Spare the Rod?
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When properly applied, corporal punishment is effective. If my mother said: “Wait ‘til your father gets home,” I knew what was coming. She could dish it out herself but it didn’t hurt much. My grandmother could too. If she said “I’ll biff you one,” she would. If I did something serious though, they’d leave it to my father. Corporal punishment works very well to control behavior problems at home and at school. Last week, however, Delaware outlawed spanking by parents while Marion County, Florida considered bringing it back to schools there.
Once corporal punishment has been applied, just the threat is effective because it’s credible. Kids size up parents and teachers, and they know when an adult means what he/she says. If you bluff, you lose credibility and power. The table turns, and you’re responding to the child who controls the dynamic. Once lost, it’s very difficult to get that control back.
I can’t remember the first time my parents physically disciplined me, but I observed my older siblings getting it first. Third grade was the first time a teacher put her hands on me. Mrs. Gallagher, a confused older woman, wasn’t a very good teacher and I was usually bored. I don’t remember what I did, but she took ahold of my shoulders and shook me. I’d seen her do that to others and observed that she was inconsistent. The shaking didn’t hurt either. It became comical when students pretended to be dazed - crossing their eyes and sticking out their tongues when Mrs. Gallagher grabbed their shoulders and shook.
As I progressed up through the grades in Catholic schools, discipline got painful and my public school friends told me it was used there too. In seventh grade I remember snow just before recess - the kind perfect for making snowballs. Over the loudspeaker Mother Superior warned us that there would be no snowball-throwing but we couldn’t resist. We had a roaring good fight for the entire fifteen minutes while she observed with binoculars from an upper window and wrote down names. Back in our classrooms, she came over the loudspeaker again, saying: “The following students must report to the cafeteria immediately: Thomas McLaughlin, Albert Brackett, Daniel Sheehan . . .” and about ten others. Still dripping with melted snow, we filed down the stairwells to the basement cafeteria. There she was with her black outfit and stern look as we lined up against the wall. “I warned you,” she said, and walked up to Al Brackett who was first in line. She lifted his chin with two fingers of one hand and then slapped him with the other. The next boy got the same thing, and so on down the line. Finished, she said: “Return to your classrooms,” which we did, looking at each other with suppressed laughter as we climbed up the stairs.
In high school we were taught by Xaverian Brothers, some of them very tough guys. They hit hard, and there was very little laughing after getting smacked by one of them. The best teachers didn’t need to use corporal punishment though, because they were interesting. We respected them and wanted to stay in their good graces.
The rest is here.
A child with a skull full of mush is constantly learning what is good and bad and begins early to associate good with reward or absence of punishment and bad with punishment. When clearly recognized and promptly and appropriately administered punishment leaves the memory that repeat offenses will be accompanied by equal and often increased punishment which tends to inculcate the lesson not to do it again.
When you are forced to send your child to public school and you take away the authority of the teacher to be a surogate parent the lessons of particularly proper behavior are nearly lost and the limits on what the child thinks he or she can get away with are stretched. It becomes compounded when the liberals who control the public schools can reach the point where they want to hand out condums, birth control and start teaching sex education in the third and fourth grades.
Many years ago the very elderly lady neighbor called on a Saturday morning really scared because a couple of neighborhood kids were building a fire under one of her fir trees and could I help her. I whistled out the door and when they saw me coming they took off toward home. I was gaining and they realized that they were not going to make it so they scooted into an aunts home and slammed the door in my face. I called the aunt and later one of the boys father, a full time fireman called me to ask what happened. I told him and forgot about it. Many years later that same boy was grown and working in the local variety store and he always called me Mr. Gaffer and treated me with the greatest respect.
To not fairly discipline is to lose the child and create an attitude that permeates our society today and is a major cause of our lost culture.
I was not disciplined corporally as much as my brother because he always fought back. I just took it.
We had 4 sons followed by 1 daughter. I can remember disciplining the 2 oldest boys but not the 2 youngest so I guess they learned that when mom said wait til dad gets home the 2 youngest decided not to go there.
Aside from the little swats I used to get when mouthy as a kid, I was spanked just ONCE. And I'll never forget it. The old "wait til your father gets home" worked very well on me. In fact, the whole neighborhood listened when my father stepped in to discipline. He didn't say much, but when he did, you listened!!!
My own kids have also been brought up to be very respectful of authority. This ended up being a PROBLEM in school believe it or not. My oldest daughter was in a class of rotten kids who didn't listen for crap to the teachers who became very sharp to the students without much effect. They were often very frustrated with the attitude of the kids in abundance in that class. However, my own child was mortified if spoken to just ONCE and therefore, had a very bad time with anxiety, more than we were aware of initially. For instance, in fourth grade she asked a question about some work, not paying attention to how frustrated the teacher was with the rest of the class (sort of oblivious to that kind of body language). So when the teacher yelled at her to sit down and she should know that, she was done with ever asking a question in the class again. This was one of the straws on the camel's back, but this was the last year we had our daughter in that class. She was moved to private school, and then on to another district because of that particular class of miscreants. Some of those kids in that class could have used a well-placed boot in my opinion. We are now 7 years further, and we are now seeing the effects of how loosely those kids were/are being raised in that former class: 2 have had babies (as sophomores), one has been involved with a stepbrother AND stepfather landing them both in jail (she was only in middle school), at least 2 ended up staying back a year, and I"m not sure how far they've progressed in high school now, one went off to the Goodwill-HInkley school for behavior issues, and let's see, at least 4 who's parents could see the writing on the wall, moved their kids to other schools, or moved to another place to get their kids away from it.
And I blame 99% of it on lack of parenting.
Thank Heavens for the clear headed posts on this thread - but do you see the "modern" liberal whining on Tom's blog? Oh, the infamy!
The studies showing spanked brats as "troubled" adults did not control for socio-economic status, race, etc. They are utter tripe.
I once talked to someone who had been on a plane with Dr Spock and his children. My source reported they were the worst behaved brats he ever encountered. Case closed:-)
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I cannot remember the first time I got whacked, but I am sure I deserved it. Now my son can tell you the first time he was punished and like he says, from that day on I knew that if you said you were going to do it the it would happen!