Your Views On 'Smacking' children.

I will add because I know how disgraceful the lack of parenting skills is , part due to poor governance and education .

Put smacking in a wider context ie no crime is committed until there is a motive . Some parents are so vindictive and accusatory its a wonder their children dont shrivel up. Words , which can be more cruel than physical abuse at times , speak volumes . The manners in which said show up more too .

The wider context within which we debate , is that of a meritocracy . In a meritocracy , people supposedly get 'what they deserve' . It is then not smacking which is the issue but whether we , as the auto-meritocrats , parects, teachers etc , really have a right to impose our judgements and disciplines onto poor , innocent and unsuspecting children . Many adults forget the meritocratric indoctrination which has been foisted on them all 'from above' , leaving us with a nanny state.

Bring the wider context of fighting , physical domination, hand to hand combat ... why dont parents teach that ? To their children . Kids will know who they cannot punch , and also , who they can trust to do them no harm . Even if the slightest flicker of the back of the hand comes , they know who not argue with and when to hold their own ground . Turned on its head ,then ,'smacking' is a tool used for improvement ?

IMO every part of a childs life should be about education , training , learning , improvement , gaining skills and knowledge , and no part of it , none , should be about punishment , discipline , manipulation .
Or meritocracy.
If your child cries sadly or bitterly , or makes the wrong choices in life , you likely have yourself to blame for it

ETA you give childre what they need , not what you suppose they deserve

If a kid is being a best I don't see why a little spanking is a bad thing. Reinforce the fact that I am the parent and you are the child and you will behave. I'm not satin it's acceptable to like best your kid but I have no problem with spanking. A lot of the little fools that are running around today didn't get spanked. That's why America's youth are drinking and getting pregnant at 16. There's no discipline.

Sorry about the spelling errors. I'm on the ol' iPad and there's autocorrect.

reply to post by getreadyalready


In my adult life, I have not had a single fight nor needed to. I would do so to defend myself or my loved ones, and may even learn Aikido for this reason if I have the time soon, but not for any other reason. There might be a situation, like your telephone one, where I might lose it but that has not happened so far - I don't believe it would if there was an equally effective non-violent course of action.

There isn't a need to be aggressive if there is a viable assertive option. I find the concept of wanting to physically hurt someone to prove a point brutal, self-defeating and primitive. Unless, like in that situation, someone has hurt or upset a member of your family - I don't see many situations where it is warranted. As a species, we really should evolve past the need for application of violence. Ideologically speaking, as long as a culture of violence is accepted, there is no hope at all of reducing the scope and scale of international conflict and wars.

Plus, with regards to my generation, the danger with fighting these days is you never know how far the other guy is willing to go. Over here in the UK some of my friends have been in the most appalling fights. It isn't about who wins anymore, its purely about hurting the other guy as much as possible - there's no dignity or respect involved. Plus, you don't know whose got a knife hidden in their pocket - whatever the fight is over, if it's avoidable it isn't worth dying for.

With regards to the OP, reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


I can remember a couple of slaps when I was a kid. Wasn't very hard at all or anything too severe, never got slapped round the face or anything. I think its more of a psychological move. This was only when I was really misbehaving and nothing else was really working. I was a pretty wild kid. It didn't work anyway and my parents stopped doing it after the third time or so. Then they brought in the "no Mega Drive, no Computer, no Game Boy" trick, that usually did the job!

Having said that, out of principle I wouldn't ever hit my kid whether its hard or soft. I'm a pacifist and I don't think violence is an acceptable strategy in any situation, it means that you have failed to achieve your goal through rational, sensible and reasonable means. It is especially unfair against a child. You don't need to use force to assert dominance as a parent.

The problem is, slapping your kid one is illegal, fine, but the worst cases of child abuse remain unaffected. Social securities in the UK occasionally let the worst cases slip by undetected, even when the family or parents are under observation for whatever reason. Plus, I've seen parents pulling their kids around very violently by the arm, things like that, it's almost an exploitation of a loophole.

This gets off the topic of children a bit but addresses use of violence since the discussion seems to be going that way a bit...

I'm going to use psychopaths as an example. If you have a boss at work who is a psychopath he/she will employ any number of psychological and emotional attacks. Most laws,rules etc... surrounding the workplace ban all forms of physical violence yet say nothing about emotional or psychological violence. Psychopaths by nature have no empathy so they can't relate on an emotional level. Most are self centered narcissists so they rarely will listen to reason or logic if it does not fit their needs. There are people such as this in the world who are unable to be reached through words. So back to this boss that is way out of line... If I were to punch this boss in the face I'm sure they would definitely think twice before engaging in mind games with me next time around.

Nearly every physical fight I've been in has ended with a greater understanding between myself and the other person and has even led to friendship. Physical violence is an equalizer whether people want to admit it or not. Of course we can't have a world where it is run on physical violence and threats. There needs to be a balance.

Now, that said, there are children who act out simply for attention, simply to push boundaries and simply to annoy or frustrate the parent. If the intention is bad then placating them or simply trying to talk it out may be ineffective or may even reinforce the bad behavior. Maybe people would have more respect for each other if there was that threat of being "checked" when out of line. Many children grow up with this "touch me and sue me" mentality where they feel they can say ANYTHING to a person without

Also, don't discount the fact that by using mental or psychological means of punishment one may even do more harm to a child than physical violence would have caused.

I am an optimist and wish for a better world where violence isn't needed at all but I do think it is necessary in certain cases. If you were backed in a corner and felt your only choice of defense were physical violence would you not employ that? If you had felt you exhausted all means of verbal communication and were still not getting through to the other party would you not try another form of communication?

I'd be willing to bet that most people against violence in general have never even been in a fight before.

The world we live in now is one where punching someone is deplorable and neanderthal-like while psychopathic leaders sign off on the deaths of large numbers each day and we call that business as usual.

Originally posted by ALOSTSOUL
MP's have said in the media this week that the UK riots where caused by the lack of physical discipline, not the lack of jobs, education and a decent family lifestyle.

The Tottenham MP David Lammy claimed that Labour's 2004 decision to tighten up the smacking law was partly to blame for last summer's riots, which erupted in his north London constituency.

m.guardian.co.uk...

For you yanks out there, it is against the law in Great Britain to smack (spank) your child, although I have never heard of someone being convicted of it.

Personally I am undecided somtimes I think children do need a smack every now and then, mainly for there own sake. Lets say my daughter puts her finger in the plug socket do I give her a little slap (on the hand) and say "no, don't touch or it will hurt worse than that." luckly i haven't had to yet, she is still to young to crawl.

I understand that we live in different times (hell, I got a leather belt if I was naughty) but a complete lack of physical discipline can't be good for a Childs development can it?

I don't know, it's a very touchy issue, what are your views.

ALS

edit on 29-1-2012 by ALOSTSOUL because: (no reason given)

People will always say that it is different times and that things have changed in order of how kids learn. Times have not changed, if anything information has changed and how readily it is available and kids learn much faster these days in how to behave, taking that in, many kids will use that against there parents.

So the kids are in power more then the parents, so what do parents have left to defend there presence to make sure there child behaves correctly? well not much if you take away their ability to strike fear in a child. If they know no fear, they do not appreciate what is given and respect those around them.

In the UK children/teens are getting away with murder and I am not just using that as saying. I am talking real murder and getting light sentences and misguided protection on their rights. All this comes down to not wanting to come across negatively to children but in the long run, it damages them more. If you have no respect/fear, then you think as a child growing up you can have anything.

I would say all parents and all teachers should be allowed their rights back and the way to check if it out of hand is to check up on children, at home and at school. It would be obvious if a child is being mistreated. The majority would just learn to behave.

There is my view on things. I know since all hitting of children, lack of respect in schools and lack of sentences, this country the UK has become worse through the years.

reply to post by arollingstone

I don't see many situations where it is warranted.

Agreed. The need for violence, especially as adults should be very, very few and far between. The want for violence should be even more rare. But, ruling it out completely is dangerous and naive.

I've probably been in 2 fights in 10 years, and one of those was with my brother, and the other one I walked away from 3 times, and it wasn't until he grabbed my shoulder and turned me around that we actually fought. He didn't know, that I knew, that he had been screwing my ex-wife just before our divorce, and I would have loved to really, really put a beatdown on him, but I happened to be on a date, so I was walking away to be respectful to my date, but he just couldn't grasp why I didn't want to talk to him. Moron.

Anyway, everything has a time and a place, and violence should always be a last resort, whether it is between adults, or in correcting a child. Now slapping a hand away from a light socket is not violence per say, but giving swats, or a spanking is, and it should only be used under the most controlled and intentional circumstances, and only if the lesson is there to be learned. I don't believe in anything just for punishment's sake. Even a timeout is wasted and cruel if there is no lesson to be learned.

Originally posted by ollncasino


I have observed that many people who virulently reject violence are also the people who tend to be physically weak but who consider themselves to be superior.

Ouch, that hurts, not to me because i don't reject violence nor i'm physically weak but you are right, really right, most people with that mindset have a superiority complex in ethics/moral stuff where everyone not like them is nothing more than a savage, after all is one of the only ways they have to justified their shortcomings.

Anybody who says smacking your children is wrong, has obviously never dealt with bad kids. Some kids, the only thing you can do is smack them, or there's no stopping them. I don't advocate beatings, but I see nothing wrong with smacking some butt, and other common forms of corporal punishment (rulers on hand, soap in mouth, etc).

Way too many sissies and hippies in the world today.

Originally posted by Iason321
Anybody who says smacking your children is wrong, has obviously never dealt with bad kids.

I didnt know kids had varieties ? Whats this 'bad kids' ? Never heard of that sort...

Originally posted by Indigo5
~ Astrid Lindgren, author of "Pippi Longstocking" (From a peace prize acceptance speech)

"When I was about twenty years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time.

"But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking — the first in his life. And she told him he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying.

"He said to her, 'Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock you can throw at me.'

All of the sudden a mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone.

"The mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. Because violence begins in the nursery — one can raise children into becoming violent."

edit on 30-1-2012 by Indigo5 because: (no reason given)

Yeah, EXACTLY what i was talking about. Buncha friggin pippi longstockings running around. If you wanna learn how to raise your child from pippi longstockings, and raise your kid to be a pippi longstockings, dont come at me for disciplining my child, please.

A good smack in the face goes a long way, trust me. My little step brother hasn't been smacked once his entire life and now he's becoming a violent monster....

Originally posted by ZIPMATT

Originally posted by Iason321
Anybody who says smacking your children is wrong, has obviously never dealt with bad kids.

I didnt know kids had varieties ? Whats this 'bad kids' ? Never heard of that sort...

What, have you lived under a rock? Never seen out of control kids running over there parents in those whacky nanny TV shows? Well, I have, and I've dealt with it.

Originally posted by ZIPMATT

Originally posted by Iason321
Anybody who says smacking your children is wrong, has obviously never dealt with bad kids.

I didnt know kids had varieties ? Whats this 'bad kids' ? Never heard of that sort...

What, have you lived under a rock? Never seen out of control kids running over there parents in those whacky nanny TV shows? Well, I have, and I've dealt with it.

reply to post by getreadyalready

Agreed. The need for violence, especially as adults should be very, very few and far between. The want for violence should be even more rare. But, ruling it out completely is dangerous and naive.

I must have misunderstood you, I didn't realise you saw it like that. I agree, if someone came at me and I knew it was coming I wouldn't say "Woah, mellow out dude, peace and love" and take a beating. That's why I'd like to learn Aikido, of all martial arts, as its defensive in philosophy and nature.

I walked away from 3 times, and it wasn't until he grabbed my shoulder and turned me around that we actually fought.

In that case, his wish was your command!

Now slapping a hand away from a light socket is not violence per say, but giving swats, or a spanking is, and it should only be used under the most controlled and intentional circumstances, and only if the lesson is there to be learned. I don't believe in anything just for punishment's sake. Even a timeout is wasted and cruel if there is no lesson to be learned.

Yeah, I hate the idea of 'punishment' without a constructive purpose, its a really malicious way to tread a child. Like you say, the light socket thing is fine. But when parents think 'how dare they, I'm going to teach them a lesson" and whip out a belt, that's a whole other story.

I absolutely believe in rearing a child. It was done to me , and i harbour no ill will. Hell i was beaten with sticks. Did it hurt? Yup. Did it scar me mentally? Nope. Did it make me think twice about doing something i was told not to do again? Yup.

Do i hate my parents? Nope. Do i feel abused? Nope. Do i even remember most of my spankings? Nope. Do i abuse animals? Nope. Do i want to randomly kill people? Nope.

Spankings stopped around age 15 - 16. By that age , grounding / taking things from me hurt me more than spankings. When i was younger .. spankings actually worked.

Was i scared of my dad some what when i was younger? Yes and no. More of a respect , and when i did stupid things .. i did my best to hide it. Did i still love him? Yup. Did spankings make me not want to be around him? Nope.

Dont disobey rules , and you wont get a spanking .. it is that simple. Follow my rules or get out.

People understand pain. They rarely understand words. You cause pain , they associate that with "not" doing it again or do it without getting caught next time.

Children should be smacked, I was if I went too far.

I'd some friends who didn't and they should have, I'd like to smack some of them myself.

I live in the UK, in most areas, kids rule the streets, not adults. If the nanny mentality of wrapping up in cotton wool and over-protection has taughts us one single thing over the last 20 years or so it's that if adults don't smak the kids...the kids get out of line - and start smacking the adults.

Obviously within reason, necessary force...but yes, I'd like to smack some kids, ignorant, arrogant with an inherant sense of entitlement as if the world owes them something for the mere fact that they were born...lazy parenting if you ask me, all this crap about SOPA etc is just another example of parents being unable or unwilling to parent...

Originally posted by arollingstone
I'm a pacifist and I don't think violence is an acceptable strategy in any situation, it means that you have failed to achieve your goal through rational, sensible and reasonable means.

You don't think that violence is an acceptable strategy in any situation?

Didn't Neville Chamberlain try the "rational, sensible and reasonable means" with Hitler?

I also doubt, from the way you write, that you have any children.

Originally posted by Magnificient
reply to post by ALOSTSOUL

 

I think a parent using their hands to punish a child is the result of them lacking the mental ability to control and discipline their children.

Really? Try telling that to all the parents that have been killed by their kids... Not all kids are the same and no parent can say what is best for another... As another poster said timeouts, corner, chores, grounding, and taking things away from some kids may work, but it doesn't solve EVERYTHING. You say to lift your hand is wrong, well I say to not is...

If you say it... do it... PERIOD...

PS. I'm not saying give your kid a black eye but a busted bottom won't leave their mind for awhile...

reply to post by samerulesapply


Exactly , kids think they can tell their parents off and just walk out of the house. I was raised in the south , and the one thing you didnt do is talk back (disrespect / argue). You respect your elders and keep your mouth shut. It isnt that hard. Yes sir and No ma'am is a good habit.

My manners got me out of so many situations and supplied me with many friends and leniency from adults.

It really is in your best interest to show respect and spankings help that respect to be constant.