hi all,
hi Ranier,
I thought that australian assault laws...
which I read the fine print of

say that physical and emotional abuse are a criminal offence ?

recently I heard on the bbc radio that in mexico there is a
90 per cent average for the country of domestic violence
and murder

people seem to think that domestic violence is HITTING etc.
which of course it is not that only

the emotional severe abuse that goes with it.... as a social
structure is what does the real damage

it is good to have an against child abuse, and or adult abuse...
media advertisements..... they certainly cause some discussion
and eventually help to change what a society will tolerate

they have started tv adverts in mexico to try and get the message
across

as far as I am concerned, its a crime....simply put
and no pretty words changes that

it amazes me the amount of tolerance for abuse, that I see around me,
banging kids heads together can cause brain damage...etc. and so on

the tv adverts, programs, and latest run of new fat, house, and such
programs to me reeks of abuse..... in its highest forms

I think it is wonderful that you had great parents....
they deserve a gold medal in my opinion ...you will make a great
parent one day

JHH

spendocrat,

the last paragraph above was for your parents...
they deserve a gold medal
you following on will make a GREAT parent
got mixed up there...
was talking to Ranier too

JHH

Country Gal - whatever misbehaviour I engaged in as a teenager had little or nothing to do with the influence of my parents. I probably would have been much worse had I been handed a perceived injustice (such as being hit) to rebel against.

Hello to all,

Show me a child who has been loved and cared for and I'll show you hundreds upon hundreds that have never known this as a standard and normal relationship with an adult.

If laws introduce some overarching rights for children then I would rather have these than none at all.

I admit that there is fine line between assessing parental reprimands using force and what could be seen as child abuse.

But I've witnessed too many children falling prey to this 'parental arguement' than actually benefiting from it.

In a world where work hours are longer and family life is now those few hours in front of the box at night, the 'smack' is being used as a substitute for 'quality time' and 'quality parenting'.

Kids need us to protect them full stop.

My recollections of canings at school are of punishments handed out at the wrong time, there were times I probably deserved it but not the times I got it.

Home was a different matter, physical punishment was more carefully judged, it was fast and did not come with a bunch of emotional loadings. I always new I was loved and what it was about. There may have been better ways that some situations could have been handled and there certainly worse ways things could have been done.

What continues to astound me about this is how much of the debate about discipline of children focuses on physical punishment. BD started a thread some time ago about smacking and generated a torrent of posts, I started one on the idea of a parental toolkit to try and gather ideas for parents for the discipline toolkit and had very little interest.

I see plenty of public comment on smacking, very little on emotional punishments which can also easily become abuse and are much harder to measure.

I see very little comment on the abuse that is failure to discipline. The failure to give a child the security of knowing where the boundaries are.

Parental discipline (and for other people with discipline roles) is a complex make it up as you go task that needs a variety of tools available for different situations, different natured children, different age of the children and the abilities of the parent to manage their own role in discipline.

The debate should be how to best equip parents, teachers and others to make wise and helpful choices as they discipline children (and work with others who need to do so) rather than about opposition to one particular issue.

R0bert

I think it is a very good idea that some of my tax dollars will go towards a $2.5m campaign against corporal punishment.
I just wish they’d even spend more money on this important issue rather than wasting $90 million on chaplains in public schools.

While I haven’t seen any details on what the money is going to be specifically spend on, I am glad that finally the issue is getting some attention.

Like Spendocrat’s parents, my parents have never hit my brothers and me, and I have never once seen violence happen at school (corporal punishment was outlawed in Holland when my mum was at primary school, perhaps in the late 40’s).

I have never resorted to hitting my own children either, I found that unnecessary. My kids have always been extremely well behaved- at school, in our community, and on other peoples’ properties.
When there were sometimes minor problems with their behaviour at home, these problems were taken care off without the use of emotional or physical punishment.

Children need love, patience, attention (lots of it), to be listened to, consistency, and guidance. Above all, they need and deserve to feel respected.

They need to be shown by example, they need to feel safe enough in their own home to allow themselves to make mistakes and learn from them with the parents’ help.
My children had/have no need to lie to me- they knew it was safe to tell the truth about their mistakes. Children need to learn to make the right choices motivated by fully understanding the reasons for these choices, not because they fear they will be clipped around the ear, smacked on the bottom or slapped on their legs.

If parents resort to violent behaviour, then can they expect their children to be patient enough with other people (and animals) if there are conflicts or feelings of powerlessness?
Is it OK for parents to hit their children, but not OK for children to hit animals or other children- children who are different to them, perhaps of the opposite sex or of a different ethnicity?

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