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To smack or not to smack - liberal professor seeks publicity

So you got your kids to encourage their friends to come around yours for "help". Did you also have a big bag of werthers and tell them anything that went on was your little secret?
Ho, ho, ho. What a little ++it [insert "w" or "sh" at the beginning of the word according to preference] you are. I notice you included the word "encourage" in your post. I never encouraged anything, it just happened. You don't seem to ask the obvious question as to why the kids felt easier confiding in me than in their own parents. Could it have been because their parents never let them be who they wanted to be, but tried to mould them into being who the parents wanted them to be? Or perhaps it's just your envy that your own kids don't seem to want to confide in you. Of course, with that I mean the kids of yours who haven't been taken into care yet.

MsG
 
Ho, ho, ho. What a little ++it [insert "w" or "sh" at the beginning of the word according to preference] you are. I notice you included the word "encourage" in your post. I never encouraged anything, it just happened. You don't seem to ask the obvious question as to why the kids felt easier confiding in me than in their own parents. Could it have been because their parents never let them be who they wanted to be, but tried to mould them into being who the parents wanted them to be? Or perhaps it's just your envy that your own kids don't seem to want to confide in you. Of course, with that I mean the kids of yours who haven't been taken into care yet.

MsG


That's probably what Fred West said. Fancy a Werthers little boy?
 
sorry about the short response, but all the highly intellectual argumentation in your post went completely over my head, in particular the sheer number of counterarguments. Could you express yourself a little more simply,please?

Msg

MSG MSG MSG MSG MSG MSG MSG

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Now I feel expressed
 
As a product of miltary life and public school physical violence ie smacking and the rest of it was part of life for me.

For my kids I want to make it different. It's bloody difficult though, I have 11 and 13 year old boys. They row, belt each other, get into trouble the usual but are generally good lads. You tend to want to smack when they're pushing your buttons, it's then you who is out of control and them winning. It's easy to fall for it and simple but it's teaching them that violence is OK too. There are plenty of alternatives, naughty steps, taking mobile phones, stopping X box, or withdrawl of pocket money. If you're creative you can make the time fit the crime. Currently eldest is serving a two hour extra homework sentence for handing in a pile of crap.

I understand those who smack, it's their choice though. Just not what we want to do.
 
Smacking is just another of those political one-upmanship issues: 'Smoke some dope, and you'll become an unemployed, addled heroin addict thieving and prostituting yourself before you know it'; 'If we ban guns, that'll solve gun crime'... it's a victim of the pious assertions of those who feel they know best but don't have to deal with, or then make excuses for, the consequences.

In smacking's case the suggestion is that the progression is from mild rebuke to severe corporal and (say it quietly) even sexual abuse. And it's rubbish. I got some good hidings as a kid, usually off my mother (the threat of "I'll get your dad" was more than enough), and probably at times she went overboard. But I knew where I stood (if only because I couldn't sit down).

Am I descending into 'It never did me any harm' parody? No. I take issue with some of what happened. But I do still think there's a place for physical punishment.

Some of what happened to me was heat-of-the-moment stuff. I'm confident that both my parents would step in if they'd seen real abuse. I can in fact think of a time when my father did, with another father on the estate whose wheeze was punching his son in the chest 'to toughen him up'. (Yeah, big guy. And I hope one day the tables were turned good and proper.)

Kids will manipulate, and they will try boundaries.

I've got a mate whose six year-old son will front out adult males, throwing punches around and so on. He's going to be a handful. Luckily, said mate is more than a little tasty and will be more than a match even when his son is old enough to start really putting himself about. But what do you do with a kid like that? 'Understand' him? Sometimes, he's intent only on getting his own way. He's had a few taps on the behind and his ability to 'forget' in the short term who's in charge is set right pretty quickly. Then he gets on with being a bright, nice kid again.

Another mate of mine was beaten daily by his mother as a kid. He grew up traumatised with no memory of the beatings. The consequence was a bloke who when he snapped had no idea what was going on until the fight was over. And he didn't tend to lose. He ended up seeing a counsellor to unlock his mind and sort the damage. He no longer sees his parents but is a great father to two great kids.

As ever, it's context, context, context.
 
I had a long post for this, then realised that I was defending myself and I dont need to.

I am going to raise my kids exactly how I damn well please, and if the little sods step to widely out of line their going to find out about it.

I love it when they are a little willful even cheeky it shows spirit and intelligence, but their are boundaries and they know that and are learning all the time and as they get older I will adjust those boundaries to account for their growing responsibilities and need for independence.

Even now knowing damn well I could take my old man down, I would not because I know he would come back in the dark. Because I love and respect my parents, I also still fear their disapproval of my actions, and that fear was put their through getting a good hiding when boundaries were crossed. To be honest I preferred the walloping rather than the lecture, but perhaps thats just me.

I still believe the petrol can incident was worth the beating.
 
Kids need training and education. There's always a degree of coercion in training and education, how much depends on the trainee.

Properly trained and educated, kids have more chance of making the right choices and making the most of opportunities when they arise. Most importantly, they will have the life skills and perception necessary to know a load of b0llocks when they encounter it, such as anything posted by Kalle_M. Speaking from experience, the occasional well-deserved smack is a small price to pay for such invaluable insight in later life.
 
I had a long post for this, then realised that I was defending myself and I dont need to.

I am going to raise my kids exactly how I damn well please, and if the little sods step to widely out of line their going to find out about it.

I love it when they are a little willful even cheeky it shows spirit and intelligence, but their are boundaries and they know that and are learning all the time and as they get older I will adjust those boundaries to account for their growing responsibilities and need for independence.

Even now knowing damn well I could take my old man down, I would not because I know he would come back in the dark. Because I love and respect my parents, I also still fear their disapproval of my actions, and that fear was put their through getting a good hiding when boundaries were crossed. To be honest I preferred the walloping rather than the lecture, but perhaps thats just me.

I still believe the petrol can incident was worth the beating.

At least you can remember a specific incident where you were smacked because of something you had done, I cannot remember specific incidents because I was smacked that many times that it got to the stage where it didn't matter if I did something wrong or not I still got hit for it.
 
At least you can remember a specific incident where you were smacked because of something you had done, I cannot remember specific incidents because I was smacked that many times that it got to the stage where it didn't matter if I did something wrong or not I still got hit for it.

Smacked or hit? There's a difference.
 
At least you can remember a specific incident where you were smacked because of something you had done, I cannot remember specific incidents because I was smacked that many times that it got to the stage where it didn't matter if I did something wrong or not I still got hit for it.


Then thats unfortunate no one should have to be subjected to that. I can only speak for my own experiences and lessons learned from my upbringing and smacking was rare but spectacular when applied, as it should be.
 
My line on this is, as in many things, that the banning of smacking has nothing to do with the welfare of children and everything to do with the aquisition of power by the "banner"..

Smacking in itself does very little. The value of smacking is as a deterrent. As long as a child knows there is the chance of a smack, it is in the child's interest to learn how to avoid it. This is learning at it's most basic...

The pronouncement by some faceless idiot in authority that "smacking is banned" not only removes a valuable deterrent (and as we know the best deterrents are never actually used!) but actually empowers the child to challenge this in immediate authority because they can now dictate "the rules". Rule 1 in our house (until the kids got to an age of reason - (still waiting BTW!)) was that Mum/Dad is always right, and that we don't issue threats only promises..!

This is nothing to do with child assult and child cruelty. These have always been abhorred by society, and there are plenty of sanctions in law to challenge it (if society chooses to take them..). Don't give me the usual "it's for the sake of the kiddies" bollox whilst trying to score points..

So.. to answer MsG and it's friends in the liberal-socialist miasma.. your theories are all very well, but regrettably have never been seen to work in practice. It's not that Marxism-Socialism "has never been allowed to work" rather than "Marxism-Socialism has always contained the seeds of it's own destruction" by having as it's core principle the removal of authority from the accountable individual and the handing of it to faceless, unaccountable burocrats..

GTFO out of folk's private business IMHO...
 
As Jack Dee put it about the stopping smacking issue "Perhaps we should stop ******* them first"

quite right too - there is very little definition between the out and out abuse of children and discipline, ill advised or otherwise. The fact that as parents we are no longer confident of our methods of parenting and discipline for fear of punishment from the authorities is disgusting. Especially when they will haul a parent over the coals for something minor and then totally overlook clear neglect and abuse.

I have only smacked my son about half a dozen times, not at all in the last 3 years or so - especially not more recently - he is nearly as tall as me! All he needs is a look - if I need to start the countdown it rarely gets past "5...4...". He is by no means an angel, but I know that he has respect for his elders and a far better moral and social compass than the majority of adults these days. He likes skateboards and watching shite tv, wears his jeans halfway down his arse and would rather not have to do any homework - however he will stand up, give direct eye contact and shake the hand of anyone he meets, wouldn't dream of dropping litter, never backchats and still gives his mother hugs!
 
Is there?

Yes there is and the creatures who use the more emotive term in this debate know exactly the linguistic trick they're pulling.

'Smack' implies a degree of conscious physical restraint and control in the use of force for a disciplinary purpose that 'hit' does not. And before the usual left of centre linguistic charlatans emerge to decry this, just ask yourself whether the Prosecution in a GBH case would generally use the term 'hit' or 'smack' to describe a blow.
 
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