The Spank Poll

[Alcon]

I never saw that SurveyUSA did this, but this is sure one weird polling idea:

http://www.surveyusa.com/50StateDisciplineChild0805SortedbyTeacher.htm

I wish they would do that kind of question more often.  The results actually make sense somehow, but I can't put my finger on why.

[Alcon]

Fascinating poll, Alcon!  The South, unsurprisingly, is most supportive of child abuse, but what is really interesting is that in no state do the majority oppose parental abuse of children.

I was surprised at the high spanking numbers and the low "soap" numbers.

Also, isn't it odd that Mississippi is 4th most pro-spanking but tied for 6th most anti-soap, along with West Virginia?

[Alcon]

I get the impression that some people who were spanked when they are younger are being a little defensive here.  You have to consider, in part, that this is a generational thing.  Spanking being OK was pretty universal 40-50 years ago, as was soap.  It's not like doing either automatically makes a bad parent.  Anyone saying that is being ridiculous.

Personally, my parents never even grounded me.  They had much more effective ways of punishing me without doing it physically.  They explained just why what I was doing was stupid, and I pretty much got the message.  Most kids have an iota of logic by the time the whole "time out corner" (or whatever equivilent everyone here had) thing wears out.

And as for soap...my parents allow my to swear around them pretty freely because I'm not dumb enough to do it around other people.

[Alcon]

I was slapped as a child, and I think I turned out okay.

Well, with all respect, just because something didn't profoundly screw you up for life doesn't mean it was a necessary or good idea.

[Alcon]

Just because you did not need to be disciplined does not mean that no-one else does. I am quite sick of dealing with other people in my age category who trash places (not their own property), play stupid pranks on others, cause excessive amounts of trouble, and in general blatantly resent and resist any form of organisation and authority even when necessary; it makes me wonder what their parents did wrong. Spanking/slapping might not have been needed, of course, but some form of discipline couldn't have possibly traumatised the idiots.

I don't think that people of that age are generally spanked, anyway.

I do not think spanking is going to solve deeply-rooted problems with authority like those.  Behaviour like that goes to the point where nothing as simple as spaking is going to fix the problem.

And I never said that no one requires lack of discipline.  Problems should be dealt with accordingly, but if spanking can be avoided, it should be.  Such is the case with any physical punishment.

[Alcon]

I presume that you can reason very logically with a three-year-old, then? Personally, I can't even reason logically with a lot of eighteen-year-olds.

How many three-year-olds have behaviour problems severe enough to not be solved through time outs and the like, but not severe enough to not require intervention from an outside source?

You are under the incorrect assumption that spanking is always the most effective deterrent, and then arguing that it doesn't make sense why I wouldn't support it.  My point is that, in the majority of cases, spanking isn't.  It is just instilling fear.  That doesn't prevent poor behaviour in situations where the fear-instilling force is not there.

So what would you recommend, sympathy?

Sympathy and discipline are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  But if we are still talking about three-year-olds, yeah, I would recommend sympathy.

[Alcon]

In case you were too blind to figure this out, I was being sardonic with the 'sympathy' remark. A lot of parents bashed my mother for using spanking/slapping on her children (however infrequently, though I daresay my brother was spanked more often since I have always been fairly quiet), complaining that giving their children 'sympathy' is far more effective. I don't know how the hell one administers 'sympathy', but at any rate, too bad their kids are the ones who trash rooms, tease and hurt other kids, get detentions, and behave terribly. Or maybe they're just 'normal', in which case we obviously have to feel terribly sorry for them because they're feeling rejected by society.

I knew you were being sardonic.

Sympathy for what, though? How is feeling sorry for a kid who just, say, hit another kid going to magically cure the problem?

Spanking a kid for hitting another kid might strike a three-year-old as a mite contradictory.  "It's not right to hit someone you like, so I'm going to hit you because of it"?  How do you answer questions about how that makes sense to a three-year-old?

I was never allowed to hit any of my students a few years back (when I was assisting teachers), but giving people who cause trouble 'sympathy' wasn't ever on the agenda. If you caused trouble, you got a time-out or were yelled at if you were a repeat offender.

Again, you're kind of jumping around in ages here.  What age are we talking about giving sympathy too?  Obviously, a 16-year-old shouldn't get sympathy for bad behaviour, but it's kind of part of the 3-year-old's modus operandi.

[Alcon]

I don't advocate spanking kids if they hit other kids. I also don't advocate just sitting there, beaming warmly at them whilst trying to delve into the psychology of why kids hit other kids. Yelling at them or taking away their privileges, which still constitutes discipline and is more reminiscent of 'discipline' than simply feeling sorry for them, generally works better.

...Which is exactly what I've been supporting this entire time.

My students were generally in the age range of 3-10. Explain to me how one uses sympathy, including how sympathy is an effective punishment, since you obviously have superior knowledge of how to deal with young children. Also, would you like to explain how to discipline older teenagers?

I've never argued for sympathy as a punishment.

[Alcon]

So you're arguing that sympathy should be used to reward children who misbehave?

Sympathy is defined as "A feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the distress of another; compassion or commiseration."

No.  I do not think sympathy should be used to reward someone.  But it is your child.  Sympathy is an essential part of the parent-child relationship. Part of sympathy is teaching them to live their life in a well-behaved way.  Part of that is also not doing something that is going to make your kid terrified of you.

If I had meant that sympathy should be used as a reward for misbehaving children, I would have said that.  I didn't.

[Alcon]

Dazzleman, where do you draw the line between punishment and abuse?  I don't mean this to be rhetorical at all, but I'm curious to know what you think.

[Alcon]

Which is why I asked - why do you propose giving children who misbehave sympathy? If the child had no malicious intent (say, he broke something clearly by accident) and did something 'wrong' that injured himself, then I suppose that sympathy would have some use. If the child hit someone else, what the hell is giving him sympathy going to do to prevent him from doing it again? Telling him that it's the other kid's fault isn't going to solve the problem.

Sympathy for the act and for the person are distinct concepts.  And sympathy does not mean "it's not your fault."  It can mean "if you keep doing this, you're going to screw your life up, and I don't want you to do that, so I have to punish you."  Which is the point of punishment in the first place.

Also, you conveniently avoided my last question. Would you like to answer it? I may be able to put the expert's advice to good use - I have had to carefully avoid teenagers since, oh, maybe August since they're much too stressful to manage without proper disciplinary tactics.

I missed it the first time you asked it, and replied before you edited your last post.  Sorry about that - mea culpa.

I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to be.  I've read a good amount of material about this (which kind of goes along with being the son of a Psychologist).  Obviously, it would depend on the situation.  There are plenty of situations in which I would be unable to solve them, because I totally lack expertise.

On the other hand, if we never talked about things we lack expertise in, this would be a damn quiet forum.

[Alcon]

Spanking a kid for hitting another kid might strike a three-year-old as a mite contradictory.  "It's not right to hit someone you like, so I'm going to hit you because of it"?  How do you answer questions about how that makes sense to a three-year-old?

How hard is it to distinguish between retaliation and initiation?

But what the kid sees is his or herself not liking what the other kid did and punishing them for that; to them, that's the same thing the parent is doing.  Your point is well-taken, though.

[Alcon]

Spanking a kid for hitting another kid might strike a three-year-old as a mite contradictory.  "It's not right to hit someone you like, so I'm going to hit you because of it"?  How do you answer questions about how that makes sense to a three-year-old?

How hard is it to distinguish between retaliation and initiation?

But what the kid sees is his or herself not liking what the other kid did and punishing them for that; to them, that's the same thing the parent is doing.  Your point is well-taken, though.

Well, and by hitting the kid, you make it pretty clear that he shouldn't be punishing people.

But the kid can't understand why it is not right for a kid to do it but it is for an adult.  Which, really, is not an easy distinction for me to make now.

[Alcon]

Sympathy for the act and for the person are distinct concepts.  And sympathy does not mean "it's not your fault."  It can mean "if you keep doing this, you're going to screw your life up, and I don't want you to do that, so I have to punish you."  Which is the point of punishment in the first place.

What punishment? If there is no punishment, then what's the point?

Time out, grounding, verbal reenforcement.  Obviously, there is more than spanking.

How about a situation where the offenders trashed property that does not belong to them? What would you propose be done about that?

They should be arrested.

[Alcon]

But the point, as I see, is not to get the kid to understand, but to get him to stop. If that works, you no longer have a problem.

The problem, though, is that it may (or may not, granted) instill the belief that authority is something that is hypocritical.  Personally, whenever I was punished, it was explained to me; I appreciated this, because then I didn't feel like I was being unfairly punished.  When it wasn't explained, I resented it and didn't feel bad trying to get around it.  Obviously, this isn't true for everyone, but I imagine it isn't a rare sentiment.

After all, isn't one more likely to follow a punishment when you understand why it was given than when it seems entirely arbitrary?

[Alcon]

How about a situation where the offenders trashed property that does not belong to them? What would you propose be done about that?

They should be arrested.

You again failed to notice my sardonicism. Hyperbole maybe, but sardonicism nonetheless.

You demand I answer a question and then say it was sardonicism - why?  Besides, why do you need to be mocking me in the first place?  I'm not doing so to you.

[Alcon]

In that case, let's stop talking about three-year-olds and start talking about fifteen-year-olds with the mental capacity of three-year-olds.

Explain to me why it is any more right for a parent to do it to a child under the banner "violence is always wrong."

[Alcon]

Explain to me why it is any more right for a parent to do it to a child under the banner "violence is always wrong."

It can not be done. Nothing is objectively 'right' or 'wrong.'

Let's avoid Opebo Metaphysics here.  Why do you think it is right, if you do?  We can always agree to disagree.

[Alcon]

In that case, let's stop talking about three-year-olds and start talking about fifteen-year-olds with the mental capacity of three-year-olds.

Explain to me why it is any more right for a parent to do it to a child under the banner "violence is always wrong."

Who suggested that parents who discipline always do "it" (what does "it" mean? spanking? removing privileges? grounding?) under the impression that violence is always wrong?

Also, by that logic, we might as well not punish anyone, including criminals, because, after all, violence is always wrong!

Hitting, which is what we've been talking about for a while.

We do not generally punish criminals with violence, by the way.  However, you have a good point.  However, it's clear to even a three-year-old that their friend Jimmy is not a criminal.

[Alcon]

Explain to me why it is any more right for a parent to do it to a child under the banner "violence is always wrong."

It can not be done. Nothing is objectively 'right' or 'wrong.'

Let's avoid Opebo Metaphysics here.  Why do you think it is right, if you do?  We can always agree to disagree.

Uh, you think opebo made this up?

You can not extract a normative statement from a descriptive statement. The way things are tells us nothing about the way they ought to be, and so facts are useless for this discussion.

I'm simplying arguing in favor of what I think works.

I call it that because Opebo won't shut up about it.  If we never argued about subjective matters, we'd never argue at all.

[Alcon]

No, it is merely moral matters we would not argue over, along with things like what the 'best' color is.

We could still argue over what will get this kid to stop, since that issue deals with how things are.

I don't really think this is a matter of morality.  I think it is a matter of what is an effective balance of being a good deterrent and not screwing up the kid.

My mother's explanation wasn't the "violence is always wrong" line, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. It was mostly "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; id est, if you hit someone for no reason, someone else (whether it's the same person or a parent) is probably going to hit you back. Hence, hitting people is not beneficial to you in the long run.

I already corrected that line.  It wasn't accurate to say that the mantra is "violence is always wrong."  However, the "eye for an eye" stuff is moving into the realm of subjective morality.

[Alcon]

This isn't a matter of morality.

What does "this" refer to?

[Alcon]

This isn't a matter of morality.

What does "this" refer to?

You mentioned subjective morality in response to my "eye for an eye" statement right after tellking Philip that this isn't a matter of morality.

Arguing "eye to eye" is a morality matter, and one for a different topic; child-rearing may partially be, but is not entirely

[Alcon]

My mother has been hit and quite badly I might add.  Of coruse, I'm not qualified to make an opinion on this, but the student was amply punished and rightfully so.

Adult jail time?

No, explusion.

I don't know how badly he hit her, but for an assault, expulsion is not nearly enough.  It's only the beginning, in my opinion.  And 'expulsion' often doesn't mean what it says.  It often simply means a longer term suspension, during which the taxpayers have to pay for a private tutor, and after which the 'student's' 'rights' are reinstated.  Or it can simply mean transfer to a different school.

An assault charge isn't the school's decision.

[Alcon]

Oftentimes, it is easier not to pursue an assault charge, especially if the injury is minor.  I can understand why the teacher wouldn't want to occupy their life with a trial just to make an example of one student.

By the way, I fully agree you.  What's worse to the average kid - a quick slap or a month without the phone or electronics?