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Smacking Children

  
  

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Jack Fear
11:30 / 20.12.05
See, I disagree. The intimidation has nothing to do with the actuial physical force used. It's intimidating because it's shocking—the short, sharp shock.

It's a disrupter—a bucket of cold water. Obviously one should only use the minimum of physical force necessary: excessive force is what crosses the line between punishment and abuse. A belt is simply unnecessary—it's using a cannon to kill a flea.

Question; Would literally dumping a bucket of cold water on an out-of-control child be more acceptable than a single premeditated sober open-handed slap on the clothed buttocks?
 
 
Spaniel
11:36 / 20.12.05
I'm not sure that Nina's saying you can't express an opinion on the subject of physical discipline, just that you need to be careful to stick to what you do in fact know, or have good reason to believe.

Personally I'd like to thank you for this:

children that are spanked/smacked are quiet around and desperately seek the approval of the parent that smacks them.

I hadn't thought of that, and it seems blaringly obvious now that you've pointed it out. It also puts a slightly worrying spin on Wedding's anecdote.
 
 
Spaniel
11:40 / 20.12.05
I should stress that I'm sure the above quote isn't always the case. As has been pointed out, there are better and worse ways of administering physical punishment.
 
 
Ariadne
11:46 / 20.12.05
Well, hang on ... I was smacked - not all the time, but when I was naughty, and it certainly didn't create a silent little big-eyed child seeking approval from my Mum.

I'm not for or against smacking children, but I think it's going too far to suggest children who get the odd smack are timorous, damaged wee creatures.
 
 
Quantum
12:00 / 20.12.05
Here's a question- should you shout at children? Seems to have very similar issues involved (don't do it in anger, I was shouted at as a child and I'm ok etc.) but it's easier to imagine yourself raising your voice to a child even if you would never countenance smacking.

So why is shouting OK? They get scared and upset, it's intimidating, it's effectively emotional violence to shout at kids. And I think anyone who says 'Ooh, I'll never raise my voice to my kids' is living in a deluded fantasy world, yes you will.
 
 
Spaniel
12:02 / 20.12.05
Ari, you did read my second post above, didn't you?
 
 
Spaniel
12:04 / 20.12.05
I think it's going too far to suggest children who get the odd smack are timorous, damaged wee creatures.

Also, assuming that's in response to what I wrote, I didn't suggest that at all.
 
 
Ariadne
12:05 / 20.12.05
Em, no, not properly, sorry Boboss.
 
 
Ariadne
12:07 / 20.12.05
and no, that was in response to TTT's description of children who get smacked. I don't doubt that it's true in some cases but I just wanted to say it's not going to affect all children that way.
 
 
Spaniel
12:13 / 20.12.05
No, of course not, and I think we should perhaps beware of referring to physical punishment as a monolithic "it".
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:26 / 20.12.05
Thanks Boboss, that's exactly what I was trying to say and Tom it wasn't specifically aimed at you, I hope you didn't get that impression. I was really talking to Loomis and Boboss who were beginning to reach into that area.
 
 
Ex
12:49 / 20.12.05
It's not acceptable for anyone to hit, slap, spank, or "tap" me without my permission, and it therefore should not be acceptable for my child to have these indignities visited upon them, by me or anyone else.

But it's not OK for anyone to dictate what I wear or eat, how far up my nose I stick my fingers, when I go to bed or how I spend the majority of my day. It would be an indignity for me to have these things imposed on me. Yet responsible parents usually do most of these things to their children. Some of them are punishment related, some are pleasant, most are somewhere in between in a hazy regulatory zone.
I like the idea that children have rights, but I don't think they can be the same as adult rights, simply because they are not autonomous on so many levels.
 
 
Jack Fear
12:55 / 20.12.05
It's not acceptable for anyone to hit, slap, spank, or "tap" me without my permission...

Sure it is. If you become a danger to yourself or others, the police or other agents of control are authorized to use appropriate force to prevent you from causing harm and/or disruption.
 
 
grant
13:29 / 20.12.05
"Disturbing the peace" and "drunk and disorderly" and "violating noise ordinances."

These are what grown-ups have to put up with.
 
 
Quantum
13:41 / 20.12.05
See, that's my position- the last resort of authority is force, otherwise it's not authority. If you break the law eventually someone sends you to the naughty step (prison) and if you resist they hit you with sticks. "Power comes from the barrel of a gun" Mao said. But in fact most people don't get hit with sticks, because they know not to do those things and they know there are people with sticks willing to use them. Same with smacking. I'd be willing to smack my child if they were being really, really naughty so that a) they wouldn't run into the road or whatever and b) next time when I said things like 'Don't run out into the road!' they'd listen.

Since the overprotection of children we've now got a massive problem with out of control teenagers (ASBOs, rising youth crime, take last week when a group of young people 'happy slapped' i.e. beat a gay man to death and filmed it on their mobiles for example). I'm not saying a slap as children would have averted their antisocial behaviour, but the cost of a lack of discipline for children is a load of adults who don't know how to behave and feel they are untouchable. Because they literally have been, teachers can't touch children without huge repercussions.
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
14:44 / 20.12.05
See, that's my position- the last resort of authority is force, otherwise it's not authority. If you break the law eventually someone sends you to the naughty step (prison) and if you resist they hit you with sticks. "Power comes from the barrel of a gun" Mao said.

But that doesn't mean it's the right way of dealing with it, does it? Would you suggest that the use of force on adults is equally, less or more acceptable than the use of force on children to enforce authority?

But in fact most people don't get hit with sticks, because they know not to do those things and they know there are people with sticks willing to use them.

What about those who continue doing bad things, despite the use of naughty prisons and smacking sticks?

Are you really suggesting that the social contract be based solely on a power relation between the state and citizens out of the barrel of a gun or the stave of a long-handled baton?

Likewise, should a parent's relationship with their child(ren) be based on keeping them cowed and subdued by the threat of physical force as the ultimate sanction?

Or are you just stating that that is how it is with power relations, effectively, and there's nothing much to be done about it?

Same with smacking. I'd be willing to smack my child if they were being really, really naughty so that a) they wouldn't run into the road or whatever and b) next time when I said things like 'Don't run out into the road!' they'd listen.

I don't know if it has had the long term effect required, but I've found telling my daughter that it's not a good idea to run out in the road because of being hit by cars myself twice as a child seems to have helped her understand it's a bad idea for now. I'm not sure smacking her would do the same.

Since the overprotection of children we've now got a massive problem with out of control teenagers (ASBOs, rising youth crime, take last week when a group of young people 'happy slapped' i.e. beat a gay man to death and filmed it on their mobiles for example).

If you mean this case, it wasn't last week that the killing, vile and senseless as it was, took place. Those responsible were convicted last week.

I'm not saying a slap as children would have averted their antisocial behaviour, but the cost of a lack of discipline for children is a load of adults who don't know how to behave and feel they are untouchable.

There are adults who are equally as bad - I have seen pensioners be unneccessarily rude and foul-mouthed to bus drivers when being asked to move out of the way of the rear view mirror, for instance. I don't know if they were untouchable at school though.

Because they literally have been, teachers can't touch children without huge repercussions.

But the parents could have done, by the logic of authoratative force, couldn't they - given 'em a bit of the rod to smarten their behaviour up a bit? Why should teachers be the ones responsible for disciplining unruly children?

On the whole I would rather not have a teacher or any other authority figure using physical violence against my or any other child, just as I'd rather not have the police issuing an on the spot beating for spitting on the pavement, for example, if the last resort of authority really is force.
 
 
Char Aina
16:32 / 20.12.05
Are you really suggesting that the social contract be based solely on a power relation between the state and citizens out of the barrel of a gun or the stave of a long-handled baton?

...I'd rather not have the police issuing an on the spot beating for spitting on the pavement, for example, if the last resort of authority really is force.

could you point out where you are getting 'based solely' from? the social contracy is way more complex than ' do it or get it', but there is an element of that involved in any system that wishes to protect itself.

also, why would the police use their last resort against such a minor infraction as spitting? isnt the point of last resorts that they get used, well, last? like, when the other methods of law enforcement have been tried?
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
17:01 / 20.12.05
Toksik: could you point out where you are getting 'based solely' from? the social contracy is way more complex than ' do it or get it', but there is an element of that involved in any system that wishes to protect itself.

Fair point. Not solely - but the point being made was that authority is still based upon the use of force, whether as a last resort or not. As for protecting itself, is that from its citizens/subjects, to maintain itself in a position of power and authority?

To try to bring this back to the thread subject, I'm assuming no-one is going to suggest that an adult spanking a child is protecting itself physically, but instead enforcing its authority.

also, why would the police use their last resort against such a minor infraction as spitting? isnt the point of last resorts that they get used, well, last? like, when the other methods of law enforcement have been tried?

Again fair point about the last resort and spitting - I was exaggerating somewhat there (sorry) - but still, the last resort of violence still seems like something best left out of the social contract and of parenting, ideally. Note that I say ideally.
 
 
Char Aina
17:32 / 20.12.05
noted.

when i talk of protection i mean that a system that wishes to continue being that same system will have to have somewhere in its defences the threat of physical force. if the police in this country were not able to use force we would then be open to those who are not likewise constrained doing so to coerce folks.

i dont mean that a cop is necessarily protecting himself, and i dont mean to suggest that parents are slapping wrists in self defence.

if a parent wishes to have control over the rule of law in their household, they will have to be prepared to use force if the situation warrants it. the situation will in many cases never warrant it. despite its rare use, the threat must be there, i feel, or the kids in question will get to know of its absence and exploit that.

quantum's story of the "wot you gona do?" brigade demonstrates what i am talking about a bit. the only way mama q managed to show said little shits that their actions are unnaceptable to others (and have consequences as a result) was by assaulting one of them.

what should she have done?
 
 
Mourne Kransky
17:32 / 20.12.05
Don't forget, guys, that most of the damage is done before you get anywhere near language or independent mobility. By the time your little darling is making animal noises and toddling, much of its personality is already determined. Brutalising from that point on will still wreak havoc but the ground has already been fertilised.

A parent who reads Anna Freud and Melanie Klein all day long is not hugging, kissing and playing with hir child, however. Good enough is good enough. Perfection and striving for same is a disaster.
 
 
Quantum
17:47 / 20.12.05
What about those who violate the social contract? People who know it's wrong and do it anyway? "Law, without force, is meaningless" Pascale said (in French). The last resort of course, but it has to be there to enforce the rules otherwise they're meaningless.

That's what's happening when a child is wilfully naughty, they are breaking the rules, and that behaviour has consequences. I don't think it's controversial to say children go through phases of testing authority and determining boundaries, and if they're bad then there has to be some sort of punishment to teach them not to do it again. Carrot AND stick. Whether your stick is the naughty step or a good talking to or witholding playstation privileges, it's going to be something the kid doesn't like by definition. I'm of the opinion there are infractions serious enough to merit a slap, but I'm hoping (obviously) never to have to need to resort to that. If I parent successfully my child will be smart enough to realise I really mean it and stop whatever stupid thing they're doing.

Those responsible were convicted last week Quite right, my recollection was faulty. Those stories seem to roll around more often these days though, don't they?
 
 
Loomis
17:52 / 20.12.05
if my child learns that the powerful can punish them, take their privileges, I can live with that. Unfortunately it's a symptom of the world these days, politics, economics; it's how they work.

. . . . .

However I do not want my child to accept or be blase about the authorities hitting them, beating them, spanking them, or otherwise causing pain to their bodies.

Why do you privilege the body so much? Is causing pain to someone's mind preferable to causing pain to their body? Why? No one has answered this question. All the anti-smackers assume that the body must not be touched, at all costs, but no one has said why this is so.

the use of force on children to enforce authority?

But you already practice this. You use force on your child all the time, because you are bigger and stronger. Why is physical force so much worse than mental force? Do you think that physical force is always more scarring than mental force, no matter the degree of either?

I'd rather not have the police issuing an on the spot beating for spitting on the pavement, for example

Firstly, as has been repeated ad nauseum, no one's talking about a beating. Secondly, would you prefer a policeman give you a sharp rap on the bottom, enough to sting for a few seconds, or would you prefer to be led up and down the footpath, with everyone watching, and have to explain to everybody what you did wrong and why you are being embarrassed and shamed? I know which one I'd prefer.
 
 
Quantum
18:05 / 20.12.05
My Mum vs. Vicky Pollard for reference.
 
 
Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!
20:16 / 20.12.05
Please excuse that. Sharing a computer has a downside, as you've just seen.

it certainly didn't create a silent little big-eyed child seeking approval from my Mum.

I didn't mean to indicate that every child has this reaction, and am sorry if it came across that way. I see this often with kids who have emotionally distant or strict parents, so there may be some overlap, but there is a definite difference in children who are regularly punished with slaps/spanks when they are around their parents. This is all from my experience, however.

Here's a question- should you shout at children?

Raising your voice to get the attention of a child is fine, but I really think this does depend on the way it is used and how shout is defined. A stern, loud voice is acceptable to a degree, but a scream or similar is right out.

I find the "Teacher Voice" is great for this, particularly with kids around 8 years old. I'm generally laid back with the children I work with, so when I do raise my voice a bit they all get quiet and pay very close attention. I don't have to yell, or do anything I would call a shout.

Tom it wasn't specifically aimed at you, I hope you didn't get that impression

Ah, fair enough. I didn't mean to get snarky. I think I got a little het up earlier, largely because the fact that Amaya is going to have to put up with such hassle from some adults pisses me off. I was a child that always made friends older than me, socialized with adults, and generally got off light, but I find that in the UK it is much more acceptable to be horrible towards or demeaning to children than in the US or many places in Europe. So I'm worried, for her sake. I'm sure you can all understand.

But it's not OK for anyone to dictate what I wear or eat, how far up my nose I stick my fingers, when I go to bed or how I spend the majority of my day. It would be an indignity for me to have these things imposed on me.

Well, I agree. When she's old enough to tell me Amaya can wear what she likes, pick her nose as much as she wants (I do, and fuck anyone that doesn't like it) and if plans for her schooling go ahead, we will be un-schooling so she will, indeed, be able to decide what she wants to do most of the day. Bedtimes? Not too bothered, but she has to sleep a reasonable amount, otherwise she won't be functional, really. I'm the same.

So, there you have it.

Why do you privilege the body so much? Is causing pain to someone's mind preferable to causing pain to their body? Why?

What is the equivalent of a "Mind Spank"? Joking aside, I'm somewhat vague about what you mean - how would I go about causing pain to someone's mind?

Other than reality TV.

Secondly, would you prefer a policeman give you a sharp rap on the bottom, enough to sting for a few seconds, or would you prefer to be led up and down the footpath, with everyone watching, and have to explain to everybody what you did wrong and why you are being embarrassed and shamed? I know which one I'd prefer.

The latter, every time.

This relates to my Junior High experiences. I had a Math teacher, who was a bit odd, but a nice guy for the most part. In retrospect he was perhaps a bit creepy, but that may in fact be embellishment. Said teacher was strict about talking in class, and when someone got in trouble with him for an infraction, they were given the choices between going to the principal and being given an hour's detention or being given 10 hits on the ass with a paddle, designed for the purpose. He never paddled the opposite sex, only boys. I think that was an attempt to make it less contentious, but like I said, bit creepy in retrospect.

Anyway, I got in trouble twice. Every other boy in my class that got in trouble preferred the paddle. I always took the detention.

So, maybe that's just me.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:20 / 20.12.05
How did we express contempt for poor people before Little Britain? Thank you, Little Britain!
 
 
Mourne Kransky
20:30 / 20.12.05
When I was teaching Child Protection classes last year, a participant brought this novelty method of child torture to my attention. I wonder how accurate it is? John Sutherland's usually quite sensible and well-informed.

Don't want to smack or shout and the naughty step isn't tough enough? Do the tongue spank! Try hotsaucing!
 
 
grant
20:35 / 20.12.05
I've only ever heard of it in the context of Lisa Whelchel.

Well, and in line with my first post to this thread, in dares with The Boy. But, again, that's not punitive. It's competitive.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
20:52 / 20.12.05
Yeah, um, dunno which thread this belongs in anymore, but Quantum, I think your analysis of cause and effect here is just plain wrong:

Since the overprotection of children we've now got a massive problem with out of control teenagers (ASBOs, rising youth crime, take last week when a group of young people 'happy slapped' i.e. beat a gay man to death and filmed it on their mobiles for example). I'm not saying a slap as children would have averted their antisocial behaviour, but the cost of a lack of discipline for children is a load of adults who don't know how to behave and feel they are untouchable. Because they literally have been, teachers can't touch children without huge repercussions.

These "stories" seem to roll around more often these days because this is what a good chunk of the mainstream media is obsessed with. Also, ASBOs are not in themselves an indicator of an increase in the number of out-of-control teenagers...
 
 
ibis the being
21:19 / 20.12.05
Nina's pretty much answered it for me. Not all physical contact is painful or violent, ibis. Is it wrong to grasp a child's arm forcefully? Is it wrong to slap a child on the wrist when he reaches across the table to pull his sister's hair? Humans are physical as well as mental, and I don't see the need for this mind/body division, where it's fine to mentally scar a child but any physical contact is negative.

This doesn't answer my question at all. My question is what does it teach? That all hitting is not painful? Is that a useful lesson to the child?

As Tom elegantly described, the "naughty step" teaches the concept that one doesn't get to play, hang out, eat dinner with, etc, if one is behaving badly (hitting, shouting, spitting, whatever). Antisocial behavior meets an appropriate consequence - loss of social inclusion. So I guess I'll ask again, what does hitting/smacking teach?

children that are spanked/smacked are quiet around and desperately seek the approval of the parent that smacks them. I don't think this is a positive thing, having seen it in action, because these children usually have an overwhelming need to please those in authority, are dependant and not as individualistic/likely to strike out on their own or take the initiative as the other children. Plus they're far more likely to resort to physical violence when frustrated.

This describes me very (eerily) well, and I was spanked as a child. I think limiting the above characterization to "timorous, wee creatures" is far too constrictive. I did desperately seek to please authorities, usually in the form of polishing apples at school. I snuck around and lied to my parents almost pathologically (like, when there was no reason to lie at all) to avoid confrontation. And I was a deliberate wallflower, just trying to go with the flow as much as possible. I do still feel the need to hit things when I'm really frustrated.
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
22:06 / 20.12.05
Loomis: the use of force on children to enforce authority?

What I asked in full was: "Would you suggest that the use of force on adults is equally, less or more acceptable than the use of force on children to enforce authority?"

But you already practice this. You use force on your child all the time, because you are bigger and stronger.

Do I? How do you have any way of knowing that? Does that also mean that I would therefore use physical force on an adult who is smaller and weaker than me if I was in a position of authority over them?

Why is physical force so much worse than mental force? Do you think that physical force is always more scarring than mental force, no matter the degree of either?

A good question, and one I'll have to think on a bit before answering.

Firstly, as has been repeated ad nauseum, no one's talking about a beating.

I was exaggerating a bit there as I've already stated, but there's many a slap betwixt beating the crap out of someone for some lip: it's a matter of degree, but violence is inherent in a slap as it is in a thrashing.

Secondly, would you prefer a policeman give you a sharp rap on the bottom, enough to sting for a few seconds, or would you prefer to be led up and down the footpath, with everyone watching, and have to explain to everybody what you did wrong and why you are being embarrassed and shamed?

I feel the latter would probably be more effective in the long run, though by analogy and for the sake of argument only, when given a choice between the two options offered.

The idea of the police parading people on the street to shame them has overtones of frogmarching to cashpoints to administer short sharp fines and other such Daily Mail-feeding silliness which deny any form of legal defence.
 
 
ibis the being
22:18 / 20.12.05
That's what's happening when a child is wilfully naughty, they are breaking the rules, and that behaviour has consequences. I don't think it's controversial to say children go through phases of testing authority and determining boundaries, and if they're bad then there has to be some sort of punishment to teach them not to do it again. Carrot AND stick. Whether your stick is the naughty step or a good talking to or witholding playstation privileges, it's going to be something the kid doesn't like by definition. I'm of the opinion there are infractions serious enough to merit a slap, but I'm hoping (obviously) never to have to need to resort to that. If I parent successfully my child will be smart enough to realise I really mean it and stop whatever stupid thing they're doing.

I just don't understand why no distinction is being made, here and in several other posts, between punishment and correction. Pro-spanking debaters always jump to the argument that coddled and undisciplined kids are monsters and grow up to be criminals, but just because I (or whoever) am against spanking does not mean I'm against discipline or for spoiling children.

Discipline, IMO, should be meaningful, instructive, and in the best cases logically related to the offense or misbehavior that prompts it (though that is not always possible for various practical reasons). A child is hitting his playmate? The child is removed from play completely. This is an aversive (child doesn't like it) correction (you can't play if you don't hit).

Hitting is just aversive, with no meaning or instruction. There is no relating it to the misbehavior beyond this gradation of "how hard?"

Jack Fear, your use of hitting as "interrupter" falls apart in the face of your Levels of Protocol or whatever it was called. How can a slap be an interrupter and a last resort at the same time? Interrupting a child is easy - they are small. If a child is in hitting reach, they are certainly in grab-and-move-to-safety reach.
 
 
Tom Tit's Tot: A Girl!
22:30 / 20.12.05
Punishment and correction closely correlate to the ideas of negative reinforcement and extinction. Ultimately the frogmarching example made by Loomis and the related worry of mental damage or abuse is Negative Reinforcement, not Extinction. With negative reinforcement you punish for a transgression. However, with extinction you ignore undesireable behaviour. Now, by ignore I mean you stop the child getting attention for the behaviour, as children commonly behave in a negative fashion repeatedly due to the attention they get for the behaviour. The Naughty Step is extinction. Extinction and Positive Reinforcement work well together, and don't require that anyone gets hit or hurt.
 
 
Icicle
12:42 / 21.12.05
children that are spanked/smacked are quiet around and desperately seek the approval of the parent that smacks them..

I knew someone whose girlfriend beat him up. Even though he obviously hated this experience, sometimes he would deliberatly wind her up, knowing what the consequences could be. Do children do this as well? Children who are smacked aren't any better behaved than children or aren't, and if violence is dealt out in an inconsistent and unfair way, then maybe they are more badly behaved.
In my own experience, even now as an adult I feel that when my parents are 'badly behaved,' this gives me a license to behave in ways I know are 'wrong'. If parents behave in a way that the child instinctively believes is wrong or unfair, then perhaps they'll be even naughtier.
 
 
Loomis
13:01 / 21.12.05
Maybe there's an issue of terminology here. I'm tending to use force and discipline rather interchangeably. Basically I'm saying that when you discipline your child in any way, you're forcing them to do something they don't like, or preventing them from doing what they want. And the only reason you can do those things is becuase you are in control and they are not. Perhaps "mental force" is a weird phrase. Conjures up images of some kind of dodgy sixites sci-fi show.

I do feel a tiny bit that the anti-smackers are defining smacking out of the argument by assuming that negative terms like force, pain, violence only apply to physical acts, and pscyhological states of distress, shame, embarrassment, isolation, etc. aren't just as painful or damaging.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
13:14 / 21.12.05
Later, when I'm not at work I'm going to explain to you what it's like to be a hysterical child and why a physical shock from an authority figure can be a relief. The assumption here is that children choose to behave badly- how many of you choose to over-react to things?
 
  

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