Corporal punishment returns

[Ryudo Lee]

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2008/07/22/paddling.html

I heard this one on the radio, coming into work this morning.  Apparantly, and it's not just Georgia that's doing this,  but some school districts across the country are bringing back the age-old method of paddling students that misbehave.  Why?  Because other methods, time-outs, detentions, and the like, just aren't working for some students.

Of course, there are restrictions.  There can be only a certain amount of strokes, and at least one other member of the faculty must be present to witness the paddling.  Plus the parents have to sign a waiver at the beginning of the year to either allow or not allow the school to hit their kid.

Personally, I find this to be a breath of fresh air.  Finally, someone figured it out that kids these days aren't respecting authority and the best course of action is to give them a reason to respect authority.  "If you don't listen, I'll make you listen... with my belt across your backside!"

Yes, I got whooped (several times) when I was a kid, by my parents.  I even got hit with a switch... a freakin' tree branch!  And let me tell you, I never repeated those mistakes.  Ever.  I got away with nothing.  The schools I went to didn't have corporal punishment, but they knew that my parents would bust my backside if I did wrong, and they had no problems reporting what I did to my folks.  And it made me a better person.  It made me respect my folks and my teachers.

I started to notice that younger kids weren't respecting authority when I was a junior in high school.  These little kids, and I mean little guys, who barely came up to my waist, were walking around acting like they're the baddest thing to walk the planet, and they kept getting busted for the same behaviour over and over again.  And I couldn't help but think that if their parents would just employ the belt, they'd behave better.  Cuz those were some kids who got a stern talking to or spent some time in the corner.  I think Jeff Foxworthy said it best.  "If your mom drops you off at school in the morning, you ain't no gangster."

There are two things that I fully support for schools: mandatory drug testing, and corporal punishment.  In fact, let's step it up a bit.  Public corporal punishment.  There's only one thing worse than getting paddled.  And that's getting paddled in front of the whole school.  I guarantee you, if you whup a kid in front of the entire student body, he or she will never do what they did again. 

And you know what?  I went through both of those.  They work.  My parents whipped me every time I did something wrong.  I got drug tested when they implemented it in my high school.  I came up clean.  But 3% of the rest of the student body didn't.  And those were most of the troublemakers, and some of the big sports guys too.  The second half of my junior year and my entire senior year were complete smooth sailing.  And because of all that, I've stayed away from violence, drugs, crime, and have got myself on a path to a great career.

That's what I think anyway.  What about the rest of you?

[Brunhidden]

i think public humiliation should be one of our more used forms of punishment- especially if its a really stupid and petty crime that gets laughed at.

put up a stocks in the center of main street, and have violators of public nudity, public drunkenness, small theft, and vandalism will be left to be laughed at and possibly have fruit thrown at them or small children write on their face with a marker.\


in schools, well, i think it would be a good idea to make some of those kids walk around with a big sign saying what they did, with the exception that any 'cool' crime that would give them 'street cred' would not be done this way. 'cool' crimes i think should be punished by making people wear stupid hats, or pink pajamas, or whatever would make them embarrased in front of the rest of the school

at least with a paddling the offender knows that only they and the administration know it happened, things like this have to be for all to see.

[Ryudo Lee]

at least with a paddling the offender knows that only they and the administration know it happened, things like this have to be for all to see.

Exactly, that's why I say do it in front of the entire school.  They'll never hear the end of it and never repeat what they did to deserve the paddling.

[Mao]

While I agree with the concept, I have to say I'm not sure that it would be much different then where we are now.  Everyone responds differently, even children.  Some children who respond to those things that 'just aren't working' will not respond to the corporal punishment.  My parents figured out that it with me it only served to make me want revenge.  It drove me to fight back.  The harder they hit me for discipline (and trust me it was discipline, my folks are good parents and had the best intentions) the more rage they fed into me and the more destructive I became.  I'm fortunate that they realized this early on.

I guess I'm just wary of this going from one extreme to another.  No physical punishment to all physical punishment.  It won't work.  Children are people too and will respond just as differently as you or I.  I know here in Canada there's been a move to give the teachers a lot more leeway (my Dad is actually a part of that movement and has been for as long as he's been a teacher, which is longer than I've been alive) but I think it's really a double edged sword.  I guess it will depend on the implementation.

In all though, I'm glad to see that they are open to the concept.  Something needs to be done to ensure a good future for children and if physical discipline is what a kid needs, then I'll be the one to hold the switch myself.  I guess it's kinda like a Dark Knight scenario for a lot of people in that regard.  Be the villain to ensure the fostering of good in people.  Be whatever it is they need you to be to grow, even if it's bad.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I'm with Brun, here.

Public humiliation for public crimes.

[Sunblink]

Sorry, guys. While I hate disobedient and unruly brats as much as the next person, I don't like the idea of corporal punishment. This is coming from someone who hates disorderly, rampaging children, mind you.

Granted, throughout my childhood, I had never been exposed to such treatment. My Mom wouldn't hurt a fly (anyone who's met her at AC can attest to this), and my Dad likes to make people think he can hurt a fly by vaporizing it through radiating sheer manliness, but deep, deep down, is really a big softie.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

I was, on rare occasions, caned by my parents.  That said, I was the firstborn, so by nature they were trying things to see what worked.  It was something my father regrets now, and they certainly didn't do it very much to my younger brother.

So where do I stand on this issue?  Well, I don't like caning.  I would not cane my children.  Smacking, however, I would not have a problem with, used in moderation (this seems to have been made illegal in the UK, which I believe is a mistake).
But I would draw the line at other people disciplining my children in this way.

[Faerie Alex]

I dunno...I'm kinda torn on this one. On the one hand, I've certainly seen kids who will probably be in detention until they're 40, and been called up in front of the principal more times than you can count on both hands, but keep misbehaving. For them, maybe something like this would work. However, and I can't think of any specific examples of this, but I do vaguely remember situations where it seemed like the school/teachers/whoever was handing out an awfully heavy-handed (metaphorically only, no spanking) punishment for something that seemed like a much more minor offense.

Also, just a thought about waivers. I have to say, I think this might be the sticking point. On the one hand, are going to be some kids who can get their parents to do (or not do) anything for them, and it wouldn't be fair if say Jhon and Joe did the same thing, but only one gets paddled because the other had immunity. The other would be on a broader scale, how many parents support this for their children? I mean, that's pretty much what you'd be asking them with individual waivers. But I've also seen a great idea go down due to parental opposition. School in Texas, decides that since duck-and-cover worked so bloody well ([/sarcasm]) in the last few school shootings, they were going to teach proactive defense. (e.g. Throw heavy things at, jump on your attacker, rather than hide & wait to be shot.) But guess who was against that plan. Yup. Gosh forbid that someone might get injured. Bah. But that school no longer teaches it. Back to the issue at hand, if most of the parents support it, that's fine. In any caucus, there'll probably be people who disagree, but if you can secure a majority, then you're good. But if you start to get into a situation wherein a teacher can only spank half the kind in their class, you've got a problem.

[Cogidubnus]

I was both punished by my parents with spankings, and for some of my grade school years I went to a school that would also offer this as a punishment. My parents signed the waiver, although it was never necessary for that to happen to me at school.

I am of the opinion that physical punishment is a necessary thing. It would be heartwrenching to do to my own child, but in some ways, pain is the better teacher - if you do this, then there will be tears as a consequence.
It is possible to explain the difference between a right and wrong action to someone, but the trick is to make them care.

I don't hold all wisdom, of course, but this has been the way I have been taught.

As far as this happening in schools, it's probably not something I'd trust someone else to do to my own child, if I had one.

[Alondro]

Caning is awesome!  My brothers and I used to beat each other with sticks just for fun all the time!

Of course, there wasn't much else to do in the NJ Pine Barrens, 'cept fer gittin skwerrls fer supper.   

My dad's friend had the best idea ever for teaching.  Go into the class on the first day with a gun carrying two bullets.  Shoot one kid.  Tell the others that the first one who acts up gets the second bullet.   

[Brunhidden]

yeah, everyones got stories of how they were disciplined, although nowadays it usually has something to do with stickers or the taking away of special rewards that weren't deserved anyways. and of course 'time outs'..... thats just kinda pathetic



whenever i said something my parents or older siblings did not like (which constitutes almost anything) i usually got a backhand to the face, often close to knocking me flat. my sister was the exception, she instead just lifted me off the floor by my ear, so that i could only touch one toe to the ground for balance.

after that (also usually for talking in general, even if it was not even something they particularly disliked) i would be sent to a corner of the house near the front door where the hard floor was littered with gravel and told to kneel on the gravel for an hour or two, or until my parents had forgotten they had sent me there- in which case i had to gamble if they had only forgotten how long i was there and would send me back thinking it had not been long enough, or had forgotten i was being punished in the first place and it was safe to sneak to my room and hide.

they forgot about me alot, and to this day they still confuse me with my brother..... my brother who is 7 years older, about 50 pounds heavier, is blond with a crewcut when i have hair so dark its almost black and reaches the small of my back.... yeah, they paid a lot of attention to me didn't they?

spankings i only got when i was very small, and only for things i had intentionally done that cost money. i learned very quickly to be mostly obedient, ask for little, and endeavor to cost as little time, energy, or cash to the household. the need to be spanked vanished when i became afraid

some kids are asked if their parents had wanted a girl instead of a boy, or a boy instead of a girl. my parents wanted a mute, and often tried to enforce it.




couldn't they have 'grounded' me like other parents? i lived in the middle of a swamp, had no means of transportation, and nowhere to go to. they could have thought i was being punished by saying i could not go anywhere for a whole month, and i would have gotten away scott free being unable to have gone anywhere anyways.

[Darkmoon]

I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that you have to hit kids to get them to pay attention. I was never, never hit while I was a kid. My childhood was fairly quiet, and I'm a responsible member of society.

Honestly, it disgusts me how many of you people seem to condone this behavior. Absolutely disgusts me. Hitting is not a good form of punishment. Ever.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Pain is a valid teaching method. The important thing is to not overuse it.

In Brun's case, I'd say it was overdone. In my case, we were belted for lying to our parents; the result was I, at least, learned to not get caught.

Note that this isn't what my parents wanted to teach me. The end result, however, is much the same; most times, lying only leads to more lying, and as it snowballs, you get caught in the end anyway.


Lest I be misunderstood, I thought I should at least elaborate a bit, at a time when I can, rather than leaving various people under the impression I'm endorsing random corporal punishment. On the other hand, waving your finger at a child for 15 years, saying "bad boy" and not actually doing anything more significant, and then as soon as he magically reaches the line, he ends up on the other side of the bars, looking out at death row. Tell me that makes sense?

There's got to be a better way than that; there has to be a better way than beating the child senseless. As in all things, moderation is the key. Where to draw the line, however, is a very very fraught conversation.


Suffice it to say, if my son plays up, I expect his teacher to slap him down verbally; I also expect them to let me know, so I can reinforce the point at home. Despite being perfectly willing to resort to pain if necessary, I don't think we've had to do anything of the sort in the last three years. I'd say longer, but I don't remember, and it's possible that I'm thinking of accidents, rather than deliberate training; having the child smack himself with a door, after you told him not to play with it, sort of thing.

[Cogidubnus]

I think llearch has stated what I mean more clearly than I have.

[Mao]

Lest our emotions get the better of us and this turns into a flame war here we should can this discussion.  It's clearly a sensitive topic for some and there's a lot of stuff that would be better left unsaid.  Let's just chill out.  Maybe lock the thread?  I'm not one for stamping out free speech but I don't want to see bad blood here.

[Tapewolf]

Yes, I think llearch has summed up what I was trying to say.  Slapping a child for every minor infraction is not something I agree with.  As with Cog, it is not something I'd want to do either.  But I do believe it is necessary to back up threats, e.g. "If you ever do that again, you're getting smacked".  That sort of thing.  If done right, it should (hopefully) only be necessary to do this a few times, and in any case it's something you'd tail off as the child grows up.
Maybe Darkmoon is thinking of a 15-16-year old.  I'd agree with him there, but I'm thinking more in terms of 10 and under.

[Ryudo Lee]

I'm certainly not saying to beat a kid for everything he/she does wrong.  Other methods of discipline are quite valid.  Personally, when my grades were down, my folks took all but the television and radio away from me.  When my grades went back up, I suddenly saw my game consoles again.  When it comes to destructive tendancies (self, or otherwise), then a spanking is called for.  In the end, it boils down to the parents and how responsible they are.  In my experience, the kids who are running around getting into fights and using foul language are the ones who really needed a belt across their backside.  But that's the problem right now.  Many parents aren't taking the responsibility to discipline their children.  I know that's not the case with many people on this forum, but I went to school with kids like that.  At the time, I couldn't understand why parents would let their kids get like that.

[Darkmoon]

I stand behind my statement. Never necessary. I'm not saying you can't punish them, but no hitting isn't that hard to accomplish.

[Jairus]

... it's funny now that I think about it, but even though I know my parents used to give spankings, I can't actually remember the last time I got one. It must have been before I was eight or so. My parents were never believers in hitting: if we broke the rules or did something bad, we lost privileges or electronics. You probably wouldn't be surprised at how effectively you can motivate a teenager if you threaten to confiscate their iPod if they don't clean their room (my parents had a rule: our roof, our rules. So yeah.) And back when they did spank, it was because of something really bad: broken windows from rough-housing was a grounding, if I recall. And there were a few problems I had that I'm not really comfortable talking about online, but I didn't get punished for those at all... the time I beat up my best friend in fifth grade was an exception (I almost got expelled for that, but even then all I did was get grounded: everyone knew why I had done it and everyone involved took steps to make sure it would never happen again). My parents basically figured out what really motivated us and used that. I guess I was kind of lucky.

[Reese Tora]

hmm, I'm not sure where I stand on this...

On the one hand, I dreaded the stern talking to taht my dad would give me when I disapointed him.  But there's an important thing here, in that I respect the man.  If there is no respect, it's just a boring lecture.  I don't remember if I ever got the belt or was spanked, but it was a punishment I knew was there if I did misbehave.

I don't think that the problem is necessarily a lack of corporal punishment.  I think the problem is a combination of a lot of things, parents weak on dicipline, pandering to spoiled children, things like that, but a firm and definite punishment may well answer the problem.

[Mao]

I'm not saying you can't punish them, but no hitting isn't that hard to accomplish.

While I see where you're coming from Darkmoon, that's a generalization that I think that is part of the problem.  There is no one size fits all solution.  Unfortunately it's difficult to say what the solution is with any given person.  To say that something is or isn't the solution definitively potentially rules out what may very well be the solution.  Now I know that this is likely heading into circular arguement territory at which point we'll have to agree to disagree (hideously over used statement, I know) but I feel that an open mind to all possible solutions, no matter how vile is the only way to work towards one that is at least better than what we have now.  I think we've all seen that the situation we're looking at today isn't good and for alot of the children in this situation, the outlook doesn't look so good.  Does this mean that they're screwed? No.  However based on similar events in our own live this is normally a bad start and often leads to alot of sadness and misery for folks who walk down that path.

That said, it's their path to walk.  So now we get into the nasty philosophical realm of choice.  What right do we have at all to interfere?

[Ryudo Lee]

I don't remember if I ever got the belt or was spanked, but it was a punishment I knew was there if I did misbehave.

This is how I saw it from my folks.  If I screwed up, then I would get yelled at, have something taken from me, or get whipped.  The third being the most effective deterrent, for me at least.  The problem is that there are kids out there right now who aren't seeing that.  They're misbehaving and getting a boring lecture.  If there's no fear of discipline then why should a kid not misbehave?

[Alondro]

Pandering to the spoiled children is one of the biggest problems of all.  Every time the little retards cry and whine, they get rewarded.  Then as they grow they want more and more, and the parents never give punishments that they actually stick to for any misbehaviors, and then the kids end up shot dead in a drug deal gone bad one day.

Besides, I got beatings all the time!  And look how normal I turned out!  *says the vorarephilic furry who plans to exterminte the inferior human species and replace them with his cybernetic army of Charlek mutant clones*

[rabid_fox]

As a teacher in a comprehensive school with 42% SEN (Special Educational Needs) I have never required corporal punishment to make a class behave.

The thought of striking an 11-year old makes my stomach churn. The thought that striking an 11-year old may be legal makes my stomach churn like a cement mixer. The thought that striking an 11-year old would be encouraged as a public event is just plain sickening.

Corporal punishment is grotesque and unnecessary. 

[RobbieThe1st]

Now, I am not going to comment on what should be done at home, but for what should be done at school, I do like a compromise one-size-fits-all solution:
You have a system where for any particular bad thing you do, the punishments get worse every time you do it. The first time, you just might get a verbal warning, the second a harsh verbal warning and/or letter to parents and or detention, then detention and letter to parents, and finally yes, a beating might be called for. You also might want to add two beating stages, one private and one public. Perhaps after that you could give suspensions or bans.

Also, a good idea came up in another forum I visit: Always put the subject in detention for a while before administering any punishment. You want the anger to have warn off, otherwise any beatings would not do any good, just fueling the anger.

The idea here is that the people who are motivated by verbal warnings would stop doing it right off, and that would be that. The people who aren't motivated would, however, only be able to do the particular thing a certain number of times before getting physically whacked, which would hopefully solve the problem.

This is just what I feel is probably best, out of all the solutions offered so far. Obviously, the system that we have in place now, with no beating whatsoever isn't really working, at least in the cities around here.


-RobbieThe1st

[Kenji]

Could always make em do what prisoners -used- to be doing, back before all they did was get a free gym to be in all day... brilliant idea, really. 


Aaaanyways, make em do mandatory community service in a private or public setting, depending on the crime. And I mean anywhere from a week to a month or so. *shrugs* Doesn't hit em, but doesn't make them want to do it again cause no one likes to have their free time taken up with work.

[Pagan]

I only got spanked once or twice by my parents. That was when I was about six or seven. I very quickly learned I did not enjoy pain on my rear and that I should avoid that pain. So I acted like a good, quiet child. It's not the most pleasant thing, for the one punished or the one punishing, but pain is a very instinctual motivator. A person won't stick a finger into a flame after they've been burned. And a child won't misbehave after being spanked.

However, I don't think that schools should have the right to paddle at any infraction. And to that I have to say that I think Robbie's idea sounds best, build-up of punishments and such.

[Alondro]

*Charles beats children and forces them to work in the coal mines!*   

Although, one can indeed draw a powerful inverse correlation to the decline in corporal punishment and the increase of promiscuous sex, drug use, and school shootings.

Maybe the two data plots have no cause and effect correlation, but when has that ever stopped people from drawing a consensus as long as the data can be warped to fit what people want to believe? 

*makes headlines "Statistics Show Beating Your Children Daily Will Lower Drug Use and School Shootings!"*  Excellent...  *prepares to mass-market professional-grade bamboo canes for beatings and make a fortune on the suffering of children!* 

[Vekar]

I think this can be good and bad. It can be a very good thing if done properly, however I have no doubt that there will be a few cases as always of some psyhco in the classroom who takes it a tad too far. That or does it for pleasure.

I can think of 5 kids in my area that could have used some severe beatings however instead they got away scott clean of rape for being "minors."
In school I know of kids who went after teachers and beat the living tar out them and only got a slap on the wrist.

I say this is a VERY good thing overall with underlining problems. However, I would like to add that in light of allowing teachers to punish students the teachers should also be given the right to defend themselves from the students as well.

School violence is getting out of hand.

[Zorro]

Sorry "Modern" and "Enlightened" methods of child rearing have delivered inferior citizens and employees in the USA.

Back to the methods that work.