See, this is the problem. Even a really smart dude like Aetius thinks that physically disciplining children is a draconian punishment that will cause them to "ruthlessly attack" those beneath them. And to respond to the other posts, whoever said that these beatings would be done out of anger, or would not be accompanied by a parent who really fucking cares about their child? As usual in these topics, there are endless strawmen in the replies, while ignoring the core issue. I can only go off my own experiences, but the kids I knew who talked back to and in some cases hit adults/parents were the ones with lax, hands-off parents who had the attitude of "little Johnny is perfect, and should be allowed to do what he wants!", while the well-behaved children had parents from other countries who had no problems hitting them if they got out of line. I remember one of my girlfriends worked at a petting zoo, and would tell me insane stories about parents enabling their children. At one point a boy slapped his mother in the face. What was her response? To calmly tell him, "Mommy doesn't like it when you do that...it hurts her." Edit- The boy was like 8 years old.
A few things I want to add: First, I was spanked as a kid, a few times. Wooden spoons, belts, bare hand... depended on what I did. That said, I was far and away the most well behaved of my brothers (who were spanked on a weekly basis, whereas I got spanked maybe 3 times in my entire childhoold). I was also the most shy and timid, which made me the target for some bullying. My biggest bully was a kid that was actually smaller than me, but he had a mad Napoleon complex. I had three people I hung out with, two of whom were really, really big kids for their age (my friends), I was tall and skinny, and the other kid (the bully) was short and skinny. He would constantly try to start shit with me or initiate fights because he knew I wouldn't fight back like my much bigger and more aggressive friends would. Plus, he had Tourette Syndrome, so if I felt I was in a lose/lose situation. I fight back and lose, I'm forever labeled the kid that got beat up by a kid that was smaller than me. If I beat him up, I'd forever be the kid that beat up the little boy with Tourette syndrome. What is my point? I was a fairly normal kid with a fairly normal upbringing. I wasn't big, wasn't small, I was fairly athletic and played three sports, and was pretty average in almost every way, and I was still bullied. Virtually every single kid I knew was bullied by someone. It isn't some isolated thing that only happens to the 'outcasts.' That is what makes it such a hard thing to handle; it is so pervasive, and its hard for adults to understand that. Second, I want to bring up something that I haven't seen talked about much: the whole thing was video taped by one of the kids, and posted on YouTube. Why? I guarantee those kids not only didn't expect the back lash, but they thought they'd become pseudo-celebrities for torching that woman. Google "teacher freak out" online. You'd be shocked at the number of YouTube videos of teachers losing their shit at their students. What you likely won't see is hours upon hours of students giving teachers shit to provoke those reactions. Don't get me wrong: no teacher should ever lose control of a classroom in that manner, and any teacher that gets caught on one of those videos likely had exceptionally poor classroom management skills as it is, and should NOT be teaching, but it just goes to the entire mindset and culture these kids are in. They want to push a teacher or authority figure into a freakout, because it will get them some YouTube fame, if not nationally, then at least amongst their peers locally. Here is an example: At the local high school where I sub, they're allowed to have their cell phones on them. They can listen to music in class, and it is rare to see a kid that doesn't have at least one of their ear-buds in. Most teachers have been rallying to ban cell phones for the past two years, because kids will take pictures of tests and circulate them, and they're used for rampant cheating. The school, however, seems to live in constant fear of offending their kids, so cell phones are still everywhere (they also play music between classes, and basically let kids come and go as they please during school hours, because god forbid we discipline a kid). When I subbed, one of the kids was bragging about how they'd tortured their previous sub, and caught it all on video, and how everyone at school was talking about it. Now, they didn't bother to try with me (I was, apparently, deemed one of the 'cool' subs by the student body), but when I went to the office and brought it up, it was the first they'd heard of it. When they finally looked into it, all that happened was they asked the kid to take the video down, and the kid did so, likely under threat of suspension. Did the kid get in trouble for pushing a sub into that situation? Fuck no. The school just didn't want the possibility of bad press; the kid didn't face any consequences as long as he took the video down. My point is that kids are not only NOT getting punished or facing negative consequences for these actions, but more often than not, they become minor celebrities amongst their peers. It is their culture, now. I will guarantee that they thought making fun of that woman on video and putting it online would make them look like heroes to their friends and to other kids, and that they'd at least get some fame and notoriety amongst their peers in the town as funny badasses. The last thing they expected was people to take the old lady's side, or to get the backlash they're getting (deservedly so, BTW, to hell with those kids and their parents). They were the funny ones, damn it, they just wanted their 15 minutes!
Wait, I'm the one strawmanning? Fortunately I can go off more than that. Corporal punishment is correlated with: decreased moral internalization increased aggression increased antisocial behavior decreased quality of parent-child relationship decreased quality of mental health increased likelihood of being the victim of physical abuse increased aggression in adulthood increased criminal and antisocial behavior in adulthood decreased quality of mental health in adulthood increased abuse of own child or spouse in adulthood The only "positive" that it's associated with is immediate compliance (for obvious reason), and that comes at the expense of longer term compliance to the moral teachings one is trying to imbue.
Shared a massive beach house with 5 couples last NY eve. Two of the couples had kids including a 4 year old +/- each. The kid who would get a smack if he overtly misbehaved caused no problems and was generally polite and well behaved. The one who's parents treat him like a unique snowflake and ”negotiate” everything was a whingy little cunt who I would have slapped myself were it socially acceptable for the village to discipline the child (Wouldn't stop running onto the road, slapping people, biting them etc). He was really getting on my tits after a couple of days. If I have kids they will have a clear understanding of their boundary’s, I won’t be negotiating with someone who still shits themselves. Slapping your child in a controlled manner won't do any harm, anyone who tells you differently needs a good slapping. (That last bit was a joke, I have to say this because some of you are plenty stupid and need a slapping)
That's the other problem as well. Not only do bullies need to learn how *not* to be bullies, but kids who are bullied need to be taught general coping skills. You don't have to be a teacher or know one to know that parents are just not doing their jobs. Perhaps they don't have coping skills themselves and therefore are simply unable to pass that knowledge on to their children. Or perhaps they've forgotten that having children is different than parenting them. We are generally fading in our strength as a culture, in my humble opinion, as exemplified by all the "participation trophies" for the teams that lose a game, not keeping score at little league games (mercy rule for older kids is different), and worrying more about self-esteem than taking risks and garnering excellence. If a kid isn't taught how to lose, then how on Earth can he learn what it takes to succeed? Likewise for kids who are bullied. When I was the chubby, smelly Greek kid who ate weird food for lunch and had no friends in fourth grade, my mom most certainly took the bullying seriously.* And the one word I heard over and over again was "cope." I tried lots of stuff and learned that humor and wit was the one thing these dummy girls (all girl Catholic school...ugh) couldn't fight with. Drop a bomb and walk away. I luckily had the support of my family who gave me the confidence to try different methods until one did the trick. When I spoke to my mom about it in later years, it turns out she was in touch with my teachers (not to my knowledge) and was waiting it out to see how I would deal. She said she was ready to take action if it escalated but wanted me to take care of myself first. Maybe she was wrong but I credit her for instilling in me strength and compassion. I learned to depend on myself. The point is, she was there for me, let me take my punches, and made me stronger because of it. I certainly don't think my mom's way would be a blanket solution for all kids and their bullies but I do respect her for teaching me how to roll with the punches. I don't think a ton of parents do that these days. Instead I find that if a kid has a bad day, they overreact and want to fix it fix it fix it FOR them. That does way more harm than good and leads to a society of victims. I'm not saying bullied, "weaker" kids aren't victims...they are...but there are definitely ways to empower them and make them stronger. There will always be bullies. There will always be those who are bullied. But helping kids figure it out and learn can't hurt. *Catty note: my bully, Kathy, can suck my ass. I still want to punch her in the throat for the shit she put me through...every time she crosses my mind. But time is sweet: she's on welfare supporting three kids by three different baby daddies and never graduated high school. I don't wish her harm buuuuuttttt...
I must agree with others who have said that "authority figures" have slowly had their power, and respect stripped away. Socially we scream for parents to actually parent, yet the tools to do that are being stripped away. I'm not talking about beating, but as I have said before, I have no problem with corporal punishment. But even beyond that parents are having child protective services called for yelling at their kid. A friend of mine had to do a few interviews with C.P.S. because her son was being a little shit, and climbing all over some bleachers at his his sisters gymnastics class. After repeatedly being ignored when she told him stop because he would hurt himself, and at one point she even put him in time out by holding him in her lap for five minutes, she finally said "Keep it up. I'm going to laugh when you hurt yourself." THAT sentence got her a knock on the door from the police that night, and a few follow up interviews with a case worker. I don't get how the hell we got to the point when something that simple made a "good Samaritan" feel he/she needed to involve the authorities. And of course the problem is only compounded in school. Instead of parents and faculty being a team that wants to make sure the child succeeds, it seems that dynamic is quickly going the way of the dinosaurs. Over worked and underpaid teachers are pissed that little hellions with less and less respect for their authority are walking through their door. While over worked and underpaid parents are pissed that teachers have the temerity to fail or reprimand their little angel. All in all it makes a lot of sense that kids don't respect authority figures. Socially we (adults) don't respect authority figures. A lot of good intentioned people have made it almost the norm to question a method of parenting that doesn't fall in line with their views. And while obviously abuse should be stopped, it is getting harder and harder to settle on what we as a society define as abuse. As for the "out of control epidemic" of bullying, I would say it's over blown through sensationalist reporting, and the fact that it's easier to see. Mostly because every idiot attention whore feels a need to document every moment of their lives. Even when they are doing stupid shit like bullying. Now don't mistake me, bullying is of course wrong, and it's a problem. But it's not a new problem. In some ways it seems to be milder than it was when even I was a kid. I remember my seventh grade year I was dragged into a utility room and beaten, spit on, and there was a legitimate attempt made at sodomizing me with a wrestling shoe. I reported this to my coach, and his reaction was very much one of indifference. Basically I was a seventh grader, and that was just me taking my lumps. And I know things like that still happen. But such an incident like that was reported there would be outrage. People would be clamoring for their heads. Back when I was younger bullying seemed an almost institutionalized right of passage. I think the worst problem with bullying today is that we are not preparing kids for adversity. Kids are constantly bombarded with the message that they are special, and unique, and they are all winners. This mentality is great for fostering confident, smiling, happy kids. It's not so great for giving kids coping mechanisms. We keep selling kids this bullshit that they are special and the world should cater to them because of it. It's a nice thought, but as we all know it bears no resemblance to the real world.
Wow. Way to completely misread my point. At no point did I say that the children weren't respected or their feelings treated with merit. In fact, I believe the opposite is true: kids don't learn to respect or trust unless they themselves are respected and trusted. My point was that in cultures with heavy authoritarian tendencies, there is a culture of expectation and that the physical act of hitting someone is only a small part of how discipline is enforced. That tends to work; simply hitting them without also enforcing rules, getting/giving respect and having high expectations leads to kids who are desensitized to violence and don't have a good grasp on the concept that negative behaviour has consequences. Being told, "Don't talk badly about Grandma, or I'm going to beat you!!!" is vastly different from an implicit understanding that, no matter how crazy Grandma seems, she must be spoken to respectfully without contempt or insolence.
Not you, no. I was actually addressing the other responses. Normally I would ask for a link, but honestly, I'm sure there are a thousand studies funded by various "institutes" to establish these absurd, far-reaching claims. At some point though, if the evidence of your own life clashes completely with the propaganda a certain group pushes, you go with the former. All the really shitty misbehavers I knew growing up had parents who would treat them like royalty, and never dare touch a hair on their head for any transgression.
Most kids don't develop real compassion or sympathy while they're in highschool. In a school dynamic where your social circle is constrained far more by circumstance than choice, and where everyone knows everyone - familiarity breeds contempt and there are few consequences and few escapes. Severe hormone poisoning and a lack of life experience combines with those things and makes kids dicks. Bigger schools with immediate and major responses to bullying with diverse programs so that there are multiple groups of cool kids seem to do the best at avoiding bullying in my experience. It gives kids the avenues to escape, the repercussions to discourage and social diversity to avoid creating a tiny clique of stars. Schools that run support programs to prevent minority group kids from being isolated also generally seem to do better about the whole thing. It's not gender limited - some of the most horrible shit I saw in highschool was done at all girls schools. The most vicious beating I ever saw at school was the end result of a bullied girl snapping and going after the girl who'd been bullying her (neither of them were good people, the bullying 'victim' snapped largely because she was used to being one of the cool kids until she changed into our school and couldn't cope). I've been out of school for almost 14 years. Nothing I see in the news is substantially worse than what I saw in high school. It's just better recorded and advertised. I've heard some people make moderately credible arguments about what shit was like when Baby Boomers were in school and suggest that it's gotten worse since then. I think it's just gotten less directed now that racism/homophobia/fear of the commies isn't a given. But if you go back further you get to the periods of rampant abuse against students by faculty or the horrific bullying that happened in boarding schools and the most terribly British institutions. For all that I saw kids teased and harassed to breaking, and the occasional fight or beating, the shit that went down in the 30's and 40's at a lot of schools was all kinds of fucked up. They just didn't have camera phones.
This. It seems that people believe the frequency of bullying is actually going up because we are able to see it so easily now. Bullying is a problem, has been a a problem, and will be a problem. We don't live in a utopia, and we never will. Stupid people are going to do stupid things, and no amount of legislation or "awareness" this side of North Korea will change that. I got bullied fairly badly in middle school. As a matter of fact, my brother was talking about how much he was bullied in high school (he's gay) and my mom pointed out that he wasn't special, and I had gotten it WAY worse than he had (which definitely fucked with his sense of oppressed identity, but that's for another thread). I dealt with it both physically and emotionally, because those were the things that worked for the different bullies; one guy I kicked his ass, one guy I began insulting on a regular basis. Sure enough, I BECAME the second guy's bully out of a sheer sense of revenge once the tables were flipped. Like Chirpy said, taking your licks is a part of growing up. Learning that real problems can be handled personally with positive outcomes is TREMENDOUSLY important to children, just as learning that mistakes and misbehavior can have swift and damaging consequences. I don't think anyone is surprised that the kids that didn't get spanked and instead got handed "achievement" ribbons for showing up to soccer practice turned into the Entitlement Generation. Let kids sweat stuff out on their own, in a controlled environment, before the safety net of teachers and parents is removed.
You seem to have some kind of idealized viewpoint of how these things work. I know how they work in practice. It's not: "Here are the implicit guidelines and everyone understands them." It's: "Dad's had a bad day at work and you picked the wrong day to ask Grandma why she thinks God cares what you wear." I'm speaking from personal experience of the exact culture that you seem to be admiring from afar. You can take it or leave it.
If by that you mean a meta-analysis of dozens of studies, that the APA relies on for its recommendations on corporal punishment, then yes. A child of Russian parents growing up in Southern California thinks the other kids are spoiled. That's a shock. And you're right, these kids probably are spoiled, and that directly contributed to their shittiness. But adding corporal punishment on top of it would not have made them any less shitty, and all evidence suggests it would have made it likely that they would have been worse. You haven't seen shitty until you've seen a rich spoiled kid whose absentee father hits him. In all likelihood that's how we invented Donald Trump. And I get that no one wants to think of their culture as having gotten a pretty fundamental question wrong, but every time I hear this appeal to culture (these rich white kids these days don't get enough beatin's!), I can't help but notice that when I think of inner city Black culture, the Eastern bloc and the PRC, non-violence and respect for human rights don't exactly jump to mind. Any positive those cultures get is a result of social and family structures they have set up. Corporal punishment only undermines their efforts, and in cases where those structures start to collapse for other reasons, it's amazing how quickly corporal punishment turns into a cycle of abuse.
It took me a while to realize the truth of this statement. I was raised in a very religious house. We weren't allowed to fight or take up arms in any way. So growing up when I got bullied I had to just take it because I had to represent the big JC and therefore had to turn the other cheek. Oh and I was small. I got my ass beat a lot. I had to learn to be funnier than everyone else, quicker with a comeback, brutal verbally when pushed physically. I ended up at least with a casual respect. Having some distance from that environment and the US mentality of raising kids as in the quote by Chirpy to look at themselves as special and unique I think fucks kids up. Yeah you've got great self esteemed but that shit as all unearned and at the slightest breeze will blow the fuck over. There just has to be a balance that prepares a kid not to be an asshole but have a real view of their strengths, their talents and their weaknesses, to roll with abuse as just getting jumped into the clique of the human race. If you can't handle it now, fuck me but you're going to have a hard 70 years ahead of you of drinking, blaming your parents, the cops, God, police, the president and Congress for shit that you could probably fix but never learned how to.
I guess my personal experience is that I would never have had the guts to say something like, "Why does God care what I wear?" to my grandmother because you just didn't talk back to adults in my house. It simply wasn't done.
And that sounds like a culture of fear rather than one of respect. What is disrespectful, contemptuous, etc. about that question?
It's interesting how, once a conclusion is drawn, NO MATTER WHAT evidence is laid to the contrary, anecdotal or otherwise, nothing will change that conclusion when the subject is child rearing. We've seen what happens with kids without any kind of real guidance growing up. We've seen what happens with kids with too much guidance. Do you have to spank your kids to raise them well? Not necessarily...but spanking them isn't what makes a person a bad parent, any more than NOT spanking them makes a person a good parent. Parenting takes time, thought, planning, and a complete realization that you don't get a handbook, so you better work hard at it. This isn't a result of kids being, or not being spanked. Be clear on that. This is a result of parents not raising their kids. I heartily suggest reading Iron John to anyone who asks me about my kids, and parenting. When The Guy's father passed away, one of the books The Guy got was Iron John: A Book About Men from his dad's library. It had passages underlined, and even notes. Very insightful for what his father considered essential in being a father raising, or having a hand in, raising children. "Why does God care what I wear?" You'll hear this a lot from kids who are getting ready for church and don't understand the need for "Sunday best" or looking nice in church. "BUT MOOOOMMMMMM, why does God CARE if I wear flipflops/ripped jeans/open shouldered shirts to church?!?! I'm THERE anywayyyyy" in a screechy whiny voice. Regardless of one's feelings about religion, I think we can agree that church is a place of respect, and attire should be a consideration when there. It's not the place for flip flops, cleavage, dirty jeans, etc. because it's a place of respect. Even if it's not MY thing, if I'm going with my mom, I respect her enough to not be a total ass while I'm there.
The same APA that has depended upon pharmaceutical drug money since the 1980s to survive, and has endorsed a bunch of mutually exclusive positions throughout the years, changing them constantly? Northern California, actually. And I was born in Moscow, so I got to see what children in Russia were like, too. Obviously, the parents who refuse to physically discipline their children do other things wrong besides that. But the utter lack of respect shown to them by their children, and their aggressive, entitled attitudes stems directly from never being punished properly for awful behavior. I can only shudder at what a little monster I would have been without any consequences for my actions growing up. If creating a law-abiding, successful billionaire who has created thousands of US jobs through the years is a "failure" (regardless of whether he is an asshole or not), then we need a hell of a lot more of these failures! You're conflating a whole bunch of things together with those three examples. I don't see what the government of China or former Soviet countries has to do with the less entitled, far superior behavior of children growing up there. Beyond which, most Eastern bloc countries are now perfectly democratic and no more or less "violent" than the US. Oh, and you also conveniently ignored other countries like Japan and South Korea, which don't fit in with your examples. As for inner city blacks, that's another strawman. OBVIOUSLY there is a lot more to parenting than just corporal punishment. When you don't have a father growing up, and your mother is too busy working 2-3 jobs to spend much time with you, that's an even bigger blow than a permissive, "you're so perfect and wonderful!" attitude espoused by both parents. Yeah, I have yet to see any corporal punishment among my friends or relatives that turned into "abuse". Again, you seem to view the practice of slapping kids on the wrist/arms for acting poorly as some crazed and barbaric practice. It's not. Outside of the US in the last 30 years or so, it has always been a standard tool of parenting.
I guess, in my mind, I heard it as a smartass retort. Grandma: Don't wear that shirt to church, it's disrespectful. Child: Oh, you really think God cares what I wear?! I didn't imagine it as a genuine question. Genuine questions are fine, in my family. Being little smartasses is not.
Have it as a smart assed question, then. Answer like this: First off, I don't like your tone. It is rude and disrespectful. Second, I don't know whether or not God cares what you wear to church, but I care. You are going to show respect in church, respect for me, if nothing else. Third, because you spoke to me that way, when we get home, you will cut the grass. Now go change. Post cutting grass, ask him why he had to cut the grass and if he will do it again. See how easy that was? And you get freshly cut grass.