanese households if they physically punished their children, the majority of them will say that they do and that they dont see anything wrong with doing it.
No one has proposed allowing children to play with sockets. :loco: I raised childproofing as one of many different alternatives to striking children. Here’s the reality: millions of people raise children into functioning adults without hitting them. Parents who choose to hit their children anyways are messed up in the head. They’re hitting their kids because they want to, not because it actually helps the kids.
No one has proposed allowing children to play with sockets. :loco: I raised childproofing as one of many different alternatives to striking children. Here’s the reality: millions of people raise children into functioning adults without hitting them. Parents who choose to hit their children anyways are messed up in the head. They’re hitting their kids because they want to, not because it actually helps the kids.[/quote]
Sorry, but this sounds more like an opinion as opposed to actual fact. I can respect that you feel that way, but you cannot state that EVERY parent who hits their children is sick in the head and “wants” to hit their children. As if they’re just itching for their children to make some kind of mistake so they can grab their cane or yard stick and go to town on their kid? Thats just silly. I’m assuming you (Gao Bohan) was never “hit” or “abused” as a child, right? Because if you were, you would technically be admitting that your parents or whoever raised you are “messed up in the head”. Just in my family and close family friends alone, I can honestly tell you that they are NOT sick in the head and they certainly are NOT hitting their kids just because they want to.
No one has proposed allowing children to play with sockets. :loco: I raised childproofing as one of many different alternatives to striking children.[/quote]
It wasn’t my intent to put words in your mouth but to emphasize the need for education regarding hazards independent of imminent danger and to wonder if physical punishment could be more effective in this regard.
Through simple probability, millions of children turn into functioning adults despite doing stupid things and parental shortcomings. But I (and possibly other parents) don’t really think about what is necessary for my children to have a decent probability of turning out alright, I think about what is better.
I can agree that beatings, punching, hitting out of sadistic tendencies or loss of temper are all child abuse indicative of an unsound mind. But physical pain is already encountered in the environment as part of the natural learning process so I don’t see parents’ using it as an intrinsic wrong. My parents spanked me, and I wouldn’t say they were messed up or that they wanted to. They certainly had some degree of aversion to using it and reserved that punishment for more severe misdeeds. That they employed spanking I believe is a reflection of what they learned from their culture and religion. For myself I don’t envision using it in the future because I dislike the thought, but I’m not past considering if it has situational advantages.
It’s an artificial system though, and comes from emotional responses not from random .
Kids who don’t understand that roads are dangerous should be kept away from roads: they don’t have the cognitive ability to extrapolate what the meaning of the slap from the father means.
[quote=“Ermintrude”]It’s an artificial system though, and comes from emotional responses not from random .
Kids who don’t understand that roads are dangerous should be kept away from roads: they don’t have the cognitive ability to extrapolate what the meaning of the slap from the father means.[/quote]
Learning happens on many levels. I think humans are primed to make causal inferences and have the cognitive ability to associate concurrent events from very young. My daughter does not understand how dangerous roads can be nor is she safe near them alone. But in a previous post, I mentioned she has gone from seeing “Daddy and Mommy are afraid of moving cars” to knowing “moving cars are dangerous.” Within this sequence, there is also an inference from the observations “Daddy is afraid” and “a car is coming” to “Daddy is afraid because a car is coming.”
My emotional response of fear also has a rational basis. Education of children can have a rational or rational and emotional basis regardless of whether physical pain is involved. It’s the irrational that I think should be avoided.
My threshold for pain inducement is safety / danger. If they bolt for the road because:
“OMG ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!”
They’ll get tugged back to the curb, and reality.
It’s very context specific.
Otherwise I rely on questions, context, and a raised voice, but that is of course age specific.
-------For every heaven’s sake, absolutely be on the same page with your spouse regarding child discipline. Find a counselor who advocates for corporal punishment , find a counselor who advocates against. Get to know it. Otherwise you may wreck your marriage and your kids without knowing it.
Impossible to make it clear, it’s always going to be interpreted by judges, same as domestic violence. There will be obvious cases of abuse, but also lots and lots of cases where the ruling can go both ways.
That’s interesting. The third grade 社會 textbook pretty immediately gets into “you should feel safe in your family”. They teach students to go to a teacher and they also list the number to call if you’re being abused — 113 (保護顯現). Seems stupid the 社會 class is supposed to teach the kids how to get out of a dangerous family situation (and yes, if your caregivers are hitting you or emotionally abusing you, that is a dangerous situation), but the law doesn’t even technically protect them.
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