Add me to the list of spankees. Attended a Baptist elementary school for a bit and was spanked by the Dean more than a few times for similar offenses. Sure would like to meet him now…
Indeed. I had a lot of trouble, either because I couldn’t hear something over all the other noises, or because I couldn’t understand certain expressions, or because other people decided my voice was wrong, or my questions were insulting. I had teachers who got very angry when I asked what ‘backtalk’ was. they never answered, they just punished me for whatever it was [though it was usually the bullies who did any beatings, not the teachers].
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Yes, I know I liked to take my paddle with me to school to make sure I beat all the other children with it. FFS.
I’d say something has to be done. There’s something fundamentally wrong when a parent has to spend half an hour negotiating with their children. Kids are generally more obstinate and fully understand that their own parents are paper tigers. Your parents are your first authority figures: if you don’t listen to them, you’re not listening to anyone, until they get arrested anyway.
Personally I think there’s something fundamentally wrong when any authority figure (parent or otherwise) has to strike a child.
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There are about a million ways that authority figures can deal with an obstinate child that do not involve physical violence.
And quite often causing pain to a child will cause them to become more obstinate. After all, you aren’t likely to do anything really damaging to them. Once they figure that out and come to resent you enough, you’ve lost all claim to authority.
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My youngest son spent time in an orphanage in Peru before I adopted him. A poor little brown kid who was defenseless. He hated those people and the beatings they doled out. By the time he reached high school up here he was often ranked as high as #6 in the state as a wrestler. He was good natured and rarely ever got into trouble. He also stated that no adult would ever hit him again without consequence. I am grateful our home state did not have such foolish laws. My son could have quickly become a felon. Without knowing the harm already inflicted on kids well before they get in the school system who knows how much harm physical abuse could cause.
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Or in the very least teach them that violence and physical intimidation is an acceptable way to get what you want. Kids learn by example; if you don’t want your kid to hit other people, you shouldn’t be hitting your kid.
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Forgetting whether it’s effective or sensible or any of the rest of it, I’m confused by how the parent of a legal adult can give permission for anything with respect to that adult.
What am I missing here? Are 18-year-old people now officially not adult?
It seems to me that an 18-year-old high school student would have to give their own permission to be beaten. And if they do, they probably enjoy it, so that definitely isn’t a good form of discipline.
I remember witnessing corporal punishment in a suburban Kansas elementary school little more than twenty years ago. My fourth grade teacher held a kid down while our principal removed the protective padding the unlucky kid (not me) had stuffed in his back pockets and proceeded to paddle him.
Yes. I haven’t been that age for about 20 years, so maybe something has changed and I didn’t get the memo? The whole thing just seems bizarre/insane.
I mean, just the word “child” in proximity to “over the age of 18” is surreal, which was part of what I was getting at in my comment. Let alone whether it would be advisable – in a self-preservation sense – to ceremonially assault a young, healthy grown human.
Given that young adults have trended towards lengthier periods of parental dependence over the past couple of decades, maybe we are shifting the unofficial (i.e. perceived) age of emancipation? And maybe that cultural perception is starting to kindasorta accidentally work its way into legislation?
I dunno. Freakin’ weird.
Joe Lieberman.
Like I said.
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Yeah. My younger brother and I were spanked with bamboo switches by both parents growing up. He was spanked till he was about 4 and my folks figured out that it just made him go psychotic. It just made him angrier longer. I was spanked until I was about 7-8 because they thought I responded well to it.
Thing is, the only reason I can think of for being spanked is disappointing my dad. And through counseling I discovered that the reason for a lot of my deceitful tendencies is a hiding and avoidance mechanism that was likely established as a combination of corporal punishment and my desire not to disappoint. At least that seems like a pretty plausible explanation. Getting my ass traumatized for disappointing my dad, seems to make sense as an impetus to not disappoint through just lying and hiding failures.
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No, adults hit kids because they are angry, they are angry because they are afraid, they are afraid because they know deep down they are out of control themselves.
Violence begets violence, it doesn’t make the adult feel better - but it gives the semblance of control.
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Any complex issue can be boiled down to a simplistic soundbite condemning other people.
Pointing out the shortcomings of others helps people ignore their own inadequacies - it doesn’t make anything better, but people think it makes them feel better.
For those with the ears to hear it is a call to self reform, not boiling anything down to something simple. It is not simple, it is not easy to change one’s self and find inner peace but this is what one has to answer to in order to parent appropriately. If one believes children are born with the innate right to self then physically punishing them is obviously contrary to honoring that right. So what is the answer? Find self control.
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