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Smacking yes or no

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    #422
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    bluewolf wrote: »
    Because you've decided that it was ok to be beaten with a hurl and broom, and because you've said you'd do similar to your own future kids, that's why
    Anyway I'm not going to argue this any more, it's just too sad

    Yeah, i believe it was ok for it to be done to me. As will my sister and 3 brothers, and my cousins from their parents. It was the done thing, no one knew any better.

    And i said that i might, or probably would, do the same to any children i may have. But i can't see that as an issue, as i don't want them. Myself and the ex used to be on the brink of falling out with each other over this conversation. She was never bet, i was. She didn't believe in it, but she had the fear of it stopping her.

    Good that you're stopping arguing, as it's a non-issue anyway. If i'm comfortable with what they did, then no amount of arguing will convince me otherwise.


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    #423
    sunflower27
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,822 ✭✭✭sunflower27


    movingsucks wrote: »
    You weren't pointing anything out when you replied to me, you were being rude imo.

    I was referring to the specific story in the post where a parent is repeatedly hitting/kicking their kids. Clearly it's not working for them. That's all I said. I was smacked as a kid (posted earlier in the thread) didn't work for us but I never said anything about every single child so go pick a fight with someone else.

    I told you what I was doing, but believe as you choose. No problem. :)


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    #424
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,706 ✭✭✭✭josip


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    The beatings with the hand didn't work, so then they beat you with the wooden spoon, and it didn't work, and then they beat you with the sweeping brush, and that didn't work? Clearly they were flogging a dead horse.

    Lexie, was the last line intentional? Brilliant.
    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    I know of a child who was beaten by his mother when he was little, a wooden spoon to his bare bum. The child ran into the bathroom and was trying to put his bum down the toilet to stop it stinging with the cold water.

    That's the height of abuse, can you even begin to understand what kind of monster would take a HURL to a child? Jesus man.

    On a technical note here, it depends on how the hurl is used. The wooden spoon has a small surface area and will sting pretty much regardless of how it was used. If the hurl was used as in normal play then the strike of the bas on the bum would be spread out over a much wider area and would probably hurt less. Used differently of course it would be capable of inflicting blunt trauma.

    We were hit rarely by our parents when we were being brought up, but I don't think people here should be too judgmental. These were times (1980s) when it was the accepted practice in our primary school for the teacher to administer slaps to the hand with the bata for not getting a high enough score in the Friday tests. And after you got them, you'd be holding the metal frame of the desk to try to cool them down. I'm not saying it was right or that I agree with it, but things should be seen in context.

    I hope I never hit our children but I wonder if sometimes when I'm overly verbally critical of our children, if the effect I'm having is even greater than the time my mother let go at my brother with the carpet sweeper. Oh, how we all laugh at that now at family dinners. When my brother is out from the home...


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    #425
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Potential-Monke wrote: »
    When i was younger, i got bate! Started with smacks on the arse, upgraded to wooden spoons, and so on and so forth.
    <snip>
    And i was a right little baxtard. Getting in trouble at school, galavanting around the countryside p'ing off farmers for playing on the hay bales, etc. And i was a smart fecker too, and not intelligent smart; back-answering, cheekiness, all the way up to vulgar in my late teens.
    <snip>
    And, it worked. I've no criminal record, and have a responsible job.
    Potential-Monke wrote: »
    But they did work. What i got punished for, i didn't do again. I didn't have the cop on to realise that if i done something else i'd get punished, but that was me, always trying to push my luck.

    It does not sound like it worked at all to me. As you describe it it did the exact opposite. In fact although you came into the thread in defense of one side I think you have actually managed to become a really good advertisement for it's failings.

    What I see is a description of a kid who was violently punished for things without being adequtely explained to why. You stopped doing the things you were _specifically_ punished for but then continued to do _other_ things. To The point where by your own admission the punishements had to be steadily escalated.

    This is a very re-active and not at all pro-active method of instilling a sense of right or wrong. Beating one at a time each individual moral into a child as and when the situation arises is ridiculous in comparison with a general instilling of behaviours to cover whole swaths of eventualities. Giving the child the ability to judge each action themselves and parse it as being right or wrong - rather than a try and die approach as you describe.

    You claim it worked because you have a job and no criminal record. This is a correlation-causation error. You have simply no idea where youd be had a more proactive method been used on you. Perhaps the reason you are employed and job free is that the child they had to beat around with a hurley stick was an immature and naive fool who was not adequetly taught right and wrong and eventually you simply learned it on your own - not because of but in fact despite of your parents laconic administrations of wooden implements.

    At no point does it sound like their administrations DID stop you being "a right little baxtard" - but rather simply modified how you went about it - until such time as you grew out of it yourself. This is strongly evidenced by the fact that not only were the punishments ongoing - but steadily escalated.

    As I said before - you clearly intended your anecdote to be a support story for the topic in question - but it is exactly a wonderful demonstration of the exact opposite - and how failed the approach actually was. There is nothing in your anecdote that leaves the reader with the impression you are the person you are today because of it - but rather despite it.

    Thats just my reading of it - make of it what you will.


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    #426
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,706 ✭✭✭✭josip


    I take back what i said about the hurl. I just read the original post and see that it was a wavin. Ouch. Those things were a violation of the Geneva convention and should never have been allowed.


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    #427
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    Fair enough, i take your points, and those more learned and researched into the topic might be able to read more from it, but i will guarantee you 100% that were it not for them, i would be a completely different person. No one can speak for what happened in my family, except my family.

    And trust me, they tried to prevent me from making mistakes with other aspects of life, but i was the one who didn't heed, or didn't care, and was testing their limits. The level increased from smacking to implements because the smacking wasn't affecting me anymore. And, without going too much into it, there were reasons in school why i was the way i was. It was nothing to do with the slaps, and 100% to do with school and bullying. I never once, even when getting the beatings (for want of a better word, they weren't beatings), blamed the parents, or used it as an excuse to be a bigger prick, or used it as a reason to act out. It happened, and that was that. I didn't bring it around with me, i didn't let it fuel anything else i did. It stopped me doing what it was i got it for, and that was the result, nothing more.

    I honestly believe that what i got stopped me from becoming like my friend. Due to previously mentioned school and bullying issues, i could very easily have gone that route, but i didn't, and i have my parents to thank for that. I knew why i was getting punished (you say violently, it was far from it).

    I will say that in a heart to heart with a drunk mammy about 10 years ago (she never gets drunk!) she did say that she wished she never laid hands on us, but that is the way she was brought up and knew no different until all the stories started emerging around then of children bringing their parents to court, etc.

    Take it as you will, i believe it helped me become who i am. Leave all the psychological interpreting aside, and take it for what i am saying. And i never intended it to be in support of the topic, i was just giving my experience. I'm not condoning it, nor am I lambasting it. Maybe there was a failing in education, maybe there was a failing in the expectations of families in my home area, or it could have simply been down to stress, but i will repeat myself again; i love my parents the most in this world. I will never hold anything of what they did to me against them, and am thankful to them for getting me into my early adulthood with the right frame of mind (not to mention helping me over the last 10 or so years also, when it was required but not requested). I can see why people feel strongly about this topic, but what happened is in no way their fault, and i will never, never blame them. And no one will blame them for me.
    josip wrote: »
    I take back what i said about the hurl. I just read the original post and see that it was a wavin. Ouch. Those things were a violation of the Geneva convention and should never have been allowed.

    Twas the sting from it was the worst. It was never force that was needed, just a quick sharp slap of the flat side of the bass was enough. Like an oversized wooden spoon :eek: :D


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    #428
    coffee_cake
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,309 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    You were bullied and troubled and got beaten as a result?!
    Your story keeps getting worse


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    #429
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    I'm sorry but that's absolutely disgusting and parents who see fit to take a hurl to a child should have their children taken off them until they actually learn how to discipline children without beating them senseless


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    #430
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    bluewolf wrote: »
    You were bullied and troubled and got beaten as a result?!
    Your story keeps getting worse

    You're wrong there. The parents didn't know what was happening in school as i wasn't telling them, so i wasn't getting beaten as a result of getting bullied (not by my parents at least!).
    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    I'm sorry but that's absolutely disgusting and parents who see fit to take a hurl to a child should have their children taken off them until they actually learn how to discipline children without beating them senseless

    Where did i say they beat me senseless? No where. You decided to make that up yourself. I've used the word beatings, but also explained that beatings are not what i was getting, but for want of a better word.


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    #431
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Potential-Monke wrote: »
    without going too much into it, there were reasons in school why i was the way i was. It was nothing to do with the slaps, and 100% to do with school and bullying.

    The would be the focus of my issue with violence as a methodology here. They used violence reactively to treat the symptoms of your problem. But it did nothing to address the causes. Violence is for me an intellectual failure - and you are the perfect example as to why I feel that.

    Your issues got worse and worse - as evidenced by the escalation of the punishment and the severity of it. Yet none of it stopped your poor behaviour until _you_ grew out of it.

    When you get an infection you treat the infection. You do not wait until each part of your body goes septic and then cut it off.

    Had they earlier on dealt with the causes of your behaviour rather than punishing it more and more severely until it simply went away on its own - your upbringing likely would have had not just less beatings - but less memories of school bullying and other horrors you recall from that day.

    Generally speaking - not about you but a good example - often poor child behaviour can be attention seeking. They do not want to be screamed at or beaten but they want attention and if thats the attention they are getting then so be it. As such often the violence route from parents feeds the problem rather than corrects it.

    A lot of the "supernanny" type approaches for example are built around ensuring you give a child positive attention and - when disciplining them - doing so in a way that reduces to an absolute minimum how much they are rewarded with attention. Of any sort.


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    #432
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,706 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Reading the posts over the last 3-4 pages, the tone of Potential-Monke's posts seem to be calm and tolerant of others' perspectives and beliefs.

    A lot of the posters who would be in disagreement with Monke and disapprove of his upbringing, come across as shrill and preaching in contrast.

    Perhaps my reading has been biased because of my own experience, but if I had to chose a parent based on the posts here, I know who it would be.


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    #433
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    But my parents are not to blame, and that is the point i'm trying to get across. Yes, there were failings, be it with their upbringing or through school, but i do not blame them. They did what they believed was the right thing to do due to their own personal experiences. I cannot blame them for that, no one can. Just because someone in some part of Ireland knew better, doesn't mean everyone should have, not until it has become such a taboo subject that it has today.

    And i will still stand firmly behind what they did was for my benefit. I was very headstrong as a child/teen. Couple that with being ginger and small, as you can imagine i was in lots of fights. I stood up for myself in school, and didn't tell my parents because i didn't want them thinking i was weak. Not out of fear of what they would do, but out of fear of disappointing them. It was my fault that i never told them, and had i told them, God knows what way punishment would have gone from then on.

    As for Supernanny, i would have walked all over that bitch. I hate her and everything about her, and no amount of bold steps or time outs would have sorted me. A kick up the hole, slap on the back of the head, or smack of a wooden spoon, hurley bass or brush handle done the job when verbal efforts didn't. (I should also point out that aside from the wooden spoon, no implement was used on me until at least 14/15 years of age).

    Edit: Just to add in here also, in my job i get to see the effects bad parenting has on kids. I also get to speak to these kids during heated moments, and the fear i see in their faces is something i have never experienced with my own parents, regardless of what they were coming at me with. There was fear, but it wasn't of them, it was of the almost definite stinging which would follow. I don't believe that parents of my age and older should be held accountable for the failings of the country in terms of education.


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    #434
    qo2cj1dsne8y4k
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,646 ✭✭✭✭qo2cj1dsne8y4k


    josip wrote: »
    Perhaps my reading has been biased because of my own experience, but if I had to chose a parent based on the posts here, I know who it would be.

    I'd take the parent who didn't take a hurl to me when I came home from school after being bullied, to be honest.


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    #435
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    LexieOnRale wrote: »
    I'd take the parent who didn't take a hurl to me when I came home from school after being bullied, to be honest.

    Christ, you say it like it was the done thing every day i got home. It wasn't. It was very rare (especially with the hurley, twice or three times the most it was used). And they weren't to know i was being bullied because i wasn't telling them. That's my fault, not theirs. Also, as i said above, i didn't get battered with them, just a quick sharp smack or two to leave me stinging for a while, and that was that, lesson learned.


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    #436
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Potential-Monke wrote: »
    But my parents are not to blame, and that is the point i'm trying to get across.

    I am not aware of any part of my post that suggested they were. Perhaps you could read it again and attempt a new reply.


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    #437
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    Deleted User wrote: »
    The would be the focus of my issue with violence as a methodology here. They used violence reactively to treat the symptoms of your problem. But it did nothing to address the causes.

    That could be construed as they are to blame...

    Anyway, it was a general reply, maybe i shouldn't have put in "But", as it does indeed sound like a refute to your post. But it wasn't. It was just another attempt at showing why i found it acceptable then, and still do now, and that none of it was my parents fault. Honestly, they are the nicest people you could ever meet, and would they have been in a position to have children in the last 10 years or so, they certainly wouldn't have gone passed smacking, if even that. They would have changed with the times, it just so happened the times changed at the end of their parenting cycle.


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    #438
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,121 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    movingsucks wrote: »
    Guessing smacking/abusing them doesn't stop their "bad" behaviour then if she keeps doing it...

    Just like the naughty step then I guess.:rolleyes:


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    #439
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,121 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    So you may as well hit a child repeatedly with a wooden spoon for minor indiscretions like swearing? How about engaging with the child on why you don't think swearing is right.

    How about engaging with the child to explain why you are smacking them?
    (Smacking rather than abandoning and isolating them on a step on their own of course...)


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    #440
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    GreeBo wrote: »
    Just like the naughty step then I guess.:rolleyes:
    GreeBo wrote: »
    How about engaging with the child to explain why you are smacking them?
    (Smacking rather than abandoning and isolating them on a step on their own of course...)

    Why should I resort to hitting my child when I don't need to?


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    #441
    movingsucks
    Closed Accounts Posts: 534 ✭✭✭movingsucks


    GreeBo wrote: »
    Just like the naughty step then I guess.:rolleyes:

    Where was naughty step mentioned in the post was quoting?


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    #442
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,121 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    movingsucks wrote: »
    Where was naughty step mentioned in the post was quoting?

    Im pretty sure it was implied.
    If you are against physical conditioning are you not just left with behavioural?

    Im assuming that ignoring the childs behaviour is not a viable option.


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    #443
    GreeBo
    Registered Users Posts: 27,121 ✭✭✭✭GreeBo


    kunst nugget wrote: »
    Why should I resort to hitting my child when I don't need to?

    Why should I resort to ignoring my child when I dont have to?

    You choose to sit them on a step on their own for X minutes and afterwards explain why, I choose to smack them for 1 second and explain why afterwards.


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    #444
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    GreeBo wrote: »
    Why should I resort to ignoring my child when I dont have to?

    You choose to sit them on a step on their own for X minutes and afterwards explain why, I choose to smack them for 1 second and explain why afterwards.

    Well, if you want to teach your kids violence is an acceptable way to solve your problems, bully for you…


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    #445
    movingsucks
    Closed Accounts Posts: 534 ✭✭✭movingsucks


    GreeBo wrote: »
    Im pretty sure it was implied.
    If you are against physical conditioning are you not just left with behavioural?

    Im assuming that ignoring the childs behaviour is not a viable option.

    I was responding to a post about a mother who hits her kids five times with a wooden spoon and kicks them.
    I don't know what you think was implied.


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    #446
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Potential-Monke wrote: »
    That could be construed as they are to blame...

    Nope. Failing to resolve a situation is not the same as being to blame for the situation. I have no doubt you AND they believed at the time they were doing the right thing.

    But clearly it was not the right thing. The problem was not only not resolved - by your own admission there was a sustained period of escalation.

    You keep telling us how nice and loving and caring they are. No one I have seen is doubting that. Certainly not me. I merely think that your anecdote actually serves against the idea of violence as a method - not for it.

    The point is not to allocate blame or anger - as you say they were likely just a product of their times and somewhat blameless - but the point is to analyse this and decide today what is best to do going forward. And if your anecdote is anything like common then it suggests going forward that repeating their errors is not a good move.


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    #447
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    I get what you're saying, but i just can't make the connection in my own case.


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    #448
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Often we are too close to our own anecdotes to see what others see in them. As I said I am not partitioning out blame in any way here. I am merely laying out for you how your story reads to an outsider. It reads as if you think it was a good thing - but everything about it stikes alarm bells that it was anything but. To the point where at least two other users have even considered it pretty tragic.


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    #449
    josip
    Registered Users Posts: 13,706 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Often we are too close to our own anecdotes to see what others see in them.

    Sometimes we are too close to our own sermons.


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    #450
    Potential-Monke
    Registered Users Posts: 13,854 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    Deleted User wrote: »
    To the point where at least two other users have even considered it pretty tragic.

    “The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”
    ― Horace Walpole

    “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
    ― W.B. Yeats

    Just 2 quotes about tragedy i thought i'd share. Anyway, i believe we've exhausted our opinions, and only circles would remain should we keep it up. But i ask for those who read my side to not feel, tragic, or sorry, or even angry. Feel better knowing that my story is one mostly of the past.

    [/attemptatphilosophy]


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    #451
    iguy
    Registered Users Posts: 561 ✭✭✭iguy


    I spoke with my partner about the situation, and she even agreed with me and she said she had shared the same thoughts, i.e. afraid the family would despise her etc,
    anyways we reported the sister and the welfare came out, the kids haven't been taken away.
    However what we gathered a more senior social worker will be out tomorrow.


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