Quote:Mike

I’m sure if corporal punishment was used in schools and smacking was used more by parents people would have a healthy fear of commiting crime.

This presupposes that parents are models in many matters. Usually parents who are competent can train a child without resorting to physical and mental abuse.

What a child wants is a parent who can be a friend to him or her, react to his or her needs and arrange for adequate mental preoccupation to keep his or her mind occupied in healthy matters. Moreover there is need for the child to feel that he can trust his parent, in many aspects including keeping the word and commitment. Moreover the parent should not have a habit of lying to the child, or even of giving taunting answers to his or her queries.

There are parents who really do take it upon their children, their tensions, worries and repressed mental distractions. Moreover, there are parents who really do build up a sort of jealousy towards their children. Then are persons who really do gain pleasure and a sort of gratification by insulting their children in front of others, and continuously maintaining them in a state of wretchedness.

It is true that these types of malevolent characters are rare, but they do exist. What is actually required is parents who can rise up to the mental requirements of the child. They can really bring out the hidden potential in any child, in a most natural manner.

The child should be comfortable with his or her parent/s.

All these things are relevant in the case of teachers also.

Continued

QUOTE(tamriel @ Aug 12 2004, 02:01 PM)

I treat my children with respect, and expect it in return.

And if you do not get respect...?

I think too much stress is being put on the word ‘respect’; a better word would be: considerate, or and such words as loving, attentive, well-behaved etc. The word ‘respect’ has a very complex connotation.

Yet, the best achievement could be to be able to maintain a level of communication that is mutually respectful, not one-way.

Continued

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....but we put no other effective punishmen in it’s place.

Now a lot of schools and parents are left in limbo....and the unruly, ill-disiplined among our children are already taking advantage of it.

We reap what we sow as the saying goes

Fred

No disrespects intended, oldfred.

My answer was of a wider ambit. If there is wide scale indiscipline, and unruliness catching up among the children, there could be a variety of reasons, much of them related to the inputs they get from the wider society and not necessarily from their home.

What the intended meaning was to inquire if any discernable or even non-discernable malignancy coming into the society.

Another thing to clearly understand is that actually in English, the child has a supernatural level of dignity and stature that does not exist in many other languages. Tormenting, irritating, pestering, taunting etc. of the child, youngster, and also of any other subordinate being is an ingrained program in many languages. What I did hint also, was as to whether English was getting infected.

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Where on earth are you coming from

What I have stated is different from what can be picked out of an English context (I have read Oliver Twist

Smacking Children

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Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls.

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Khalil Gibran-The Prophet.

Gentlemen, I truly believe that there is much wisdom in the above lines.

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The only way to teach a child discipline is with the back of ones hand! Furthermore we should reintroduce corporal punishment into schools. that is why they are going to rack and ruin!

premilldispensationalist

The reasons for indiscipline in children needs to be sought for elsewhere.

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I am against a complete ban on smacking, here’s why: Some unruly children may only respond to physical chastisement. Also, whos to say that physical chastisement is more inhumane than emotional or even verbal chastisement, ex. the silent treatment, deprivation of love etc...

alez007

Both physical and mental ill treatments are the techniques of the incompetent. Children react to unruly inputs, and turn unruly. Not the other way round.

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surely we should do the same with children - and go to their level, treat them with love and respect and show them how to be, then they will respect us in return MadMarchHare

Beautiful understanding!

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it was more effective if i was shut in my room for five minutes to cry. that made me listen to waht i should do more than the spank.

-MadMarchHare

But the advised alternative is as bad as the other one!! Or possibly worse!!! Why react to unruliness with more unruliness, react to the signal with understanding, communication, and respect, as much as another equally honourable individual deserves it.

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Most children of today have absolutely no respect whatsoever because they can get away with so much. They can even divorce their parents which is absurd

MissKnowItAll

Off course, if the parents are ill-treating, they should be ‘divorced’. Seek not respect, but communication; respect comes automatically.

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We reap what we sow as the saying goes

Fred

What have you sown?

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Respect for authority is unnatural and so must be beaten into children. Hence I reject any ban on smacking. AV1611

What authority? And what an un-English theme!!! Treat a child with respect, and reap respect. Scare him/her out, beat him/her to pulp, taunt him or her, crush his/her spirit, irritate him/her—what you get is a very, very disfigured personality.

Gentlemen, I really do believe that all children are really individuals in their own right, with a lot of individuality and common sense. And come forth into the world with all rights intact.

And do not imagine that all parents and all teachers necessarily have calibre, emotional stability, and mental depth to measure up to their children’s/ward’s. There are chances for a wide range of variation.