blwpyrtv writes

'In any event, parents who spank should at least warn their kids that there are adults out there who may have bad reasons for wanting to spank them.'

I would be more concerned about parents who dont smack their kids and give them candy all the time. You speak of strawman and then make an idiotic link.

"As for other forms of punishment we probably need another thread." it would be interesting to see if you got much interest. I tried one some time back with very little activity. The smacking thread's tend to get a lot of interest but few seem to want to talk about more day to day way's of dealing with discipline.

One of the issues which severly hinders this debate is that both sides tend to get characterised by the extreme's. Smackers by those who belt the daylight's out of kid's, non smackers by those who don't genuinely try to discipline their children.

R0bert

Yep, you're right, it's a judgment call, Houellebecq.

>>What's to say manipulating children via distraction is any better<<

Not that I consider distraction, bribery, blackmail, "shaming" or exclusion to be the only alternatives to physical punishment. Nevertheless, if it were proven that they were bad for the kid, would you support a campaign to make them illegal?

Of course you wouldn't.

Just because I have never beaten my kids doesn't mean that I would like the government to pass a law against it. There are - clearly, from the responses on this thread - people who find it impossible to discipline their children without resorting to beating them.

At least, I assume that they find it impossible. They don't just beat them because they feel like it. Do they?

On that basis, so long as they don't cross the line into actual bodily harm, which already has applicable laws, then I think the government has no need to interfere.

I still feel sorry for those parents, though. It can't be good feeling so powerless.

Hey R0bert I guess debates usually do the polarizing thing and most topics here are treated like a debate rather than a search for more knowledge or understanding. I quite like it generally but it can be kind of weird when subjects like parenting that can incorporate a nearly limitless number of different styles can be viewed in such a black and white manner.

We’ve had to smack or not to smack or to smack sometimes or how hard to smack or whether it should even be called a smack along with which behaviors should be considered smackable offences. And the most enjoyable are the people who want either non-smackers or smackers smacked. Bunch of fruitloops!

As for other effective means of teaching children, I’m always open to new methods. Recently one very little girl got sent away from the activity she was doing because her young playmate announced “she kicked me in the head!” the little girl objected loudly and quite convincingly that it was not fair and it had not happened and that I didn’t see (which was correct) and on it went. After waiting for her to quit yelling at me I asked what did happen and was told “I kicked him in the face!”

It is so difficult to parent and keep a straight face at times. And tricky when yelling is not okay indoors and certainly not yelling at me but it was being done because she thought I was being unfair and in her mind yes I had punished her for the wrong thing. Then the punishment stands because the rule is no hurting others even if the initial complaint was inaccurate. Now the other side is the one kicked did not want to play alone so he was punished whether he felt punished or not.

Blah! Anyone got a solution for next time? Should I have done that syllable/smack thing?

DoSMACKnotSMACKhurtSMACKothersSMACK. :P

An idiotic link, Runner? Tell it to this family.

Jefferson County, Colorado
Administration and Courts Facility
303-279-6511

For Immediate Release - Apr 4, 2008

Michael David DiPalma appeared today in Jefferson County Court and was sentenced to Intensive Supervision Sex Offender Probation for a period of ten years to life and two years in the county jail. The 33-year-old former day camp teacher pled guilty on January 25 to Sexual Assault of a Child, a class four felony.

Michael DiPalma, who now lives in Centennial, worked at a Lakewood recreation center teaching Elementary Engineering Using Lego and Elementary Robotics Using Lego in July 2006. One of the students, an 8-year-old boy, was singled out by DiPalma. The boy was given a sticky note and told to make a checkmark on it every time he didn’t follow DiPalma’s instructions. The boy was told he would receive a spanking for each check mark. On July 27, 2006, when the other children were on lunch break, DiPalma lured the boy to his car and put him into the back seat. DiPalma then drove to the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex then climbed into the back seat with the boy. He put the boy on his lap, pulled down his pants and spanked him 20 times on his bare buttocks. The spanking left marks and DiPalma told him not to tell or that he would go to the boy’s house and spank him harder. When the boy’s mother picked him up at the end of the day, he told her what had happened. The family reported the incident to the Lakewood Police Department.

DiPalma’s case went trial in September, 2006 but the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

The jury heard evidence that in May 2006 DiPalma had worked for a company called “Computer Tots’, teaching an after-school class at Steck Elementary School in Denver. In that class he asked the second graders to vote on which of them should be spanked. He spanked at least two 7-year-olds before his employment at Steck Elementary was terminated . . .

Don't you want people to love you?
My spanking, that's the only thing I want so much...

Why is that better than being hugged?
Because you get closer to the person...
Closer to the person...

Just like a person having sex feels cared for...
We wanna be loved, so we have sex together...
And they feel loved about that...
And this is the way it makes me feel...loved...
I want it, I dream about it, I think about it, I want it...
Just like a girl wants sex with a boy, you know?
It's the way I'll always be probably...
My last one was born in the system...
See, they're stupid, very stupid, those people over there...
They're stupid...
These people are so below mentality, honest to God, really...
You know what I mean, he got the nerve to bug me...
This mentality, honest to G-d, really...

Everything seems so eight ball...
And I, I don't know if that's my imagination, but, umm...
Hey foxymophandlemama, that's me...
She prides herself on her cleaning habits...
It's a lovely stupid mop, it is...
There's something really screwey about no streaking...
Is it any old dumb mop? It streaks...
Come on mop, no streaking mop...
I don't mind mop the floor, my mop streaks, I don't like it...
It's not me, it's the mop...

In two weeks, before she could see herself not dressed...
The twenty-third of May...you know she disturbed no one today...
The manager told her to completely forget...
If you ever go to bed, I'll kill you...
Do I tell the whole world that I'm mentally ill?
Go to the papers...yeah, why not?

I want to show them that I can walk on my own without hands of theirs...
And, I can still fantasize, but I keep it to myself...

I think I deserve to be loved, don't you?
Very much so...
Do you ever think that you would actually, really kill yourself?
Well, if I have thought about it real, uhh, real deep...
Yeas, I believe I would...