RoR: Forum

I don't understand option # 2. I don't understand the phrase "Adult in charge & judge" and I don't understanding the term "caning".

I was hit when I was a kid and I turned out really well, with near-impervious self-esteem and whatnot, but I won't answer this poll until I understand all the options.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/21, 3:22pm)

Post 1

Friday, January 21, 2011 - 3:45pm

"Caning" is hitting your kid with a stick.

I was spanked (caned, actually, with a yard stick), but seriously doubt it had any kind of positive effect on me, other than installing a fear of getting spanked. I had no idea what might or might not bring on a spanking, because I was a little, inexperienced kid! I don't blame my mother, who did all of the spanking. She reasoned the same way Ed does. Hey, she came out okay!

Too many parents are just like her: they expect their child to know exactly what is right or wrong intrinsically. When they make a mistake, suddenly its the child's a moral failing, not the parents'. Wrong. Wrong wrong WRONG!

I swatted my kids on rare occasion (never spanked them, though). I hated it, and immediately regretted it. I just don't think its necessary at all. Children actually want to be good, they just don't know how (or why), and spanking isn't the right way to learn.

Post 2

Friday, January 21, 2011 - 5:07pm

Tres,

I spoke with a mother and she informed me that some kinds of kids (introverted), won't be effectively punished with restraint (time-outs, grounding them, etc.). Alternatively, extroverted kids might feel more punishment from being grounded than from being spanked. They may even choose to be spanked over being grounded. Also, as kids age and grow up, spanking becomes less effective and therefore, more immoral (no matter what kind of kid you have).

This leaves a conundrum for the introverted adolescent (too introverted to feel punishment from being grounded, too big to be punished by getting spanked). The mother said, at that point, you should consider 'slave labor': "Take this shovel and move that large pile of dirt from one side of the yard to the other. When you are done, shovel the dirt back to where you found it."

Ed

Post 3

Friday, January 21, 2011 - 5:52pm

I really have a problem with it. The idea that hitting your kid as the only alternative seems so false.

As for slave labor, I don't really have a problem with that. I think its kinda funny, and creative, as well as harmless. I talked to a lady who would punish her adolescent boy by making him study several words in the dictionary, then write whole paragraphs or stories about them. I thought that was very clever.

My younger sister was a "screamer." If things didn't go her way, she'd scream. Top of her lungs scream. My mom was at her wits end, and honestly worried she'd put her three year old in the hospital if she didn't find a way to end the screaming fits.

A family friend suggested splashing my sister in the face with cold water when she started screaming. It worked and Rachel never had another screaming incident. I've even suggested this to other young mothers with little "screamers."

I didn't have to spank my kids. They were all great for me and never a problem. However, that is NOT how their step mother saw them. Especially my oldest daughter. I'll never forgive her, or my ex for allowing it.

I see resorting to black and blue violence with a quiet, sweet 6 year old to be the height of intellectual depravity. I should have called the police, and I kick my self in the ass every time I think about it for not doing just that, despite being threatened if I did.

At what point is a spanking morally okay? Is bruising a child perfectly fine? I'm not sure it ever is, even for a so called "introverted" child.

I really hate this whole subject.

Post 4

Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 4:18am

I agree with Teresa and selected:

"No violence beyond restrainment" (should be "restraint").

However, Ed has a point about introverted kids. I remember my "punishment" in second grade for not completing my spelling homework was to "miss" recess. I had to stay inside in the nice, cool, air conditioned classroom completing the assignment while my annoying classmates got to "enjoy" sweating in the hot sun playing under the "supervision" of the fat, obnoxious physical education coach.

Oh, the horror! The pain! The agony of self-sacrifice!

NOT!

On a broader note, there is the entire issue of what moral code is actually enforced. Even a valid enforcement lacks moral weight when enforcing an immoral code. For example, forcing helpless children to listen to a professional bullshit artist's sales pitch (i.e. a preacher's sermon about the sin and danger of self-love) lacks moral weight.

One option I did not see here explicitly involves compelled apologies to the parties the child's actions harmed. This differs in substance from "slave labor" though it does involve retaliatory physical force and is in that sense "corporal." Since wrongness in action stems from wrongness in spirit, it makes sense to "retaliate" at the root by compelling potentially painful spiritual lessons. Forcing a child to swallow the bitter, prickly pill of his own false pride and apologize to the harmed party might have more long range corrective effect than a whacking to the bottom. Some form of financial restitution such as mowing the harmed party's lawn for a year might be needed as well if the harming action involved property damage.

Since I have no children I cannot comment further.

Who posted this poll?

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/22, 4:48am)

Post 5

Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 12:56pm

I posted the poll. I didn't mean for the corporal punishment to be exclusively for children.

Post 6

Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 1:25pm

Thank you for the clarification, Dean.

Assuming the crimes were objectively valid, e.g. assaulting an innocent as opposed to smoking a joint, corporal punishment might prove an appropriate retaliation. As with children, though, I think a forced public apology accompanied by forced restitution makes more sense. While I oppose laws against prostitution, I still like the idea behind the sentence of embarrassing convicted "johns" by forcing them to stand on street corners wearing signs that say, "I solicited a prostitute here."

This poll begs larger questions about how properly to retaliate against initiators of physical force or fraud. Should the goal be solely victim restitution? Should it be solely retribution? Should it encompass both?

I am not convinced that a physical beating accomplishes anything productive at any age. On the other hand, I do not claim to know everything. Hence, I am not ready to jump on the "outlaw spanking" bandwagon. Nor am I ready to rule out the possibility of adult corporal punishment as an option a convict can choose in place of jail time. These statements merely repeat statements I have made in years past here.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/22, 1:27pm)

Post 7

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - 5:33am

Dean:

I posted the poll. I didn't mean for the corporal punishment to be exclusively for children.

Then, IMO, the list should be extended with examples of truly harsh punishments, like, being forced to listen to Rachel Maddow snark for 30 seconds.

Post 8

Friday, January 28, 2011 - 5:11am

I think four consecutive hours of "The View" would constitute "cruel and unusual punishment"!

Post 9

Friday, January 28, 2011 - 1:52pm

with toothpicks holding the eyelids apart, maybe...;-)

Post 10

Friday, January 28, 2011 - 2:38pm

LOL! Robert! "A Clockwork Orange"!

"Burp! This is sick! SICK! Burp!"

Except, of course, that our convict will need no special serum to induce the "gag" response!

Post 11

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 11:37am

The Worst of All Bad Habits:

Schoolchildrens' "spanking" related injuries (WARNING - These images may be deeply disturbing to some viewers. Do not open this page if children are present).
http://www.nospank.net/injuredkids.pdf

Reasonable and moderate? You decide.
(WARNING - This sound recording may be deeply disturbing to some listeners. Do not open this file if children are within listening range).
http://nospank.net/prj-006.wav

Recommended by professionals:

Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak
http://www.nospank.net/pt2010.pdf

The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson
http://nospank.net/sdsc2.pdf

NO VITAL ORGANS THERE, So They Say
by Lesli Taylor MD and Adah Maurer PhD
http://nospank.net/taylor.htm

Most current research:

Spanking Kids Increases Risk of Sexual Problems
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2008/feb/lw28spanking.cfm

Use of Spanking for 3-Year-Old Children and Associated Intimate Partner Aggression or Violence
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/3/415

Spanking Can Make Children More Aggressive Later
http://tulane.edu/news/releases/pr_03122010.cfm

Spanking Children Can Lower IQ
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2009/sept/lw25straus.cfm

Just a handful of those helping to raise awareness of why child "spanking" isn't a good idea:

American Academy of Pediatrics,
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,
American Psychological Association,
Center For Effective Discipline,
Churches' Network For Non-Violence,
United Methodist Church
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Parenting In Jesus' Footsteps,
Global Initiative To End All Corporal Punishment of Children,
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

In 31 nations, child corporal punishment is prohibited by law (with more in process). In fact, the US was the only UN member that did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US also has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The US states with the highest crime rates and the poorest academic performance are also the ones with the highest rates of child corporal punishment.

There is simply no evidence to suggest that child bottom-battering instills virtue.

Post 12

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 2:00pm

Marge Mead wrote:

In 31 nations, child corporal punishment is prohibited by law (with more in process). In fact, the US was the only UN member that did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The US also has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Welcome to RoR!

I agree with Marge's open hostility to spanking. I have little doubt that better ways exist to instill virtue and convey life lessons. But this particular paragraph suffers from several fallacies. I read the Wikipedia article about the cited Convention. Oddly, the United States played a key role in the authoring of the document but failed to ratify it. The listed objections to ratification sounded quite well-reasoned, especially as it relates to government meddling in homeschooling, erosion of national sovereignty, etc. This is a form of the "package deal" fallacy, demanding that the United States accept the whole package for the benefit of some parts while paying a higher cost for the detriments of other parts.

In addition, the "X is the only entity not to do Y like so many others" structure amounts to the "bandwagon" fallacy, the argument that one should do something simply because so many others do it.

Finally, it suffers from a "false cause" fallacy when it implies that the presence of spanking "causes" later high rates of incarceration.

I do not know anything about Marge's philosophy or whether she even subscribes to Objectivism. Perhaps she just joined because this is a hot button for her. I look forward to learning more about her.

Read this link to learn more about logical fallacies.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/29, 2:57pm)

Post 13

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 2:51pm

Anyone ever read Peter Breggin's Psychology of Freedom book? - covers this and other matters of rights and restraints...

Post 14

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 3:50pm

While I am with this Mead person, her post has an air of hinkiosity about it that leads me to suspect she is about as real as Betty Crocker. A quick Googling turns up only one confirmed sighting, some letters to the editor that are similar, verbatim, to the one here. nospank.net shows no sign of her presence (unless she is the famous, long-discredited and longer-deceased anthropologist), and some of the politically-tinged claims toward the end of her post are questionable.

Post 15

Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 3:06pm

Marge Mead - as in Margaret Mead, 20th century gulled anthropologist...

Post 16

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 1:27am

Once when my daughter displayed her rage and disappointment in a screaming fit I simply mimicked her until she ended up giggling. Fortunately we were not in public. probably only works until the kids are around five or so it depends when they start school. Also when my kids were going through a biting stage, they got nipped back. Cause and effect or focus on consequences.
However in this day and age, and what can be interpreted as abuse and violence, the burden of proof in the self control department is still demanded of the parents. Should parents carry an I.D. card of their children for both parties protection should to much attention be drawn to a public contest of wills.
How does one deal with truancy without being the subject of the peoples corporal punishment. Say a single parent has to work and said child ducks out on school. Well Napoleon had a clause in his civil code he would've let the kids parents toss said child in the truant hall for some good old fashion readin, rightin and rithmitic. Thirty days of hard reading kiddo , whats bothering you, so to speak. Wait let me guess is it peer pressure or relative egalitarianism. The day to day dealing with people trying to sell you the rope they will hang you with. Guess what kid. Take a real close look at the world you know what, the World does not have problems , people have problems. some good and some bad.

Post 17

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 1:41am

Sometimes, with some kids, there is no better way of concentrating their attention and ending misbehavior than a quick swat on the okole.

After a few times of that, simply doing the countdown ("3 ... 2 ... 1 * kid runs off and does chores before gets to 0 *) works.

It's been years since I even had to do the countdown with my kids. They all know that I when I say to do something, like do their turn cleaning up the kitchen, that backtalk is counterproductive. If they want to try a reasonable discussion, then maybe I'll listen to their POV, but then if I insist nonetheless, they go take care of bidness.

Hurray if you can get well-behaved kids with just timeouts or shaming or whatnot, but that sure as hell didn't work with mine.

Post 18

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 5:48am

Perhaps Jim can share with us a further elucidation of his views of the proper relationship between parent and child with respect to involuntary servitude.

I find something ironic about an anarchist who openly opposes external authority inflicting involuntary servitude upon defenseless people doing the same to his own flesh and blood.

I make no claim to have better solutions but I did giggle when I read his post for the reason I just gave.

Post 19

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 1:00pm