They Really Should Bring Back Corporal Punishment…
Monday, November 28, 2005Posted in: Uncategorized
“In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.” Michel Foucault
I was reading about the David Ludwig and Kara Beth Borden case, and I couldn’t help but wish that some of the methods of discipline that used be popular in the olden days, would be brought back.
Corporal punishment in school should make a return. Teachers should be given the rights once again to punish children properly, who misbehave or bully other kids. One day they may be pulling Mary-Sue’s hair, the next thing you know, they’ll be shooting Mary-Sue’s parents because they pissed him off.
My town’s hardly a sprawling metropolis, but even here, schoolground atrocities are becoming more and more prevalent. Recently, a little boy was stabbed in the head with a fork, by a girl in his class.
How does that happen?
When I was about nine years old, my best friend stole a bike from a neighbouring village, and because I was with her at the time, a policeman came to my parents house to let them know that I’d been seen with Becky and the bike earlier that day.
My father looked at me, and calmly told me to go outside, and choose my own birch. I knew what that meant.
Yes, he beat me with a stick that day, and I imagine that all the social-worker types out there would have been baying for his blood, but the fact is, I never forgot that punishment, and even though I hadn’t actually stolen the bike myself, I sure knew that a life of crime wasn’t for me.
On the other hand, my friend’s parents grounded her for a week, but she actually only stayed at home for one day, before she was let out again. When she came round to my house, my parents told her not to come around anymore.
I was heartbroken at the time, but I really appreciate their actions at that time now. I know that Becky has been in and out of trouble with the police since then, for a whole host of misdemeanours, such as robbery, assault, and drug-associated crimes.
The last I heard, she’d had three children to different men, and all of them had been taken into foster care.
I can’t help but think that a little discipline from her parents, would have gone a long way in helping her stay on the straight and narrow.
I know all the arguments against corporal punishment, and honestly, I don’t give a shit. The fact is, when corporal punishment was allowed in the classroom and at home, how many kids went out and killed other kids? Not as much as these days, I would wager.
I know it’ll never happen, due to the ridiculous amount of yogurt-knitting, tree-hugging vegetarians out there.
The fact is, in the world we live in today, there is a total lack of respect from kids, and something needs to be done about it, or pretty soon, the world will have far more people like Charles Manson than Mother Theresa polluting our already fucked up world.
Dawn
November 28
10:48 am
I agree, Karen. We’ve gone entirely too soft on kids who need discipline. Teachers have no powers and the kids know it.
When I was at school, I didn’t get in trouble, but definitely the threat of the cane would have kept me in line.
I know that if my daughter was bullied and attacked at school, I expect the school to do something more than suspend the attackers for a few days – I’d probably be after them myself.
Cavalor Epthith
November 28
1:14 pm
Both Kara Beth Borden and David Ludwig were homeschooled so they could not have been subject to public school corporal punishment. However, I do not think this played as much of a part in what happened as did the fact that both kids had raging hormones and lives isolated from the mainstream in America through evangelicalism gone wild.
Cavalor Epthith
Editor-in-Chief
The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork
riemannia
November 28
1:33 pm
Yeah, this case has nothing to do with public school corporal punishment.
I actually believe that bullying is much better now than it used to be when people shrugged it off. I can remember some of the shit that went on in my class–mostly teachers annoyed by the bullied kid and therefore ignoring the painful dynamics–that just wouldn’t be allowed today, at least in my kids’ classrooms.
Discipline, and perhaps even more importantly parental involvement is critical, but it doesn’t have to be corporal punishment.
Karen Scott
November 28
1:55 pm
Just to say, I realise that both these kids were home schooled, but the gist of my post is about discipline in general, or the lack thereof. When a 14 year old girl thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for her boyfriend to kill her parents, you have to question the way she was raised. It could be that she was a perfectly behaved child, and she was just going through a phase, but there are plenty of other children who have done similar things that would have benefitted from an arse-whooping or two early on in life.
azteclady
November 28
2:19 pm
I’ll venture out of lurkerdom to say…
The key here would be discipline – from parents, teachers, authority figures in general.
Personally, I don’t believe that corporal punishment gets the point across. Most of the time, what the kid gets is that his/her parents/guardians/teachers/whomever are bigger and, as adults, “can do whatever they want.”
Discipline, in the form of laying down the law and sticking to it yourself as a parent, has a longer lasting effect, IMO.
Eve Vaughn
November 28
3:22 pm
I was spanked at as child and it didn’t teach me that my parents were bigger than me and could do what they wanted. It taught me that there were consequences for my actions. I think a part of today’s problem is that parents are too busy trying to be their children’s friend than their parents.
I had a friend who told her mother to stay out of her room. If I told would have told my mom that I would have been smacked in the mouth. I wouldn’t have dared cursed at my parents. Think about the Columbine situation, how did the killers parents not know they’re sons were making pipe bombs in the garage? That’s not respecting your kids privacy that’s lazy parenting. As my mom said to you don’t have privacy until you pay rent or move out.
azteclady
November 28
4:40 pm
You can be a good parent by making sure that there are consequences to rule breaking, inappropriate behaviour, etc. – but just as simply letting kids have their way can be rightly called ‘lazy parenting,’ so is reacting to everything with corporal punishment.
IMO, the punishment should be directly proportional to the offense.
My father used his belt on me once when I was something like 5 years old. I don’t remember the offense. I don’t think I learned much from that episode, other than to hate him (didn’t last, but it did influence my relationship with him until his death more than 20 years later). In the interest of full disclosure: the fact that he drew blood could have something to do with my reaction.
On the other hand, my mother never raised her hand to me or any of my siblings, and yet she managed just the same to teach the five of us to be productive members of society.
We could agree to disagree on the means, but I think that we agree on the basic gist of Karen’s post (that children need much more discipline, close supervision, and guidance from their parents than what they seem to be getting these days)
riemannia
November 28
5:49 pm
When a 14 year old girl thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for her boyfriend to kill her parents, you have to question the way she was raised.
Well, yes. Is it known that there was no corporal punishment in that household?
I can get fully behind teaching kids respect, but not the idea that arse-whipping or what have you, is some kind of great solution. As a friend of mine said (who would on occasion spank her kids), it can be a good tool but you have to be very very careful.
It never worked for me.
Eve Vaughn
November 28
9:37 pm
My father used his belt on me once when I was something like 5 years old. I don’t remember the offense. I don’t think I learned much from that episode, other than to hate him (didn’t last, but it did influence my relationship with him until his death more than 20 years later). In the interest of full disclosure: the fact that he drew blood could have something to do with my reaction
Drawing blood means that he took it too far. I’m not advocating abuse here and that was clearly abuse.
Spanking may not work for every child just like a stern lecture won’t help every child. I think a parent should be able to discipline their child however they see fit within reason, but what really bothers me, is how people against spanking your children always point out that it teaches the kids violence, it teaches the kid to hate their parents, it teaches their kid that the bigger person will always win. I know many people who grew up in homes where they were spanked, myself included to be sucessful non agressive adult. One person’s way may not be another person’s way, but we should respect each other in the process.
azteclady
November 28
11:45 pm
Quoting Eve Vaughn:
“(…)what really bothers me, is how people against spanking your children always point out that it teaches the kids violence, it teaches the kid to hate their parents, it teaches their kid that the bigger person will always win”
Which is why in my original comment I said “most of the time (…)” Which in turn is a personal and obviously anecdotal observation, not a declaration of UNIVERSAL TRUTH[tm}
That aside, I do understand your irritation. It’s probably akin to what people who don’t believe in routine corporal punishment feel when it’s assumed that they limit themselves to lecturing their kids, or that their parenting is lazy.
Rosie
November 29
2:06 am
Whoop!!! What controversy. Hey, I think as long as your kids know they have consequences for their actions you can’t do much more than that. We as adults have consequences, very harsh ones, for choices we make. I think we do our children a disservice when we don’t show them their actions have consequences. However, setting the same consequences for all kids doesn’t always work.
With my two boys I could (but haven’t) beat my younger son bloody and he is so head strong and stubborn it wouldn’t phase him. He doesn’t respond to absolutes or agressive behavior (yelling or spanking). We found taking away things like his privacy and friends, computer, etc. are much better incentives to his performing or behaving well.
With my older son we have always been able to sit down and talk to him (swear to God!) even when he was a toddler and he responded positively.
It is finding the trigger to better behavior. Just as no two people have the same personality, there is no rules when it comes to parenting except to keep at it and find what works for your kids. When my children were younger they were spanked…swatted actually. It was never while either of us was angry and was a set punishment.
Believe me…they didn’t want to be spanked and it worked.
But as teenagers, it is a whole new world. For one thing my older son towers over both of us and has since he was 14. Trying to use corporal punishment would be ludicrous.
I don’t think anyone has all the answers. I agree that there is more agression in our children as a general rule. However, our world is a fast paced and agressive place. What about the TV, movies, music and books they read? While I don’t believe any single thing can influence extreme violent behavior, I do believe it all contributes to the over stimulation and aggression.
As for me…I just keep plugging away. Trying to keep tabs on their life, set realistic boundaries and enforce them, and tell them I love them every day.
Eve Vaughn
November 29
2:43 am
azteclady says: That aside, I do understand your irritation. It’s probably akin to what people who don’t believe in routine corporal punishment feel when it’s assumed that they limit themselves to lecturing their kids, or that their parenting is lazy.
Actually I’m not irritated at all, I’m enjoying this debate quite a bit. It’s interesting to hear the other side. You are more than welcome to your opinion.
To paraphrase what I actually said was it bothers me (for lack of better word), and I’m not pointing the finger specifically at you, is that people will put down spanking as an absolute evil and not willing to hear the other side.
In no way did I say that not spanking your child equates to lazy parenting. I said the parents of the two killers in the Colombine case were examples of lazy parenting. How do you not know that your kid is building a pipe bomb in your garage?
azteclady, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on the subject of spanking, I see no problem with it within reason, and you don’t agree with it. Fine. However, I think we can find some common ground in that I believe or at least I hope we both believe that the real issue here is not whether people spank their children or not, but whether they discipline their children at all.
azteclady
November 29
3:05 am
Actually, it seems we are much closer in our parenting philosophies that it seemed at first glance, Eve Vaughn, because way back in the dawn of time, when my two children were much younger, there were times that (in Rosie’s words) they were swatted. Not often, and not hard, but it was a tool and ocassionally appropriate to the “sin” if you will.
I still think that routine corporal punishment is more harmful than helpful, but when used (in your own words) within reason, I don’t have a problem either.
Mostly, the whole discipline bit and being involved in their lives as much as (and for as long as) you can is, IMO, what makes the difference.
Rosie: oh boy, do I know exactly what you mean! My 17 yo looms over me and not-quite 13yo is about to look me in the eye. Corporal punishment for them? ludicrous indeed!
Karen Scott
November 29
8:39 am
On the whole, I agree with most of the rationalisations, but my opinion is still, that there are plenty of kids out there who are victims of lazy parenting. I agree that corporal punishment isn’t going to work for every child, but I still believe that the threat of it, would be more of a deterrent to the badly behaved kids.
Lack of appropriate punishments in school is a huge issue. The kids these days know that teachers don’t have any powers when it comes to doling out punishment apart from suspension or permanent removal, but so few schools in England ever take that route anyway that it becomes a moot point.
There are kids who will deliberately misbehave at school because they know that they can get away with it. If a teacher shouts at a pupil these days, he/she can be done for verbal abuse, that’s just wrong.
A lot of kids don’t need corporal punishment because they are generally well-behaved, but I still assert that it should be re-introduced in schools. The threat alone will deter the majority, but for those who willfully go out and seriously hurt other children or bully them, yep, a good arse-whooping is definitely needed. Taking away privileges or grounding them is just not the answer as far as I’m concerned.
Either that, or lock the bastards up in a correction centre for at least a week. Take your pick.
bloody
November 29
12:30 pm
Parents have abdicated their responsibilities in that they want every to raise their kids but they don’t want anyone to correct them. I have seen teen-agers that have no respect for the law hell anyone it seems like all they know or want to understand is violence. And I don’t mean the normal get in a fight and then leave that person alone come back settle your differences be respectful to each other. They know only to hurt and kill people and by this time any discipline is to late because now they think no one is going to hurt them. So yes at the young ages lets use some corporal punishment but when they reach a certain age they must decide how they want to act and realize that violence is the easy way to their answers. Locking them up only makes them worse criminals, they are taught how to be better criminals in the jails. If they really want to be hurtful to people hell send them to Iraq/Afgihanstan this way they can be bad all they want and actually might have to fend for their lives. This is for girls and guys equally!!!! Sorry for the rant.
Karen Scott
November 29
12:46 pm
Hey Bloody, I never thought of sending the buggers to Iraq or Afghanistan, what an absolutely exquisite idea!
azteclady
November 29
4:43 pm
Like Karen, my first reaction to bloody’s suggestion is a wholehearted “YES!!! Excellent idea!”
Then I remembered the character of Maggot, from “The Dirty Dozen,” and felt considerably less optimistic about it…
What can I say? I’m a cynic 😉
Desiree Erotique
December 1
9:34 pm
Amen, Karen. The rudest and most disrespectful children I’ve met have all come from homes where corporal punishment is not used. There is a big difference between abuse and correction, and it is very sad that so many people want to confuse the two.