Quote:
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.
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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.
Quote:
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.")
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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!
