Parents smacking children to be banned in Scotland .....

Any time I got a smack I knew exactly why I was getting it. I never got a smack for a mistake or an accident, only when I had knowingly and wilfully transgressed.

LordSutch wrote: »

Were you smacked as a child? and would you as a parent smack your own children, or are there other ways to control naughty behaviour?

There was a whole thread on using violence to control children in the classroom over here recently. 76% or more the boards populace decided it should never be allowed.

I see no reason ever have to use violence against my own children. Least of all to, as many do, use it to make up for my own inadequacies as a parent.

The questions and points I used for one user before he basically upped and ran away from the thread are relevant here too I feel.

1) There is no evidence on offer that the approach affords any benefit.

2) Where allowing it, due to the vagaries of relative sizes and strengths and vulnerabilities between both the adults administering the violence and the children receiving it.... it would be nigh impossible to police or set standards for how much force should be used to ensure A) the welfare of the recipient and the efficacy of the process.

3) There is little or no methods by which we can evaluate what level of force WAS used in a given case either. Even cameras in every class room or home would likely not help with this.

4) It would result in teaching children that violence is a valid recourse to dispute resolution, rather than role model peaceful and intellectual dispute resolution to them as we should be doing.

5) In a society where in general violence is reducing and we WANT violence to be reducing, it is a reintroduction of violence in an institutionalized fashion. That buzz word some people are so fond of of "normalizing" it to the degree of acceptance.

6) There exists studies, which I can cite and link on request, showing a negative effect of violence and fear of violence on learning.

7) There are genuine concerns around children receiving violence from adults in a position of trust who might later be therefore unwilling to approach that person with genuine problems (emotional, educational, or other) at a later time due to fear or grudge etc.

8) Use of violence to stem the behavior of a child the behavior of whom may be symptomatic of actual genuine issues..... risks us missing those actual genuine issues.

9) Giving a tool like violence to a teacher or parent to over come their own short comings AS a teacher or parent to control their children takes the wrong direction when we should in fact be addressing those short comings and resolving them.

There were other points of course, but that was the main body of them. For me I think with few exceptions, recourse to violence is indicative of a failure on behalf of the person using it to resolve the situation in a peaceful and intellectual manner.

You probably wouldn't slap an adult for naughty behaviour only for fear he/she would hit you back. You only slap a child because you do not have this fear

And of course it is a complete co-incidence that there are huge numbers of kids who have no respect for anyone or anything in todays society. Who have no concept whatsoever of the word "consequence".

A complete co-incidence, I assure you.

bucketybuck wrote: »

And of course it is a complete co-incidence that there are huge numbers of kids who have no respect for anyone or anything in todays society.

There we can only point you in the direction of the phrase "correlation is not causation".

There is little utility in arbitrarily picking something from society (in this case delinquent kids) and then arbitrarily picking something else you want to be the cause.

You know software piracy has gone up in recent years. Why not link that to the cause? The prevalence of reality TV has gone up too. Why not that? The difficulty of the junior and senior cycle curriculum has, in the view of some, gone down over the years. Maybe that is the cause? The perpetuation of smart phones and social media. Could that not be a factor?

There are any number of correlations one can grasp at like straws, it does not link them.

In all likelihood any increase (assuming real and not merely perceived as is possible here) in the delinquency of such youths is linked to a complex set of socio-economic factors. Not the least of which the amount of time and energy parents these days have to employ discipline and guidance, by violent OR non violent methodologies, has been curtailed in a stressful and economically volatile modern world.

Why would some people deem it acceptable to punish a child with violence and not an adult?

Hey, I said it was a co-incidence, what do you want from me?

A complete and utter co-incidence, thats what I said.

bucketybuck wrote: »

Hey, I said it was a co-incidence, what do you want from me?

A complete and utter co-incidence

What is? What are the two things that have coincided?

King George VI wrote: »

Yep, I was and rightly so because I was a little bollocks child and didn't listen to my parents

The funny thing is that people who defend smacking children on the basis that "it did me no harm" sound exactly like domestic abuse victims. "Yes, I got hit, but I deserved it."

Maximilian Lively Sharkskin wrote: »

I got a smack when I deserved it as a child and I'd have no issue doing the same if I have kids in the future.

I think however that it is quite possible for 100% of people to agree that children should be hit when they deserve it.

The point of disagreement is that in almost no situation (any??) does a child ACTUALLY "deserve" it. So it should never be done.

It is the parents / guardians role to lead children to correct and moral behaviors. If they fail in that role, then why would a child "deserve" to suffer for the adults failure?

The OP asks "are there other ways to control naughty behavior?" and the answer is there are MANY methodologies to do so without requiring any level of violence. And while many people argue how some are "better" than others, I think they are all pretty much equally effective depending on the individual application and execution of the methods.

For example the Super Nanny Method I have seen work brilliantly. I have also seen people employ it ENTIRELY differently to how Super Nanny recommends it. And it does not work. So they think the method does not work, rather than seeing their implementation of it was entirely wrong.

We weren't slapped as children. We were never afraid physically of our patents. My mother would loose the cool and scream and throw things. She put shoes through a few windows but that ended up being very expensive but plates were broken. It was this liss of control that frightened us and I think the same goes for slapping. It is usually done when the parent is at the end of their tether and then control can be lost.