USE OF VIOLENCE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
One of the big difficulties I see with using violence on children is that it teaches them that violence is how you deal with a lack of agreement.

Ironically, when children hit each other, the standard injunction from the parent is that they must ‘find another way to settle the dispute’ – how can we possibly expect our children to find non-violent means of dealing with problems if we ourselves are unable to do so?!

With regard to the ‘it has worked traditionally’ argument I would ask, ‘Has it?’ Look at the adult world that this tradition has produced – look at the way adults deal with conflict: Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Bosnia, Lebanon, etc, etc, etc ad historical infinitum. This has been our tradition – this has been our history – A History of Violence. Has violence worked-well traditionally – has it really?

Studies show that ‘authoritarian’ parenting [smacking, ridicule, ostracism, derision, etc] is better than no parenting at all but just because it is better than no parenting does not mean that it is not still an awful long way from the best parenting we can provide.

I would like to see someone try this in Court, "I didnt beat my wife your honour - I just gave her a good hard smack." I'm sure the Court would agree that this was a reasonable attitude as there is obviously a great deal of difference between smacking and beating.

If you accept that hitting a woman is wrong and you accept that a girl is more vulnerable than a woman and the younger a girl is the more vulnerable she is - it raises an interesting conundrum - when is a girl vulnerable enough to start hitting?

OZ and Rob

the reason I raised the discussion is this:

1/ 90% of Australians believe smacking children to discipline them is ok.
2/ A small group called the 'childrens lobby' seeks to change the law to prevent this.

That is undemocratic no matter HOW you feel about the issue.

ROB.. your wisdom ended when you claimed that smacking children "teaches them that violence is the solution to disagreements"

Do you have children ? That is probably one of the shallowest comments thus far.. in fact it rates as a 'slogan' and ignores the basic psychology of corporal punishment and family life and about 6000 yrs of culture. The result of lax boundary enforcement is a breakdown of respect for teachers at crisis levels. Ask them.

Now.. let me ask you the same question as I asked Pericles. DO you believe in God ? If not, then any evaluation of parenting is morally relative. You cannot point to 'studies' suggesting that smacking is responsible for 'World Violence' .. makes you sound like a beauty queen trying to score points in the absense of something to say with substance.

If you DO Believe in God, why do you go against the Scriptures ?

OZGIRL you are clearly trying deliberately to 'read into' my posts your own biases. You quote me as saying I could have gone further, when in FACT I said there were many occasions before and after where I COULD have smacked her due to the seriousness of the boundary breaking.
This one incident was probably the ONLY smack she had for many years.
But this is NOT about me and my daughter, as much as you may wish it to be so. It is about democracy, lobby groups and culture.

Rob and Oz I suppose you prefer to 'wisely counsel and reason with' a man robbing a bank ? :) give me a break. The boundaries of our WHOLE society are based on.....'violence'. Why do police have service revolvers ?

BOAZ...2 wrongs dont make a right.
The 'law' has to have protection...otherwise they cant do their job effectively..they put themselves IN harms way..

2 wrongs dont make a right.

I don't particularly like the idea of parents smacking their children, but I would not be judgemental about a parent who found himself/herself unable to discipline his/her child by any other means.

If a parent completely loses control of his/her child because he/she is constrained by the law from from being able to smack his/her child, then the child, as well as the parent, will ultimately lose out.

BOAZ:”90% of Australians believe smacking children … is ok…That is undemocratic no matter HOW you feel about the issue.”
By that rationale then – if 90% believed in slavery then that would be ok too.

”ROB.. your wisdom ended when you claimed that smacking children "teaches them that violence is the solution to disagreements"”
I am sorry to hear that the concept of children ‘learning by imitation’ is a bit of a stretch for you. What I actually wrote was that it teaches them that ‘violence is how you deal with a lack of agreement’. It is part of my argument that it is not ‘the solution’. If you cannot even quote something from a few posts ago accurately, what is going on in your head? And there are plenty of studies that show that children that are treated violently tend to treat other children violently.

”Do you have children ?”
I had 2 children a boy and a girl who were both perfectly well behaved – I never had any discipline problems with either of them (they are adults now). There is no reason why people need to have badly behaved children anymore than they need to have badly behaved animals but just as most people cannot teach their dogs to cross the road most people cannot teach their children to behave. It is a question of skills not personal worth of the parents.

“The result of lax boundary enforcement is a breakdown of respect for teachers at crisis levels”
Boundaries for children can be set and maintained more efficiently with non-violent measures than with violent ones.

“The boundaries of our WHOLE society are based on.....'violence'.
That is what I said.