Corporal punishment of children
Aug. 20th, 2016 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcPhysical punishment of children has returned to the news in Britain. I don't know why, I didn't catch the relevant story, just some of the resulting discussion. I figure that it is right to not be secretive about punishments, that way lies bad things, so I'll mention here that I have smacked my children before; not so as to cause injury, but people are typically quite absolutist about this kind of thing.
As my children have become older, other punishments have sufficed. A common quite serious punishment a few years ago tended to be that they would be sent to their room for some period, though less effectively as they accumulated entertainments there. These days I might just cut off their tablet from the home wifi or whatever. The real problem was more when they were much younger and were incapable of understanding either why the rule existed or the dangers they faced.
The main example that comes to my mind is when they were toddlers. I tried to keep the rules simple and one important one was that if I bark
Had I had some less-physical effective option available then I would have gladly availed myself of it but I value my children's safety rather more highly than the sensibilities of onlookers or my own legal impunity, and I absolutely needed some reliable way to cause them to stop moving into danger. You can justifiably blame me for not properly restraining them in the first place (I believe my hands were full of shopping at the time) but that wouldn't have been much comfort had they been struck by a vehicle once loose. People also frown at those parents whose toddlers are harnessed.
Admittedly the discussion I've heard more recently has been more along the lines of clipping schoolchildren around the ears and suchlike; I don't know what happened recently but I'd concur that there's no need for that kind of thing once intelligent conversation is possible and consequences can be understood. Still, while I certainly prefer other solutions, it is right for me to be open about not wholly avoiding corporal punishment in my children's earliest years: I took one of my first duties as a parent as simply that of keeping my children alive however I could and, while corporal punishment was a means of last resort, lightly applied it was a means nonetheless.
Mind you, the cynic in me would have those who object to anything consistent with that
As my children have become older, other punishments have sufficed. A common quite serious punishment a few years ago tended to be that they would be sent to their room for some period, though less effectively as they accumulated entertainments there. These days I might just cut off their tablet from the home wifi or whatever. The real problem was more when they were much younger and were incapable of understanding either why the rule existed or the dangers they faced.
The main example that comes to my mind is when they were toddlers. I tried to keep the rules simple and one important one was that if I bark
stop!at them then they immediately cease and desist. For instance, once I was walking with one of my children and they unexpectedly made a beeline for the road and started across it, not stopping when instructed. I pulled them back onto the sidewalk and quickly smacked them: via their diaper, mind, so the affront was rather more to their dignity than it was physical. That
stop!rule was one for which I really was not wont to tolerate violations.
Had I had some less-physical effective option available then I would have gladly availed myself of it but I value my children's safety rather more highly than the sensibilities of onlookers or my own legal impunity, and I absolutely needed some reliable way to cause them to stop moving into danger. You can justifiably blame me for not properly restraining them in the first place (I believe my hands were full of shopping at the time) but that wouldn't have been much comfort had they been struck by a vehicle once loose. People also frown at those parents whose toddlers are harnessed.
Admittedly the discussion I've heard more recently has been more along the lines of clipping schoolchildren around the ears and suchlike; I don't know what happened recently but I'd concur that there's no need for that kind of thing once intelligent conversation is possible and consequences can be understood. Still, while I certainly prefer other solutions, it is right for me to be open about not wholly avoiding corporal punishment in my children's earliest years: I took one of my first duties as a parent as simply that of keeping my children alive however I could and, while corporal punishment was a means of last resort, lightly applied it was a means nonetheless.
Mind you, the cynic in me would have those who object to anything consistent with that
violence is ever a way to solve problemsto try living in the real world.
