The Slapping Debate.

Heinrich

There are many ways to discipline a child. It all depends on the child and why he/she needs to be disciplined. That is experience which one learns in a real world. Talk is cheap and opinions even cheaper.

mysterious

Heinrich wrote:

. Talk is cheap and opinions even cheaper.

What are you saying here really, this is a mixed signal? :rolleyes:

secret_squirrel

mysterious wrote:

] Father hits child regularly, not the occasional slap on the bottom (me arse, most will understand the real physical punishment) that child will then grow up and beat his wife... Father who is an alcoholic and hits his wife will affect the kids... The kids will grow up and take it out on their own or lash out on others.

Massive over simplification. Change all the will's to might and we 'might' be able to agree with each other.

TempestSabre wrote:

Well I agree with you there. All studies show that once the threat is removed the behaviour continues.

Links to these studies please?

luckat wrote:

Bringing a little science into the discussion, studies have shown that slapping actually *doesn't* work.

Again links please.

If all these advocates of not slapping would like to provide links it might go some way to convincing the sceptics (like me) that it should be banned, since I think its pretty obvious mere rhetoric isnt going to sway people either way. As a defender of the status quo its up to ye lot to prove that your's ideas are better/safer for our kids than mine which have worked by and large for 1000's of years.

TempestSabre

I was half reading a bunch of books on parenting/kids discipline my wife bought. Which ones I dunno. I'd have to trawl through them all again. I would add to that my experience is that it doesn't work in the long term. Mind you it depends entirely on a whole range of other variables not least the childs character, the eviroment and the parents themselves.

BTW not for the first time in this thread the quote tags are screwed. Looks like I said something that mysterious actually said.

Nevyn

I have fixed the quations tags in the posts.
Please keep the dicussion civil and personal attack and insults will not be tolerated.

Thaedydal

RainyDay

TempestSabre wrote:

Slapping does work for adults its just not allowed anymore. In a hypothetical scenero. If I hit you with a baton everytime you broke the speed limit you'd stop doing it. They used to use a whip for lashing in the past. Cat o Nine tails?

I'n not saying it was right, or that it doesn't have its problems but it does work. Its a threat of punishment, that stops us doing things.

You'll need to do a bit better than just saying 'it does work' - Please show one example of where corporal punishment worked with adults? I'm old enough to remember when the birch was in use for corporal punishment in the Isle of Man - but it didn't work. Recidivist rates were the same as anywhere else in Ireland & the UK. Following your logic, there would be no murders in the US as the threat of capital punishment would have solved that problem. It hasn't.

So please do show one example of where slapping or similar physican violence worked with adults, or even with kids.

secret_squirrel wrote:

If all these advocates of not slapping would like to provide links it might go some way to convincing the sceptics (like me) that it should be banned, since I think its pretty obvious mere rhetoric isnt going to sway people either way. As a defender of the status quo its up to ye lot to prove that your's ideas are better/safer for our kids than mine which have worked by and large for 1000's of years.

Perhaps you'd like to lead by example and show some decent evidence to show that slapping does work. Your claim of the 'status quo' doesn't stand up. Every child psychologist that I've seen or read in the past 20 years recommends no physical violence. But given you enthusiasm for links and evidence, I'm sure you'll have no difficulty coming up with some support.

TempestSabre

RainyDay wrote:

....Following your logic, there would be no murders in the US as the threat of capital punishment would have solved that problem. It hasn't. ...

Thats not my logic. I've already said the threat doesn't work in the long term. But you get an immediate response. So by MY logic if you are subject to capital punishment you tend to get and immediate effect.

RainyDay wrote:

So please do show one example of where slapping or similar physican violence worked with adults, or even with kids......show some decent evidence to show that slapping does work. ....

http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/debate.html

...There have been 13 published studies and 3 unpublished studies capable of isolating the effects of parental spanking on child outcomes. Most of them (12 of 16) have found beneficial child outcomes of spanking under some important circumstances....

In contrast, 4 of the 16 causally conclusive studies found only detrimental child outcomes of nonabusive spanking. The detrimental outcomes occurred almost entirely for children over 6 years old. The detrimental outcomes tend to be small, and do not apply to subgroups that view spanking as more appropriate and loving

In conclusion, the current scientific evidence suggests that some kind of balanced middle position on spanking is preferable to either of the polarized extremes. Parents should resort to the mildest disciplinary tactic they think will be effective, and be open to mutually acceptable compromises negotiated by their children. But they should back up reasoning and time out when necessary, whether with a nonabusive spanking (appropriate only near the ages of 2 to 6) or some alternative (e.g., grounding). Parenting experts need to expand effective nonabusive disciplinary options for parents, not prematurely restrict them.

http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/Larzelere02.html
http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/

IMO its hard to get unbiased clinical information or stats. That is clear from those links.

RainyDay

Doh - I was really kind-of hoping that you just wouldn't bother doing the research! I really just don't have time to do extensive digging on this. But some quick googling turns up the following;

From http://www.rollercoaster.ie/research/Jun02_2.asp

The boys who reported harsh parental practices such as physical punishments, verbal abuse etc were more likely to be violent in dating relationships. In these families the boys learn ways of behaving aggressively and learn that violence is effective so they use it in their relationships.

http://www.rollercoaster.ie/survey/discipline_results.asp

Of those parents who slap sometimes, almost half of them (48%) believe it doesn't work. This group is also the least happy about the discipline methods they use.

These results indicate that while many parents do use slapping as a method of discipline, it is not their preferred option and many of them are not happy using it, preferring to use alternatives but are not always aware of other methods.

In general parents believe that slapping does not work.

70 % of those parents surveyed do not believe that slapping works. Given that this is the case, it is sad to see that - even though they don't believe it works - many parents continue to slap their children.

I'd really love to spend more time digging into this, but I just don't have the time. Violence breeds violence.....

luckat

Wiki:

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

Saruman

I was spanked as a kid.. lord knows i deserved it Anyway im the least violent person on the planet
Seriously.. never hit anyone apart from some shoving etc when i was a teen. Would never even consider hitting my wife. Corporal punishment is needed with a lot of kids (not all im sure) and as long as it does not go too far then its fine.

So i think it should be allowed. Slapping at least.. not beating.

luckat

Here's a fairly large cross-cultural American study:

http://www.kaimh.org/corporal.htm

I'd be very sad for someone who approached the rearing of a child with the intention to smack the child.

The most interesting behavioural studies for me at the moment come from dog training. There was, for many years, a great deal of debate about which worked better with dogs: punitive training or training by reward.

Most trainers plumped for something in the middle - punishing dogs *and* rewarding them.

Studies using movies to track how well each training method worked found that punishment actually decreased the effectiveness of positive reinforcement - a scared dog had too much ambient noise going on, it seemed, to respond to the signals of the trainer.

The current thinking in dog training is that you can train a dog fastest, most effectively and most permanently by using *only* positive reinforcement.

If this works for dogs, surely it extends to children, too?

TempestSabre

RainyDay wrote:

Doh - I was really kind-of hoping that you just wouldn't bother doing the research! I really just don't have time to do extensive digging on this. But some quick googling turns up the following;

From http://www.rollercoaster.ie/research/Jun02_2.asp
http://www.rollercoaster.ie/survey/discipline_results.asp

I'd really love to spend more time digging into this, but I just don't have the time. Violence breeds violence.....

Thats a survey of parent action/opinion, not statistics of the success or failure rates of the discipline. :rolleyes: To be honest if you can't be bothered to respond to the stats that you requested your sound bites are meaningless.

TempestSabre

luckat wrote:

Wiki:

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

Are their any stats in that at all?

TempestSabre

luckat wrote:

Here's a fairly large cross-cultural American study:

http://www.kaimh.org/corporal.htm....

Theres little of no stats in that either. It makes no real distinction between spanking or beating, and it has no information on how successful spanking or the alternative are in achieving the discipline. Its also covers a lot of 2nd and 3rd world countries which is hardly comparable with a modern society is it? To be honest that article only covers the negatives of corporal punishment and nothing else.

It does mention the Swedish report I linked to earlier...

luckat wrote:

The case of Sweden is of much interest: there is controversy about whether the banning of corporal punishment in 1979 has produced positive results. A careful examination of the evidence (72, 73, 74) of the effects decades later shows that there has been a decrease in the prevalence of child abuse, and of child deaths due to abuse.

Thats an odd result.

I found it hard to find proper stats on any of this myself. Most research seems to be very biased and most stats of surveys of people opinion. Theres little or no clinic or scientific tests at all.

The Swedish reports are very careful to included the wider context in which the different forms of punishment are used and specifically talks about light spanking as opposed to beating or abuse.

TempestSabre

luckat wrote:

...

I'd be very sad for someone who approached the rearing of a child with the intention to smack the child.

The most interesting behavioural studies for me at the moment come from dog training. There was, for many years, a great deal of debate about which worked better with dogs: punitive training or training by reward.

...

If this works for dogs, surely it extends to children, too?

From my own experience I'd say most kids are much more intelligent than dogs by the age of about a year. So I don't think its the same. Its an interesting comparision alright, but its not the same thing IMO.

I don't think anyone approaches discipline with any intentions to smack a child. I just think some people run out of ideas and options and fall back on something that has an immediate effect. Not really thinking of any long term strategies. Also you have no idea what your kid will be like. They might be easy going, easy to discipline, or they might be as stubborn and grumpy as their parents! Basically a nightmare. Its in their nature. Some will simply take a lot more work than others. Its a bit of a lottery.

luckat

Of course children are different from dogs. But *training* is much the same from species to species - even non-mammals. It's fashionable in training circles at the moment to train fish, which offer the same results.

It's certainly true that parents run out of ideas. Part of this is the endless running-on of the debate about whether corporal punishment "works" or is a good idea.

If we were to simply abandon the idea of slapping, smacking or spanking children, and concentrate really hard on a creative approach to childrearing, perhaps those ideas would be available to us?

For instance, the business of slapping a child to keep it away from something dangerous. I was myself smacked to keep me away from the stove. I did stay away from it when my smackers were in sight - which didn't stop me getting a severe scald when they weren't there.

(I also got a long-lasting series of smacks as a small child because I was brought up by two separate people, like many kids. One didn't know that I'd mixed up nodding for yes and shaking my head for no. So the conversation went like this: "Are you going to be good now?" (tearful shake of head) *smack*. "Are you going to be good now? (sobbing shake of head) *SMACK* ... and so on.)

I think keeping a child away from something dangerous is better done by close and loving attention to the child. A child isn't going to want to rush across the road or stick its hand into the fire unless (a) those actions win it lots of attention, or (b) there's nothing more interesting to do. It's a matter of using intelligence and creativity.

Which brings us to one statistic that's common enough - smacking is generally the choice among lower income groups and less common among higher income groups. Perhaps it's a good predictor of the child's future success?

TempestSabre

luckat wrote:

Of course children are different from dogs. But *training* is much the same from species to species - even non-mammals. It's fashionable in training circles at the moment to train fish, which offer the same results.

Any links to this? Can't imagine you can teach a fish to read.

luckat wrote:

If we were to simply abandon the idea of slapping, smacking or spanking children, and concentrate really hard on a creative approach to childrearing, perhaps those ideas would be available to us?

You mean like Sweden? Or do you have some other stats? Theres no data to back up your theory.

luckat wrote:

For instance, the business of slapping a child to keep it away from something dangerous. I was myself smacked to keep me away from the stove. I did stay away from it when my smackers were in sight - which didn't stop me getting a severe scald when they weren't there.

Who said that it works in the long term?

If you minders were in the habit of leaving you around hot stuff on a stove I'd question their sanity?

luckat wrote:

(I also got a long-lasting series of smacks as a small child because I was brought up by two separate people, like many kids. One didn't know that I'd mixed up nodding for yes and shaking my head for no. So the conversation went like this: "Are you going to be good now?" (tearful shake of head) *smack*. "Are you going to be good now? (sobbing shake of head) *SMACK* ... and so on.)

I think I'll stick with the sanity quesiton above...

luckat wrote:

I think keeping a child away from something dangerous is better done by close and loving attention to the child. A child isn't going to want to rush across the road or stick its hand into the fire unless (a) those actions win it lots of attention, or (b) there's nothing more interesting to do. It's a matter of using intelligence and creativity.

What? I take it you've no kids. Sometimes they do illogical things, or just because they can. Like stick something sharp in their ear or stick a nut up their nose. If you are crossing busy road with a small child and they are trying to get away, its going to be very hard to have debate with why they shouldn't sprint across a road. Teaching a child take weeks and months of re-enforcing the same idea over and over and over and over and over and over.

luckat wrote:

Which brings us to one statistic that's common enough - smacking is generally the choice among lower income groups and less common among higher income groups. Perhaps it's a good predictor of the child's future success?

Depends. Have you any stats on how successful slapping or alternatives are as a form of discipline across any social or income group. Or is this just your theory?

secret_squirrel

RainyDay wrote:

Violence breeds violence.....

Again links please. As TempestSabre is the only one to have provided links that include both stats and a relevant distinction between slapping and physical punishments that tend toward abuse, its up to you and the other anti-slappers to provide similar links to back up your position.

(Thanks for doing all the work Temp 'pologies for the misquote earlier)

One thought though, does being pro slapping make me a slapper?

TempestSabre

A Tart maybe...:o

Ickle Magoo

There seems to be a lot of folks posting from a rather idiological viewpoint rather than speaking from any kind of experience...which is a slightly strange place to be preaching from, I think.....

To me, smacking children is something akin to speeding....we all know we shouldn't speed, it's not big & it's not clever, it puts others in danger, etc, etc but I'd say 99.99% of drivers would still admit to having driven over the speed limit at some stage.....the majority of which are still good, safe drivers who sped due to unusual, extenuous circumstances at that time....

I don't like the thought of smacking my kids, I don't think it is the best solution - it is not the ideal form of punishment or retribution but as a parent all you can do is strive for the ideal....if you manage to get through life without ever doing any of the things that you vowed to do or not to do when you become parent, then good luck to you!!

secret_squirrel

Ickle Magoo wrote:

There seems to be a lot of folks posting from a rather idiological viewpoint rather than speaking from any kind of experience...which is a slightly strange place to be preaching from, I think.....

To me, smacking children is something akin to speeding....we all know we shouldn't speed, it's not big & it's not clever, it puts others in danger, etc, etc but I'd say 99.99% of drivers would still admit to having driven over the speed limit at some stage.....the majority of which are still good, safe drivers who sped due to unusual, extenuous circumstances at that time....

I don't like the thought of smacking my kids, I don't think it is the best solution - it is not the ideal form of punishment or retribution but as a parent all you can do is strive for the ideal....if you manage to get through life without ever doing any of the things that you vowed to do or not to do when you become parent, then good luck to you!!

Very good, balanced post. I would admit Im argueing from a purely theoretical stance, as I dont have any kids, but Im fairly sure having them wouldnt change my viewpoint. I reserve the right to change my mind though.
Would it surprise you to learn that I consider the anti-speeding, along with anti-slapping gang a rather overzealous bunch
.

luckat

The study I posted was of course the *abstract* - the full study would naturally have all the statistics.

Training fish and birds - as far as I know, these are not fluent readers, but:

http://homepage.mac.com/simon201/Sites/Einstein.mp4
http://www.fish-school.com/gallery.htm

TempestSabre

Hey thats just like training a child. :rolleyes: :v:

RainyDay

I see little evidence of any enthusiasm for real evidence from the happy-slappers. In fact, the posts over the past couple of days are even more scary, as they seem to conclude 'Yeah - we know slapping is wrong, we just couldn't be arsed doing the right thing for our kids'. The 'kid crossing the road' example is ludicrous - Are you going to stop in the middle of the road to make sure you get your aim and your power just right? Or are you just going to lash out without looking (as you really need to be watching the traffic) and not care about where you hit. If your child is misbehaving while crossing the road, you need to get off that road immediately, and taking time to lash out is just adding to the time you have a misbehaving child on the road.

The 'never did me any harm' or 'my kids turned out fine' arguements are pretty spurious too. Are you really the best person to judge yourself or your own kids? How many parents are convinced that their lickle darlings are just sweet angels, while their neighbours are convinced of the exact opposite?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the obsessive demands for 'links'. Links are links. This isn't a football match where one side is going to win by getting more goals/links. There are some things in the world of ours that aren't on the web, so just perhaps there is evidence that isn't available via links. But if linkies are the only think that you understand, then check out the research published by American Physchological Association at http://www.apa.org/releases/spanking.html

While conducting the meta-analysis, which included 62 years of collected data, Gershoff looked for associations between parental use of corporal punishment and 11 child behaviors and experiences, including several in childhood (immediate compliance, moral internalization, quality of relationship with parent, and physical abuse from that parent), three in both childhood and adulthood (mental health, aggression, and criminal or antisocial behavior) and one in adulthood alone (abuse of own children or spouse).

Gershoff found "strong associations" between corporal punishment and all eleven child behaviors and experiences. Ten of the associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child.

The two largest effect sizes (strongest associations) were immediate compliance by the child and physical abuse of the child by the parent. Gershoff believes that these two strongest associations model the complexity of the debate around corporal punishment.

And this further analysis of Gershoff's research - http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/bul1284590.pdf which concludes;

Psychologists who are concerned with children’s development and promoting effective parenting would be remiss were they to advocate or justify spanking in the face of the evidence summarized by Gershoff (2002). This review reflected the growing body of evidence indicating that corporal punishment does no good and may even cause harm. To what degree it represents a “poisonous pedagogy” (Miller, 1983, p. 9) awaits future research. Although the studies need improvement and the mediational processes need explication, the weight of the available evidence, as well as theory, is clearly on the side of the negative effects of customary corporal punishment. The stakes are high for the welfare of children, of parents, and for societies committed to the ethical treatment of all individuals.

Or from http://www.childrenareunbeatable.org.uk/briefings/CAU_Briefing6.pdf

The UK research commissioned by the Department of Health in the mid-1990s found that children who had been severely punished at some time were much more likely to be frequently aggressive with their siblings. A US study in 1996 reported that even low frequencies of corporal punishment (spanking, slapping, hitting without objects) predicted psychological distress among youth (e.g., sadness, low self-esteem), even when the supportive quality of the parent-child relationship was taken into account. Only recently have researchers begun to ask young children themselves how “smacking” effects them; studies with children as young as five have been carried out throughout the UK and find children reporting great distress and unhappiness.

It is impossible to regard corporal punishment as distinct from physical abuse. Almost all abuse takes place in a context of punishment or discipline. As long ago as 1970, David Gil in the US reported that the most common form of physical abuse is carried out by a caregiver with a disciplinary intent. The recent Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect found that 69 per cent of the substantiated cases of child physical abuse that took place in Canada in 1998 occurred in the context of punishment.

Just over 30,000 children were added to child protection registers in England and Wales during 2002, a fifth of them because of physical abuse; one can be confident that the vast majority of this abuse is in fact corporal punishment. A Social Exclusion Unit report on Young Runaways, issued in November 2002, states: “Research suggests that a substantial minority of runaways are running away from physical abuse. Occasional runaways under the age of 16 were seven times, and repeat runaways were seventeen times, more likely to say they had been ‘hit a lot’ by their parents. Those running away before the age of 11 were generally more likely to have experienced physical abuse in the family.”

Corporal punishment... is a predictor of poorer child mental health, eroded parent-child relationships, weaker internalization of moral standards, increased child aggression, and increased child anti-social behaviour. Corporal punishment was found to be a risk factor for physical harm in all of the 10 studies of this relationship examined in Gershoff’s 2002 meta-analysis. Light corporal punishment can easily escalate into more injurious violence, both within a single incident and over time. In fact, children who are physically punished are many times more likely to experience severe violence than those who are not punished physically. For example, in another large Canadian study, children who experienced minor physical violence (e.g., pinching, shaking, spanking) were seven times more likely to experience severe violence (e.g., punching, kicking, hitting with an object) than those who had not been subjected to minor physical violence.

An American review of physical abuse cases concluded that child abuse most often occurs as “extensions of disciplinary actions which at some point and often inadvertently crossed the ambiguous line between sanctioned corporal punishment to unsanctioned child abuse”. As noted previously, interview studies of the prevalence of corporal punishment in the UK have found up to a fifth of children being hit with implements and more than a third punished “severely” (see page 2). Inquiries into child deaths from parental assault frequently record escalation from smacking. Most recently, as the parliamentary Health Select Committee noted in its 2002 report on the Victoria Climbié tragedy: “What happened to Victoria involved the apparent escalation of discipline and punishment. Carl Manning told the Inquiry that the abuse had begun with little smacks.” Manning’s initial assaults on Victoria too the form of “slapping” for disciplinary purposes, but these slaps then escalated to punches and sadistic beatings with bicycle chains and belts, with him commenting, grotesquely, on her imperviousness: “You could beat her and she would not cry. She could take beatings like anything”. Sandy McClure, self-confessed killer of Nicole Bone, when asked by police if it was acceptable to smack reportedly replied: “It was the way I was brought up and it never did me any harm”. Nicole’s death was brought about by his disciplining the 13 month old child for “refusing” to walk.

Every watch any of the parenting shows, from the tabloid-stuff of Nanny 911 to the serious psychology ones (House of Tine Tearaways, RTE's Families in Trouble). Ever notice how it is not the kids that need 'fixing', it is the parents. A few simple focussed changes to the parenting behaviours have dramatic effects on the behaviour of the children. During the recent discussion of the Tristan Dowse case, I was struck by (no pun intended) the extent to which adaptive parents have to be investigated here in Ireland before proceeding with an adaption. We all know this is not the case to become a natural parent. Anyone can do it. You need a licence for a dog, but not for a child. Parenting is probably the toughest (and most rewarding) aspect of most of our adult lives, but we don't train for it, we don't prepare for it, we don't try and improve how we approach it, and we console ourselves with 'arrah sure I'm not perfect, so I'll still keep hitting that small person'.

I'm sure all of these arguements came out when beating of wives was outlawed in the late 1800's, and beating of servants was outlawed even earlier. Personally, I don't think it's a matter for legislation. Education would be far more effective. This will change, it's just a matter of when, not if.

CerebralCortex

Yeah it seems to me that there is a pattern. Those who condone slapping where slapped themselves. It seems to me that they would like the punishment they experienced to be projected onto kids today like a form of revenge or justice.

I was slapped as a child. It filled me with resentment and hate which I still carry with me today. I in turn resorted to hitting and physically attacking my siblings both of which are girls who where considerably weaker than I. It was the only way I knew how to resolve arguments.

Long story short I am not a stable person to this very day(depression, self-esteem issues, no love type relationships) and I wasn't even abused.

If you are not prepared to raise children without hitting them its simple you shouldn't have kids. I have said this to my mother and she has agreed.
I know I won't have kids it wouldn't be fair on them if one day I had to resort to physical discipline or corporal punishment.

IMHO wether spanking is illegal or not is pointless and the op knows it.
We shouldn't have a law to tell us how to parent but we should have laws that give parents an abundance of resources to raise their kids but sadly this is not the case throughout the world.

glimmerman

good god, its 50% of the people in this thread that have made society the mess it is today.

get a grip. spanking has been around since people gave birth. and its done me and countless other people I know know no harm whatsoever. Discipline in school is severely lacking in europe thanks to bleeding do-gooders and worldchangers. Ever wondered why kids today behave so much more badly in a classroom? I promise you, its not because their parents give them a good spanking now and again. Its because they know their teachers are scared of being accused of physical assault. And like most kids, they take any advantage they can get and run with it.

CerebralCortex

glimmerman wrote:

good god, its 50% of the people in this thread that have made society the mess it is today.

get a grip. spanking has been around since people gave birth. and its done me and countless other people I know know no harm whatsoever. Discipline in school is severely lacking in europe thanks to bleeding do-gooders and worldchangers. Ever wondered why kids today behave so much more badly in a classroom? I promise you, its not because their parents give them a good spanking now and again. Its because they know their teachers are scared of being accused of physical assault. And like most kids, they take any advantage they can get and run with it.

Ya but let kids be kids they didn't choose to be here. You would swear that life is such a beautiful gift but if you look at the world and life it is quite the opposite. It is amazing how people can claim they know what is best for others in life when they don't even know why they are here (ie living) themselves. Spare us the "Ah sure its good enough for them" country, pub dwelling, guiness drinking, mass going, horsesh!t.

Now I am angry. Btw I was slapped as a child.

RainyDay

glimmerman wrote:

good god, its 50% of the people in this thread that have made society the mess it is today.

get a grip. spanking has been around since people gave birth. and its done me and countless other people I know know no harm whatsoever. Discipline in school is severely lacking in europe thanks to bleeding do-gooders and worldchangers. Ever wondered why kids today behave so much more badly in a classroom? I promise you, its not because their parents give them a good spanking now and again. Its because they know their teachers are scared of being accused of physical assault. And like most kids, they take any advantage they can get and run with it.

I spot a case of rose-tinted glasses. When exactly were the good old days that you are hankering for? Do you mean past centuries when kids were sent up chimneys to earn a crust? Or the 1950's when abused pregnant girls were locked up in homes and had their babies taken from? Or the 1970's when our brightest & best had to emigrate to UK or US to get a job? Your implicit conclusion that society today is in a mess warrants more exploration. You can lash out all the 'do-gooder' cliches you like, but that doesn't change anything. You seem to believe that the only way to manage & motivate kids is through fear of violence. Maybe it's not surprising that you feel this way if you were managed with violence, but it really is not the only way. There are other, better options out there...

Ickle Magoo

Personally, I don't have a farm so I don't have the brass neck to go onto an animal husbandry thread & start preaching about the do's & don't and how I would "never ever" do this or that if I ever do have a farm - as far as I am concerned until you have the farm, your views on the subject are a moot point based on ignorance & guess work....when I was 12 I vowed I would never get married to a smelly boy or have those noisy kids...lol....you grow up, you change view point....you apreciate & understand what it is like rather than judging from an imagined perspective....

Those better options you refer to Rainy Day, what do you use with your kids?

RainyDay

Is this the trick question where I'm supposed to say that I don't have kids, and you say 'Ah hah caught!'. Sorry to dissapoint you. But I don't accept your premise at all. There are many animal husbandry experts who've never set foot on the farm. They do their work in the labs. They learnt their trade in the universities. This doesn't mean that they don't have valid views & experiences on animal husbandry. Sometimes the people with no kids may well be able bring an objective, unemotional angle to bear on the subject. Sometimes the experts who have studied the research maybe able to speak at a macro level, whereas a parent drawing from their own personal experience is speaking solely about how their own kids worked out.

I find that positive parenting is extremely effective with my little girl. Catch her doing something right, and praise, praise, praise instead of constantly trying to catch her doing things wrong. Even from a very young age, I found that simple explanations for why she should/should not do things are very helpful too. Where necessary, I've found that a sharp raised voice combined with eye contact gets through to her when something more serious is required.

But I'm not claiming to be a leading expert or the world's best parent. I do know that I'll never hit my daughter - never - just not going to happen.

Now, bring on all the 'oh just wait until she's a teenager' posts from those who will claim to be able to predict the future.