Hey Mom, I will have you arrested if you spank me!

[Lisa]

A proposed law that could see parents charged for spanking their children is heading to the House of Commons after clearing a major hurdle in the Senate.

Full Story

The story states:

It is not to arrest everyone who gives their child a tap on the arm.

but it also states:

Routine discipline and using spanking as premeditated punishment wouldn't be allowed.

So mothers and fathers will no longer be able to use a threat of a spanking to keep children in line? That would be premeditated, wouldn't it?

"Smarten up, or I will give you a spanking" is no longer allowed.

 

[mrhnau]

Some of those dimwits that crafted such a law should have been spanked more as a child. geez...

 

[CoryKS]

Tried the "touch me and I'll call the police" line on my mom once.

Her reply was, "Fine. Call them. But if I'm going to jail for hitting you, I'm going to get my full money's worth before they arrive."

Mom 1, Cory 0

 

[terryl965]

well I guess I will be going to jail or fine alot, because I believe in spankings.

 

[tshadowchaser]

My kids tried that once and I told them they had better hide well because I would find them when I got out. They decided to do as I asked in the first place and not have to worry about being punished the first and 2nd time around

 

[punisher73]

That's ridiculous, there is a line between giving your child a proper spanking and going overboard. I can understand wanting to protect children against abuse, but you aren't going to accomplish what you want by not allowing parents to spank their children.

Kids understand pain/pleasure when they are young. You touch a hot stove and it causes pain you don't do it again. A child doesn't have the mental faculties or development to understand a morals conversation on why they shouldn't do that.

 

[Kacey]

It is much easier to outlaw spanking all together than it is to differentiate between a reasonable consequence and abuse; a friend of mine nearly lost her child when her ex-husband saw her swat her 16 month-old on his diapered behind to keep him away from a cement staircase - I was there too, and ended up going to court with her to testify that the swat was to a) keep him away from an open stairwell (safety) and b) that the open-handed contact to diaper was not intended to cause pain, but rather to produce a sharp noise intended to scare the toddler away from a dangerous situation - certainly, his reaction did not indicate pain. She won - but it was disturbingly close.

Another time, when I was a substitute in a local school, I asked a 7th grader if I needed to call her mother about her behavior. Her response, was, roughly: Go ahead and call; she won't do anything, because if she does I'll call the Welfare lady and tell her my mom hit me, they'll take me away, and she'll lose the Welfare money for me - so she won't do squat. Remember, this girl was 12 or 13.

Child abuse is deplorable. It is horrific. It is too easily confused with discipline, and thus laws are written that encompass too much instead of too little. Nonetheless - it is time that parents be allowed to parent, instead of children being allowed to run rampant because parents are afraid to discipline them, for fear of legal action being taken against them.

 

[shesulsa]

Child abuse *is* horrific. But careful, selected spanking *can* be effective in some cases.

My daughter tried the "I'll call 911" thing too. I handed her the phone and told her what would happen legally to each person in the family during the investigation. About foster homes, the splitting up of her siblings, the jail time for me, the court time, etcetera. Then I told her if she really felt she had done nothing to deserve what she got and was truthfully abused to make the call - I would go through what I had to if she needed that much assurance that I was not a child abuser.

She gave the phone back to me.

 

[brianhunter]

My story was similar to Cory's......

"I'll call the cops if you lay a hand on me" - 12 year old dumb me

"Have your bags ready 'cause your going with them" - Granddad

Guess who won!

 

[girlbug2]

What ridiculous times we live in.

I wonder how many of the "spanking is always abuse" set have kids themselves, and how they turned out when they grew up.

The fact is that some kids just need more physical discipline than others. My two boys demonstrated that to me at very early ages. The older one responded to correction only if it was accompanied by a swat on the rear, the younger one knew when to stop pushing the limits and straighten up before it came to that. I imagine that people who say "I never spank my kid, that's abuse" had kids more like my easygoing younger one-- they have no clue!

(well, either that or their kid was like my older one and became an intolerable brat because they were never spanked!)

 

[jks9199]

I've dealt with that sort of crap. There's no excuse for HARMING a kid deliberately. That doesn't mean that there's no room for reasonable physical discipline -- and it makes a hell of a lot more sense than trying to "reason" with a 2 or 3 year old who barely understands that other people have feelings or exist as other than animated toys. Which I've seen done...

What'd I do? Remember, these tend to be kids that are old enough to realize what they're up to; say 8 to 12 years old. (Note that spanking or other pain based corporal discipline becomes pretty inappropriate after about 8 or 9, except in very rare circumstances.) I explained to the kid that I wasn't going to arrest their parent for a spanking that didn't leave a mark, or denying a kid dessert after they had a full dinner, taking their cell phone away, or whatever stupidity it was and was brought on by their stupid antics.

 

[shesulsa]

There's no excuse for HARMING a kid deliberately.

This sentence reminded me of what my teacher says - it goes something like this: 'I will hurt you. I will not *damage* you, but I will hurt you. I will cause you pain because you must know what that feels like and you must learn from it.'

We don't do our children *any* favors by keeping them from all pain, all suffering. We *must* do things as parents that will hurt them, their hearts, their egos, their butts.

 

[brianhunter]

This sentence reminded me of what my teacher says - it goes something like this: 'I will hurt you. I will not *damage* you, but I will hurt you. I will cause you pain because you must know what that feels like and you must learn from it.'

We don't do our children *any* favors by keeping them from all pain, all suffering. We *must* do things as parents that will hurt them, their hearts, their egos, their butts.

I really like the way you put that!

 

[Big Don]

I really like the way you put that!

I'll second that. That is a very nice turn of phrase.

 

[Kreth]

My son tried that once. I told him to make sure they sent the coroner out with the cops. He decided against making the call (well, after asking me what a coroner was...)

I really think (and I've mentioned this before) that the rudeness of the younger generation has a lot to do with the decline in corporal punishement. When I was a kid, you simply *did not* swear at an adult. Odds are, they would slap the taste out of your mouth, and then when you complained to your parents (if they hadn't heard the news already), you'd get a beating. :lol:

 

[Lisa]

Many young pre-adults and young adults seem to have this sense of entitlement. They feels they are entitled to their own opinion, entitled to be treated a certain way by others and entitled to treat others as they see fit (sometimes not in the nicest way).

The problem is that they don't understand that with a sense of entitlement also comes consequences. If you feel you are so entitled to act a certain way or do a certain thing, you are also entitled to the back lash from your actions. THAT is the key part they seem to be missing.

 

[MJS]

When my sister and I were growing up, our parents gave us a whack on the *** if we deserved it. Was it child abuse? Of course not. There is a huge difference between a little whack vs. repeatedly beating the child.

Kids will use this as an excuse, and this is probably why I take so many calls at work from parents who say that their child isn't listening to them. Hmmm...so let me get this right. You have a child, he's not listening, so you call the police? IMHO, its people like that, that shouldn't have kids.

Of course, my parents also raised me with 'the look.' You know..that look that they give you, when you're acting up, that silently says, "If you don't stop what you're doing, you're gonna get it!" 9 times out of 10, the look worked.

 

[mrhnau]

Many young pre-adults and young adults seem to have this sense of entitlement. They feels they are entitled to their own opinion, entitled to be treated a certain way by others and entitled to treat others as they see fit (sometimes not in the nicest way).

The problem is that they don't understand that with a sense of entitlement also comes consequences. If you feel you are so entitled to act a certain way or do a certain thing, you are also entitled to the back lash from your actions. THAT is the key part they seem to be missing.

And how do they get this sense of entitlement? Often they see it in their parents, tv, in school and in leaders. We live in a litigious society, where we all have "rights" and we demand they be honored.

Then again, this might be an issue of parents not raising their kids the right way. Some of the responses from posters on this thread have been great, and probably whats needed to quench that kind of attitude LOL

 

[Kacey]

Many young pre-adults and young adults seem to have this sense of entitlement. They feels they are entitled to their own opinion, entitled to be treated a certain way by others and entitled to treat others as they see fit (sometimes not in the nicest way).

The problem is that they don't understand that with a sense of entitlement also comes consequences. If you feel you are so entitled to act a certain way or do a certain thing, you are also entitled to the back lash from your actions. THAT is the key part they seem to be missing.

I see this with disturbing regularity at the middle school where I work - and the schools have no latitude at all; the sequence of discipline is call the parent, send the child to the office, detention, more detention, in-school suspension, out-of-school suspension, expulsion. Of course, for "mere" profanity, it rarely, if ever, gets past detention. I got very tired, last year, of one of my students saying "this is whacked... **** you" and then yelling at me for sending him out of class - but I couldn't teach with him in the room.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

I'll never condone hitting a kid *just* for the sake of hitting them, but I have absolutely no problem with, say, a parent giving 'em a whack upside the head for something like swearing in public.

But then, I'm not someone who even believes anybody has the right or need to have children anymore, at all, period because the way I see it, this is finally the generation that's gonna be the one to send the world Round The Bowl And Down The Hole, so there's no point makin' any more kids now, who will never live to see adolescence, never mind adulthood.

And that's if they COULD be expected to receive proper discipline, which I don't believe is true.