Should Children Be Spanked?

[Rakhmetov]

Domestic Corporal Punishment: Is it ethical, moral, useful, utilitarian???

For my own part, I believe inflicting corporal punishment on children only teaches them that hitting is the only way to get what you want from others--- which can have unfortunate repurcussions later in life for future spouses and children.

Corporal punishment and religion
Some who carry out corporal punishment do so for ideological or religious reasons. Douglas Wilson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilson_(theologian)) appeals to the Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible) ("He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him," Proverbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Proverbs) 13:24) to argue that corporal punishment is a duty for parents, though "biblical training consists of far more than spanking." Some opponents of parental corporal punishment have argued that an appeal to the Book of Proverbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Proverbs) is inappropriate. Jan Hunt (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Hunt_(psychologist)&action=edit&redlink=1) asserts

The book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon), an extremely cruel man whose harsh methods of discipline led his own son, Rehoboam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehoboam), to become a tyrannical and oppressive dictator who only narrowly escaped being stoned to death for his cruelty. In the Bible there is no support for harsh discipline outside of Solomon's Proverbs.

The people, led by Jeroboam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeroboam), feared that Rehoboam would continue to tax them heavily - as had his father Solomon. Jeroboam and the people promised their loyalty in return for lesser burdens. The older men counseled Rehoboam at least to speak to the people in a civil manner (it is not clear whether they counseled him to accept the demands). However, the new king sought the advice from the people he had grown up with, who advised the king to show no weakness to the people, and to tax them even more, which Rehoboam did. He proclaimed to the people,
"Whereas my father laid upon you a heavy yoke, so shall I add tenfold thereto. Whereas my father chastised (tortured) you with whips, so shall I chastise you with scorpions. For my littlest finger is thicker than my father's loins; and your backs, which bent like reeds at my father's touch, shall break like straws at my own touch." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehoboam

http://www.nospank.net/spock2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Spock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment#Judicial_or_quasi-judicial_punishment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment#Corporal_punishment_in_the_hom e

[CesareBorgia]

No, they shouldn't. I understand why it happens but I wouldn't do it.

People seem to think their children belong to them, that they are property. When really the child doesnt belong to them, at least it shouldn't, and it doesnt belong to himself either. The child belongs to society.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

fuck no. next question.

[RedSonRising]

As a last resort. I don't think its positive for the development of a child. I've also been in many situations where a good smack on the bum would have solved a lot of problems. I'd say no, but in rare circumstances it wouldn't be the end of the world.

[Jazzratt]

It's depressing that in this day and age it's even a fucking question. It's like discussing the best material to use to thatch a skyscraper or something - everything about the idea smacks of archaic anachronism.

[StoneFrog]

I was hit as a kid, my Dad even had a special belt, even went so far as naming it. Did i ever hate that thing..

I don't agree with hitting children, tbh i don't see its done me any good. I have "issues" though i doubt they are caused by being hit, im sure as hell they didn't help. As i got older it did stop, but took me awhile to get any sort of trust with my dad. I see the importance of discipline, but not in a in that manner.

[Demogorgon]

No. Incidentally it always amazes me when people defend spanking by saying "I was spanked as a child and it never did me any harm". I always think "yes it did, it made you think hitting children is okay".

I throw in the usual caveats of course, while all corporal punishment is wrong, some is obviously worse than others, an otherwise good parent who occasionally gives their children a light tap should be considered to have made an error but not completely condemned whereas people beating children with canes and the like shouldn't be allowed near kids.

[Anarchrusty]

Spanking a child as a punishment is the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard. I was never, and I mean NEVER, hit as a kid and I turned out okay, didn't I?

It is no surprise this is coming from xtians. It is ingrained in their entire culture to subordinate and dominate, it expressively depends on fear and hierarchy. Without it, it would have crumbled before long.

[Sword and Shield]

And the responses here, my friends, show why the Western left is filled with such degenerate lumpen trash.

[Quail]

I think it's important for a child to understand why what s/he did was wrong, the consequences of what s/he did and how s/he could have behaved better, and a smack just doesn't get any kind of message across, other than, "If you do something I don't like, I'll hurt you." It's not a positive message and just teaches children that violence towards others is okay.


And the responses here, my friends, show why the Western left is filled with such degenerate lumpen trash.
Are you trolling?

[Rakhmetov]

It's depressing that in this day and age it's even a fucking question. It's like discussing the best material to use to thatch a skyscraper or something - everything about the idea smacks of archaic anachronism.

So why are many millions of households resorting to this anachronism???

The issue should be debated pro and con so that people be well INFORMED.

[Anarchrusty]

And the responses here, my friends, show why the Western left is filled with such degenerate lumpen trash.


Care to explain? I am not pointing fingers, but sounds almost like a social darwinist. Not saying you are, that's why I ask what you mean.

[Sword and Shield]

Care to explain? I am not pointing fingers, but sounds almost like a social darwinist. Not saying you are, that's why I ask what you mean.

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.

[Delenda Carthago]

The best thing with Revleft is this: when the world is collapsing, we still manage to talk about stupid issues and still consider ourselves inteligent and sensitive revolutionaries.

[Rakhmetov]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.


You are an ageist, sexist pig.

[StoneFrog]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.

I would be an example to prove that wrong..
Im a useless leftist, i can't communicate with people well, and im a lumpen POS.

[Sword and Shield]

You are an ageist, sexist pig.

You're a troll.

[Quail]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.

That's utter bollocks. Don't you think that high rates of drug and alcohol abuse are more likely to be linked to the miserable standard of living for many working class people? Addiction is a mental health problem, and it's actually ridiculous that you think a sufferer's parent should have disciplined it out of them. Also, it is completely possible to use drugs and be functional. There is a difference between drug use and drug abuse.

[Nolan]

This is silly. I was spanked as a child, so were my parents (worse so), so was everyone I know, and we all turned out fine.

[Princess Luna]

You're a troll.
Hey the pot is calling the kettle black!

[Anarchrusty]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.


It isn't so much parents having any great influence on children, but moreso society as a whole entity and how it's tentacles are able to peruse every fibre of a being.
I mean, I am the most proof of this: my parents are rich bourgoise bastards but I turned out to be a revolutionary with a heart for everyone (not just my parent's class) and seeking equality all over the world.
In the end, they had no saying in how I became whatsoever.

My point is, if people get addicted to harmful substances (and what is really harmfull in the end?) it is not their own or their parents fault. Society dictates the ways in which most people define themselves, which means a consumer hooked on something. Be that telly, fastfood or drugs.

[Sword and Shield]

That's utter bollocks. Don't you think that high rates of drug and alcohol abuse are more likely to be linked to the miserable standard of living for many working class people? Addiction is a mental health problem, and it's actually ridiculous that you think a sufferer's parent should have disciplined it out of them.

The rest of working class people with a miserable standard have much lower rates of degeneracy than the Western left. Thus, while it is a contributing factor, there's also something wrong with the left. Especially consider the fact that so many of the degenerates on the left are not from poor backgrounds but are instead hipsters and the like. And don't you think that the first time a kid tried drugs or alcohol, the parents coulda disciplined them to try and keep them from getting addicted in the first place? I'm not saying discipline will always work, but what I'm saying is that discipline is almost non-existant amongst the left and results in much worse occurrences of lumpenness.

[Sword and Shield]

It isn't so much parents having any great influence on children, but moreso society as a whole entity and how it's tentacles are able to peruse every fibre of a being.
I mean, I am the most proof of this: my parents are rich bourgoise bastards but I turned out to be a revolutionary with a heart for everyone (not just my parent's class) and seeking equality all over the world.
In the end, they had no saying in how I became whatsoever.

My point is, if people get addicted to harmful substances (and what is really harmfull in the end?) it is not their own or their parents fault. Society dictates the ways in which most people define themselves, which means a consumer hooked on something. Be that telly, fastfood or drugs.

I agree that there are many societal reasons for this. However, we need to recognize that this lumpenness is holding back the left, and need to try and limit the societal effects rather than letting them run loose due to lack of discipline.

[Demogorgon]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.
Has it occurred to you that people who ended up like that were probably spanked more as children than others? It is pretty clear that an inconsistent upbringing is what is worst for children and thqat involves a mixture of overly harsh punishment and getting away with things at other times. Unless you can prove that children who are not beaten are more likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, you haven't got a leg to stand on.

[StoneFrog]

The rest of working class people with a miserable standard have much lower rates of degeneracy than the Western left. Thus, while it is a contributing factor, there's also something wrong with the left. Especially consider the fact that so many of the degenerates on the left are not from poor backgrounds but are instead hipsters and the like. And don't you think that the first time a kid tried drugs or alcohol, the parents coulda disciplined them to try and keep them from getting addicted in the first place? I'm not saying discipline will always work, but what I'm saying is that discipline is almost non-existant amongst the left and results in much worse occurrences of lumpenness.

Discipline != hitting children

Yes i will agree that there is a void in modern society where there is no discipline, but i fail to understand how hitting is going to enforce this.

[Quail]

The rest of working class people with a miserable standard have much lower rates of degeneracy than the Western left. Thus, while it is a contributing factor, there's also something wrong with the left. Especially consider the fact that so many of the degenerates on the left are not from poor backgrounds but are instead hipsters and the like. And don't you think that the first time a kid tried drugs or alcohol, the parents coulda disciplined them to try and keep them from getting addicted in the first place? I'm not saying discipline will always work, but what I'm saying is that discipline is almost non-existant amongst the left and results in much worse occurrences of lumpenness.
In my view, the best thing a parent can do is to give a balanced view of all information about drugs, not try to scare young people away from drugs. Authoritarian discipline makes young people rebel. My parents are extremely anti-drug, and told me a lot of bullshit about drugs, but I looked at the information for myself and I do use drugs (including alcohol) recreationally. I have also used drugs as a way of coping with things, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my parents, and if it wasn't the drugs, it would have been something else.

I don't know what you're basing your assumptions about the class backgrounds of the British left on, either, and moralising and calling people whose circumstances you have no idea about "degenerates" is extremely intolerant. Drug use and even drug addiction doesn't automatically make someone "degenerate."

[Terminator X]

I don't really have a problem with it. A couple smacks on the bum from time to time doesn't hurt anything. I'll admit it, I've spanked my daughter a couple times when mere reasoning and coddling and "time out" doesn't do a damn thing. Now if you're talking about actual child abuse, then of course that's wrong and there are laws in place to prevent it.

I'm also willing to bet that 99% of the respondents in this thread don't have kids and have no idea how they'd actually react in that situation.

[Anarchrusty]

I agree that there are many societal reasons for this. However, we need to recognize that this lumpenness is holding back the left, and need to try and limit the societal effects rather than letting them run loose due to lack of discipline.

But no one is expecting the entire working class (including lumpenproletariat) to rise as one, at once. That's why there is such a thing as a vanguard, and people like us to be at the front of it.

You cannot dismiss anyone, ultimately all will have a role in the revolution. And the addiction/consumerbased lifestyles will be dealt with acordingly.
Destroy consumerism, destroy drug habits, as it is only a sympton of a greater cancer. Fight cancer, not the sympton.

[Quail]

I'm also willing to bet that 99% of the respondents in this thread don't have kids and have no idea how they'd actually react in that situation.
I do have a child, although I'm pretty sure that even people who were in favour of smacking children wouldn't smack a one year old, even if he was being a pain. Besides, this isn't a discussion on what you would do in the heat of the moment in a hypothetical situation. It's a discussion about the advantages, disadvantages and potential problems with certain types of discipline.

[Manic Impressive]

@Sword and Shield
what makes you think that drug addiction is confined to the west? Iran has one of the worst problems with heroin addiction in the world http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/iran-heroin-drug-addiction.html Anywhere you find drugs you find drug addicts it's a world wide problem.

[Anarchrusty]

@Sword and Shield
what makes you think that drug addiction is confined to the west? Iran has one of the worst problems with heroin addiction in the world http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/iran-heroin-drug-addiction.html Anywhere you find drugs you find drug addicts it's a world wide problem.

People always bashing Iran..... Yes it does have troublesome area's in everyday life BUT it is also one of the only countries in the world to be welcoming to transgenders.

But hey, way to make a strawman argument in order to try and shift the blame. Please, let's all get back on topic.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.

you're a piece of shit and you should be far away from this site. consider the fact that lumpen drug addicts were likely abused or neglected by their families, and probably suffered all sorts of beatings, more so than in average working families. i hope you never have children.

[Manic Impressive]

People always bashing Iran..... Yes it does have troublesome area's in everyday life BUT it is also one of the only countries in the world to be welcoming to transgenders.

But hey, way to make a strawman argument in order to try and shift the blame. Please, let's all get back on topic.
Fuck off I'm not bashing Iran and I don't see how saying that drug addiction is a world wide problem not just a western one as S&S seemed to be suggesting is a strawman.

[Anarchrusty]

I never claimed that addiction is purely a Western phenomenon, Manic. And please don't get uppity with me, it's unnecessary. I am just calling you out on distracting from a discussion. That's all.

Jeez.

[Manic Impressive]

I never claimed that addiction is purely a Western phenomenon, Manic. And please don't get uppity with me, it's unnecessary. I am just calling you out on distracting from a discussion. That's all.

Jeez.
No sword & Shield did which is who I was responding to. You decided to jump in by saying I was picking on Iran and I shouldn't because they treat transgendered people well what that had to do with the drug problems they have there I have no idea.

but hey just to show I'm not just picking on Iran

China
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020520/cover.html

India
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/75-crore-drug-addicts-in-india-survey/9329-3.html

Egypt
http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=17332

[Anarchrusty]

Okay mate, water under the bridge. Now, back to the topic at hand.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

No sword & Shield did which is who I was responding to. You decided to jump in by saying I was picking on Iran and I shouldn't because they treat transgendered people well what that had to do with the drug problems they have there I have no idea.

but hey just to show I'm not just picking on Iran

China
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/1101020520/cover.html

India
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/75-crore-drug-addicts-in-india-survey/9329-3.html

Egypt
http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=17332

I think, at least part of his point was that the left is full of drug-loving hipsters, not that there is no drug problem in countries like Iran. Or something.

[RedSunRising]

I think, at least part of his point was that the left is full of drug-loving hipsters, not that there is no drug problem in countries like Iran. Or something.

I think this because of the low level of class struggle and the weakness of the revolutionary movement or movements in the English speaking world and the west in general where Revleft draws most of its participants from so that you have people who attracted to the left for aesthetic or infantile reasons. If and when struggle intensifies you will find a growing "gravitas" among leftists and the dropping away of "drug loving hipsters".

[TC]

I don't really have a problem with it. A couple smacks on the bum from time to time doesn't hurt anything. I'll admit it, I've spanked my daughter a couple times when mere reasoning and coddling and "time out" doesn't do a damn thing.

You hit your wife/partner too?

"Spanking" is domestic violence and assault and battery, simple as that, and anyone who perpetrates such violence against people too weak to protect themselves should be sent to jail where they belong so they can't hurt others.

And people on revleft who support such violence against children, a maximally oppressed population, should absolutely be restricted.

And I don't give a fuck whether or not someone thinks they "turned out okay" after being spanked as a child or that it "doesn't do any harm." It literally inflicts pain and suffering and humiliation and loss of dignity and respect, which are rightly recognized as harms when they are inflicted on adults. The only possible explanation for this might makes right double standard is that people can get away with hitting their kids and they can't get away with hitting other adults - because their children are *so* politically and socially marginalized that they are treated as non-transferable psudo-property of their parents, as valuable objects or superpets and not as people. This is disgusting, reactionary, and fundamentally oppressive.



I'm also willing to bet that 99% of the respondents in this thread don't have kids and have no idea how they'd actually react in that situation.

People who can't take care of their children, can't tolerate their presence, can't raise them with respect and equality rather than fear and violence, are unfit parents who should not breed and should not be allowed to keep their children.

[Quail]

I think this because of the low level of class struggle and the weakness of the revolutionary movement or movements in the English speaking world and the west in general where Revleft draws most of its participants from so that you have people who attracted to the left for aesthetic or infantile reasons. If and when struggle intensifies you will find a growing "gravitas" among leftists and the dropping away of "drug loving hipsters".
An alternative explanation could be that leftists look critically at the war on drugs, realise that it's based on bullshit and so don't see the same problems with taking drugs that others do. For example, my mother is firmly anti-drug; however, she drinks alcohol, which is in fact more dangerous than a lot of the drugs that I take recreationally.

You'd imagine that people who claim to be on the left would understand people better than to moralise and make snap judgements about people, but this site always seems to prove me wrong.

[Wanted Man]

No. Incidentally it always amazes me when people defend spanking by saying "I was spanked as a child and it never did me any harm". I always think "yes it did, it made you think hitting children is okay".

It seems that even after this pre-emptive mentioning of what must be the single dumbest sentence in the English language, two people still couldn't help themselves:


Spanking a child as a punishment is the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard. I was never, and I mean NEVER, hit as a kid and I turned out okay, didn't I?

(this one is notable because it's used as an argument AGAINST spanking for a change)


This is silly. I was spanked as a child, so were my parents (worse so), so was everyone I know, and we all turned out fine.

We don't fucking know that, do we now? Thankfully, all we know about you is that you both turned out as a bunch of daft pricks who don't know how to formulate a proper argument. Considering the diametrically opposed conclusions that you draw from this bullshit argument, and considering its prevalence in these discussions, it appears that whether we spank children or not, most of the world will probably still consist of people like you. So the only reasonable conclusion is that it's time for God to stop playing around with those "near-miss" asteroids and finish us off for good.

[punisa]

When spanking a child you should do it reasonably and never out of anger. Giving a child some spanking will not harm him in any way. All of you who rant about - NEVER hit a child are just acting like parrots, you repeat what the mainstream western ideology is teaching you about child bringing and you don't have enough reason to question the methods or doubt it.

If you have a small child that thinks its fun to play with an electric socket, a good spanking will make a hard-coded sign in his small developing brain - never, ever, ever, mess with electricity.
And by doing so, you do not bring him harm, but shelter him from it.

Another example, you have kids playing in the yard and your kid acts violently and attacks a smaller kid, what do you do? Bring him over for an hour long session how violence and bullying is wrong? Good luck with that.

I was spanked as a kid, I remember it well and I'm happy I was.
To be honest, the ones that weren't spanked as I remember from childhood - turned out to be real jerks when they grew up. I'm not saying this is a pattern, but just something I observed.

And btw, all this crap how "a child is not your possession", "freedom for children" and similar rants I've read here are nothing but crap.
Obviously none of you have a child nor have been around one too much (or you had abusive parents and are therefore biased)

A kid needs to feel and know that you are there for him and that you support him in every way. He/she must understand that spanking was done for their own good.
As I said before, be exactly sure what and how you are doing it. Be aware that you are much stronger then a child. Never actually "hit" the child, but give him a slap on the butt. It won't harm him.
Also, always use it as a last resort. Don't spank a kid if he didn't do his homework and such.

[RedSunRising]

You'd imagine that people who claim to be on the left would understand people better than to moralise and make snap judgements about people, but this site always seems to prove me wrong.

Its not an ethical as such, its a tactical maybe even strategic one.

[punisa]

You hit your wife/partner too?
What a sorry excuse for a comment...
It's amazing as to what great lengths some of you are willing to go just to justify your viewpoint.

This is the same as if I ask you: "Do you change wife's/partner's diapers too?"
Plain nonsense.

[Sword and Shield]

You hit your wife/partner too?

So you think wives should be treated like children?

[Dunk]

This thread is a fucking embarrassment. Supposed leftists throwing around the words "uppity", "lumpenness", and embracing corporal punishment as a way to avoid this fictitious quality to make sure they "make something of themselves".

[Quail]

Its not an ethical as such, its a tactical maybe even strategic one.
It's tactical/strategic to be a moralising arsehole as opposed to trying to understand people?

I want to teach my child that imposing my will on others with violence is wrong. How can I do that without being a massive hypocrite if I hit him?

[RedSunRising]

It's tactical/strategic to be a moralising arsehole as opposed to trying to understand people?


No the issue of drugs and revolutionary organization is tactical/strategic.

Im sure the reasons that people take drugs vary incredibly.

Revolutionary organizations exist for the purpose of over throwing the state through armed struggle. Their purpose is not to understand people as such.

[Nolan]

We don't fucking know that, do we now? Thankfully, all we know about you is that you both turned out as a bunch of daft pricks who don't know how to formulate a proper argument. Considering the diametrically opposed conclusions that you draw from this bullshit argument, and considering its prevalence in these discussions, it appears that whether we spank children or not, most of the world will probably still consist of people like you. So the only reasonable conclusion is that it's time for God to stop playing around with those "near-miss" asteroids and finish us off for good.

I'm glad you got that little rant off your chest. You must be having a bad day. But the fact stands that millions of people spank their kids every day and we don't have a bunch of Eric Harrises running around because of it.

[Quail]

Surely compassion towards other people is important to anyone that calls themselves a communist? :confused:

Besides, as I said before, drugs users are mostly functional people. After all, the vast majority of the population manage to use alcohol without being alcoholics. The left is no different in that they want to have fun by using drugs sensibly.

Anyway, this is actually off-topic. The debate about drugs has been had many times before, and is only relevant to this thread in that it should be pointed out that a young person becoming addicted to drugs has nothing to do with the type of discipline that they received as a child, but rather the material conditions that they're in. If you want to discuss drugs and whether they hinder the leftist movement, you should probably start a new thread.

[Decolonize The Left]

When spanking a child you should do it reasonably and never out of anger. Giving a child some spanking will not harm him in any way. All of you who rant about - NEVER hit a child are just acting like parrots, you repeat what the mainstream western ideology is teaching you about child bringing and you don't have enough reason to question the methods or doubt it.

If you have a small child that thinks its fun to play with an electric socket, a good spanking will make a hard-coded sign in his small developing brain - never, ever, ever, mess with electricity.
And by doing so, you do not bring him harm, but shelter him from it.

Another example, you have kids playing in the yard and your kid acts violently and attacks a smaller kid, what do you do? Bring him over for an hour long session how violence and bullying is wrong? Good luck with that.

I was spanked as a kid, I remember it well and I'm happy I was.
To be honest, the ones that weren't spanked as I remember from childhood - turned out to be real jerks when they grew up. I'm not saying this is a pattern, but just something I observed.

And btw, all this crap how "a child is not your possession", "freedom for children" and similar rants I've read here are nothing but crap.
Obviously none of you have a child nor have been around one too much (or you had abusive parents and are therefore biased)

A kid needs to feel and know that you are there for him and that you support him in every way. He/she must understand that spanking was done for their own good.
As I said before, be exactly sure what and how you are doing it. Be aware that you are much stronger then a child. Never actually "hit" the child, but give him a slap on the butt. It won't harm him.
Also, always use it as a last resort. Don't spank a kid if he didn't do his homework and such.

This rant is so fully of hypocrisies it's unbelievable. You actually run the line of "I hurt you because I love you." Are you serious?

The truth of the matter is that spanking is not for the good of the child. It happens because a parent doesn't know how to be an adult and solve the problem without resorting to violence.

- August

[TC]

This rant is so fully of hypocrisies it's unbelievable. You actually run the line of "I hurt you because I love you." Are you serious?

Its the classic line of an abusive spouse justifying beating up his wife...

Except the difference is that children are much more oppressed than adult women, and have far fewer economic, social, legal and political options for redress against abusive parents, because while the state will take actions against an abusive husband, it tolerates parents who do the exact same thing to their kids.

[Ele'ill]

How many of you who answered 'no' also happen to not have children? How have we defined 'hit' and 'spank'. (I have done neither)

[Princess Luna]

If you really get down to it the whole idea of spanking is punishment=pain which is medieval, i don't think anyone on here would support using torture (even minor ones) on adults as punishment for a crime.

[Sir Comradical]

It sends the wrong message to kids. If you hit them, you're training them to think of the consequences of their actions rather than the morality of their actual actions. Give them time-out to think about what they've done, don't hit them. Kids aren't domesticated animals ffs.

[Le Libérer]

What I mean is that much of the left in Western countries is filled with lumpen degenerates addicted to drugs and alcohol. Far more so than the rest of society (of any class, race, etc). I think that if their parents had properly disciplined them, many of them wouldn't be so lumpen and would actually be able to accomplish something for the leftist cause.
I really think that is a stereotype and a cop out, or maybe its just ignorance on your part and if thats the case let me educate you.

I work as a social worker/ counselor. I spent a few years working in Child Protection for the state, so I saw the effects of spanking and or beating on children.

While there was a good amount of alcohol and drug use among those parents, it was mostly environment of the perpetrator as a child.



August on the mend

This rant is so fully of hypocrisies it's unbelievable. You actually run the line of "I hurt you because I love you." Are you serious?

The truth of the matter is that spanking is not for the good of the child. It happens because a parent doesn't know how to be an adult and solve the problem without resorting to
I remember one case in particular, of a beautiful 13 year old girl with a now deep scar on her left cheek from an extension cord. It was the method of discipline her mother used on her, and on back through the generations.

Her mother was firmly rooted in the fact that all she did was discipline her child. God wanted her to do it or her daughter would be spoiled or whatever Bible verse she had been beaten to the sound of.

So spanking and physical abuse of children has little to do with being lumpen, but more to do with tradition and culture.

And we also know, that children who are abuse whether its beatings or sexual, grow up to use as a coping mechanism. With parenting classes, alot of offenders never repeat. Or at least we dont see them again.

I could tell you some horrifying stories. I'm glad my internship wasnt a permanent job.

[Terminator X]

A gentle pat on the butt isn't the same thing as hitting and leaving a scar on a kid's face. Don't be fucking ridiculous. No one here is advocating that. The piousness and melodrama present in this thread is nauseating.

[Dr Mindbender]

If you have a small child that thinks its fun to play with an electric socket, a good spanking will make a hard-coded sign in his small developing brain - never, ever, ever, mess with electricity.
And by doing so, you do not bring him harm, but shelter him from it.

This is a bullshit false dichotomy.

Surely there is a compromise between striking them and doing nothing, say confiscating their x box for a week.

[ar734]

Hitting kids? ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO WAY, IF YOU DO, YOU GO TO JAIL.

[TC]

A gentle pat on the butt isn't the same thing as hitting and leaving a scar on a kid's face. Don't be fucking ridiculous. No one here is advocating that. The piousness and melodrama present in this thread is nauseating.

The point whether a "gentle pat on the butt" (which is, by the way, a ridiculously perverted phrase) or electrical cords is to humiliate and coerce by violating a weaker persons bodily integrity. Its the logic of bullies and sadists. That "nausea" you feel is a projection of your own shame.

It will be interesting to see if your child disciplines you by never speaking to you again after she/he leaves home.

[Le Libérer]

A gentle pat on the butt isn't the same thing as hitting and leaving a scar on a kid's face. Don't be fucking ridiculous. No one here is advocating that. The piousness and melodrama present in this thread is nauseating.
Of course theres a huge difference between a pat on the bottom and scarring. But how do you determine how far is far? I dont know many people who use a gentle pat as a deterrent to bad behavior. I would think to gently pat a child on the bottom wouldnt send a strong message they are misbehaving. I would think the child would see it as a game and continue the behavior.

[Magón]

I'm sort of tempted to put one of those "I like where this Thread is going" meme's, but I feel at this point, the thread has already gone.


As for spanking, I was spanked as a kid just by the hand of my father, no belt or anything, just like all my childhood friends were spanked by their father's. We turned out fine for the most part. My father never liked spanking me, he always felt really bad after the fact, but he did it to prove a point to me, that what I did was wrong, and that doing something like whatever it was I did, could come with a bad consequence. It wasn't necessarily, "Break a window again, and you get spanked," it was "Break a window, and the consequence can turn out as bad as a spank."

At least, that's how I always took it, and was told by my parents. For some it's different. I wouldn't spank my kid(s), unless it was absolutely necessary, and wouldn't feel any better doing it except to say basically what I said above.

[Obs]

lumpenness

This isn't a goddamn word and your attempt at understanding of what makes a lumpenprole seems slipshod at best. With that out of the way -

I see where the pro-spanking side of this argument is coming from. No, spanking does not, as some would have you believe, turn your child into an anti-social wreck. I completely get that it can be used on young children to drive home a point that they possibly wouldn't understand the gravity of if it was only conveyed with words. What I will say is that there's no reason spanking or other forms of violence should be the only sanctions used by parents to teach their children - you have to be a very unskilled parent if you believe there's no way to make a child understand they've done something wrong without causing physical pain. Usually, I'd say it also causes a closer bond between parent and child if the parent can make a sanction that is productive rather than simple violence.

This also has nothing to do with "Western decadence" or any other nonsense like that.

[Le Libérer]

As for spanking, I was spanked as a kid just by the hand of my father, no belt or anything, just like all my childhood friends were spanked by their father's. We turned out fine for the most part. My father never liked spanking me, he always felt really bad after the fact, but he did it to prove a point to me, that what I did was wrong, and that doing something like whatever it was I did, could come with a bad consequence. It wasn't necessarily, "Break a window again, and you get spanked," it was "Break a window, and the consequence can turn out as bad as a spank."

At least, that's how I always took it, and was told by my parents. For some it's different. I wouldn't spank my kid(s), unless it was absolutely necessary, and wouldn't feel any better doing it except to say basically what I said above.
I was spanked as well. sometimes severely. But the message I got from that was, I really want to do something I was told not to do, I would do it and think a spanking if i get caught wont be too bad and worth it.

Had my parents kept me from sports or something I loved doing, it would have been much more painful than a spanking.

Consistency is the answer to disciplining children. My father would let me get away with things until it built up and he blew up in anger. Consistency and keeping your cool.

[Fawkes]

I'm gonna keep myself from going on a rant about why some of you are fucking delusional and why Sword and Shield is a douche bag seeing as how many others have already done so. But, I just wanna point out that for anyone that believes that spanking can serve a positive utilitarian purpose, it's a well established fact in psychology that positive reinforcement is the most effective method at modeling good behavior and, when necessary, negative punishment (taking away of something) is more effective than positive punishment (adding of something, e.g. causing your child physical and emotional harm by physically hitting them). I was spanked as a child relatively often and my memories of it are nothing short of awful. It created an incredibly degrading sense of worthlessness and was totally ineffective at changing my behavior.


"Spare the child and spoil the rod" - Patti Smith

[Magón]

I was spanked as well. sometimes severely. But the message I got from that was, I really want to do something I was told not to do, I would do it and think a spanking if i get caught wont be too bad and worth it.

Had my parents kept me from sports or something I loved doing, it would have been much more painful than a spanking.

Consistency is the answer to disciplining children. My father would let me get away with things until it built up and he blew up in anger. Consistency and keeping your cool.

Like I said, it's different for some. Usually if I didn't get spanked by my father, I got something equally not so satisfying as a spank, which for example was go to my grandmother's and help her for a day or two. Which being an anxious and always wanting to run around the place kid, not wanting to be cooped up in a house or place for too long, was not a good mix to a woman who spent most of her days inside, cleaning and cooking things I didn't want to eat or whatever. There were also other things, but like I said my father didn't like doing what he had to do when it came to spanking me, and I think that's what diverged my mentality of a spank from wanting to do it again and don't care, to if I do this, it's not going to necessarily be a spank, but something having to do where I sit around a house or whatever all day.

[Dr Mindbender]

I agree with CoTR here when she says its a cultural thing. My partner is from overseas and some of the shit that her cousins do to their kids would be classed as child abuse here in the UK.

[Ele'ill]

The point whether a "gentle pat on the butt" (which is, by the way, a ridiculously perverted phrase) or electrical cords is to humiliate and coerce by violating a weaker persons bodily integrity. Its the logic of bullies and sadists. That "nausea" you feel is a projection of your own shame.

It will be interesting to see if your child disciplines you by never speaking to you again after she/he leaves home.


This is an arrogant reply that I simply refuse to acknowledge the validity of.

[Agent Ducky]

I don't think so. Because I would really hate it if my parents spanked me. Yeah. Lolol. Yelling at me for about half and hour and taking away stuff like phone, computer, etc. is good enough.

[Ele'ill]

Has anybody defined a spank yet?

[Fawkes]

I'm sort of tempted to put one of those "I like where this Thread is going" meme's, but I feel at this point, the thread has already gone.


As for spanking, I was spanked as a kid just by the hand of my father, no belt or anything, just like all my childhood friends were spanked by their father's. We turned out fine for the most part. My father never liked spanking me, he always felt really bad after the fact, but he did it to prove a point to me, that what I did was wrong, and that doing something like whatever it was I did, could come with a bad consequence. It wasn't necessarily, "Break a window again, and you get spanked," it was "Break a window, and the consequence can turn out as bad as a spank."

At least, that's how I always took it, and was told by my parents. For some it's different. I wouldn't spank my kid(s), unless it was absolutely necessary, and wouldn't feel any better doing it except to say basically what I said above.

Based off of my own experiences and observations, it seems the point that is derived by the person being spanked is more along the lines of 1) bad things will only happen if you get caught, thereby not actually instilling any sense of how one should behave toward others and 2) "I'm your parent and therefore your strongest role model and I spank you and it's okay, therefore it's okay for you to 'spank' other people"

[Fawkes]

Has anybody defined a spank yet?

No, but I think the arguments that I and others have been putting forth apply to any kind of additive physical and/or verbal derision.

[Ele'ill]

No, but I think the arguments that I and others have been putting forth apply to any kind of additive physical and/or verbal derision.

I've very lightly patted the tops of my child's hands and talked to them in a sympathetic tone (and explained what they were doing wrong to the best of my ability) as they were reaching for the fourth time towards (and twice grabbing) a hot skillet filled with boiling water, hot oil and cooling food. Does this mean I've engaged in 'contemptuous ridicule or mockery' ?


Are we discussing belting and solid strikes as spanking? I am unsure as to where the line has been drawn. It seems as though it's flowing between seventeen lashings with a razor lined whip and any physical contact (removal from a harmful situation)

[Le Libérer]

Has anybody defined a spank yet?

There isnt one, not even legally. Abuse is hard to define as well. When investigating a report of abuse, we looked for marks, asked questions, etc.

I do have to add here, that it is neglect that kills children more often than physical abuse. It was not an easy call ever.

On the other end of the spectrum, threatening to harm a child can get that child removed from the home as well. So if theres not a clear definition for abuse, how will be define a spanking when its less severe.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

In this thread: A debate over how to best discipline "your" children.

[RED DAVE]

And the responses here, my friends, show why the Western left is filled with such degenerate lumpen trash.Would you care to explain what kind of Third Worldist bullshit this is?

RED DAVE

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I agree with CoTR here when she says its a cultural thing. My partner is from overseas and some of the shit that her cousins do to their kids would be classed as child abuse here in the UK.

So it's acceptable in those places?

Cultural relativism is shit.

Are you going to tell a Filipino, Vietnamese, Dominican, etc. adult scarred by belt whippings as a child that what they went through was "OK" because of where they happened to be born?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I haven't seen Communism like this since this bullshit came out of Viet Nam last year:

"We don't consider beating a child to be violence against children," concedes Nguyen Hai Huu, director of the Ministry for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs' child-protection unit.

[Magón]

Based off of my own experiences and observations, it seems the point that is derived by the person being spanked is more along the lines of 1) bad things will only happen if you get caught, thereby not actually instilling any sense of how one should behave toward others and 2) "I'm your parent and therefore your strongest role model and I spank you and it's okay, therefore it's okay for you to 'spank' other people"

Well then it really depends, doesn't it? I mean, not just on the person being spanked, but how the person spanking goes about it. Even if I didn't get spanked or did, there was always an explanation given to me for why I was punished. Which depending, most Mexican households don't cater to such a luxury, but my household wasn't necessarily the stereotypical Mexican household. My grandparents spanked me too, without explanations, but those were far and few between in my younger years.

So my viewpoint as a child, of what my father or grandparents were trying to get through to me, is obviously different than what most households have, and isn't the typical one on either side. I can understand the hatred and disgust of spanking, and agree, if it's the way you and CoTR described, but I don't see spanking as an absolute evil ever single time.

[Ele'ill]

NHIA, I don't think that was an apology for child abuse

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Real Communists Don't Hit Their Kids! (http://rs2kpapers.awardspace.com/theoryf766.html?subaction=showfull&id=1083347035&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&) November 18, 2003 by RedStar2000

[Ele'ill]

What of the situation I described?

[Sword and Shield]

No, but I think the arguments that I and others have been putting forth apply to any kind of additive physical and/or verbal derision.

Oh so now even verbal punishment is wrong?


Would you care to explain what kind of Third Worldist bullshit this is?

RED DAVE

The truth.

[Le Libérer]

I can understand the hatred and disgust of spanking, and agree, if it's the way you and CoTR described, but I don't see spanking as an absolute evil ever single time.

But it is harmful, emotionally and sometimes physically. Try to distance yourself from morality and think ethically.

Whats the difference between hitting a child and hitting an animal? I have found most people would hit a child but would never strike their pets. And anyone who would strike an animal is cruel.

[Le Libérer]

Oh so now even verbal punishment is wrong?
Verbal as in belittling you bet ya it is. Have you ever try to reason with a child without getting emotional?

How many of you that condom spanking children actually have kids? Negotiation is always the best option. I often would give my children 3 options. All of them were mine, but they could pick the one they preferred. By doing so, you leave the child with self respect and they respect you in return.

[Ele'ill]

I think the two sides of this discussion for the most part are agreeing completely they're just approaching the topic from different angles entirely.

[Magón]

But it is harmful, emotionally and sometimes physically. Try to distance yourself from morality and think ethically.

Whats the difference between hitting a child and hitting an animal? I have found most people would hit a child but would never strike their pets. And anyone who would strike an animal is cruel.

Sometimes physically yes, and I agree if someone's spanking their kid hard enough to leave a lasting mark of some kind for any point that doesn't clear itself up right away, like bruising, scars, etc., then I agree that that kind of spanking is clearly wrong, and it becomes abuse at that point; even if it was just the first time spanking/being spanked. But spanking your kid without leaving a mark that lasts for just a second, like the red mark a had can leave, and you give them some insight into what they did wrong, is something I don't find abusive or bad because you're giving them input into what's wrong about whatever it is they did.


As for emotionally, it depends on the child and in what way they're punishingly spanked, because you don't always see the product of the spanking, the moments after it's happened, or even weeks/months after. My father only ever left a slight red mark that left in a second, and I'm not emotionally scared or torn, and neither is anyone else I know who got the same treatment. People who've been left with marks and whatever, I can understand being emotionally scared and hurt, etc. but again, the way the spanking is given, is really, I think, how the child reacts emotionally.

[Metacomet]

I wasn't spanked. And look at me! I turned into some pinko hippie.

[Le Libérer]

I've very lightly patted the tops of my child's hands and talked to them in a sympathetic tone (and explained what they were doing wrong to the best of my ability) as they were reaching for the fourth time towards (and twice grabbing) a hot skillet filled with boiling water, hot oil and cooling food. Does this mean I've engaged in 'contemptuous ridicule or mockery' ?


Are we discussing belting and solid strikes as spanking? I am unsure as to where the line has been drawn. It seems as though it's flowing between seventeen lashings with a razor lined whip and any physical contact (removal from a harmful situation)

I wouldnt call lightly patting the tops of a childs hand (as in getting their attention) and talking to them rationally as spanking. I wouldnt spank a child for attempting to grab a hot plate or spilling a drink either. I think the fear they see in the parents faces along with the screams as enough of a reason for them to stop.

Time out works too. And you are suppose to make them stay there 1 minute for each year old they are. Like a 4 year old stays in time out 4 minutes.

Hey they never said having children is easy. It is the hardest job I have ever had.

[Sword and Shield]

Verbal as in belittling you bet ya it is. Have you ever try to reason with a child without getting emotional?

Oh I didn't read his post properly. I agree. Belittling will only ever make things bad. On the other hand reasoning with them will work 90% of the time, provided you use spanking the other 10% of the time.


How many of you that condom spanking children actually have kids?

Freudian slip?


Negotiation is always the best option. I often would give my children 3 options. All of them were mine, but they could pick the one they preferred. By doing so, you leave the child with self respect and they respect you in return.

Ahh the old democrats and republicans trick. Makes people think they actually get a choice. The only problem is, if you as a leftist have raised your kids well, they'll see right through it.

[Ele'ill]

Sometimes physically yes, and I agree if someone's spanking their kid hard enough to leave a lasting mark of some kind for any point that doesn't clear itself up right away, like bruising, scars, etc., then I agree that that kind of spanking is clearly wrong, and it becomes abuse at that point; even if it was just the first time spanking/being spanked. But spanking your kid without leaving a mark that lasts for just a second, like the red mark a had can leave, and you give them some insight into what they did wrong, is something I don't find abusive or bad because you're giving them input into what's wrong about whatever it is they did.

I don't think that either of these are necessary- I think that appropriate physical engagement is limited to what I described (let go of the skillet *literally soft pats or absurdly light 'shakes' of the hands* please and thank you now help me make the bread) is- but the adult's body language and verbal interaction means a ton. Yeah it gets super stressful but I don't think that time set aside specifically for punishment works. It implies ownership and requires an acknowledgement of you as a barrier by the child- but the child was trying to breach a barrier to begin with. Now there's two barriers and one is actually alive and controlling/giving unpleasant physical or verbal contact.



As for emotionally, it depends on the child and in what way they're punishingly spanked, because you don't always see the product of the spanking, the moments after it's happened, or even weeks/months after. My father only ever left a slight red mark that left in a second, and I'm not emotionally scared or torn, and neither is anyone else I know who got the same treatment. People who've been left with marks and whatever, I can understand being emotionally scared and hurt, etc. but again, the way the spanking is given, is really, I think, how the child reacts emotionally.

My mother left a scar on my face above my eyebrow where her ring caught me but you can really only see it if I'm flushed.

[#FF0000]

Corporal punishment actually adversely affects brain development.

Sword and Shield is a perfect example of this.

[Le Libérer]

My mother left a scar on my face above my eyebrow where her ring caught me but you can really only see it if I'm flushed.

And thats the problem with spanking. When a child is trying to get away, accidents happen. I'm sure she didnt mean to catch your eyebrown with her ring. I cant imagine the guilt she must or should have from that.

[Sword and Shield]

And thats the problem with spanking. When a child is trying to get away, accidents happen. I'm sure she didnt mean to catch your eyebrown with her ring. I cant imagine the guilt she must or should have from that.

Oh yeah spanking a kid on the hiney could cause accidents... :rolleyes:

[#FF0000]

Oh yeah spanking a kid on the hiney could cause accidents... :rolleyes:

No but it could cause a mess of psychological trauma, as we know now thanks to the wealth of information we now have that shows that this is the case. :mellow:

[Sword and Shield]

No but it could cause a mess of psychological trauma, as we know now thanks to the wealth of information we know have that shows that this is the case. :mellow:

Let me guess. You can't spell because your parents spanked you?

[Magón]

I don't think that either of these are necessary- I think that appropriate physical engagement is limited to what I described (let go of the skillet *literally soft pats or absurdly light 'shakes' of the hands* please and thank you now help me make the bread) is- but the adult's body language and verbal interaction means a ton. Yeah it gets super stressful but I don't think that time set aside specifically for punishment works. It implies ownership and requires an acknowledgement of you as a barrier by the child- but the child was trying to breach a barrier to begin with. Now there's two barriers and one is actually alive and controlling/giving unpleasant physical or verbal contact.

Well obviously our views differ on how to discipline children. Like I said in my first post, I think spanking should only be done as an absolute last result, and should depend on the severity of the child's action. Softly patting your child's hand, or shaking your hand, isn't going to really drive at the child the seriousness of something like breaking a few windows or two of the neighbors, because the kid wanted to. But again, I don't think spanking is necessarily a last resort either, because like I said if I wasn't spanked, it was a day or two spent with my grandmother, cooking and doing things I didn't want to do, like go out and do whatever it was I wanted to do at the time.

I just don't see spanking as an absolute evil, or bad thing, for a child.



My mother left a scar on my face above my eyebrow where her ring caught me but you can really only see it if I'm flushed.

But does every time you see a ring like your mom's, or the ring itself, make you cry or revert back to the pain of when she caught you with it? My mother's smacked me with a her wedding ring hand once, and caught my lip with her ring (not the top with the diamond, just the side of the band,) and it doesn't make me revert to that time unless I really think about it; like now. And thinking of it now, doesn't cause me any trauma or pain. For people who've actually really been left scared and torn from physical abuse, thinking of the object does.

[#FF0000]

Let me guess. You can't spell because your parents spanked you?

Seems like someone's a lil upset.

you upset, lil man?

[Ele'ill]

And thats the problem with spanking. When a child is trying to get away, accidents happen. I'm sure she didnt mean to catch your eyebrown with her ring. I cant imagine the guilt she must or should have from that.

Her violence did nothing but encourage her to punish me every time she was upset. Regardless of the physical interactions the verbal was by far the worst for me. I do remember when she'd leave me alone to make my own decisions but those times were few and far.

[Le Libérer]

Oh yeah spanking a kid on the hiney could cause accidents... :rolleyes:

Umm yes it can. Missing the bottom while a child is reacting to you and he jerks, you hit him in the upper back can cause serious problems.

You really are grasping arent you?

In case, I remember a member of the Baptist Church my parents attended had their child taken away from them for that very reason. The next Sunday the preacher was demostrating how to spank a child so an injury wouldnt happen to someone else. He advised to use a book! So yeah, dont tell me accidents cant happen from spanking on the bottom.

[Ele'ill]

But does every time you see a ring like your mom's, or the ring itself, make you cry or revert back to the pain of when she caught you with it? My mother's smacked me with a her wedding ring hand once, and caught my lip with her ring (not the top with the diamond, just the side of the band,) and it doesn't make me revert to that time unless I really think about it; like now. And thinking of it now, doesn't cause me any trauma or pain. For people who've actually really been left scared and torn from physical abuse, thinking of the object does.

Every time a cabinet door slams regardless of where I am or what the reason for its violent closing I jump and get sick to my stomach. Whenever I hear a parent, male or female, yelling at their kids I become emotionally distant and I have had two partners call this out as it was happening. I don't remember what her ring looked like but I remember the smell of her sweat.

[Ele'ill]

What causes accidents is frequent spankings where the kid stops responding to them in a 'familiar fashion' and it becomes more intense- the violent interactions escalate.

[Sword and Shield]

What causes accidents is frequent spankings where the kid stops responding to them in a 'familiar fashion' and it becomes more intense- the violent interactions escalate.

That's child abuse (borderline if not outright).

[Magón]

Every time a cabinet door slams regardless of where I am or what the reason for its violent closing I jump and get sick to my stomach. Whenever I hear a parent, male or female, yelling at their kids I become emotionally distant and I have had two partners call this out as it was happening. I don't remember what her ring looked like but I remember the smell of her sweat.

Well if it was just a one time thing, then it's just a reaction your mind has bound with that event. Just like how there's so many people in the world who've seen JAWs, and then suddenly have a fear for the ocean because of it. If it was more than once, then I'd say it was a form of abuse if each time she struck, there was a lasting mark left and she didn't care.

[#FF0000]

I'm kind of wondering why you'd even want to risk making this kind of lasting effect on a child just so they won't ask you for any more candy or something

[Ele'ill]

Well if it was just a one time thing, then it's just a reaction your mind has bound with that event. Just like how there's so many people in the world who've seen JAWs, and then suddenly have a fear for the ocean because of it. If it was more than once, then I'd say it was a form of abuse if each time she struck, there was a lasting mark left and she didn't care.

It was punishment continuing to escalate without any thought put into the events leading up to it nor put into the posturing before during or after. Being hit by my mother with a closed fist didn't 'bother me' to the extent that her verbal abuse and controlling behavior did- which wasn't an 'official spanking punishment'. I brought it up years ago with her before not really talking to her again and she 'regretted hitting' me the times that she did but she was unaware that her posturing and 'personal acts of frustration' surrounding those events are what actually left the scar.

[#FF0000]

It was punishment continuing to escalate without any thought put into the events leading up to it nor put into the posturing before during or after. Being hit by my mother with a closed fist didn't 'bother me' to the extent that her verbal abuse and controlling behavior did- which wasn't an 'official spanking punishment'. I brought it up years ago with her before not really talking to her again and she 'regretted hitting' me the times that she did but she was unaware that her posturing and 'personal acts of frustration' surrounding those events are what actually left the scar.

This is interesting. I've been hit before, ranging from spanking when I was younger to, at one time, actually having to get my lip stitched shut after my dad punched me in the face. But those aren't the things that bother me. When he yells (He still does. It's how he communicates), I get tense, that's what bothers me. Shit, I get tense like that if I hear him coming up the stairs or walking around nearby.

[Ele'ill]

This is interesting. I've been hit before, ranging from spanking when I was younger to, at one time, actually having to get my lip stitched shut after my dad punched me in the face. But those aren't the things that bother me. When he yells (He still does. It's how he communicates), I get tense, that's what bothers me. Shit, I get tense like that if I hear him coming up the stairs or walking around nearby.

Yes, PTSD.

[#FF0000]

Yes, PTSD.

Huh. This would explain a lot for me, if this is the case.

[Ele'ill]

Cabinet doors slamming does the same thing to me.

[Olentzero]

OK, here's a question for the pro-spanking crowd. At what age does spanking become inappropriate? Would you spank a 17-year-old? A 13-year-old? a 9-year-old? If no, what is it that sets the age limit for when spanking is and is not appropriate?

[Robocommie]

Let me guess. You can't spell because your parents spanked you?

Dude, speaking as a non-decadent, non "lumpen" Leninist type, you're being kind of an asshole in this thread.

[p0is0n]

Just no. But I can understand why you fucktards would want to hit your children though, as I have this tingling urge in my body to beat the shit out of you pro-hitters to "teach you a lesson" or whatever the fuck it is that you are trying to achieve with hitting your children. Very tempting.

[Jazzratt]

OK, here's a question for the pro-spanking crowd. At what age does spanking become inappropriate? Would you spank a 17-year-old? A 13-year-old? a 9-year-old? If no, what is it that sets the age limit for when spanking is and is not appropriate? It becomes inappropriate, obviously, when the child is big enough to hit you back and you don't feel like such a big man any more.

[eyedrop]

Would people accept if their children were spanked at their kindergarten? Or at school? I have a hard time imagining that people would. Or at least people on here.

Spankings, or any kind of response intended to hurt emotionally or physically, is a quick fix which doesn't really work.


Having a positive daily occurance, like letting the kids be beat by you at chess, opens up the possibility of taking it away if they treat you or other people like shit. If they want you to treat them extra good they have to treat you good as well.

Be consistent above all other, or else what you say have no worth. Kids will test you but kids are terrible manipulators and it's really easy to see through. Just laugh at their attempts and tell them you won't fall for that.

I've worked in a social care vacation retreat for emotionally damaged kids and it wasn't that hard.

If you have kids you better be prepared to spend at least 20-30 minutes with them a day, or else you shouldn't have kids.

[punisa]

This rant is so fully of hypocrisies it's unbelievable. You actually run the line of "I hurt you because I love you." Are you serious?

Yes I am serious.
But I never claimed "I hurt you because I love you.", this is just something you took convince to fabricate.
Reason why you labeled my comment as a "rant" is probably because of your own lack of knowledge of elementary human psychology.
If you think you can enforce discipline by using just words, you are seriously wrong.

What you (and the majority) here are suggesting is that a child must be disciplined while completely avoiding any spanking.
So what do you get? I'll tell you what - psychological torture.

Instead of spanking his ass and making him cry for 20 minutes, you'll instead indulge in a lengthy talk with a child which has one goal - making the child feel ashamed, embarrassed and feeling guilty.
I believe these consequences are much more greater and potentially more devastating to his/her personality then a spanking will ever be.

Once again, we failed to clearly differentiate spanking versus physical torture.
I think many of you confuse spanking with a drunk father who comes home late and in his misery takes it out on the kid and smacks him around like a punching bag.
Such people deserve a one-way trip to the nearest gulag and are in no way fit to be parents.

[punisa]

OK, here's a question for the pro-spanking crowd. At what age does spanking become inappropriate? Would you spank a 17-year-old? A 13-year-old? a 9-year-old? If no, what is it that sets the age limit for when spanking is and is not appropriate?

It should stop as soon as the kid is strong enough to fight back :lol:
Just kidding.

I'd say 8-9 years old is a good time when you should stop with it.

[Chris]

My opinion depends entirely on what you mean by "spanking". A light slap can be good for a child. You cannot really treat children like adults, as (most of them) have a very vague concept of consequenses. You can't start discussing right & wrong with a six year old. Some form of discipline is necessary at such a young age. And as for age, I think it becomes inappropriate as soon as a child gets a working idea of consequenses of their actions.

However, physically abusing/beating a child is a completely different question altogether, and is abhorrent.

[caramelpence]

For those who draw attention to the violations of bodily autonomy spanking arguably involves - surely we don't accept that any and all forms of physically interacting with someone's body without their consent are illegitimate? To take a classically Millian example, we accept that if someone is about to cross a bridge and we don't have time to warn them that it's likely to collapse as they walk across it, then in that instance it would be acceptable and not a violation of their liberty or rights to do something to them - say throw ourselves on top of them - in order to stop them from walking on the bridge. On that basis the fact that spanking a child involves doing something to their body without their consent is not in and of itself enough to make spanking the offense against autonomy that some people evidently believe it is - because in other situations we take a lack of knowledge of probable consequences as a sufficient factor to adjust and even override what would otherwise be the accepted conditions of moral autonomy and human interaction.

This is true of the parent-child relationship in general in that we often give parents and legal guardians rights that we do not accord to other adults, these rights sometimes involving the ability to override the strict autonomy of a child in arenas outside the exercise of parental discipline - the most obvious example being the ability of parents to ensure that their children are given medical treatment even when the child objects or is not in a position to signify whether they consent or not, e.g. when they are unconscious. This doesn't legitimize intentional physical harm in any instance of course - but there's a definite need to distinguish between that and physical punishment and to consider fully the moral implications of the latter without simply shouting "bodily autonomy!" or making comparisons with the beating of spouses, as if it's always that simple and straightforward.

What I find most worrying about this thread is the fact that several members have called for parents who spank to be subject to the law. I wouldn't ever want the state to have the power to be able to punish parents for enacting non-permanent punishments, based on their personal judgements, within the confines of their own home. The state regulation of adult-child relationships is a growing trend in capitalist societies (for example, the "no touch" rule applied in the teaching profession) and should be resisted by all who see themselves as progressive. Moreover, whilst I don't agree with those who ramble about the "degeneracy" of the "Western left", it's fair to say that this debate has been conducted, at least within this thread, in a way that reveals the cultural backgrounds of the majority of members of this site and privileges Western (and specifically American) concepts of parenthood. It's hard to imagine parents in Singapore being horrified at the thought of using physical discipline. Nor is it a coincidence that Singapore (and other East Asian countries where parental discipline is prioritized) has some of the highest rates of academic attainment in the world.

For the record, my mother (it was always my mother - never my dad) used to slap me when I was younger. Across the cheek, and fairly rarely. It hurt, but not much, and not for long, and I'm grateful that my parents brought me up in the way they did. As a 21 year-old, I have a close relationship with my parents, especially my mother, and view them as my close friends. If and when I have a child, I don't know whether I'd spank them, but I would want to teach them the meaning of discipline, and expect to push them very hard academically.

[Le Libérer]

Instead of spanking his ass and making him cry for 20 minutes, you'll instead indulge in a lengthy talk with a child which has one goal - making the child feel ashamed, embarrassed and feeling guilty.
I believe these consequences are much more greater and potentially more devastating to his/her personality then a spanking will ever be.

Once again, we failed to clearly differentiate spanking versus physical torture.

You have presented the other side of the extreme here. Why should there be ANY type of torture when guiding a child through life? There doesnt have to be verbal or physical extremes.

I have some amazing children as proof. You dont have to hit or scream at children. I taught my children to live by their own convictions and gently guided them away from danger. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didnt, but I will promise you this, they had less trauma than alot of their friends.

[caramelpence]

PS: to come back to the issue of spanking vs. abuse, for those who make comments like "do you hit your wife/partner too?" or otherwise suggest that they're fundamentally the same, that kind of equivalence seems to undermine the very real moral and psychological implications that come with actual cases of abuse, by distorting what is distinctive about those cases. It is the functional equivalent of arguing that a violent rape is fundamentally the same as someone who repeatedly asks for sex when their partner does not want to but agrees to it because of the repeated asking - both are morally problematic acts, but by making them morally equivalent you obscure the horror and violation that comes with actual rape, as opposed to sex that is extracted through discursive pressure.

[Demogorgon]

Oh yeah spanking a kid on the hiney could cause accidents... :rolleyes:Believe me it can. I suffered a very bad injury as a child when being spanked. I won't go into the details, it doesn't matter now, but suffice to say it wasn't nice. For the record I wasn't spanked often, it was only occasional and my parents have apologised for it and clearly admitted it was wrong. The accident I referred to was an accident and I am sure the guilt suffered for it is ample punishment. My parents were good parents who raised me well, they made mistakes though as all people do.

I should be clear that I do not think that everyone who spanks their children is a bad person. Often they are victims themselves, having been hit as children and responding in turn, but that vicious cycle should be broken somewhere. For that reason al physical discipline should be illegal but also different degrees of it have to be recognised; the harder the beating, the worse it is. Parents who do sometimes hit their children should be treated with compassion of course, unless they are particularly abusive, it is best for both them and their children that they be rehabilitated, not punished, but above all the attitude that exists in many cultures that physical punishment of children is acceptable must go.

[caramelpence]

For that reason al physical discipline should be illegal

Are you saying that if parents use non-permanent physical discipline on their children such as slapping them without leaving any mark then those parents should be subject to the power of the state - far beyond the existing application of child abuse legislation? And how far would this go - do you think that this should be the case only when parents actually touch their children with the aim of causing some degree of pain, or should it also be applicable when parents get their children to hold a heavy object for some period of time - something that some parents do? That is, how would physical discipline be defined? How would this be implemented, given that the kind of punishments that leave visible signs of physical discipline being used, like bruises, constitute child abuse and are therefore already covered by existing legislation? There is already a tendency for governments to interfere in the parenting realm so it would seem that you want to enhance this tendency in ways that will have damaging implications for the parent-child relationship and for the general role of the state in personal interactions. I am more afraid of what you advocate than I am of those who celebrate the use of physical discipline on a regular basis.

[Terminator X]

The point whether a "gentle pat on the butt" (which is, by the way, a ridiculously perverted phrase)

Only to a ridiculously perverted mind.


It will be interesting to see if your child disciplines you by never speaking to you again after she/he leaves home.

Yes, because all of the love and emotional support and stable home and education my wife and I provide for her will be forgotten, and she will only remember a couple smacks on her butt when she was 3 years old. "Fie on you both! I am never speaking to you again because you smacked me when I was throwing a tantrum when I was too young to remember it!"

Do you realize how fucking ridiculous you sound?

What's your alternative? Rip her out of my home and have her grow up as a ward of the state? And this is a leftist forum? Again, nauseating.

[eyedrop]

Are you saying that if parents use non-permanent physical discipline on their children such as slapping them without leaving any mark then those parents should be subject to the power of the state - far beyond the existing application of child abuse legislation?
What is it with non-permanent?

Yes, domestic abuse is a huge problem. Although punishment of the abusers wouldn't help, teaching/rehabilitating the soft abusers and keeping the hard abusers far away from children. Preferably sending the children to a foster family.

Parents actually need to be good parents to deserve to keep their children.

What's your alternative? Rip her out of my home and have her grow up as a ward of the state? And this is a leftist forum? Again, nauseating.

Sending you to mandatory parenting school would be a good start. Taking the kids away is a last resort.

[Demogorgon]

Are you saying that if parents use non-permanent physical discipline on their children such as slapping them without leaving any mark then those parents should be subject to the power of the state - far beyond the existing application of child abuse legislation? And how far would this go - do you think that this should be the case only when parents actually touch their children with the aim of causing some degree of pain, or should it also be applicable when parents get their children to hold a heavy object for some period of time - something that some parents do? That is, how would physical discipline be defined? How would this be implemented, given that the kind of punishments that leave visible signs of physical discipline being used, like bruises, constitute child abuse and are therefore already covered by existing legislation? There is already a tendency for governments to interfere in the parenting realm so it would seem that you want to enhance this tendency in ways that will have damaging implications for the parent-child relationship and for the general role of the state in personal interactions. I am more afraid of what you advocate than I am of those who celebrate the use of physical discipline on a regular basis.
I want the law to be as it is in Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, Poland etc. In other words corporal punishment illegal in both schools and the home. I am not advocating anything remotely radical here, just the situation as it is in most of Europe.

[Invader Zim]

So it's acceptable in those places?

Cultural relativism is shit.

Are you going to tell a Filipino, Vietnamese, Dominican, etc. adult scarred by belt whippings as a child that what they went through was "OK" because of where they happened to be born?

And the sentiments of your comment is what lies at the heart of the most reactionary first-world chauvanism.

[eyedrop]

I want the law to be as it is in Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, Poland etc. In other words corporal punishment illegal in both schools and the home. I am not advocating anything remotely radical here, just the situation as it is in most of Europe.

As an anecdote I must add that it largely works, when I was in kids school it was 1 kid out of the class that was physically disciplined, compared to how many of you say that all your friends, and yourself, was physically disciplined.

[Terminator X]

Sending you to mandatory parenting school would be a good start. Taking the kids away is a last resort.

And who would pay for this? Who would enforce it? Random police raids?

[caramelpence]

What is it with non-permanent?

Because forms of physical punishment that have permanent effects, either physically or psychologically, are, almost by definition, more meaningful than those that make a child's skin go red for a couple of minutes before fading away with no lasting reverberations. I thought the importance of permanency would be self-evident, but apparently not for you.


Yes, domestic abuse is a huge problem

It is, but spanking is not abuse. If it were, there would be no need for new legislation to cover spanking, because there is already legislation against actual cases of child abuse. The fact that, when anti-spanking legislation has been proposed, it has taken the form of new legislation, rather than being based on the extension of the criteria and definitions embodied in existing laws against child abuse, is itself an implicit recognition that spanking can't be reduced to abuse.


Sending you to mandatory parenting school would be a good start

No, it wouldn't be a "good start", it would be a disgustingly patronizing and dangerous intrusion into the lives of private individuals and an attack on the ability of parents to make independent moral choices about how they raise their kids. What next, compulsory parenting classes at secondary schools?


I want the law to be as it is in Scandinavia, Germany, Spain, Poland etc

For a start, many European countries have anti-spanking laws that are defined in such a way that parents are still able to use some forms of physical discipline as long as it does not constitute assault. It's not necessarily a good thing that those laws are in place anyway, but the exceptions granted are significant. More importantly, the fact that some European countries (excluding such important countries as France and Italy) have such intrusive laws is not a reason to call for their introduction across the world. I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere when their interactions do not pose a fundamental threat to human autonomy. I think that this is an existing trend and a dangerous one. You evidently trust the state to intervene and have a beneficial effect.

[eyedrop]

And who would pay for this? Who would enforce it? Random police raids?

Standard state run, like those perverted AA classes you get when you drink and drive.

Why would the police be involved? Generally someone raises an alarm, a teacher, kindergarten, social worker, someone involved or a friend, and social costudy service checks it out and interviews those involved.

[Demogorgon]

More importantly, the fact that some European countries (excluding such important countries as France and Italy) have such intrusive laws is not a reason to call for their introduction across the world. I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere when their interactions do not pose a fundamental threat to human autonomy. I think that this is an existing trend and a dangerous one. You evidently trust the state to intervene and have a beneficial effect.
There are no shortage of states around the world that do not intervene to stop me from hitting their wives. I do not believe that they are enhancing personal freedoms by keeping out. By the same token the states that have been forward looking enough to protect children from physical punishment are enhancing the liberty of children, not restricting that of parents.

We really don't need Libertarian nonsense here about how anything the state does to enhance the liberty of the weaker party is in fact a restriction of the freedom of the more powerful party.

[caramelpence]

Generally someone raises an alarm, a teacher, kindergarten, social worker, someone involved or a friend

As I've already pointed out, the kinds of physical punishment that would leave evidence that would be visible to outside individuals - i.e. the forms of punishment that leave bruises and the like - constitute abuse, such that they would be covered by existing legislation, and are not being condoned by anyone in this thread. So even if such legislation were hypothetically beneficial, there would still be problems of enforcement because there isn't any immediate way of actually telling that a parent has given their child a quick clip round the ear when they hit their sibling, or whatever, unless some nosy and pro-state neighbor happens to be watching through the window - and even then it's hard to imagine how a case against the parent would be sustained in court without any evidence. I'd be interested in seeing what kind of cases anti-spanking legislation has actually produced. Do you, out of interest, think that teachers and individuals in a similar position should be legally obligated to report what they see as signs of physical discipline to the authorities? Do you not think that, regardless of whether teachers are obligated or not, the fact that they might be expected or enabled to report envisaged signs of physical punishment could have damaging implications for the relationship between teacher and parent, a relationship that needs to embody trust in order to be effective?


By the same token the states that have been forward looking enough to protect children from physical punishment are enhancing the liberty of children

Yet you haven't put forward any substantive arguments as to why spanking is so bad that it needs to be prohibited and punished through state intervention, such that states that do intervene are progressive, and how the liberty of children is protected through freeing them from the alleged horror that is spanking.

Whoever thought that "socialists" could be so cravenly pro-state!

[Demogorgon]

Yet you haven't put forward any substantive arguments as to why spanking is so bad that it needs to be prohibited and punished through state intervention, such that states that do intervene are progressive, and how the liberty of children is protected through freeing them from the alleged horror that is spanking.

Whoever thought that "socialists" could be so cravenly pro-state!
You are playing the silly game of the Libertarian. Condemn each and every protection that might come from the state as "state intervention". Perhaps you should got to OI and tell us how minimum wage laws, protection of collective bargaining, social welfare, health and safety laws and all else are illegitimate state interventions also.

Do you also oppose the state intervention involved in domestic abuse cases? Your logic would make you a hypocrite if you do not. There is no shortage of studies that show children who are not physically disciplined turn out at least as well as children who are not and evidence that hitting children can harm them. You can spew out all the Right-Libertarian rhetoric you like about how the state should not get involved and let parents do as they please, but unless you are willing to be consistent about that and abandon all leftism, I suggest you put that cop out to bed.

[Dr Mindbender]

So it's acceptable in those places?

Cultural relativism is shit.

Are you going to tell a Filipino, Vietnamese, Dominican, etc. adult scarred by belt whippings as a child that what they went through was "OK" because of where they happened to be born?

I would never have puported that it was "OK" however in the case of that Filipino, Vietnamese or Dominican its unlikely they would know otherwise and thus probably arent going to complain much (rightly or wrongly).

Saying that,this state of affairs should not be used to justify beating kids in the first world that some here seem keen to do.

[Olentzero]

I'd say 8-9 years old is a good time when you should stop with it.Why that age? What is it about a child's development at that stage that makes it no longer acceptable (in your view) to spank?

[eyedrop]

It is, but spanking is not abuse. If it were, there would be no need for new legislation to cover spanking, because there is already legislation against actual cases of child abuse. The fact that, when anti-spanking legislation has been proposed, it has taken the form of new legislation, rather than being based on the extension of the criteria and definitions embodied in existing laws against child abuse, is itself an implicit recognition that spanking can't be reduced to abuse.


I've never heard of any special spanking laws here, but it is still illegal under child abuse laws.


As I've already pointed out, the kinds of physical punishment that would leave evidence that would be visible to outside individuals - i.e. the forms of punishment that leave bruises and the like - constitute abuse, such that they would be covered by existing legislation, and are not being condoned by anyone in this thread. So even if such legislation were hypothetically beneficial, there would still be problems of enforcement because there isn't any immediate way of actually telling that a parent has given their child a quick clip round the ear when they hit their sibling, or whatever, unless some nosy and pro-state neighbor happens to be watching through the window - and even then it's hard to imagine how a case against the parent would be sustained in court without any evidence.It's not actually all that hypothetical, the norm here is for children to not be beaten at home.

Outside intervention is necessary, in such unequal power-relationship as a child and parents, when abuse happens.


Because forms of physical punishment that have permanent effects, either physically or psychologically, are, almost by definition, more meaningful than those that make a child's skin go red for a couple of minutes before fading away with no lasting reverberations. I thought the importance of permanency would be self-evident, but apparently not for you.
How can living a childhood where violence is a proper response to misbehaving not have psychologically permanent effects? Is it weird people fight so much in the schoolyard and later when they grow up and violence is their conflict resolution.

[Dr Mindbender]

Would people accept if their children were spanked at their kindergarten? Or at school? I have a hard time imagining that people would. Or at least people on here.



In the UK, until as recently as the 70's the schools used to strike pupils with a wooden strap across the hands which was taken for granted by both students and parents.

[Dr Mindbender]

Why that age? What is it about a child's development at that stage that makes it no longer acceptable (in your view) to spank?

Dont expect an answer. Seems like a completely arbitary number pulled out of thin air.

[caramelpence]

Do you also oppose the state intervention involved in domestic abuse cases?

If you're asking me whether I think that serious physical or psychological harm against children or adults should be legal, then the answer is obviously no, but we're not concerned with abuse, we're concerned with spanking, which is acknowledged to be different from abuse even by those who support anti-spanking legislation - otherwise the implementation of anti-spanking law would or could have taken place through the extension of existing abuse law rather than through the enactment of an entirely new body of regulations. I do not think that doctors should be obligated (or encouraged - though on that count I'm less sure) to report signs of domestic abuse to the police, which is an important issue that's closely bound up with the role of the state in relation to violence within the home, but that's probably another thread. In any case, I'm not being a Libertarian - of course I support minimum wage laws, and therefore support some forms of state intervention, if that's the characterization you want to deploy in order to understand the protection of workers. However, that's no basis for saying I should also support anti-smacking legislation. Apart from the fact that such legislation does not obviously enhance the autonomy of any of the parties involved, the difference between, say, the minimum wage and anti-smacking legislation is that, whereas minimum wage legislation was the product of successive waves of working-class mobilization, there is no popular pressure in support of anti-smacking legislation. In fact, it was rejected via referendum in New Zealand. This legislation (and other proposals that are similar to it - like the regulation of the teacher-child relationship) are the work of elitist liberals and right-wing social democrats who distrust the ability of private individuals to make decisions for themselves.


There is no shortage of studies that show children who are not physically disciplined turn out at least as well as children who are not and evidence that hitting children can harm them

And I can quote academic research to show that smacking does not harm children and I can also point to the fact that societies where physical discipline is widespread have extremely driven and confident children. But let's accept part of your argument for a second and assume that actually there are better ways to teach or raise your children than disciplining them by smacking and that the overall effect is negative. It does not logically follow from this that smacking should be made illegal and that parents should be dragged off to prison or made to attend parenting courses for it. There are lots of things that parents could do that are bad for their children. They might get stupidly drunk in front of them every day of the week. They might feed them crap food. They might have shouting matches when their kids are young or trying to study for their exams. Do you think the state should intervene in these instances as well in order to correct all of the ways in which parents do not raise their kids as well as they could? It seems the only sensible answer is no, and the reason why is that society should respect the ability and right of parents to make moral choices about how they raise their children, rather than assuming that individuals are so irrational and irresponsible that they need to have an official mode of parenting imposed on them by the state.


You can spew out all the Right-Libertarian rhetoric

Less rhetoric, more arguments from you please.


I've never heard of any special spanking laws here, but it is still illegal under child abuse laws.

In most countries where anti-smacking legislation has been introduced, it has taken the form of specific and distinct bills and proposals, rather than through the amendment or extension of existing law relating to abuse. This is not hugely significant, but it is telling nonetheless, and you can do a survey of the relevant countries and see that it is indeed the case.


It's not actually all that hypothetical, the norm here is for children to not be beaten at home.

That doesn't prove that smacking children is a horrific moral crime or that it should be grounds for state intervention.


Outside intervention is necessary, in such unequal power-relationship as a child and parents, when abuse happens

I've already asked you to clarify what forms of outside intervention you propose or how it would work. How can teachers possibly determine whether non-abusive physical punishment has occurred given the absence of external evidence? Do you think teachers should be obligated to report suspected physical punishment to the authorities?


How can living a childhood where violence is a proper response to misbehaving not have psychologically permanent effects?

Because human beings are evolving and reflective individuals who do not make assumptions about how human relationships should be conducted in general on the basis of how their parents disciplined them when they were children. If you think otherwise, then provide evidence, give an analysis, rather than just shouting "it must be the case!". This is casual evidence, but it seems right to point out, as I have done already in this thread, that Singapore is a society where corporal punishment is widespread, and it is not the case that Singapore is a hugely violent society - it has a far lower murder rate than many countries where anti-smacking legislation has been introduced.

[RED DAVE]

[S]panking is not abuse. If it were, there would be no need for new legislation to cover spanking, because there is already legislation against actual cases of child abuse.This is really dumb. What you are saying is that the accepted definition of abuse is a correct definition. 60 years ago, teachers were allowed to spank kids and a husband hitting his wife was acceptable. In some major countries quite recently, a husband striking his wife was acceptable.

Spanking is abuse. I raised two kids, partially as a single parent. I never hit, nor did my ex-wife ever hit, either of them. (One is now a teacher and writer; the other is an ER doctor.)


The fact that, when anti-spanking legislation has been proposed, it has taken the form of new legislation, rather than being based on the extension of the criteria and definitions embodied in existing laws against child abuse, is itself an implicit recognition that spanking can't be reduced to abuse.Bullshit and the worst form of sophistry. Calling spanking child abuse is extending the definition of abuse.


No, it wouldn't be a "good start", it would be a disgustingly patronizing and dangerous intrusion into the lives of private individuals and an attack on the ability of parents to make independent moral choices about how they raise their kids. What next, compulsory parenting classes at secondary schools?Libertarian nonsense.


For a start, many European countries have anti-spanking laws that are defined in such a way that parents are still able to use some forms of physical discipline as long as it does not constitute assault. It's not necessarily a good thing that those laws are in place anyway, but the exceptions granted are significant. More importantly, the fact that some European countries (excluding such important countries as France and Italy) have such intrusive laws is not a reason to call for their introduction across the world. I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere when their interactions do not pose a fundamental threat to human autonomy. I think that this is an existing trend and a dangerous one. You evidently trust the state to intervene and have a beneficial effect.What you are saying is that you trust the bourgeois family to protect its children. Until 100 years ago, it was such a good bulwark that it send children into the factories (and still does in poorer capitalist countries and some not so poor).

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Domestic Corporal Punishment: Is it ethical, moral, useful, utilitarian???


No, no, no, and no. It is abuse. There is a power relationship involved which means the use of physical force or threats cannot be mitigated or mediated by the child and thus appear as, and often are, threats of extinction.

Everything barbaric in human existence can be summed up in a single word: family.

Or, as Ambrose Bierce might have defined it:

Family: (n) an excuse to say and do things to people you would never say and do if you didn't know them.

[eyedrop]

So even if such legislation were hypothetically beneficial, there would still be problems of enforcement because there isn't any immediate way of actually telling that a parent has given their child a quick clip round the ear when they hit their sibling, or whatever, unless some nosy and pro-state neighbor happens to be watching through the window - and even then it's hard to imagine how a case against the parent would be sustained in court without any evidence.Are you seriously belittling people who ring the bell on domestic abuse?

[Invader Zim]

You are playing the silly game of the Libertarian. Condemn each and every protection that might come from the state as "state intervention". Perhaps you should got to OI and tell us how minimum wage laws, protection of collective bargaining, social welfare, health and safety laws and all else are illegitimate state interventions also.

Well I don't think that these are fair comparisons. Institutions such as the minimum wage have obvious social benefits and I reject the argument that they do harm. I am not convinsed, having examined some research articles in light of this thread, that 'spanking' is socially and individualy harm. In fact the general impression I have taken from the, albeit, limited reading I did in preperation for this thread is that very little actual research has been done on 'spanking' and thus that the effects of the occassinal mild 'spanking', positive or negative, are largely speculative. This differs from forms of 'punishment' more commonly considered abusive, such as slapping the face or using instruments to administer spanking where there is a clear correlation between these forms of 'punishment' and social and personal problems (including increasing anti-social behaviour, decreased mental health, etc).

That is not to say I agree, or in fact disagree, with spanking: rather it is to say that I think the issue is far more nuanced than you, and others, anre implying it to be.

[Rakhmetov]

When spanking a child you should do it reasonably and never out of anger. Giving a child some spanking will not harm him in any way. All of you who rant about - NEVER hit a child are just acting like parrots, you repeat what the mainstream western ideology is teaching you about child bringing and you don't have enough reason to question the methods or doubt it.

If you have a small child that thinks its fun to play with an electric socket, a good spanking will make a hard-coded sign in his small developing brain - never, ever, ever, mess with electricity.
And by doing so, you do not bring him harm, but shelter him from it.

Another example, you have kids playing in the yard and your kid acts violently and attacks a smaller kid, what do you do? Bring him over for an hour long session how violence and bullying is wrong? Good luck with that.

I was spanked as a kid, I remember it well and I'm happy I was.
To be honest, the ones that weren't spanked as I remember from childhood - turned out to be real jerks when they grew up. I'm not saying this is a pattern, but just something I observed.

And btw, all this crap how "a child is not your possession", "freedom for children" and similar rants I've read here are nothing but crap.
Obviously none of you have a child nor have been around one too much (or you had abusive parents and are therefore biased)

A kid needs to feel and know that you are there for him and that you support him in every way. He/she must understand that spanking was done for their own good.
As I said before, be exactly sure what and how you are doing it. Be aware that you are much stronger then a child. Never actually "hit" the child, but give him a slap on the butt. It won't harm him.
Also, always use it as a last resort. Don't spank a kid if he didn't do his homework and such.

A good spanking feels like sticking a pin in an electric socket. :rolleyes:

Ever thought about buying these in lieu of spanking your child? As the saying goes," An ounce of prevention ... etc."

http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Press-Fit-Outlet-Plugs-pack/dp/B00005U8T5/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1304780339&sr=8-5

[caramelpence]

Are you seriously belittling people who ring the bell on domestic abuse?

No, unless you're stupid enough to place giving a child "a quick clip round the ear" in the same category as repeatedly and vigorously hitting your child or spouse around the face with a belt - i.e. actual cases of abuse which deserve the use of the term and all the moral valency it embodies. Someone who reports on their neighbor for giving a child a clip around the ear - and the actual point of my argument, by the way, was about enforcement mechanisms, which you haven't dealt with - is not reporting on abuse because giving a child a clip around the ear is not a form of abuse by any sensible definition, at least if you want to maintain an understanding of what makes actual cases of abuse so violating and hateful as acts. As I pointed out in one of my earlier posts, expanding the concept of abuse to include spanking is like merging violent rape with someone being discursively pressured into sex - in doing so, you totally obscure what is so significant about rape (not to mention consent).


Spanking is abuse. I raised two kids, partially as a single parent. I never hit, nor did my ex-wife ever hit, either of them

I was spanked as a child, as were my parents, and I think all of us are accomplished individuals. Also, simply shouting "spanking is abuse!" over and over is not an argument.


What you are saying is that you trust the bourgeois family to protect its children

I trust the bourgeois family more than I do an interventionist and paternalistic state, yes. I'm a revolutionary socialist, so I celebrate autonomy and am wary of the power of the state.

[Demogorgon]

Well I don't think that these are fair comparisons. Institutions such as the minimum wage have obvious social benefits and I reject the argument that they do harm. I am not convinsed, having examined some research articles in light of this thread, that 'spanking' is socially and individualy harm. In fact the general impression I have taken from the, albeit, limited reading I did in preperation for this thread is that very little actual research has been done on 'spanking' and thus that the effects of the occassinal mild 'spanking', positive or negative, are largely speculative. This differs from forms of 'punishment' more commonly considered abusive, such as slapping the face or using instruments to administer spanking where there is a clear correlation between these forms of 'punishment' and social and personal problems (including increasing anti-social behaviour, decreased mental health, etc).

That is not to say I agree, or in fact disagree, with spanking: rather it is to say that I think the issue is far more nuanced than you, and others, anre implying it to be.I was not comparing spanking with the minimum wage, I was using it against Libertarian nonsense about how the state "shouldn't intervene in private affairs".

As for spanking, I do not deny it is nuanced and if you read through my posts in this thread you will see that I have taken a pretty soft line. All I want is the situation in much of Europe. I have also noted that there are different degrees of physical punishment, slapping on the face or hitting with an implement are obviously worse than a light tap and should be treated as so, but that does not mean we should simply accept said light tap. We don't accept people hitting aduolts, we shouldn't accept them hitting children.

[Demogorgon]

I trust the bourgeois family more than I do an interventionist and paternalistic state, yes.
I take it that the interventionist and paternalistic state was in the wrong then in the example Red Dave gave of it stopping the bourgeoisie family from allowing child labour?

[caramelpence]

I take it that the interventionist and paternalistic state was in the wrong then in the example Red Dave gave of it stopping the bourgeoisie family from allowing child labour?

I actually dealt with this issue in a previous post - simply put, opposing a state ban on smacking does not obligate me to oppose the minimum wage or a ban on child labour, because they're different, just like being opposed to state restrictions on abortion does not mean I also can't support state protection of working conditions. I would advise you read my previous post and answer the points I posed there.

[Demogorgon]

I actually dealt with this issue in a previous post - simply put, opposing a state ban on smacking does not obligate me to oppose the minimum wage or a ban on child labour, because they're different, just like being opposed to state restrictions on abortion does not mean I also can't support state protection of working conditions. I would advise you read my previous post and answer the points I posed there.
No, you claimed that you supported state intervention in some cases and not others, rather undermining your claim that bans on smacking are wrong simply because it is state intervention, but then you claimed that the bourgeoisie family is to be trusted over the state, so was the state wrong to ban child labour and if so did that mean it was in fact to be trusted over the bourgeoisie family?

[caramelpence]

your claim that bans on smacking are wrong simply because it is state intervention

Point out where I've made this claim, you liar.

[Demogorgon]

Point out where I've made this claim, you liar.

"I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere"

"Yet you haven't put forward any substantive arguments as to why spanking is so bad that it needs to be prohibited and punished through state intervention [...] Whoever thought that "socialists" could be so cravenly pro-state!"

[Jazzratt]

No, it wouldn't be a "good start", it would be a disgustingly patronizing and dangerous intrusion into the lives of private individuals and an attack on the ability of parents to make independent moral choices about how they raise their kids. What next, compulsory parenting classes at secondary schools? I find it very hard to work up any outrage at the attack on the ability of parents to make the independent moral choice to smack their kids. It's just one of those things I guess. I have difficulty, also, getting why their right to choose whether or nor they hit someone outweighs that persons right to not get hit - is it just that they were there first or what?

[caramelpence]

"I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere"

And the full quote:

"I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere when their interactions do not pose a fundamental threat to human autonomy"

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2103647&postcount=130

As I said, a liar.


"Yet you haven't put forward any substantive arguments as to why spanking is so bad that it needs to be prohibited and punished through state intervention [...] Whoever thought that "socialists" could be so cravenly pro-state!"

At least with the last quote you made an effort to present me as having argued something else. With this quote, I can't see anything that shows I think that all forms of state and intervention are in and of themselves always bad. The first is about you showing that spanking is sufficient to warrant state intervention, which you haven't done. The second part was a more casual comment but one I would still uphold insofar as I think that the socialist revolution is necessarily a revolution against the state, because the existence of the state is a sign of a very deficient society, and that socialists should be careful about calling on the state to deal with what they see as social problems. It is worth pointing out once again that the minimum wage was very much something extracted from the state through working-class mobilization whereas this is not the case with anti-smacking law, and there is a difference between extracting a meaningful gain and calling on the state to intervene in the lives of private individuals when the state should not do so.

[Wanted Man]

A good spanking feels like sticking a pin in an electric socket. :rolleyes:

Ever thought about buying these in lieu of spanking your child? As the saying goes," An ounce of prevention ... etc."

http://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Press-Fit-Outlet-Plugs-pack/dp/B00005U8T5/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1304780339&sr=8-5

Why would anyone want to take such a distinctly weak and feminine solution, when instead you can feel like a big man by hitting your child?

[Demogorgon]

And the full quote:

"I don't think socialists should be calling on the state to regulate the way individuals interact in the private sphere when their interactions do not pose a fundamental threat to human autonomy"

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2103647&postcount=130

As I said, a liar.

No, you acknowledged a certain threshold at which the state could intervene but claimed that this case fell short of it. In other words spanking should be legal because the state should not intervene.

This is despite the fact that the obvious place for any state intervention is where there are unequal relationships.


At least with the last quote you made an effort to present me as having argued something else. With this quote, I can't see anything that shows I think that all forms of state and intervention are in and of themselves always bad. The first is about you showing that spanking is sufficient to warrant state intervention, which you haven't done. The second part was a more casual comment but one I would still uphold insofar as I think that the socialist revolution is necessarily a revolution against the state, because the existence of the state is a sign of a very deficient society, and that socialists should be careful about calling on the state to deal with what they see as social problems. It is worth pointing out once again that the minimum wage was very much something extracted from the state through working-class mobilization whereas this is not the case with anti-smacking law, and there is a difference between extracting a meaningful gain and calling on the state to intervene in the lives of private individuals when the state should not do so.I did not say you claimed state intervention was always bad, merely that you put a very high threshold on it. We all put a threshold somewhere of course, but your threshold is high indeed.

Incidentally your claim that because anti smacking legislation is not "extracted by the working class" along with your earlier example of New Zealand's (ridiculous) referendum is just silly. The people of California defeated Same Sex Marriage in a referendum a couple of years back. Must we reject same sex marriage also?

[Invader Zim]

Why would anyone want to take such a distinctly weak and feminine solution, when instead you can feel like a big man by hitting your child?


The assumption here being that spanking is generally limited to the male sphere of parentally imposed disipline. It isn't.

[caramelpence]

No, you acknowledged a certain threshold at which the state could intervene but claimed that this case fell short of it.

Where?! If you're going to make slanderous comments, back them up, or keep it shut. My concern is with consequences and the protection of fundamental moral values like human autonomy. I think that state intervention in the interests of solving serious social problems like abuse is a delicate matter that has to handled very carefully because of the complexity of the issues involved - with the case of smacking I deny that there is any harm, and even cases where there is demonstrable harm we should still be careful because state intervention might make matters worse in addition to not dealing with the problem. For example, we can all agree that domestic abuse - and I mean actual abuse, not the inflation and insulting definition of abuse that some people have adopted - is terrible, but whether it should be obligatory for doctors to report signs of it to the police is another matter entirely.

Just face it, you lied because you couldn't have a proper debate.


This is despite the fact that the obvious place for any state intervention is where there are unequal relationships.

Um no? Do you not have any sense that in some cases state intervention might exacerbate problems of inequality and power abuse? I don't think that's a fitting description for smacking, but in cases where it is appropriate, it's by no means obvious that the state should be called on to intervene.


I did not say you claimed state intervention was always bad, merely that you put a very high threshold on it.

Yes, I'm wary of empowering the state. It seems strange to characterize that as a "threshold" approach. My concern is with the consequences the empowerment of the state brings, which is different from saying that state intervention is bad in an ontological sense as one would expect a Libertarian to argue.


Must we reject same sex marriage also?

Er, no? What is even the argument here? How did you jump from the fact that anti-smacking law was defeated in a referendum and the fact that minimum wage was extracted through mobilization to the allegation that I have to support homophobic referenda results in order to be consistent? The point isn't that socialists should support all mass demands, it's that, other than having different substantive outcomes, anti-smacking laws and minimum wage legislation were brought about through different political processes.

At the end of the day, there's no inconsistency in me supporting minimum wage legislation and opposing anti-smacking laws. That's a terrible line of argument, and that's been shown by your inability to actually show that there's any inconsistency.

[Dr Mindbender]

The assumption here being that spanking is generally limited to the male sphere of parentally imposed disipline. It isn't.

Albeit in a significant minority of cases, domestic violence between lovers is not limited to the male sphere either.

[S.Artesian]

I trust the bourgeois family more than I do an interventionist and paternalistic state, yes. I'm a revolutionary socialist, so I celebrate autonomy and am wary of the power of the state.

Says all that needs to be said: as if "trusting the bourgeois family" has anything to do with this; as if celebrating "autonomy" has anything in the slightest to do with revolutionary socialist.

Love the possible bumper stickers though: "I'm a revolutionary socialist, and I spank my children." Or "Honk if you're for autonomy and spanking" or "I spank. My child's ass is redder than your child's."

[tachosomoza]

I was spanked COUNTLESS times as a kid and it only served to generate more anger and alienation towards my parents. It's both physical and psychological abuse, and serves no useful purpose whatsoever in raising kids.

[Sword and Shield]

I was spanked COUNTLESS times as a kid and it only served to generate more anger and alienation towards my parents.

That's the point. Effective discipline requires moderated use of spanking.

[tachosomoza]

Battery on anyone, especially a young kid, serves to only alienate the recipient of the abuse from the abuser. Yes, the kid will probably behave in the presence of the abuser, but he'll also have pent up anger and frustration that he'll release on others as a result of the beating. Statistics have shown that the overwhelming majority of school bullies receive corporal punishment from adults at home. Also, corporal punishment in combination with verbal and emotional abuse often can lead to drug and alcohol problems. I learned that the hard way.

[fishontuesday]

Discipline and respect between parent and child should be attainable by other means then creating fear in the child. So in general I do not support it.

[caramelpence]

Says all that needs to be said: as if "trusting the bourgeois family" has anything to do with this;

I thought so too - but Red Dave introduced that formulation, not me. I also don't think that trusting or not trusting the family is the central issue.


as if celebrating "autonomy" has anything in the slightest to do with revolutionary socialist

I think this says all that needs to be said.

[RedSunRising]

There is a huge difference between giving a kid a light whack now and again and power tripping on a child.

[bailey_187]

Regular beatings are wrong, but i dont think if a kid does something really bad and the parents gives them a (relativly light) "clip around the ear", its classed as a beating. Its usually more of a restrained outlet at anger due to the kid being a kid. Like alot of things a kid does that would result in a "clip around the ear", are things that someone who wasnt a child would get a punch in the mouth for (e.g. telling a parent to fuck off, or calling them something bad). i dno

full on slaps (espcially to the face), punches, kicks and use of slipper or belt etc regularly as punishment are definetly wrong.

[Manic Impressive]

There is a huge difference between giving a kid a light whack now and again and power tripping on a child.
I've heard men say almost exactly that about women.

Hitting someone who can't defend themselves is just fucking cowardly.

[caramelpence]

I've heard men say almost exactly that about women.

Hitting someone who can't defend themselves is just fucking cowardly.

This is such a bad argument. No-one in their right mind would condone men giving so much as the tiniest nudge to women in an aggressive way without their consent but then again we would also not tolerate a man ordering a woman to go to bed at a certain time or threatening them with punishment if they don't eat their vegetables - we accept that there are things adults do to children that they would not to do other adults, and vice versa. Unless you think that ordering a child to go to bed is also wrong, it seems hard not to accept that notion as a basic premise for this debate. The discussion should be about whether spanking is one of the things that parents should be able to do to a child on the basis of the fact that they are a child, rather than the basic notion that someone being a child warrants differential treatment compared to adults, which is something all should accept.


full on slaps (espcially to the face), punches, kicks and use of slipper or belt etc regularly as punishment are definetly wrong.

Have you ever been slapped in the face? I have, and I can tell you it's a lot different from getting punched. To be honest even when I was slapped as a form of discipline I didn't even see it as that wrong at the time.

[#FF0000]

There's also the fact that, uh, punishment doesn't work as well as reinforcement anyway.


The discussion should be about whether spanking is one of the things that parents should be able to do to a child on the basis of the fact that they are a child, rather than the basic notion that someone being a child warrants differential treatment compared to adults, which is something all should accept.

why, i can't think of a single thing wrong with a child being hit by someone they are supposed to trust

[Demogorgon]

This is such a bad argument. No-one in their right mind would condone men giving so much as the tiniest nudge to women in an aggressive way without their consent but then again we would also not tolerate a man ordering a woman to go to bed at a certain time or threatening them with punishment if they don't eat their vegetables
We do not permit men to order women around because we aspire to complete equality of the sexes and obviously parents and children do not have an equal relationship. But if you think the difference in the power relationships, that is to say parents being more powerful than their children, gives a right to use physical punishment, you have a serious problem. It goes straight back to what I accused you of earlier. Your Libertarian claim that it is illegitimate state interference to protect the weaker party in an unequal relationship.

[RedSunRising]

Hitting someone who can't defend themselves is just fucking cowardly.

I always found being roared at or given the "we are very disappointed in you" heavy silence treatment much worse, but than I was never spanked heavily.

[caramelpence]

Your Libertarian claim that it is illegitimate state interference to protect the weaker party in an unequal relationship

Again, you're a liar, I've never made a claim as absurd as this. If you can point out where I've said anything along these lines, then go ahead. I dare you. I see it as fundamentally flawed to look at the issue in terms of legitimacy/illegitimacy, it seems much more appropriate to look at particular unequal relationships and to consider whether the relationship in question is one that we should seek to abolish or more equal (including whether it is possible to do this) and if so whether this is best achieved through state intervention - the need to look at specific relationships or types of relationship from these multiple angles arises from the complexity of the issues involved, including the complexity of power as a facet of political and social life, as I've already pointed out. The parent-child relationship is arguably an inherently unequal one that is not made any more or less equal by the use of physical punishment (at the very best, the use of physical punishment could be understood as the parent taking advantage of the inherent inequality that is embodied in the relationship) and the inequality embodied in the relationship is, again, arguably not one that needs to be radically overturned, in much the same way that the inequality in the student-teacher relationship is not one that needs to be eliminated, perhaps because the words "teacher" and "student" inherently embody inequality when positioned in proximity to one another and even when considered alone. There are other relationships where there are forms of inequality that should be overturned but where it is not always the case that state intervention is the best way to go about dealing with those problems - as in cases of sexual relationships with a large age difference, where, whilst we might see the age difference as raising dangers of power and abuse, we do not think it right for the state to persecute the older partner, because doing so might create additional problems as well as not solving the initial inequality. Grasping these problems and ambiguities is part of having a mature political analysis.

You can posture as much about this and that "Libertarian claim" as you like, but ultimately you haven't shown why physical punishment is the moral horror that you've made it to out to be, and how state intervention would eliminate whatever unspecified violations of dignity arise from parents using physical punishment. You've used slanders instead. Why can't you have a proper debate?

[RED DAVE]

My concern is with consequences and the protection of fundamental moral values like human autonomy.(1) If you want to defend "human autonomy," you better define it. So far, you sound like a libertarian. (2) Are you saying that spanking protects the "human autonomy" of children?


I think that state intervention in the interests of solving serious social problems like abuse is a delicate matter that has to handled very carefully because of the complexity of the issues involvedNo one is arguing that it isn't a complex matter.


with the case of smacking I deny that there is any harmWhat is the basis of your deninal. What you are sayhing is that when a large and powerful adult uses physical violence against a defenseless child, that's cool. And, of course, it doesn't violate the "human autonomy" of the child. You are so full of shit.


and even cases where there is demonstrable harm we should still be careful because state intervention might make matters worse in addition to not dealing with the problem.Intervention by the bourgeois state is always problematical. Let me raise two points:

(1) You are not a parent, so you have never experienced by power relationship between parent and child from the parent's point of view. (2) You yourself were spanked. Have you ever considered that you might be identifiying with the aggressor to deal with what happened to you?


For example, we can all agree that domestic abuse - and I mean actual abuse, not the inflation and insulting definition of abuse that some people have adopted - is terrible, but whether it should be obligatory for doctors to report signs of it to the police is another matter entirely.Are you really saying that a doctor should not report signs of abuse?


Do you not have any sense that in some cases state intervention might exacerbate problems of inequality and power abuse?Of course this is a possibility. There are also several thousand children killed in the US by abusive parents and foster parents.


I don't think that's a fitting description for smacking, but in cases where it is appropriate, it's by no means obvious that the state should be called on to intervene.You have never asserted any positive purpose for hitting a child. Not surprising because there isn't any. All you have done is rant about state intervention in private life in a way that would make the Ron Paul crew happy.


Yes, I'm wary of empowering the state.So are we all.


It seems strange to characterize that as a "threshold" approach. My concern is with the consequences the empowerment of the state brings, which is different from saying that state intervention is bad in an ontological sense as one would expect a Libertarian to argue.Fancy terminology aside, your position is the same as the libs and based on similar premises.

Er, no? What is even the argument here? How did you jump from the fact that anti-smacking law was defeated in a referendum and the fact that minimum wage was extracted through mobilization to the allegation that I have to support homophobic referenda results in order to be consistent? The point isn't that socialists should support all mass demands, it's that, other than having different substantive outcomes, anti-smacking laws and minimum wage legislation were brought about through different political processes.


At the end of the day, there's no inconsistency in me supporting minimum wage legislation and opposing anti-smacking laws.Hopefully, you won't be a parent since you have a built in justification for abusing your children. And in this area, you're not a leftist at all.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Just as an added point, it would be worthwhile to know how many people contributing to this thread were spanked as children. How many are parents. How many who are parents spanked or spank their children.

RED DAVE

[Niall]

As a kid I was hit a few times and it done me no harm. That being said, Im not a parent so in that regard I cant say whether others peoples kids should or should not be hit - i dont like the term spanked. I am a teacher, and believe me there have been time when i wished the cane was still in use.

[Quail]

Just as an added point, it would be worthwhile to know how many people contributing to this thread were spanked as children. How many are parents. How many who are parents spanked or spank their children.

RED DAVE

I might be repeating myself here, but hey. I'm against smacking children and I do have a child.

I only properly remember being smacked once when I was a child for cutting up a newsletter from my playgroup because I thought it was scrap paper. At the time I didn't really understand why that was deserving of a smack. The punishment didn't do anything to help me to understand right and wrong and I think it was unjustified, especially since it was just over a misunderstanding. However, my parents generally didn't use smacking as a punishment.

I wouldn't necessarily support state intervention in families where the parents use smacking as a form of punishment. I would rather support a campaign of education and smacking becoming socially unacceptable. I do support intervention where there is abuse. I don't think that smacking children lightly as punishment is quite in the same ballpark as beating children. I think it's more an ineffective method of discipline and it's completely unnecessary, as well as giving out the wrong message. Smacking children as discipline gives out the message that it is okay to impose your will on others with violence. If you're trying to teach your child that that is wrong, then smacking them undermines what you're trying to teach him/her.

[Robocommie]

Couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend's mother gave her opinion on it. "All it proves is that we're bigger than them." I pretty much agree with her completely.

[Robocommie]

I'm a revolutionary socialist, so I celebrate autonomy and am wary of the power of the state.

I just feel like pointing out that there is really nothing inherently socialist about autonomy as a value. I mean, socialism. The underlying assumption at the core is that it is impossible for individuals to be truly autonomous and separate from the greater whole, and so social problems must be handled socially.

That's not to say there's no room for civil libertarianism within socialist philosophy, but you know, it is kind of silly if you make it out like the equation is best phrased, "I am a socialist, therefore I value autonomy."

[Invader Zim]

Albeit in a significant minority of cases, domestic violence between lovers is not limited to the male sphere either.

And? What point are you trying to make? That the infrequent and mild spanking a child as a means of imposing disipline is the same as violent spousal abuse? Or are you suggesting that in the vastmajority of cases of spanking it is the perogative of the father?

Regardless of which, until you can provide some reason to think otherwise I don't buy either. Again, that isn't to say that I necessarily agree with spanking to reinforce a point, but your kind of comment is just the kind of sensationalist bullshit, with absolutely no bearing on reality, that makes the majority of people in this thread sound like they are utterly disconnected from reality.


Just as an added point, it would be worthwhile to know how many people contributing to this thread were spanked as children. How many are parents. How many who are parents spanked or spank their children.

1. Yes.

2. No.

3. N/A

[brigadista]

never ....!!!!

[caramelpence]

(1) If you want to defend "human autonomy," you better define it. So far, you sound like a libertarian. (2) Are you saying that spanking protects the "human autonomy" of children?

Autonomy is, like other political concepts, contested, and there are differences between procedural and substantive concepts of autonomy, but broadly speaking it can be defined as the condition of being able to lead a choice-guided life and having opportunities for the maximization of individual and collective self-realization. Needless to say, the ethical basis of socialism is a complex issue that would probably need a thread of its own but as fundamental values go it seems sensible to see socialism as at least partly concerned with autonomy. I wouldn't say that spanking "protects" autonomy but it doesn't seem to actively degrade or destroy it, because any concept of autonomy or freedom worth having must surely recognize that autonomy and freedom are both more complex than the simple absence of external coercion.


What is the basis of your deninal

That there is no stable or well-supported evidence that smacking causes permanent damage to a child either physically or psychologically. It is naturally not my obligation to show that smacking is a horrific crime, that's your job. The existence of permanent harm is a necessary but by no means sufficient criterion for state intervention, in that if it were the case that smacking has long-term consequences then it would not logically follow that state intervention, in the form of parents being prosecuted for the use of physical discipline against their children, is the adequate response. As I said in a previous post, there are lots of things that parents do and shouldn't do which have long term consequences for their children - like having shouting matches in the kitchen whilst a kid is studying for their exams - but we would hardly say that the state should intervene to correct all envisaged instances of poor parenting.


(2) You yourself were spanked. Have you ever considered that you might be identifiying with the aggressor to deal with what happened to you

Thanks for the patronizing pseudo-psychology - which I expected someone to put forward at some point in this thread - but no, I don't see myself as "identifying with the aggressor", and I generally see myself as a well-rounded and confident individual, to the extent that it's possible to be one under capitalism.


Are you really saying that a doctor should not report signs of abuse?

I do not think it should be legally obligatory for doctors to report signs of abuse against women or men to the authorities. Whether they should or should not is distinct from them being legally obligated to do so but I would probably argue that they should not as well. I brought that up as a way of showing that even in cases of clear harm (that being a category I do not believe smacking should be placed in) where we vigorously want the situation to be transformed, expanding the role of the state is now always the best response, especially for the individual who is the victim of abuse. If you want to discuss this, start a separate thread.


Of course this is a possibility. There are also several thousand children killed in the US by abusive parents and foster parents.

The relevance of this isn't clear, because we're talking about smacking, not someone being thrashed with a belt or killed.


You have never asserted any positive purpose for hitting a child.

The intention is presumably to show the child the difference between right and wrong and to prevent them from doing something again in the future, but I actually don't need to show that smacking is the best way to teach children morality or the meaning of discipline, because, given that smacking does not involve permanent harm or a violation of autonomy, it's appropriate for parents to be able to make their own choices about how they raise and more specifically punish their children - in the same way that parents should be allowed to decide whether to send their kids to school or homeschool them even though every socialist would probably disapprove of the decision to pursue homeschooling. There are plenty of things you or I may strongly disapprove of, but this doesn't mean that we should call on the state to stop people from doing them. That option should be reserved for cases of actual abuse where state intervention is likely to have an overall beneficial outcome - which are, it should be stressed again, two separate issues.


just feel like pointing out that there is really nothing inherently socialist about autonomy as a value. I mean, socialism.

That depends entirely on whether you see autonomy as necessarily in conflict with sociability - if you understand autonomy as embodying self-realization and if you see the self that is to be realized as having an important sociable component, then clearly autonomy is very much dependent on the individual's location in a broader social context.

[Kamos]

If you spank your children, they'll get the impression that beating up people can be okay. Basically, it's a one-way ticket back to barbarism.

[twenty percent tip]

you fuckin gphonies.you want to beatkids. kids should beat you like in the movie kids.

[RED DAVE]

(1) If you want to defend "human autonomy," you better define it. So far, you sound like a libertarian. (2) Are you saying that spanking protects the "human autonomy" of children?
Autonomy is, like other political concepts, contested, and there are differences between procedural and substantive concepts of autonomy, but broadly speaking it can be defined as the condition of being able to lead a choice-guided life and having opportunities for the maximization of individual and collective self-realization.This is straight out of bourgeois psychology (in which I have a degree) and has little or nothing to do with socialist psychology. I could spend all day debating this with you but since the definition is arbitrary and not based in a material but in an ideal concept of the individual, why bother. Now you sound like a liberal crossed with a liberatarian. Something liber (al + tarian).


Needless to say, the ethical basis of socialism is a complex issue that would probably need a thread of its own but as fundamental values go it seems sensible to see socialism as at least partly concerned with autonomy.Whatever. As I said above, we could debate this endlessly. My concept of autonomy is diametrically opposed to yours. You posit autonomy as a "autonomous" value. In fact, it has little meaning outside of a social context. Autonomy under socialism will be quite different from autonomy under capitalism. As a trivial example "self-realization," which under capitalism is largely confined to the economic sphere, would completely disappear in that sphere.


I wouldn't say that spanking "protects" autonomyThen you are contradicting yourself. Why do it if it isn't in line with the value that you are trying to defend?


but it doesn't seem to actively degrade or destroy itHave you considered the fat that autonomy, to continue to use a very vague term, might be completely different for a child who has never been spanked?


because any concept of autonomy or freedom worth having must surely recognize that autonomy and freedom are both more complex than the simple absence of external coercion.Now you're fudging. We are talking about punishing children with violence. Again, you are basically saying that spanking children teaches them about autonomy.




That there is no stable or well-supported evidence that smacking causes permanent damage to a child either physically or psychologically.You can start with the studies cited here:

http://www.nospank.net/n-d66.htm


Well, It is naturally not my obligation to show that smacking is a horrific crime, that's your job.uhh, no, actually it's yhours. We are leftists, with a long history of opposing such a thing. You are sailing in here, guns ablaze, trying to establish the moral efficacy of violence against children.


The existence of permanent harm is a necessary but by no means sufficient criterion for state intervention, in that if it were the case that smacking has long-term consequences then it would not logically follow that state intervention, in the form of parents being prosecuted for the use of physical discipline against their children, is the adequate response. As I said in a previous post, there are lots of things that parents do and shouldn't do which have long term consequences for their children - like having shouting matches in the kitchen whilst a kid is studying for their exams - but we would hardly say that the state should intervene to correct all envisaged instances of poor parenting.Stop crapping around about shouting matches. We're talking about violence against children.


Thanks for the patronizing pseudo-psychology - which I expected someone to put forward at some point in this thread - but no, I don't see myself as "identifying with the aggressor", and I generally see myself as a well-rounded and confident individual, to the extent that it's possible to be one under capitalism.Actually, many people see you as exactly the kind of arrogant aggressor who is the child of abusive parents.


I do not think it should be legally obligatory for doctors to report signs of abuse against women or men to the authorities.So you are condoning ongoing child or spousal abuse.


Whether they should or should not is distinct from them being legally obligated to do so but I would probably argue that they should not as well. I brought that up as a way of showing that even in cases of clear harm (that being a category I do not believe smacking should be placed in) where we vigorously want the situation to be transformed, expanding the role of the state is now always the best response, especially for the individual who is the victim of abuse. If you want to discuss this, start a separate thread.I assume you made a slip when you wrote "expanding the role of the state is now always the best response." ;)

In any event, you're sputtering. You want to defend something that was done to you, which you couldn't defend yourself against. This is called introjection: "an ego defense mechanism whereby an individual unconsciously incorporates into his own ego structure the qualities of another person, usually a significant other. It happens early in life and continues less intensely throughout.."


The relevance of this isn't clear, because we're talking about smacking, not someone being thrashed with a belt or killed.What is the difference between "smacking" and "spanking"? In any event, you are leaving the door open to a system of violence against children.


The intention is presumably to show the child the difference between right and wrongBy showing them that it's all right for a powerful person to physical hurt a less powerful person.


and to prevent them from doing something again in the futureWhich if the kid has any spirit, won't work. And then you get into a violent power struggle between parent and child. Sweet.


but I actually don't need to show that smacking is the best way to teach children morality or the meaning of discipline, because, given that smacking does not involve permanent harmActually, it does.


or a violation of autonomyEven with your shoddy definition, it does involve such a violation.


it's appropriate for parents to be able to make their own choices about how they raise and more specifically punish their childrenActually, that is a very dangerous statement, which shows that you are just tossing out words to def3end your postion. You're back with the liberatarians.


in the same way that parents should be allowed to decide whether to send their kids to school or homeschool them even though every socialist would probably disapprove of the decision to pursue homeschooling.Actually, many socialists, yself included, are against home schooling, charter schools, etc.


There are plenty of things you or I may strongly disapprove of, but this doesn't mean that we should call on the state to stop people from doing them.But violence against children is one of them, which you are in favor of.


That option should be reserved for cases of actual abuse where state intervention is likely to have an overall beneficial outcome - which are, it should be stressed again, two separate issues.You're writing like a desperate liberal again.


just feel like pointing out that there is really nothing inherently socialist about autonomy as a value. I mean, socialism.
That depends entirely on whether you see autonomy as necessarily in conflict with sociability - if you understand autonomy as embodying self-realization and if you see the self that is to be realized as having an important sociable component, then clearly autonomy is very much dependent on the individual's location in a broader social context.Comrade, the self, as you are discussing it, is a creation of capitalism. It has no autonomous existence. It is based on repression of biologically needs in a context of repression. The autonomy you are futzing around with reads like a cross between Ayn Rand and Dr. Spock.

Go do some reading on the subject. Meditate. And don't hit your kids.

RED DAVE

[twenty percent tip]

maybe if you beat your kid well and goodhe can become a prison guard.and rape prisoners for ciggarettes. awesome:cool:;):crying:

[Sword and Shield]

maybe if you beat your kid well and goodhe can become a prison guard.and rape prisoners for ciggarettes. awesome:cool:;):crying:

That's assuming my kid actually grows up. Don't forget I eat babies.

[punisa]

You have presented the other side of the extreme here. Why should there be ANY type of torture when guiding a child through life? There doesnt have to be verbal or physical extremes

As long as you classify spank on the buttocks as "torture" we don't really have any grounds to debate. sorry

[Princess Luna]

As long as you classify spank on the buttocks as "torture" we don't really have any grounds to debate. sorry

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/torture)
So yes spanking a child counts as torture, even if it is a very mild type, as the purpose of spanking is to inflict pain on a child as punishment.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The idea that kitting kids doesn't violate their autonomy is ludicrous. Support for spanking rests on its alleged ability to modify behaviour. If somebody's behaviour is being modified by an outside agent, then that autonomy is thus circumscribed.

The problem is that it teaches the wrong lessons even if it does work. It teaches that violence is an acceptable solution to minor peccadilloes.

[Sword and Shield]

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/torture)
So yes spanking a child counts as torture, even if it is a very mild type, as the purpose of spanking is to inflict pain on a child as punishment.

You left out a word (emphasis mine):

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies.

[Crux]

I believe children should be violently punished and controlled, but only in periods they will not remember. That way everybody wins and surely no lasting harm can come from it as long as there are no obvious scars this will have no long lasting effects at all? I mean isn't those the criteria we are working from here: no scars (that cannot be explained away to those fascists in the social services) and only if the child has no recollection, i e there is an appropraite age to stop physically punishing and controlling your child. My question is, of course, why not chemically prolong a loss of memory, that way you'll be in full control *and* there won't be any of those bad scarring memories. Sounds like a dream doesn't it?

[Princess Luna]

You left out a word (emphasis mine):

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies.
Actually i copy and pasted directally, so it must have been changed. Thats one down side to a open-edit dictionary.

[MattShizzle]

No. And the redneck states that still do it in the public schools are an embarassment.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

You left out a word (emphasis mine):

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies.

Stop splitting hairs. It's not only the mere degree of pain that is relevant here, it is also the source which deserves consideration. How the fuck is it appropriate for someone who supposedly loves another to inflict pain on them with the intention of modifying their behaviour?

[RED DAVE]

SaS, let me say that if you have ever seen a terrified child being spanked, even lightly, that is severe pain.

Let me be frank and get in here with Godwin's Law: I regard your attitude toward, smacking, hitting, spanking, whatever a child to be fascistic and not worthy of a leftist.

ETA: Let me say that none of us has really tried to approach spanking from a Marxist point of view. What is its purpose; not, "what rights are or are not involved?" The purpose of violence is control. Under capitalism, the state has a monopoly on political violence. It exerts that monopoly in the name of the ruling class and uses that monopoly to enforce its political/economic will domestically and abroad, whenever it can. Usually, this monopoly does not have to be used: the threat of it is sufficient.

What is the role, then of domestic violence, including spousal abuse and child abuse? (Yes, I think that spanking is child abuse.) Why does it persist in countries that can put people in space? It is to enforce the will of the enforcer. And what is the purpose of that will? It isn't the moral or emotional correction or development of the child. As anyone who raises a kid without violence knows, such abuse is not necessary to raise a child into a decent adult. So, what is its purpose? To accustom the child to submitting to violence.

Spanking children accustoms them to accept the role of the dominator in their lives. As children, they must submit, and they become accustomed to submitting. I repeat, none of this is necessary to raise a child, so why the fuck would any decent person do it? There is no task in parenting that can't be done without violence.

RED DAVE

[TC]

You left out a word (emphasis mine):

torture (third-person singular simple present tortures, present participle torturing, simple past and past participle tortured)
(transitive) To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone).
People who torture often have sadistic tendencies.


I think its pretty hilarious that you have adopted the John Yoo (Bush legal advisor) definition of torture that is universally rejected by anyone who isn't an American pro-imperialist.

[Invader Zim]

Stop splitting hairs. It's not only the mere degree of pain that is relevant here, it is also the source which deserves consideration. How the fuck is it appropriate for someone who supposedly loves another to inflict pain on them with the intention of modifying their behaviour?

Noting that spanking a child in no ways constitutes torture is hardly 'splitting hairs' when people are making that comparison - a comparison so hysterical that it does an actual disservice to the argument being made.

[Apoi_Viitor]

The problem with allowing parents to 'hit' or 'spank' their child is that often times, the line between discipline and abuse gets skewed. Sure occasionally spanking your child is not going to do permanent damage to the child psychologically, but by encouraging a culture that tolerates spanking, you'll likely get a much higher rate of parents who go overboard with the corporal punishment. Anyways, child abuse doesn't require sadistic tendencies, it just requires the parent to be in a certain situation.

[S.Artesian]

Ask the kid what he or she thinks-- as to whether the violence, and it is violence, and the threat of violence isn't torture.

What some people are trying to do is mediate a quality-- a relationship of power, force-- by quantity "Oh just a little isn't going to harm anybody."

Guess what? It doesn't work that way This ridiculous argument about the "right of parents" to physically strike children isn't about quantity-- it's about the quality, that's what a "right" is-- unmediated by quantity-- you know kind of like free speech.

Someone wants to assign a quantity to that? Then you get right back to what are autonomist wants to avoid-- intervention, enforcement etc etc.

And at no point in the abstraction into the world of "how much" do any of our esteemed "a little is OK"ers bother with the actual work of psychologists and psychoanalysts into the results of physical punishment of the development of children.

[brigadista]

kids need boundaries and penalties

not

"discipline" and "punishment"

this is what happens when it is state sanctioned , and it is clear which class these children were from - shouldnt be privately sanctioned

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/damning-report-on-child-restraint-to-be-made-public-2280804.html

[RED DAVE]

The problem with allowing parents to 'hit' or 'spank' their child is that often times, the line between discipline and abuse gets skewed.You are assuming that there is such a line and that spanking for discipline is not abuse. Since it has been established that anything that is accomplished by spanking, pain and fear, can be accomplished without it, it becomes obvious that the justification for spanking is a rationalization for pain and fear.


Sure occasionally spanking your child is not going to do permanent damage to the child psychologicallyYou state this as if it is a truth, but this is by no means certain.


but by encouraging a culture that tolerates spanking, you'll likely get a much higher rate of parents who go overboard with the corporal punishment. Anyways, child abuse doesn't require sadistic tendencies, it just requires the parent to be in a certain situation.True.

RED DAVE

[Invader Zim]

Ask the kid what he or she thinks-- as to whether the violence, and it is violence, and the threat of violence isn't torture.

I don't need to, I was smacked, and it didn't constitute torture then and it doesn't now.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

If this thread doesn't prove how fucked and outmoded the bourgeois family is, nothing here does.

[RED DAVE]

I don't need to, I was smacked, and it didn't constitute torture then and it doesn't now.Torture, no. Abuse, yes.

Considering that anything that was done to you in the name of discipline could have been done without violence, this is/was abuse.

RED DAVE

[brigadista]

please not the school of hard knocks argument

[Decolonize The Left]

It's clear that the pro-spank crowd has been boxed into a corner (minor pun intended).
They cannot argue that it is a parent's right to spank the child, because parents don't own children.
They cannot argue that they were spanked and they think it's fine, so it's cool as they are clearly living proof of the validity of a widespread abusive practice.
They cannot argue that there's no negative repercussions to spanking, and that it only produces rainbow-colored discipline.
They cannot argue that it's always ok to spank, regardless of context or content.

So they are left saying it's sometimes ok, but only if it's done in a certain manner, and with a specific reason, at a specific set of ages. NONE of the factors are defined and all are completely arbitrary.

In short, it's a bunch of crap.

Spanking your child is not ok, it's not productive, nothing is gained which couldn't be via a different avenue of discipline. It's just sad.

- August

[Invader Zim]

Torture, no. Abuse, yes.

Considering that anything that was done to you in the name of discipline could have been done without violence, this is/was abuse.

RED DAVE
Which does nothing other than play fast and loose with the definition of 'abuse' rendering it meaningless and trivialising actual abuse.

[Invader Zim]

It's clear that the pro-spank crowd has been boxed into a corner (minor pun intended).
They cannot argue that it is a parent's right to spank the child, because parents don't own children.
They cannot argue that they were spanked and they think it's fine, so it's cool as they are clearly living proof of the validity of a widespread abusive practice.
They cannot argue that there's no negative repercussions to spanking, and that it only produces rainbow-colored discipline.
They cannot argue that it's always ok to spank, regardless of context or content.

So they are left saying it's sometimes ok, but only if it's done in a certain manner, and with a specific reason, at a specific set of ages. NONE of the factors are defined and all are completely arbitrary.

In short, it's a bunch of crap.

Spanking your child is not ok, it's not productive, nothing is gained which couldn't be via a different avenue of discipline. It's just sad.

- August

No, the only thing that is clear is that you can create transparant strawman arguments and spout untruths. For example you say:

"They cannot argue that there's no negative repercussions to spanking"

But they can argue that there has yet to be any evidence produced suggesting that spanking does cause harm.

Try again, but this time at least pay lip service to intellectual honesty.

[SacRedMan]

People complain about the youth that we have now and their lack of discipline, and see that spanking them will give them back that discipline they had like in the '50... But that's simplistic and should be studied on a psychological way.

[RED DAVE]

Torture, no. Abuse, yes.

Considering that anything that was done to you in the name of discipline could have been done without violence, this is/was abuse.
Which does nothing other than play fast and loose with the definition of 'abuse' rendering it meaningless and trivialising actual abuse.No, it doesn't. What it means is that you are so imbued with the psychology of abuse that you don't know it when you see it.

It's kind of like capitalism and exploitation. Most people are so used to it they think it's natural. Consciousness, Comrade, consciousness.

RED DAVE

[#FF0000]

But they can argue that there has yet to be any evidence produced suggesting that spanking does cause harm.


lol actually

http://www.nospank.net/n-j31.htm

http://www.theurbanchildinstitute.org/blogs/katie-midgley/2010/04/early-spanking-may-make-children-more-aggressive-researchers-suggest-tha

http://childbrainhealth.com/?p=590

I can find more. I'll even find the ISBN for my high school psych textbook if you want!

[RED DAVE]

Torture, no. Abuse, yes.

Considering that anything that was done to you in the name of discipline could have been done without violence, this is/was abuse.
Which does nothing other than play fast and loose with the definition of 'abuse' rendering it meaningless and trivialising actual abuse.No, it doesn't. What it means is that you are so imbued with the psychology of abuse that you don't know it when you see it.

It's kind of like capitalism and exploitation. Most people are so used to it they think it's natural. Consciousness, Comrade, consciousness.


No, the only thing that is clear is that [AugustWest] can create transparant strawman arguments and spout untruths.Cconsidering the fact that you are defending the abuse of children under capitalism, which many advanced capitalist countries, starting with Sweden, have banned, its you are spouting bullshit.


The grandmother of the bunch is Sweden, which passed a law against corporal punishment in 1979. The effects of that ban are cited by advocates on both sides of the spanking debate. Parents almost universally used corporal punishment on Swedish children born in the 1950s; the numbers dropped to 14 percent for kids born in the late 1980s, and only 8 percent of parents reported physically punishing their kids in 2000. Plus, only one child in Sweden died as the result of physical abuse by a parent between 1980 and 1996. Those statistics suggest that making spanking illegal contributes to making it less prevalent and also to making kids safer. On the other hand, reports to police of child abuse soared in the decades after the spanking ban, as did the incidence of juvenile violence. Did reports rise because frustrated, spanking-barred parents lashed out against their kids in other ways, or because the law made people more aware of child abuse? The latter is what occurred in the United States when reports of abuse spiked following the enactment of child-protective laws in the 1970s. Is the rise in kids beating on each other evidence of undisciplined, unruly child mobs, or the result of other unrelated forces? The data don't tell us, so take your pick.(emph added)

http://www.slate.com/id/2158310/

(There are other parts of this article that cite some counter-evidence.)


For example you say:

"They cannot argue that there's no negative repercussions to spanking"

But they can argue that there has yet to be any evidence produced suggesting that spanking does cause harm.

Try again, but this time at least pay lip service to intellectual honesty.There is plenty of evidence, including material I citied in a post above. You remind me of a young earth creationist. Show them a museum full of fossils, and they still will see no evidence for evolution.


The more a child's is spanked, the lower his or her IQ compared with others, according to a new study by one of North America's foremost child psychology experts.

U.S-based sociologist Professor Murray Straus, who studied the impact of spanking for 40 years, presented at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego, California, and named it the third major U.S. study released this year demonstrating a correlation between physical discipline and a child's intelligence.

He examined the IQ scores of 1,510 children in two age groups - two to four, and five to nine - and retested the children four years later. He found that "the more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability," because at a young age, children do not yet have the ability to deal with stress and get afraid of being hit. Consequently, the psychological stress slows down the rate of development of mental ability.(emph added)

http://www.nowpublic.com/health/spanking-may-lower-childs-iq

Now, here's evidence. Shut the fuck up.

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

A lot of good parents hit their kids on some occasions which is not the same as beating them up.

I think instead of getting all worked up about the odd slap or clip around the ear we should be focusing on actual psychological bullying of children and people using their kids to get a sense of power over something or someone.

[IndependentCitizen]

Prevention is better than a cure.

[MattShizzle]

Have many of you ever read accounts of where the schools still do this - including to girls/women as old as 18 from a male principal or vice principal. And hard enough to leave bruises that last a month. In any other situtation that would be considered assault.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

But they can argue that there has yet to be any evidence produced suggesting that spanking does cause harm.

Being assaulted by someone who supposedly "loves" one? No, I don't see any negative repercussions there at all. :rolleyes:

If you do something I don't like, would you consider it an appropriate response for me to thump you? No? Then what makes it acceptable to hit children? They are smaller and weaker than the typical adult, not just physically but socially as well (consider the difficulties kids have in reporting their abuse to adults capable of giving a damn).

[Demogorgon]

Which does nothing other than play fast and loose with the definition of 'abuse' rendering it meaningless and trivialising actual abuse.
Not really, because abuse comes in different forms and levels of severity. I would say a light smack would be the lowest level of abuse and obviously of a completely different level to beating a child senseless, but it is still abuse.

It is akin to how if I gave you a light slap and if I knocked your teeth out in both cases I would have committed assault but nobody would claim those were crimes of equal severity.

Serious child abuse should be a major criminal offence, minor offences should obviously be different. While all should be illegal a parent who makes a one off mistake of lightly smacking a child should be dealt with leniently. Those sorts of cases should be dealt with by Social Workers rather than police and a one off mistake could likely be dismissed after nothing more than a promise not to do it again. If it becomes a regular occurence though social services ought to intervene.

Eyedrop described how the system works where he lives earlier on and it works perfectly well. Moreover the most important thing he pointed out was that the primary effect of the ban on smacking was that parents simply didn't do it. I don't think parents who smack their children are bad people, some are, but most are in an environment where it is accepted. Changing the law so that it is no longer elgal is usually enough to change that environment and stop it from happening so much.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

A lot of good parents hit their kids on some occasions which is not the same as beating them up.

I think instead of getting all worked up about the odd slap or clip around the ear we should be focusing on actual psychological bullying of children and people using their kids to get a sense of power over something or someone.

or parents should focus on raising their children without subjecting them to any kind of abuse whether its a smack on the ass, a punch in the mouth, a full on beating or psychological torture.

[Weezer]

Go ahead, hit your kids.

It's k.

[Le Libérer]

I think many of you who say, "I was spanked and turned out okay" has come to grips with it and have forgotten how it made you feel when it was happened. I never felt it was okay then.

Try to remember yourself as a child.

[Invader Zim]

Being assaulted by someone who supposedly "loves" one? No, I don't see any negative repercussions there at all. :rolleyes:

If you do something I don't like, would you consider it an appropriate response for me to thump you? No? Then what makes it acceptable to hit children? They are smaller and weaker than the typical adult, not just physically but socially as well (consider the difficulties kids have in reporting their abuse to adults capable of giving a damn).


But we aren't talking about 'thumping' somebody are we?


Then what makes it acceptable to hit children?

I'm not making an argument that it should be allowed, I'm pointing out that you lot are making hysterical emotional appeals as opposed to actual arguments which deal with the issue - your most recent comment regarding 'thumping', which is clearly by definition entirely distinct from 'spanking', being a prime example.


considering the fact that you are defending the abuse of children under capitalism,

I'm not defending, or supporting, anything - I'm criticising your argument. The two are not synonamous.

Oh, and I note your dishonesty. I criticise your argument, and you accuse me of defending "corporal punishment" that is not limited to the mere inflicting of injury and physical harm, but extends to outright murder.

Plainly neither you, nor the article you quote as "evidence", make any distinction between what we are talking about and beating a child to death in a pathetic, and logically fallacious, attempt employ a guilt by association argument.


There is plenty of evidence, including material I citied in a post above.

Actually the article you posted is fallicious, for the same reason the graph below is fallicious.

http://www.braveathena.com/images/piratesarecool4.jpg



Now, here's evidence. Shut the fuck up.

You think that a survey that examines a vague correlation between spanking and IQ actually means anything? I guess you aren't aware of a few things:

A. false positives.
B. that correlation does not equate causation.
C. that IQ tests don't measure anything other than the ability to do IQ tests, because the skills necessary to perform well on these tests are learned as opposed to inherent, which is why if you take lots of these tests you will see significant improvement in your IQ. Which is why IQ tests are culturally bias and regularly report that African Americans have lower IQs than WASPs. In short any survey that takes IQ seriously is inherently flawed and suspect.

Sorry, you are going to have to do better than that... a lot better.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

But we aren't talking about 'thumping' somebody are we?

No, we're talking about "smacks", "swats" and "spanking" and various other euphemisms for assault.


I'm not making an argument that it should be allowed, I'm pointing out that you lot are making hysterical emotional appeals as opposed to actual arguments which deal with the issue - your most recent comment regarding 'thumping', which is clearly by definition entirely distinct from 'spanking', being a prime example.

If I assault somebody, I'm assaulting them, no matter how hard I'm hitting them or what self-serving euphemisms I use to justify such barbaric behaviour.

It's not the severity of the blows that is the issue here. It's the source, the motivations and the consequences, as I have outlined in other posts in this thread and which you have ignored.

If you think I'm making a bad argument, then make a better one, rather than hair-splitting about whatever fucking words I'm using or clutching your pearls about "hysterical" arguments.

Otherwise you just look like a truly pathetic apologist for violence against children.

[#FF0000]

But we aren't talking about 'thumping' somebody are we?



I'm not making an argument that it should be allowed, I'm pointing out that you lot are making hysterical emotional appeals as opposed to actual arguments which deal with the issue - your most recent comment regarding 'thumping', which is clearly by definition entirely distinct from 'spanking', being a prime example.



I'm not defending, or supporting, anything - I'm criticising your argument. The two are not synonamous.

Oh, and I note your dishonesty. I criticise your argument, and you accuse me of defending "corporal punishment" that is not limited to the mere inflicting of injury and physical harm, but extends to outright murder.

Plainly neither you, nor the article you quote as "evidence", make any distinction between what we are talking about and beating a child to death in a pathetic, and logically fallacious, attempt employ a guilt by association argument.



Actually the article you posted is fallicious, for the same reason the graph below is fallicious.

http://www.braveathena.com/images/piratesarecool4.jpg



You think that a survey that examines a vague correlation between spanking and IQ actually means anything? I guess you aren't aware of a few things:

A. false positives.
B. that correlation does not equate causation.
C. that IQ tests don't measure anything other than the ability to do IQ tests, because the skills necessary to perform well on these tests are learned as opposed to inherent, which is why if you take lots of these tests you will see significant improvement in your IQ. Which is why IQ tests are culturally bias and regularly report that African Americans have lower IQs than WASPs. In short any survey that takes IQ seriously is inherently flawed and suspect.

Sorry, you are going to have to do better than that... a lot better.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/10926770903035168

Here's a longitudinal study in why you should shut the fuck up.

[#FF0000]

Real talk though I think you can appreciate why it's difficult to study the effects of spanking anyway.

[Dr Mindbender]

And? What point are you trying to make?
That both men and women are capable of orchestrating violence not only against their children but their partners.


That the infrequent and mild spanking a child as a means of imposing disipline is the same as violent spousal abuse?

Define 'mild'.


Or are you suggesting that in the vastmajority of cases of spanking it is the perogative of the father?


gvdf5n-zI14

[Dr Mindbender]

I've never seen a parent hit their child that was'nt a collosal arsehole in every other shape or form.

[bcbm]

ok so we shouldn't hit our kids, but what about other people's?

[The Douche]

I was spanked as a child...I certainly did not turn out "ok".

[Philosopher Jay]

I am opposed to it, but I must confess that I did do it once to my daughter 13 years ago, when she was about 3 years old. She was standing in the middle of the street. It was not a street that had much traffic, perhaps one car every half hour, but it was still dangerous. I called for her to move out of the street and to come to me. She stayed in the middle of the street and turned her back to me. I yelled a few more times. I was furious and I ran over and spanked her hard. She did not cry, but looked puzzled.

I felt terrible after I had done it. Obviously, she couldn't understand the danger that I felt she was in and the reason I had hit her. She forgot about it or at least, a few years ago, when I brought it up, she said that she has no recollection of it at all.

I still feel guilty and sorry for it.

[eyedrop]

I was extremely surprised bu this thread of how common spanking was, I had assumed that it was almost extinct in the western world. The rhetorical "distinction" between spanking and beating kids was unfamiliar to me.


I am opposed to it, but I must confess that I did do it once to my daughter 13 years ago, when she was about 3 years old. She was standing in the middle of the street. It was not a street that had much traffic, perhaps one car every half hour, but it was still dangerous. I called for her to move out of the street and to come to me. She stayed in the middle of the street and turned her back to me. I yelled a few more times. I was furious and I ran over and spanked her hard. She did not cry, but looked puzzled.

I felt terrible after I had done it. Obviously, she couldn't understand the danger that I felt she was in and the reason I had hit her. She forgot about it or at least, a few years ago, when I brought it up, she said that she has no recollection of it at all.

I still feel guilty and sorry for it.
Going and dragging the kid off the road would be the first thing that came to my mind, but I certainly understand your situation. And I guess you apologized to her.

A one time happening thing is understandable and forgivable, it's the repeated physical punishment for misbehaviour that is the big deal.




Eyedrop described how the system works where he lives earlier on and it works perfectly well. Moreover the most important thing he pointed out was that the primary effect of the ban on smacking was that parents simply didn't do it. I don't think parents who smack their children are bad people, some are, but most are in an environment where it is accepted. Changing the law so that it is no longer elgal is usually enough to change that environment and stop it from happening so much.
I would just like to add that I may have given an impression that we have compulsory classes for child spankers, while we do not.

It's totally socially unacceptable to hit your kids, and if it is discovered that you repeatedly spank your kids I'm certain that the social workers would talk to you. I'm not sure what would happen if you continued beating your kids as I've never heard of a case of it.

It's not like societies where spanking aren't the norm doesn't function well,, and it leads to: "Plus, only one child in Sweden died as the result of physical abuse by a parent between 1980 and 1996."

So I have trouble understanding why want it to be legal to beat their kids.

[Demogorgon]

I was extremely surprised bu this thread of how common spanking was, I had assumed that it was almost extinct in the western world. The rhetorical "distinction" between spanking and beating kids was unfamiliar to me.

Yeah, I wondered how people from countries where it is not used would react to this debate. I am reminded of when a number of teachers from the Soviet Union visited Britain in the sixties to study the English education system and were shocked to discover the cane was still used. Because it wasn't used in the Soviet Union they had simply presumed that it no longer existed anywhere. I myself was surprised not so long ago when I discovered some US States still permit corporal punishment in schools, I had presumed that had completely gone too, so I suppose to you parental corporal punishment must seem as alien to you as school corporal punishment is to me.

Here in Scotland serious consideration was given to banning it a few years ago, but in the end it didn't happen and a compromise was made where hitting a child under three, hitting a child with any implement and hitting a child on the head were all banned but lightly slapping a child over three on the buttocks or legs remained legal. That was definitely an improvement but it shows something about our society that smacking is seen as so normal that the Government had to make an exception for lighter cases in order to pass the bill. In the rest of the UK even those restrictions don't apply.

I would really urge those in this thread who think smacking is acceptable to consider your description of it simply not being acceptable socially and hence the legal ban not needing much enforcement and ask themselves whether they really think that what they advocate-a society where corporal punishment is legal and acceptable-is really better.

[Invader Zim]

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/10926770903035168 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content%7Edb=all?content=10.1080/10926770903035168)

Here's a longitudinal study in why you should shut the fuck up.

LOL, did you even bother to read that article? I did, and it asserted that there was a correlation between frequent use of corporal punishment and decreased cognative ability, and admitted that in the case of infrequent use of CP it didn't have a large enough sample to draw any useful conclusions (so it doesn't contradict anything I said, but in fact confirms it - that the research to prove what you guys are asserting really exist is a strong enough form to draw any useful conclusions and that more research is necessary). And of course this is an individual study, which brings us back to the problem that correlation does not equate causation and that any such study is guaranteed to be loaded with false positives. Which is why the most meaningful studies, in discussions such as this, are meta-studies.

Oh, and I don't know if you know much about tests of cognative ability in toddlers, but they are a most arbitrary and a-scientific load of bullshit. They consist of taking a toddler to see a stranger and identify body parts, colours, shapes, etc. The success of such tests does not depend as much on the ability of the child, but the mood of the child. Having taken kids to these tests before I can assure you that they are able to do what is asked of them, but do not when they are placed in front of a stranger and asked to. Thus the results are untrustworthy at best and random and worst.

We are also ignoring the fact that this deals only with young children. The thesis of the study was that "If, for example, CP adversely affects the development if cognitive ability, ending use of CP could result in an increase in the national average level of cognitive ability."

In that case the targets of the study should not be children rather it should adults following the completion of their cognative development. That way the correlation found will actually suggest something interesting, it would still wouldn't tell you a lot because - to repeat again - correlation does not equate causation.


No, we're talking about "smacks", "swats" and "spanking" and various other euphemisms for assault.

But of course you can assault a person verbally as well as physically, so by extension of your logic parents have no method of punishing children for committing transgressions because they cannot even tell them off without the potential of committing an 'assault'. Which is why, in this instance, the term 'assault' is meaningless because it extremely broad, and anyway you are only employing it to suggest a false equivalence between battery and spanking.



It's not the severity of the blows that is the issue here.

If you want to talk about motivation and consequences, then plainly it is the issue.


It's the source, the motivations and the consequences as I have outlined in other posts in this thread and which you have ignored.

Well, actually I didn't ignore it at all, I have spent all thread pointing out that the assertions that spanking, regardless of degree of severity and frequency, has a negative effect on child development and future adult behaviour has yet to be adequately determined and is still fiercely debated by scientists working in the field.



If you think I'm making a bad argument, then make a better one,

1. I don't think you're making a bad argument, you've proved it. What you descibe as splitting hairs (i.e associating spanking with "thumping") is actually strawmanning your opponents and constructing a slippery slope argument, both of which are informal fallacies.

2. I don't need to, until you present an argument that doesn't rest on that kind of ridiculous tactic then there is no case to answer, even if I wanted to.



Otherwise you just look like a truly pathetic apologist for violence against children.

Ah, an appeal to consequences; if I don't cease pointing out your wooley thinking then not only must I hold a certain view point (despite the fact I haven't told you my view point), but you will also castigate me as something undesirable. Come on, Nox, you can do better than this.

[RED DAVE]

Why don't you admit it, Zin, you approve of spank or, if you don't, what is your position? Your carping, hostile attitude is typical of someone who's been victimized and, instead of dealing with the victimization, attacks the people trying to help. I see this all the time with students of mine who have been victimized by repressive school systems and, instead of trying to deal with what happened to them, try to undermine the work of their teachers.

And, by the way Zin, do you have kids?

RED DAVE

[Invader Zim]

It is Zim, not Zin.


you approve of spank or, if you don't, what is your position?

Why do I have to have a position? Why can I simply not know if it is positive or harmful?


Your carping, hostile attitude

You:

"Shut the fuck up."

So I guess you're the hostile one, not me.


is typical of someone who's been victimized and, instead of dealing with the victimization,

Yet another resident amateur psychoanalyst? Well, as noted, you're the one acting like a hostile teenager, not me; so why don't you spare me this blather and direct it at yourself?

[S.Artesian]

I'm sure somewhere there must be a more fucked up thread, but until I find it, I'm sticking with this one.

[eyedrop]

I actually bothered to check up the laws, since earlier there were some claiming that it would have to be a special law.

"Article 18: Children have a right to be safe from physical violence, verbal violence and neglect.

Article 4-6: Publicly employees should, by their own initiative, contact the child protection agency when:

*There is reason to suspect abuse in the home or other cases of serious neglect.
*A child has shown lasting serious behaviour trouble"


What striked me as I read this was that the first reaction to an antisocial child is to look for causes in the home and improve/remove those causes which causes antisocial behaviour instead of stuffing the kid full of behavior altering medicine.

For every fucked up kid, there are reasons why that kid is fucked up. Most likely in the home.


As an aside there are plenty of actions that are tried before a kid is taken away. Taking the kid away is the last resort when the other attempts have failed.

Sourcehttp://nhi.no/foreldre-og-barn/barn/sykdommer/barnemishandling-lovverket-24277.html

[Robocommie]

ok so we shouldn't hit our kids, but what about other people's?

I personally would be happy to beat your children.

:p

[Chimurenga.]

This might be the most over-dramatic thread I've ever seen on Revleft. If not the most, it's certainly up there.

[eyedrop]

This might be the most over-dramatic thread I've ever seen on Revleft. If not the most, it's certainly up there.

Yeah, since child abuse is such a laughing matter. Keep drugging those kids who shows symptoms of issues in their home.

[Sword and Shield]

It's not like societies where spanking aren't the norm doesn't function well,, and it leads to: "Plus, only one child in Sweden died as the result of physical abuse by a parent between 1980 and 1996."

Oh that little social democratic paradise.

http://www.nkmr.org/english/child_abuse_deaths_in_sweden.htm

http://friendsofdomenic.blogspot.com/

XJnzCgkm9DU

[Demogorgon]

What striked me as I read this was that the first reaction to an antisocial child is to look for causes in the home and improve/remove those causes which causes antisocial behaviour instead of stuffing the kid full of behavior altering medicine.

This is drifting into another topic, but I think looking for problems in the home is standard practice in dealing with unruly children anywhere. I know there is a bit of a stereotype of giving children drugs, particularly Ritalin far too readily, but no child psychiatrist would resort to medicine without at least considering environmental factors first. That goes for any kind of medical practice dealing with behaviour or mood with any age group. Circumstances must be considered before the possibility of there being a problem with the brain itself is considered.

Also of course if you give Ritalin to a child who does not need it, it is going to be very obvious very quickly. Ritalin isn't designed to calm people like a sedative, it is a stimulant that boosts wakefulness and alertness, that's why one of its main uses is treating Narcolepsy, It works with Attention Deficit Disorder by boosting concentration abilities and hence stops a person taking it to stray from what they are doing and become disruptive too readily. If you give it to a child that has nothing wrong with their attentiveness and is misbehaving for some other reason, you are going to make the problem worse very quickly and very obviously.

Anyway while this is an interesting discussion to have, we are probably drifting off the topic here. Nevertheless I do think that it is important to be clear that it is not exclusive to countries where hitting children is banned for things like that to be considered with children who are having behavioural difficulties.

[RED DAVE]

You think that a survey that examines a vague correlation between spanking and IQ actually means anything?Yes, I do.


You think that a survey that examines a I guess you aren't aware of a few things:

A. false positives.
B. that correlation does not equate causation.
C. that IQ tests don't measure anything other than the ability to do IQ tests, because the skills necessary to perform well on these tests are learned as opposed to inherent, which is why if you take lots of these tests you will see significant improvement in your IQ. Which is why IQ tests are culturally bias and regularly report that African Americans have lower IQs than WASPs. In short any survey that takes IQ seriously is inherently flawed and suspect.We do the best we can.

You think that a survey that examines a Sorry, you are going to have to do better than that... a lot better.[/QUOTE]In the mean time, you are going to have to get the idea that spanking is okay out of your mind. And until you do, I suggest that you not have children.

RED DAVE

[eyedrop]

Oh that little social democratic paradise.

http://www.nkmr.org/english/child_abuse_deaths_in_sweden.htm

http://friendsofdomenic.blogspot.com/

XJnzCgkm9DU

Your articles:

It may be true that the number of 1 child killed of abuse since 1979 may be false as I just lifted it from Red Dave's post.

"Bradford never said that reported child abuse in Sweden since the 1979 smacking ban has increased up to 500 percent In one Swedish police district alone, 145 confirmed cases of caregiver abuse occured from 1986-1996."

An increase of 500% of reported child abuse cases, after a bigger definition of child abuse and a compulsory duty to report abuse, does not suggest an increase in abuse. Just like a increase in reported rape doesn't signify an increase in rape, but more people actually reporting rapes is progressive thing. I can't be arsed to look through the rest of such shoddy rhetoric.

As for your video:
While I don't know anything about that particular case, and the video certainly didn't attempt to give a balanced view, it is certainly possible that there were valid reasons. I very much doubt that the kids were suddenly taken away with no warning. Shouldn't children be taken away from abusive parents?

While wrong calls are certainly made, and there are certainly racism influencing calls as we live in a racist society, there are certainly no widespread fear for the authorities taking away your children as it would be if it was a widespread phenonomen.

And I guarantee that very few foster families are in it for the money, just like women aren't getting loads of children to collect children support. That is actually a right wing strawman.

[Demogorgon]

As an addendum to Eyedrop's point, in every country with social services there are always stories of children being taken from their parents and the parents protesting that it was unjust. This is inevitable because different people see things from different perspectives and it is difficult to know where to draw the line. However would you want a situation where social services just left children in situations they felt were dangerous? That is something that does happen at times in Britain and the flak they get when somebody murders a child they did not take into protective care is enormous.

Also, social services regard taking children from their parents as a last resort and usually a temporary one at that. Their goal is generally to keep families together. It is extremely unlikely that a family's first contact with social workers was them taking the children away, not unless they had abandoned the children or something like that.

[eyedrop]

This is drifting into another topic, but I think looking for problems in the home is standard practice in dealing with unruly children anywhere. I know there is a bit of a stereotype of giving children drugs, particularly Ritalin far too readily, but no child psychiatrist would resort to medicine without at least considering environmental factors first. That goes for any kind of medical practice dealing with behaviour or mood with any age group. Circumstances must be considered before the possibility of there being a problem with the brain itself is considered.

Also of course if you give Ritalin to a child who does not need it, it is going to be very obvious very quickly. Ritalin isn't designed to calm people like a sedative, it is a stimulant that boosts wakefulness and alertness, that's why one of its main uses is treating Narcolepsy, It works with Attention Deficit Disorder by boosting concentration abilities and hence stops a person taking it to stray from what they are doing and become disruptive too readily. If you give it to a child that has nothing wrong with their attentiveness and is misbehaving for some other reason, you are going to make the problem worse very quickly and very obviously.

Anyway while this is an interesting discussion to have, we are probably drifting off the topic here. Nevertheless I do think that it is important to be clear that it is not exclusive to countries where hitting children is banned for things like that to be considered with children who are having behavioural difficulties.

I apologize for being hasty in judging in things I have no intimate knowledge of. In afterthought you are certainly right.

[eyedrop]

As an addendum to Eyedrop's point, in every country with social services there are always stories of children being taken from their parents and the parents protesting that it was unjust. This is inevitable because different people see things from different perspectives and it is difficult to know where to draw the line. However would you want a situation where social services just left children in situations they felt were dangerous? That is something that does happen at times in Britain and the flak they get when somebody murders a child they did not take into protective care is enormous.

Also, social services regard taking children from their parents as a last resort and usually a temporary one at that. Their goal is generally to keep families together. It is extremely unlikely that a family's first contact with social workers was them taking the children away, not unless they had abandoned the children or something like that. As an addendum I know from personal knowledge (working in child protection service, and my grandparents being fosterparents) that there have been several attempts to reunite the children with their parents in all the cases I've been involved with.

[Chimurenga.]

Yeah, since child abuse is such a laughing matter. Keep drugging those kids who shows symptoms of issues in their home.

Once again, you're being over-dramatic as fuck. I was spanked as a kid. There are no mental repercussions from it. I barely even remember it. I wasn't hit on a daily basis but every so often, when I was acting like an asshole, I would get a smack. Now, me and my father have a pretty good relationship and I still love my family.

I can think of some old friends of mine who were never disciplined who turned out to be some pretty fucked individuals. They did whatever they wanted and then later on in life felt the consequences. Off the top of my head, at least one got heavily into drugs and started selling them, is still living with his mom with no job, little education, and no ambitions. I've got a few more instances of stories exactly like that one from people who had little to no discipline in their childhood.

I really don't care for melodramatic platitudes about how someone thinks that spanking a child is wrong. I've seen the real life effect that of a few people who have had only passivity and no discipline growing up. I can say, truthfully, discipline is a must.

Those of you equating a simple spanking or smacking with actual child abuse (i.e. beating the shit out of someone) can go get fucked as far as I'm concerned.

[RED DAVE]

Those of you equating a simple spanking or smacking with actual child abuse (i.e. beating the shit out of someone) can go get fucked as far as I'm concerned.Don't have kids as you are ignorant of the simplest principle of humane parenting.

RED DAVE

[Princess Luna]

Once again, you're being over-dramatic as fuck. I was spanked as a kid. There are no mental repercussions from it. I barely even remember it. I wasn't hit on a daily basis but every so often, when I was acting like an asshole, I would get a smack. Now, me and my father have a pretty good relationship and I still love my family.

I can think of some old friends of mine who were never disciplined who turned out to be some pretty fucked individuals. They did whatever they wanted and then later on in life felt the consequences. Off the top of my head, at least one got heavily into drugs and started selling them, is still living with his mom with no job, little education, and no ambitions. I've got a few more instances of stories exactly like that one from people who had little to no discipline in their childhood.

I really don't care for melodramatic platitudes about how someone thinks that spanking a child is wrong. I've seen the real life effect that of a few people who have had only passivity and no discipline growing up. I can say, truthfully, discipline is a must.

Those of you equating a simple spanking or smacking with actual child abuse (i.e. beating the shit out of someone) can go get fucked as far as I'm concerned.
It is entirely possible to discipline a child without getting physical.