Who needs Judge Dredd? We've got Judge Adams!

Beating children to the point of abuse is wrong. But, there are plenty of parents who abuse children without every laying a hand on them. There are all sorts of verbal abuse and psychological terror that can be wrought on children that does more damage than a severe backhand. There are also plenty of parents that have used the occasional spanking as an effective punishment.

But, sometimes kids don't "turn out well" because they simply have bad parents. "Bad" meaning there are all sorts of circumstances that contribute to poor behavior, that spanking, timeout or beating simply will not fix. If parents rarely sit down with their kids for meals, are constantly fighting, set bad examples with poor priority choices, demand certain financial decisions but then do the opposite in their own life, yell at each other but insist the kids not yell at their siblings, and so on, spanking them for discipline isn't going to matter one way or the other.

Some people just aren't very good parents.

 

Children, and in fact all young primates, learn not through some abstract academic process, but rather through emulating the behavior of adults. This is the reason you see shit like:

Spoiler

That kid's behavior is purely a reflection of him seeing that behavior, and being naturally inclined to absorb it as the way he is supposed to be. So when you hit a child, there may be a small element of "behavior = negative consequence" but there is a far greater element of "violence and anger, especially towards those that upset you or frustrate you, is how you relate to other people." Parents who strike their kids like to see themselves as some disembodied administrator of punishment, but they are not; they are the template on which their children learn humanity, and that is not a role you can step out of for even one second. If you are a parent who strikes a child, you will model that behavior for your children.

In this way behaviors iterate through generations, to the point where even the most absurd and harmful behaviors can be seen as normal by those who participate in them. Why wouldn't they? It's how things have always been done, it's the behavior that they literally learned to be a person based on. It's no surprise that WickedBitch herself was struck as a child, and it's no surprise her parents were as well. It will also be no surprise when her children strike their own children. This is normal for them; this is what being a person is to them.

 

For every *bad* dog that I've encountered, 99% of the time the problem is at the other end of the leash. It's a gross oversimplification, but when I have kids - I plan to approach their punishment the same way I would deal with a disobediant puppy: The Cesar Milan school of child-rearing. For those of you with dogs, you know that beating your dog doesn't accomplish a damn thing other than making the animal fear or feel anxious around you; it doesn't alter their behavior, or *teach* them to not do anything. What does work, is judicious and minimal amounts of immediatly administered corrective action. Anti-bark shock collars? Very effective, because all they give is a quick snap that directly corresponds to the behavior - it doesn't wait a half hour or a day later and then dole out a enough of a shock to run down a fully charged battery.

Additionally, I'm responsible for fostering an enviroment of deterrance and avoidance. No matter how much training, teaching, and good leadership I provide - some dogs (like people) are wired in certain ways. If I know that the dog will start coursing at the sight of a squirrel, I won't let him off of the leash until inside the dog park. For a food motivated dog, I won't leave him alone in the same room if I there is food within his reach. If I were to ground my son, I sure as hell wouldn't leave his XBox in a way that he could hook it up at 11pm when my attention is elsewhere...

There is a time and a place for physical intervention, and I won't try to narrow down where and when that may be due to the all the circumstances we deal with - but if you're resorting to beatings, the game is already over - and you've lost.

 

As it's been said, what that guy did wasn't discipline it was straight up assault. It went on for 7 fucking minutes! How does anyone not view that as excessive. The only thing your teaching someone at that point is hate and anger.

On a side note, I think this guys life is going to be a living hell (as it should be) now that he has the internet masses coming after him.

 

This is my shocked face.

I think many of us see a pattern with this, but I don't think it's one you're thinking about. Honestly, it sounds to me like you've had a line of rhetoric in your head that you pull out for these occasions, but you've never really sat yourself down and questioned it. It's what you learned from your Parents and theirs before them, and it's the Gospel.

And it clearly isn't working.

Rather than asking a bunch of strangers what their ideas are about what to do, maybe answer one for us - you're trying to argue for the notion that thinking and communicating with your hands works better than your head and your heart - what do you have to lose by trying a different line of thinking?

Talk to your children. Hang out with them. Hell, have this very conversation with them.

 

Re: Re: Who needs Judge Dredd? We've got Judge Adams!

I needed to reply to this before finishing reading the thread. My father physically abused me when I was growing up. I have not seen him in EIGHTEEN years and yet I still sometimes wrestle with whether or how to confront him about it.

I try pretty hard to stay levelheaded and amiable, but harping on the seven year delay is condescending bullshit and really needs to stop.

 

Personally I liked my mom's approach, when I did something wrong, she would calmly command me to give her my hand and then she would slap it. Not hard mind you, it wasn't about pain, it was about admission of guilt (me giving her my hand) and her letting me know what I did was wrong (light slap). Let's face it, most kids that get hit never get hit hard enough for the pain alone to be bad enough for them to regret doing whatever they did, it's about the humiliation of admitting what you did was wrong and having your parents upset with you. Personally I think this could have worked without physical contact, it could have been me giving her a dollar from my allowance or something else, but the important thing to me is that there is an act of being forced to proactively give something up as an admission of guilt.

The gray area in my mind is what's the most effective method for establishing a relationship where there's an emotional response to the admission of guilt and the desire to not want to have your parents upset with you is strong enough for the kid to alter their behavior. I don't think there's a best approach and I think every kid and every parent is different, so yeah... I just solved nothing.

 

I don't like corporal punishment, but I agree that a spanking, or at least the threat of force, is sometimes required to get an angry, frustrated child to focus when he or she is having a tantrum or not listening. But it should be controlled and done early on and then dropped in favor of other approaches.

I came to an interesting observation just recently because I have been transferring all of our home movies to DVDs, and there is a ton of footage of my kids. Way more than I thought I had, and I can state pretty definitively from direct observation that people are who they are, and it appears that my wife and I have had only a little influence on who our kids have become.

It might sound really lame, but watching them grow up on camera was like watching a couple of flowers blossom. You can see their personalities unfold as the years go on and they are exactly the same people they were at 2 and 3 as they are at 12 and 8, just bigger. It was eye opening and has actually made me appreciate them more. I have no doubt that even if someone else raised them, their personalities would be very very similar to what they are now. Obviously there would be some differences, but their sense of humor, likes and dislikes, mannerisms, personality style, and all the other things that make them who they are would not have changed.

Beating them when they were bad would have done nothing helpful and might have been the one thing that made them not be, for the most part, the kind, straight A kids they are. Don't get me wrong,sometimes I want to clunk their heads together...hard... very, very hard, but basically, I'm very lucky. I think it's because I don't beat my kids.

Violence is fun in video games, against drunk assholes who mouth off, or against someone trying to do you bodily harm, other than that, it sucks.

 

I was never hit once as a child. I was punished, but never with a beating or spanking. I became slave labor, I can't tell you how many sentances I wrote on multiple pieces of paper. I do something bad, I write. I don't want to write, I don't get to play outside or video games. I still complain and not write, I don't eat. A couple times not eating and I was told to write, I wrote. 1000 numbered sentences taking a long ass time got me to stop doing stupid shit real quick.

I'm all for stern discipline when required, maybe a spanking here or there, but the beating that the girl got was over the line. Obviously, if it was 7 years later before she released it, she's still harboring some serious anger towards her dad and mom. Also sounds like it happened quite a bit. If he truly apologized and they moved on, nobody would have ever heard of this. He fostered a permanent resentment from her. Maybe she never downloaded pirated music again, but what good did that do if he beat anger and resentment into his daughter.

I have an 18 month old girl and am still very new to this parenting thing. She is just beginning to explore boundaries. My wife and I have had extensive talks about how we were both raised, what was good, what was bad and how we'd like to handle things going forward. We agree on some stuff, disagree on others but are working to meet in the middle united as we feel it's our best chance.

Right now, when our little girl hits, we stop her, sternly tell her no, encourage nice acts and don't coddle her when she cries for being yelled at. She has started her little toddler tantrums at times and we just set her down and let her at it. A few seconds in, no reaction from us, she stops. Three close friends each have a couple kids. One has kids in the 3-5 range. One has kids in the 6-8 range and one has kids in the 10-12 range. We all talk a lot about how they are handling things as they come up, me being in the best spot as I have lots of their experiences to pull from. None of them have ever hit their kids. They all have slightly different ways to deal with problems and all their kids are fantastic.

I also talk to my mom all the time about how I'm going about things. She wasn't perfect and we had a fairly tough life, but she was always fair and gave us a better life than she had. Because of how she raised me, I have a strong bond to my mother. I respect her and value her input. I enjoy talking to her more as equals now and am sad at times that we live 10 hours apart. She fostered love, trust and communication. My mom is 5'-1" tall and weighs maybe a buck ten soaking wet. I couldn't lie to her, wouldn't lie to her and didn't want to fuck up growing up. Looking back, she was tough but fair and right and it really made me realize that she had two kids who ultimately respected her. Same goes for my dad although they separated early, they always worked together to do right by us and led by positive example.

I don't know, maybe I'm being too idealistic, but I don't think hitting is necessary. I was made to feel that I had disappointed my parents when I was bad. Not made to feel that I made them angry, which I think hitting does. It was effective and I hope to employ a similar strategy. My little girl will not get away with acting out. At 18 months she already says please, thank you, sorry and bless you when somebody sneezes(not actually sure where she picked that one up). She will be adequately punished when she's bad. It will just never be by my hand or a belt, etc.

 

Even MSNBC has picked up on it now; to say that this video has struck a chord throughout (the technically literate segment of) the country would be putting it lightly.

<a class="postlink" href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45135221/ns/today-today_news/t/judges-daughter-hope-beating-video-gets-him-help/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45135221/ ... -him-help/</a>

<a class="postlink" href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45146961/ns/today-today_people/t/daughter-beating-video-why-i-released-it/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45146961/ ... leased-it/</a>

I hope the book gets thrown at him; it's obvious that his actions caused serious and long-lasting damage to the people that he was supposed to love and be responsible for. If he can't even be trusted with his own family, what kind of damage has he caused through his actions as a family law judge while on the bench?

 

My favorite part is his response:

I'm am so looking forward to hear what he thinks could possibly justify a grown man assaulting for seven minutes a 16 year old girl with cerebral palsy.

 

My family did respite care when I was growing up and our home was on the list of places the county social services would take kids to after taking custody of them. Several times we had little visitors with bruises and marks that were obviously from abusive parents, and it's something I have zero tolerance for. I don't give a shit what happened... beating is not the answer, and it never will be. The time that elapsed between the events in the video and when it was released doesn't make a difference to me... the fact that her asshole father is a judge is even more troubling.

I was spanked as a child (and rightfully so), but it was not a beating. It was swift and decisive punishment and it worked. A spanking can be a beating but the way my parents did it (both of 'em) was the opposite of abusive. I absolutely agree with what has been said about kids learning from their parents. We always saw shitty, destructive cycles in the families whose kids we took care of when they didn't. Abusive parents create more abusive parents, simple as that.

I hope his cellmate enjoys the story.

 

Re: Ahhh, the sweet sound of beatings!

Sorry if this is off topic, but is this not one of the funniest paragraphs ever written?

 

This wasn't disciplining your child; this was a snuff film.

My scars and resentment toward my mother aren't of the physical variety, but rather of the emotional type. Belittlement, name calling, degradation, lying, emotional manipulation-these were the tools of my mother. Not just towards myself and my sister, but my father as well.

The truly chilling moment to me in the video is when the judge leans in close to his daughter and threatens to beat her into submission. To me, it was truly terrifying.

Physical scars heal with relative ease; mental scars stay for life. I hope there's a special place in Hell for this bastard.

 

Re: Ahhh, the sweet sound of beatings!

No, even with my twisted sense of humor.

Like WB, I too was beaten as a child. Severely, with belts, cords, open hands and eventually fists.
Like WB, I too have a child with Aspergers syndrome (she'll be 18 in Feb.).
Like WB, I know the frustrations of raising such a child.

However, I have never raised a hand to her or her sister. Do you (WB) really think that by "being a little more heavy-handed" parents can beat the disorder out of their children?

Your child processes information differently, especially emotions, and you're expecting him to understand things in a way that is outside his cognitive framework. Rather than trying to beat him into a state of "normalcy", I'd suggest learning what you can about the disorder, how he processes things, and approach him from where he is at rather than where you want him to be. Go to support groups for parents of children with ASD, ask questions, get some guidance from parents with experience walking the same path. In order for you to help him understand "how the world works", you need to understand how he sees the world.

His teen years will be far more challenging than anything you've encountered with him so far, and it's a crucial time in terms of his development. Don't you think that, as his parent, you have a responsibility to help him grow and develop and be as well prepared for life as he can be, or is his potential drain on your PSN your greater concern?

 

I was spanked as a child. It was clinical, and that line between justifiable punishment, and abuse was never crossed. And I firmly feel my mother that my mother handled spankings, and when she stopped administering them perfectly.

My mother would tell me that I did x, and it had earned me y spankings. For example "you intentionally hurt your sister, and for that you will get 5 spankings. Now go bring me my lead pipe." Lead pipe was what she called the wooden board she used for corporal punishments. Then a sad, dejected, and slightly fearful BigPerson would toddle off to get the instrument of his correction. Exactly five spankings later, I would stand there with a warm but, and a quivering lip, while my other explained to me why my behavior was unacceptable. There was never anger in my physical punishments. And honestly she spanked me harder when she was just playing with us than when we were being punished.

She stopped spanking me when I was around five, or six. She asked me if I wanted to recieve something like ten spankings for some fuckery I had pulled, or if I would like to go to my room for some inordinate amount of time like two hours. Well we were very poor, and the few toys and books I had were kept in the living room. Now young BigPerson was by no stretch of any imagination a genius, but I did have enough savvy to count time to music. And I figured a few minutes of pain and a lecture beat a cold boring eternity in my room. So I put on my best fear/guilt face, and said that I guessed I would take the spankings. My mother looked at me and calmly replied "Go to your room." That marked the end of my being spanked.

I have said freely that I spank my kids. There are times when they are doing everything but waving their butts in your face saying "please spank me." And there are times that kids especially kids in the ages between two and five, need a physical reason not to do something. Spanking should not be a first resort of course, but I think it should be in the parenting arsenal.

I have three little kids that would love to be in our very small kitchen for the entire time that either of us are cooking. And they have had it explained to them many times that there are things going on in there that could hurt them badly. This did not deter them at all and it came to the point that I had to give all three of them a swat on the butt at different times, with threats of more to come if they did not stay out of the kitchen. So for the proponents of no physical punishment ever, should I have let these kids take a hot grease bath to avoid having to spank them, and let sever physical trauma teach them their lesson? Because I think after reason, and time outs failed me, I took the appropriate action.

 

I was hit/spanked/boarder line beat as a child by both parents. When talking to my friends about how we grew up we always said, "yeah I was beat as a kid and I turned out fine, that's what these spoiled brats need today, parents that spank them!" Then one day, someone pointed out to me that I grew up fine, not because I was spanked/hit but IN SPITE of being hit. The more I thought about it the more I agreed. Parents (usually) hit out of their anger - and when you do that, it is easy to let it get out of control (see: that video).

I have 2 kids now and they have never been hit, only partially because they have not needed it. They learned that things were hot (stoves, water, etc) not by having their hands smacked, but instead by us moving them away from the situation a couple times and saying, "don't touch that, it's hot." Done. Temper tantrums? Ignored. Going through the hitting/biting phase? They get a stern talking to and maybe some alone time in their room to calm down. All kids go through this phase & usually it's because they are too young to communicate their feelings - if they hit out of frustration & anger, then you hit them for the same reason, they are not learning how to seal with their feelings. This worked very well with my older son (he's 3.5) - we take him to his room and he knows that when he is calm and can be around people again he can come down. Granted my kids are small, but I believe that doing it this way now will affect them as they grow, and while every child/teen has bad days, we will have effective strategies already in place for dealing with them and their issues.

As some people know, we also have 3 foster children right now (ages 2, 3 & 4) and it is clear that they have seen violence and may very easily have been the victims of it. The difference in behavior of our 2 kids and these 3 is night and day. The 3 foster kids hit each other, throw things, try and kick our dog, cat, etc. They do this because it is learned from their parents - it's what they have seen their whole lives. And now it is our job to fix the mistakes their parents have made. Trust me, the saying, "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men" is so very true because if someone doesn't step in and help these children now the pattern of abuse will continue and ruin their lives and their future families lives. Believe me, I have been beyond frustrated with these kids, but hitting them, even a smack on the butt will not teach them anything but instead reinforce the idea that you hit when you are angry and frustrated.

 

I've been spanked probably about 5 or 6 times in my life. All by my father, and all for lying. Same with my sister. It was well known in our household that if we lied to my mom or dad, we would get spanked. Every single time.

My dad and two aunts were physically disciplined regularly as kids. As in daily. My dad promised himself he'd never do that to his own children. And he didn't. Except for lying. It wasn't till I was well into my 20's that my mom told me he cried each time after he did it. The term "this will hurt me more than you" was very relevant there, unbeknownst to me and my sister. Still, that was the punishment.

Exactly. We weren't spanked out of frustration or anger, although I'm sure mom and dad were frustrated and angry about being lied to. It was done as a form of discipline. It wasn't a surprise, as it was well publicized and consistent. My dad said straight up "I won't say that I won't be mad or that you won't get punished for doing something wrong. But I WILL say that it'll be a lot worse if you lie about it.” There were even times I didn't get punished for doing something wrong, when I fessed up to it. All I got was a "I don't ever want to hear about you doing that again...Clear?" Yup, got it.

Now don't get me wrong, we got punished for doing shitty things. My dad was a master at finding the most miserable shit for us to do. I can't even count the number of times I cleaned the garage from top to bottom, putting all of his tools (down to the fucking screw jars) in their "proper" places, and washing the floor so well I could eat off it. How many times did I move our wood pile (we had an outside wood burning stove) from one side of the yard to the other...and then back again? Beats me, but damn did I get good at piling wood. Pick up the sticks in the yard, paint the fence again, wash the sidewalks and the deck. Not sure how to do what I'm telling to do? Figure it out. You'll be there till you get it done, and if you do it wrong today then you can try again tomorrow. Etc. THAT'S some sinister punishment, right there. Especially to a teenager.

But that video? That wasn't punishment. That was an assault. "I'll beat you into submission"...are you fucking kidding me? And the other shit he was saying? My dad didn't use the word "fuck" around me till I was an adult. Seriously, maybe a handful of times I overheard him saying that when I was growing up. He's no saint, but he also knows you don't talk that way around kids, especially when you tell them not to talk that way. No, that was a beating fueled by anger. Was he justifiably angry? Maybe...but using that anger to beat the hell out of his daughter with a belt is sickening, no matter what she did.