Is hot sauce and cold showers discipline or abuse?

At the end of the day, this woman had lost control of herself.

She admitted it herself. She has lost control.

Her posture, the tone and pitch of her voice as she screamed at this child, poured tabasco into his mouth, stripped him naked and shoved him into a cold shower (remember, this is Alaska and it wasn't in summer) while continuing to scream abuse at him and repeat the same thing over and over again in that scream, before finally leaning over and hitting him in the shower (you can clearly hear her hand connect with his body before he starts to scream in pain and fear), while he cowered and trembled in fear - that is not punishment. It is abuse.

People in this thread are breaking down the use of tabasco and the cold shower... Combine it all together and look at her actions in that tape. You wold not do it to another adult because it would constitute and amount to assault. I have asked one individual in this thread whether he/she would condone this with their partner and the response was no, because their partner is not a child. Which was really beside the point.

I have a 5 year old and a soon to be 4 year old and the youngest especially is basically trouble on legs. He has driven us up the wall and back again. At no time have we ever inflicted pain on him in punishing him. My children respect us not because we inflict pain and terror on them (ie. my children are not afraid of me). But because we teach them between right and wrong and sometimes (as with the feral 4 year old) it will take long and extended periods of explanations and time outs and removal of Wii privileges. We don't hit, scream or screech at him or his brother. We set the boundaries and if they cross it, then the punishment is quiet and it sticks. There is no pain or terror involved.

I look at this woman's actions and it makes me ill. This child isn't learning between what is right and what is wrong. He is learning that it is acceptable to inflict pain on others (and the irony is that she's screaming and inflicting pain at him because he got into a fight at school).. The eternal 'don't hit others' while hitting the child for hitting others.. It sends a mixed message to the child.

 

For those who support hitting of children by parents, I'd like to ask at what ages the boundaries are for you.

Is it ok to hit your 16-year old girl? What about your 1 year-old boy?

I'd like to know what your upper and lower limits are, if you have any.

At what age is it ok to start to hit or smack as a punishment? At what age (if any) should you stop doing that?

And, most importantly, why those particular boundaries?

Maybe you don't have an age limit, but one based on the abilities of the child to understand other forms of punishment, or to respond to them. In that case, is hitting applicable until it becomes ineffective? What if no other form of punishment works? Ok to hit your 17-year old then? Is it ok to hit your 2-year old when they can't understand an explanation of why what they did was wrong?

Also, for those who have kids and smacked them when they were young, at what age did you in fact stop that (if you ever did)? And what form(s) of punishment did you substitute for smacking? If you currently have a 10-year old or a 13-year old who you used to smack but don't any more, why did you stop? And what do you do now when they displease you?

 

Anti-Flag:

I don't know. Who are these people that believe kids should be allowed to break laws? Not good parents, I'd say. Certainly doesn't apply to me.

So just a "light" beating, then? Can't you think of anything "lighter" than that?

Straw man.

It sounds to me like you don't have children yourself. It's all rather theoretical to you, by the sounds of it. I'm talking about the real world, but you seem to want to imagine a hypothetical one in which you imagine that all kids are uncontrollable except by physical violence. Or do you actually have kids like that? I get the distinct impression that this isn't a real discussion for you, but one based on your imaginings of what it might be like to have children.

Some kids are terrible at listening etc. Not all. But essentially I have no argument with any of this.

Do you condemn parents whose first option when misbehaviour occurs is to smack their child? Because I've seen parents do that on many occasions.

You're not getting it. Removal of toys, etc., is punishment. It's not a case of "it's not real punishment until you hit them".

By the way, punishing children by denying them food is also cruel punishment. But perhaps when you speak of "special foods" you mean junk foods, in which case allowing too many of those is similarly detrimental. "Behave or you won't get any dinner" is child abuse just as surely as hitting the child is abuse. Children need food to grow and thrive. Food should never be used as punishment, and it's often a bad idea to use it as a reward too. Both can lead to eating disorders, and don't help the obesity epidemic.

You're right. It's not so black and white. Will you agree, then, that being regularly beaten as a child means you are more likely to go on to become a criminal of one sort or another later in life, all other things being equal?

I disagree that grounding is abusive for children, unless it is regular and arbitrary. Similarly, imprisonment is not abusive for criminals, unless it is arbitrary and/or combined with other forms of abuse.

 

madanthonywayne:

I thought you were advocating caning as an alternative to imprisonment, which you say doesn't "work". Maybe imprisonment and caning? Would that "work"?

So, steal a Mars bar, get caned? How many times would be appropriate, do you think? And with what kind of instrument?

Should this be done in a public square, or in private? Would you sell tickets to canings, for the edification of the public?

You do realise, don't you, that experts on young children say that punishment should always be rendered immediately the child does the wrong thing? If you delay it while you regain your temper, then the child may not connect the punishment with the behaviour that occasioned it. The principle is the same when training a dog, by the way.

I must say I am deeply disturbed that you say that hitting another human being engenders no more emotion in you than talking to them. It makes you sound very cold, calculating and callous.

Well, I'm sure you'll be writing to your Congressman to urge that caning for speeding be introduced so it can be applied to your children. For their own safety, of course. Let's hope all those speed cameras are correctly calibrated.

Ah. Interesting. See my next post.

So you see no fundamental difference between what happened in this video and a child being upset at being verbally told off?

I'm sorry for you. It's a pity that children tend to repeat the way that their own parents parented them, when that has been less than caring.

Were you force fed, or were you given the option "Eat what you're given or don't eat anything. Your choice?"

I'm assuming your parents ate the same as you did. I'm assuming that they provided nutitious, healthy food for you. Or am I wrong?

 

To those in favour of hitting children, and especially those who actually have children and hit them, I have a few questions about your own personal limits (if any).

So, thinking about punishing children:

1. Is smacking with a bare hand acceptable?
2. Is hitting with a wooden spoon acceptable?
3. Is hitting with a leather strap or belt acceptable?
4. Is hitting with a metal rod acceptable?
5. Is hitting with a bamboo cane acceptable?
6. Is whipping with a bull whip acceptable?
7. Is smacking on the bottom acceptable?
8. Is smacking on the hand acceptable?
9. Is smacking on the head acceptable?
10. Is smacking in the face acceptable?
11. Would is be a "violent upbringing" for the child to be smacked 10 times a day?
12. How about once every day?
13. How about once a week?
14. Does it matter how often you smack a child? If you only do it when they misbehave, that should be ok, right? What if your child misbehaves two or three times a day? Three smacks a day should be fine under those circumstances, right?
15. Is it ok to escalate the severity and/or frequency of smacking if the child continues to misbehave (e.g. do the same bad thing over again after being punished once)?
16. If a child laughs at being smacked, or is defiant, is it ok to smack them harder until they cry?

 

madanthonywayne:

A couple of other thoughts occur to me.

What would "going overboard" mean for you, exactly?

I mean, you're already hitting the child, so what kind of thing would be "overboard"?

Do you think your own personal idea of "overboard" might be different from other people's? What about the woman in the video and her behaviour? Was she "going overboard" according to your personal opinion? You said that you thought she was "a bit excessive", but only "a bit". At what point would you have stopped in the same situation?

How do you think the law ought to deal with potentially different standards of "overboard"? If one parent thinks that three lashes with the cat of nine tails is not "overboard" for, say, drawing with crayon on the walls, and another thinks that would be overboard, how should the law regulate the matter? Where should the law draw the line?

This actually bears thinking about. On the one hand you want to tell us that your being smacked as a child taught you respect for authority and that only one smack changed your behaviour more than pointing out your wrongdoing ever would. Yet here you are as an adult who repeatedly breaks the law, by his own admission, and can't seem to learn from the experience.

Also, I note that you advocate caning for minor crimes such as "petty theft". And yet, driving over the speed limit is one of the biggest causes of fatalities on the roads. By driving over the limit, you put other people and yourself in danger every time you do that. Surely your recidivist and reckless behaviour in this regard is far more cause for concern than mere "petty theft". By your own recommendation, you ought to be soundly flogged. And if you ever caused injury through your speeding, you should, by your own advice, also be "locked up for decades at least". Heaven forbid that you might actually kill somebody with your car. In that case, by your own prescription you ought to be executed.

Maybe, in light of all this, we'd better take your defense of the effectiveness of smacking as an effective teacher of respect and good behaviour with a few grains of salt.