Do you like kids?

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by krisk

I often wonder what would happen if we brought back something like the Stocks and public humiliation and disgrace

That only works if the person is actually humiliated by it. Remember the opening of the Spenser Tracey movie 'NorthWest Passage?' Walter Brennan was in the stocks because of treasonous speech, but his friends were bringing him pitchers of beer! Today's kids would see it as a prize rather than a punishment. Look at the 'gansta clothes' so fashionable today, or the status that young gang members achieve when able to say 'I done time.'

As much as I don't like it, I have to agree with the idea of corporal punishment, but there damn well better be some very rigid standards used for its application. I know that if a teacher ever hit me when I was a high-school student, I would have spent the rest of my teen years devising (and carrying out) ways to repay him. Let the punishment fit the crime. As it was, marbles inside the hubcaps of my French teacher in junior high was all I ever needed to resort to! (Mr. Lederer, if you are reading this... YOU DESERVED IT!)

Stitchawl

[krisk]

how about stocks AND rotting produce?

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by krisk

how about stocks AND rotting produce?

Stocks, rotting produce & substances that will indelibly stain their clothes...

[krisk]

stain in a not cool colour!

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Exactly

[kazbates]

The world has gotten WAY too politically correct.

If a high school (or middle school) teacher chastises a student in class, they run the risk of having the exchange digitally captured and placed on the Internet. The problem is, the events leading up to the video clip are rarely included in the initial showings. People jump to the worst possible conclusion, generally egged on by the people who uploaded the video. The resulting fall out can ruin a person's reputation and destroy their career. Don't get me wrong, sometimes a teacher's behaviour needs to be called to task, but there are official channels for that type of thing.

Stitchawl, there are teachers out there who have/had no business ever being in the classroom. It's a shame how often those are the teachers who stick out in our memories the most.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by kazbates

[snip]

Stitchawl, there are teachers out there who have/had no business ever being in the classroom. It's a shame how often those are the teachers who stick out in our memories the most.

Aww... Mr. Lederer wasn't a 'bad' teacher. In fact, he was probably a pretty good one. Young guy who just 'stepped over the line' and embarrassed me in front of the class instead of chastising me for my incorrect usage of the future tense. Not a wise thing to do to a 13 year old. He never discovered the marbles, and I removed them at the end of the school year and left them on his desk with a note.

But you're correct; there are plenty of teachers who have no business being in the classroom. I was an educator for 30 years myself, for both academic and recreational subjects, and saw plenty of teachers I would have removed had I the power to do so. Education should be as its Latin root implies; a leading out rather than a pounding in! Make learning interesting, challenging, and enjoyable, and people learn. The ancient Hebrews used to draw their letters in honey and let the little children lick them off the plate. (I guess they didn't have Hershey's syrup back in those days.) What a wonderful way to introduce little kids to the joys of learning!

Stitchawl

[Alphapheemail]

I believe this is a perfect example of what Kaz is talking about...



If you cannot correct your child, then who will? A jury?

I feel like a little fear and respect for your parents is super healthy!!

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

How many of us parents will admit that they had children because 'it was expected' that they would, or that they just 'went along with the idea of their spouse?'

Stitchawl

I was determined not to have children, in part because it *was* expected of me. I decided to have kids because I suddenly (within the course of a month) realized I couldn't imagine life without them. No one was more surprised than I was.

I totally agree with what Kaz was saying as well, and alphapheemail has a great point-- if you don't correct your own children, who the heck is going to? I think in our efforts to protect children from actual abuse, we have started crying 'abuse on things that are mere corrections. Yes, some people do abuse their kids, and those people need to be stopped, but we seem to have caught an awful lot of relatively minor corrections in the crossfire.

As a public school educator, you can totally tell which kids rule the roost and which kids have discipline in the house. The kids who understand discipline and have respect are so much easier to teach. Somewhere along the way, for whatever reason (and I could speculate several reasons), parents became unable or unwilling to discipline their kids. And it shows.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Alphapheemail

I believe this is a perfect example of what Kaz is talking about...

If you cannot correct your child, then who will? A jury?

I feel like a little fear and respect for your parents is super healthy!!

Hitting children shouldn't be used as a stress reliever.

Too often parents/teachers mete out punishment based on how they're feeling, imho. If they're happy they find the child's mischievous antics adorable; if they're stressed they lash out. No wonder a lot of kids are confused - rules should be consistent.

("A wife, a dog, a walnut tree,
The more you beat them, the better they be.")

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

("A wife, a dog, a walnut tree,
The more you beat them, the better they be.")

Isn't this where the origins of the phrase 'rule of thumb' lie. I have heard that it was legal to beat your wife so long as the stick you did it with was no thicker than your thumb.

Or is this one of those apocryphal, almost entirely untrue, stories?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Isn't this where the origins of the phrase 'rule of thumb' lie. I have heard that it was legal to beat your wife so long as the stick you did it with was no thicker than your thumb.

Or is this one of those apocryphal, almost entirely untrue, stories?

I'd heard the same - but Wikipedia says it's apocryphal.

[maidavale]

Disclaimer: Never had kids/way too young to have kids.

As far as the punishment discussion goes, I also notice that parents' egos (those of middle-/upper-class) play a big role in contemporary times. While I do understand that (almost) all parents are naturally protective of their children, there are now many parents w/ "oh, my so-precious child would never do that" ethos who would never admit that their children has done wrong.

Personally, I believe people's notions are changing due to the times. It seems like much of the discussion about punishment is U.S.-centric here, where corporal punishment had seen its end a long time ago, but I come from a culture where corporal punishment in school is just starting to be frowned upon. I've seen a lot of Americans complain about students' behaviour in schools, and it's certainly becoming a problem in my home country. As for the times, the conditions are perfect - exposed to the Internet from early ages, parents willing to (unreasonably) yell at teachers about punishment, etc. Like others mentioned, I really believe such punishment is needed during early developmental stages for an individual to be disciplined to a certain extent.

I'm currently in the U.S. (downtown Washington DC), and I hear about how school districts in the area have few field trips b/c of litigation (instigated by the parents) in the past. There is also a big fad here amongst the upper-class parents to have Spanish-speaking nannies, and I wonder how that affects young children, seeing how they spend little time w/ busy parents.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

I was determined not to have children, in part because it *was* expected of me. I decided to have kids because I suddenly (within the course of a month) realized I couldn't imagine life without them. No one was more surprised than I was.

I totally agree with what Kaz was saying as well, and alphapheemail has a great point-- if you don't correct your own children, who the heck is going to? I think in our efforts to protect children from actual abuse, we have started crying 'abuse on things that are mere corrections. Yes, some people do abuse their kids, and those people need to be stopped, but we seem to have caught an awful lot of relatively minor corrections in the crossfire.

As a public school educator, you can totally tell which kids rule the roost and which kids have discipline in the house. The kids who understand discipline and have respect are so much easier to teach. Somewhere along the way, for whatever reason (and I could speculate several reasons), parents became unable or unwilling to discipline their kids. And it shows.

Amen, to that, Sister!! The only student that I've ever had retained was the one whose parents rewarded a completed assignment (one of the very few) by going out and buying him a BB gun! I would love to be able to clock the amount of time I spend in the classroom dealing with disciplinary issues. I am sure I could easily reduce the school year by a week or more if I didn't have to spend so much time on them.

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Hitting children shouldn't be used as a stress reliever.

Too often parents/teachers mete out punishment based on how they're feeling, imho. If they're happy they find the child's mischievous antics adorable; if they're stressed they lash out. No wonder a lot of kids are confused - rules should be consistent.

("A wife, a dog, a walnut tree,
The more you beat them, the better they be.")

You are absolutely correct, Sparrow. Unfortunately, it can be very hard to turn off your emotions when dealing with children. When my oldest was around 2, we lived in a townhouse community on a cul-de-sac. She was playing on the sidewalk with my husband supervising. He had very carefully explained to her that she should never go into the street without Mommy or Daddy. At one point, he turned away from her for some reason and when he looked back, she was heading for the street where a car was making a U-turn. He ran out and grabbed her, fussed at her, and gave her a forceful swat on her bum. I don't think it hurt her (she had about 2 inches of diaper padding ), just surprised her enough to get her attention! It upset my husband far more than it did her. Bottom line, she never ran out into the street again.

The worst spanking I ever received was when I told my mother if she spanked me I was going to turn her in for child abuse. She told me, "Then I'm going to give you something to report!" It really wasn't that bad, but I deserved everything I got! I would like to say that I became less "cheeky" after that, but I don't want to lie!

[Lady Blue]

Kaz is right. Society has become all too politically correct, to the extreme. It has become almost a social sin to do anything less than praise failure, accept bad behavior and disrespect, and expect too little from children.

GraceKrispy says "parents became unable or unwilling to discipline their kids." That is certainly true too, for many reasons.

Many parents want to be their kids' friend instead of their parent. They don't want the kid to be mad at them.

Some others are afraid of their kids, and others are afraid of having their kids taken away if they discipline. Things have swung too far in the kids' favor. Let's face it. It doesn't take much these days to have Child Protective Services knocking at your door and taking your kids away because your kid got mad at you for taking away the X-Box and told someone a tall tale about abuse to "get even" (or other various scenerios.)

The first thing my daughter learned in Kindergarten from her teacher was, in so many words, that her parents could do nothing to discipline her.

She came home from school and informed me that her teacher told the class that if Mommy or Daddy spanked them, touched them or made them cry, that they were to tell the teacher and she'd have the parents arrested and they wouldn't do that any more. She, in her 5 year old mind, heard the teacher's words and understood them to mean just that, but she didn't know what arrested really meant, or any other consequences to "telling on your parents."

So she had already learned (even if by mistake, or misunderstanding) to threaten her own mother that if I did anything that she didn't like, she could have me arrested, so I wouldn't dare take any toys away or make her do anything she didn't want to, etc. . .

The teacher stood by her words and admitted that, in essence, that's what she told the kids, and it was unfortunate that some of the children may have misunderstood what she meant, and shouldn't have taken what she said literally. (I know, as a child, I took EVERYTHING literally.)

I knew right then we were in for a loooong road ahead, butting heads with teachers that weren't careful with their words. Nothing like having your parental authority undermined by a teacher who thinks she's talking to kids much more sophisticated than their years would indicate.

Granted, no one wants to see kids abused and they should be protected from abuse. But the pendulum has swung too far and given too much unsubstantiated power to children and other busy-body do-gooders over parents' efforts to raise their children.