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That's how to discipline kids!!


josa
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Thanks for the link Clair.  The internet has been so very, very slow here today (dial up) that I wasn't able to read it or to reply until now![:@]

Strangely enough Nell, I wanted to post something sort of similar to what you wrote.  Mine was more along the lines of "damned if they do and damned if they don't".  As I see it, it is far better that the police (and other authorities) take an active role in preventing the abuse of children.  It's just such a fine line to tread.

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I'm a bit old school 'spare the rod spoil the child' but it has to be measured and administered out of love and care not in anger or with malevolence.

As a kid I had my share of well deserved thrashings, and whilst at school paid more than a few visits to the headmasters study too, but they mostly taught me lessons (principally not to get caught but that's a different topic [;-)]).

Of course we didn't have 'ooman rites' in those days otherwise it might have been different and I may not have turned out to be the well rounded and balanced individual I am today [:D][:D][:D]

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Now you're getting very deep and philosophical [:'(]

Unfortunately there are no manuals or rule books for parenting and parental discipline is only a single factor amongst a myriad of other influences so without a crystal ball nobody can ever predict how their offspring are going to turn out. There are probably just as many kids from poor underprivileged, violent, and dysfunctional backgrounds who go on to do well as there are privileged kids who turn bad.

IMO it is the decimation of family life and the family unit which had taken place over the past 20 or 30 years which has brought about the current depressing state of affairs in UK coupled I believe with the growing unacceptability of corporal punishment over a similar time span. I'm not saying that we didn't have violence, disrespect, and yobbos back then, we did of course, but it was on a minuscule scale in comparison.

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The UK government has taken away from parents, teachers et al the right to discipline children.  This government  now dishes out pocket money weekly (EMA) to 16-18 year olds.

Parents  can't even stop pocket money for transgressions - in fact,   many can't compete with the amounts dished out by the state to kids.  As much as £30 pw + bonuses for actually turning up at school/college!

And, I know many waste this money.  Funded by hard-working taxpayers - or part of GBroon's debts package he will be leaving us with!

Tegwini

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To some, the words discipline and thump, in this context, are one and the same.

As a thumpee myself, unlike ANO, I don't believe it did me any good at all.  It's only achievement was to rob the thumper of all and any respect I might otherwise have afforded them. 

I'm not a parent myself so I don't know but do the parents on here really believe it's a sign of their having been a good parent that they hit their kids?

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[quote user="plod"]You don't write Daily Mail editorials do you by any chance?[/quote]

No, my latest paid for publication was in the TES.

BUT, I do wonder why there is an obsession with some posters that if they object to your opinion it has to be a Daily Mail way of thinking. In fact,  my views are average in my profession.   And, the DM  is one of the largest selling daily newspapers in the  UK.     But not read by me - neither do I work for them!

I can only assume that you approve of the UK government spending billions on weekly pocket money for teenagers as a bribe to keep them at school or college ? 

And this is a government that cannot provide equipment to keep its soldiers alive,  and at present has the largest deficit since records began.

Tegwini

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[quote user="cooperlola"]do the parents on here really believe it's a sign of their having been a good parent that they hit their kids?[/quote]

Conversely of course you must also ask "do the parents on here really

believe it's a sign of their having failed as parents if they did?"

I fear though Coops that your question is far too simplistic for a yes/no answer. What is a good parent is about as broad a topic as what is a good driver and I know you can relate very closely to that [:D]

I will admit that corporal punishment could be viewed as a failure on the parents part to elicit or ensure acceptable behaviour by other means but once in a while there may simply be no substitute for a slap on the leg but although it may sometimes be necessary it's not something any

parent is ever proud of administering.

To be clear, I do not endorse any form of beating, thumping, or thrashing, in the literal sense.

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Cooperl wrote; [quote]As a thumpee myself, unlike ANO, I don't believe it did me any good at all.  It's only achievement was to rob the thumper of all and any respect I might otherwise have afforded them.  [/quote]

Absolutely!  I remember the first time my mother hit me.  I was about twoish.  I had found a small piece of tinfoil, made a little stick with it and pushed it into an electric socket.  I received a fair old jolt.  My mother's reaction was to hit me quite hard across the legs.  I remember feeling totally mystified by this and really betrayed.  I looked at her with new eyes, realised that she was actually rather illogical - not the goddess of wisdom I had hither-to believed her to be.  My trust in her diminished.  After that, they both seemed to consider that I was ready for beating.  Everytime it happened, I felt more and more seperated from them and I despised their lack of self control and reason.  I never cried though.  My younger brother, who was probably beaten more, ended up a rather violent person with a real temper.  As I see it, the only people who appeared to benefit from this behaviour were the parents - who, presumeably, got some sort of short-term emotional release from it.

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I guess what I mean, ANO, is that surely if you have to resort to hitting a kid then for some reason other attemts at discipline have failed, and that cannot make a parent feel pleased with their skills, can it?  If I felt I had to hit somebody smaller and weaker than myself to get a point across, then I hope I'd feel shame above any other emotion - but clearly that is not what those who resort continually to corporal punishment do feel.  Of course, losing your temper and giving a kid a slap is - I suppose - bound to happen on occasion, but it still doesn't make it right.  Personally, I hate violence of any kind but particularly against the vulnerable who cannot hit back.

Bue, I had one parent who continually whacked me and another who never did.  I don't suppose you can guess which one earned my love, respect and trust and which one I detest and have absolutely zero respect for, can you?[Www]

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I remember the first time my mother hit me.  I was about twoish.  I had found a small piece of tinfoil, made a little stick with it and pushed it into an electric socket.  I received a fair old jolt.  My mother's reaction was to hit me quite hard across the legs. 

I think that's a pretty poor example, lots of people would lash out in that potentially dangerous situation, and in a large part it's relief - combined with wanting the child to learn never to do it again.

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I quite understand that RH.  My point was that, understandable or not, her behaviour did not teach me anything.  I learned not to push metal objects into electrical sockets by receiving a shock.  I could have learned it by having the dangers of electricity explained to me.  All I learned from her behaviour was that she could behave in an irrational and aggressive way.  The example it presented was that violent, irrational behaviour is acceptable. 

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buelligan - our oldest son did a similar thing - he straightened out a coiled spring from a little notebook and pushed the end of the wire onto the element of an electric fire.

I think he fused the fire, but I can't remember what I did apart from screaming at him[:@]

Our chidren were quite well behaved, apart from things like that, though we did smack from time to time.

Someone quoted "Spare the rod and spoil the child", but actually the translation is a bit different:

"He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him alertly."  From Proverbs of Solomon, ch.13 v. 24.

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I was walloped a few times but very rarely compared to the times a warning of it was used to correct my wayward behaviour.

With a problem or rebellious child (I was both ) IMHO, once in a while one has to show that the threat is not hollow after all how can a young child understand the nature of the threat if he hasnt ever experienced the consequences?

My father and all his siblings were violently abused by the father who went on to murder his mother at the age of 34, she was weak through starvation (all the wages spent on drink) and died after one of the nightly drunken beatings.

The eldest childrens role was to take it in turns to stay awake, listen out  for the father returning from the miners social club and evacuate all the other children (there were 8 in all of which 5 survived childhood) leaving the mother to bear the vrunt of his anger.

I share this to show that the cycle can be broken, my father was a very peacefull man and I know that it must have hurt him far more than he hurt me.

I can only remember being slapped once, I was probably about 8 and I kicked my father in the shin in my temper (he had varicous veins) I also remember gobbing off at him when I was a strapping teen, he was remonstrating with me once more for throwing my school blazer on the hook instead of using the loop to protect it (I have seen photos of my father dressed in coal sacks) I was far too old then to warn of a slap and I was directly challenging his authority so he pushed me to the floor, it was the cupboard under the stairs so I was trapped and couldnt retaliate and then proceeded to give me what I thought at the time was a good kicking. I never challenged him again.

In hindsight and having been on the receiving end of a real kicking he did no more than make a show of swinging his foot and prodding me with his toe but it certainly got the message across.

I am surprised Buelligan that you can remember being slapped at the age of two, as I said my first and only memory was at the age of eight (and my father had to tell me in later years what it was for) although I am told it happened on a couple of occasions before then but clearly didnt traumatise me.

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I rarely respond on this forum but I do enjoy reading the various debates that go on here. However, I feel that I need to respond to this particular thread.

I myself am a parent and I do not smack my children, however, I do ensure that they know the consequences of their actions and they do not get away with bad behaviour. There are other ways to deal with kids apart from smacking. However, I work in a primary school as a teaching assistant and can not begin to describe the kind of behaviour I have been exposed to by naughty undisciplined children. Swearing, fighting, stealing from other children and teachers, threatening behaviour towards teaching staff and other children is just a small example. This kind of thing goes on every day. The school is not a big school its quite small just 60 odd kids ages 5- 9.. Sometimes I leave at the end of the day and feel completely demoralised/upset at how most of these young children behave, howver, it is not them really that I blame - the blame has to lie with the parents not bringing them up properly, setting them the right examples, teaching them good morales etc.

We do have some kids which try their best to behave really well and work hard - its them that I feel really sorry for - most time and attention is given to the kids that play up and cause most havoc.

I am not saying smacking is good discipline. I would not resort to this myself - however, it is a shame that most parents I see do not seem to even care how their children behave or how they are bringing them up.

Please don't get me wrong - I am sure that there are perfectly good parents out there who do a fine job. Parenting isnt easy for anyone. I am just venting off about some of the things I see and that is just in one small village school.
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[quote user="buelligan"]

I quite understand that RH.  My point was that, understandable or not, her behaviour did not teach me anything.  I learned not to push metal objects into electrical sockets by receiving a shock.  I could have learned it by having the dangers of electricity explained to me.  All I learned from her behaviour was that she could behave in an irrational and aggressive way.  The example it presented was that violent, irrational behaviour is acceptable. 

[/quote]

I really do praise your memory Buelligan - genuinely, I certainly can't remember being two or three years old. I certainly can't imagine being such a child prodigy that I would have understood the dangers of electricity had it been explained to me at that age, even simplified. 

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