Spanking now a felony in Texas
POSTED BY: Hardware
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 16:10
VIEWED: 7408
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I'm a big fan of Cesar Milan as well. Positive reinforcement definitely works better with doggies, and reputable trainers only use those methods these days.
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Now why doesn't that surprise me in the least? :biggin: Did you catch his Down Under shows? I got a kick out of those in contrast to the ones in the UK and US. Didn't see a single episode with some dumb woman who'd made her dog into her "baby", dressed it up, let it run the entire household, etc. Many of the same mistakes I've seen elsewhere, but from what I SAW anyway, you guys have a more realistic approach to your dogs than some of us do! Some of the stuff I've seen people do--did you catch the PINK poodle...or whatever small dog it was? Or the one where the woman GOT a small dog TO BE an accessory and dressed it accordingly? Hard not to vomit sometimes... 
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off 
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Mind you, we do have a squirter in the kitchen. But it only works temporarily.
I've posted much on the kids stuff before. I don't believe that physical punishment is a ethical or moral way to rear children. And contrary to populist, mainly right winged crap, not using physical punishment is not not synonomous with laissez faire parenting (no rules or consequences). My experience has been the complete opposite, it is actually a lot harder to set limits, ensure they are being consistently adhered to and working out consequences for behaviour that you want changed, than it is to give your kid a passing slap when they have pushed your buttons. The parents I have observed who use physical punishment tend to have had a lack of self control and a thoughtless approach to parenting than those who use other parenting strategies.
And I don't believe that it's legislated against in Texas. Sometimes you have to have the full picture to understand sentencing.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Now why doesn't that surprise me in the least? :biggin: Did you catch his Down Under shows? I got a kick out of those in contrast to the ones in the UK and US. Didn't see a single episode with some dumb woman who'd made her dog into her "baby", dressed it up, let it run the entire household, etc. Many of the same mistakes I've seen elsewhere, but from what I SAW anyway, you guys have a more realistic approach to your dogs than some of us do! Some of the stuff I've seen people do--did you catch the PINK poodle...or whatever small dog it was? Or the one where the woman GOT a small dog TO BE an accessory and dressed it accordingly? Hard not to vomit sometimes...
Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off
Niki, we have our fair share of nutty dog freaks down here as well. Most of them come to my dog park.
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As with everything, there is likely more to the story. My statement was more in argument to what the judge stated: We don't spank anymore..maybe in the old days....but not now (paraphrase) Old days? What were the old days? Are we that different now than we were 20, 40, 60, 100 years ago? Technologically yes, socially I don't believe so. Opinion on that one.
NIKI2: I'm not sure why my recent joining has any bearing on the validity or lack thereof of my opinion. So i decided to join the community...so? I didn't think that made me less of a voice. Anyhow, I do believe for CERTAIN lessons...yes pain can be the best teacher. Just as other lessons require positive reinforcement. And also that frankly, different children will require different levels of each. Nothing is static, nothing is certain.
I will refer to one occasion that I believe, very strongly, that reinforces this: My brothers girlfriend's son decided to "play" with a very expensive chess set...by taking the fragile pieces and slamming them into the board shattering them. His mother stopped him after half the board was destroyed and very firmly, not yelling, explained that no that was wrong (age was about 4 i think). Not ten minutes later...he was back in the room, picked up another piece and proceeded to destroy it. My brother stopped him, said it was wrong, and proceeded to spank him. The set was indeed left alone from thereon in during the visit.
This is a case I believe that demonstrates the fundamental flaw of the belief that physical punishment never needs to be used. Children, applying more to the younger they are, are increasingly unable to recognize a non-physical reaction to their actions. That is a matter of both physical and social development. Ultimately there is the natural physical understanding: Pleasure is good, pain is bad. It is the natural, very animalistic instinct that children have and (hopefully) grow out of.The concern I would pose to not implementing some form of physical response is that if a child does not learn immediately at an intuitive level that there are consequences to it's actions, then it will be either more difficult to instill such knowledge or impossible altogether.
As a person serving in the military, I will say that I have witnessed first hand a shockingly large number of people, primarily in entry phases, demonstrate a true mis-understanding of consequence. They truly did not understand the difference between right and wrong. I have wondered for years as to how many of those "failures to adapt" (as the military calls it) had simply never been spanked as a child.
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Quote:
Originally posted by WORLDSPRAYER:
This is a case I believe that demonstrates the fundamental flaw of the belief that physical punishment never needs to be used. Children, applying more to the younger they are, are increasingly unable to recognize a non-physical reaction to their actions. That is a matter of both physical and social development. Ultimately there is the natural physical understanding: Pleasure is good, pain is bad. It is the natural, very animalistic instinct that children have and (hopefully) grow out of.The concern I would pose to not implementing some form of physical response is that if a child does not learn immediately at an intuitive level that there are consequences to it's actions, then it will be either more difficult to instill such knowledge or impossible altogether.
By your reasoning, we should use physical punishment on babies then. Babies understand pain bad and pleasure good more more wholly than anyone else, so should we be spanking 6 week olds to whip them into shape when they cry, don't sleep, soil themselves. That'll teach them.
Your understanding of the human condition and of childhood is fundamentally flawed.
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I confess you just threw a curve-ball on that one. You just used a completely different form of situation. We're not talking about controlling/shaping a child's physical needs/requirements. We're talking about social change and instruction. Do you begin instructing and expecting social norms and desires to be met by a 6 week old? No you don't. A parents desire at that point is that the child simply live and be healthy. If that means waking up at all hours, feeding and cleaning then so be it. That's called the first steps of being a parent. How about a 6 year old? Hopefully IMHO Yes you do. As I stated above: but more clearly now I hope: Situation Specific. I most certainly did NOT..repeating here..did NOT state that physical punishment was to be used in response to everything, I'll even go so far to say that it shouldn't be used in MOST situations especially as the child ages into later childhood. All I am saying is that to rule out physical punishment as a tool entirely is foolishness in my opinion. To point back to my earlier example, in some situations, such as destruction of property, a punishment must be one that will embed itself into not only the child's immediate memory, but it's instinctual memory, so that the next time they feel the urge to destroy something not only do they have to think about it, but there is a natural, reflexive reaction against it. You cannot say that pain is not a form of instruction. I doubt there is a person alive who has not touched something hot as a child despite being told otherwise and learned that yes...it was hot. There is a reason the military smokes a soldier who misbehaves. Physical suffering creates a fast and lasting impression that resonates deeper than words. When experienced in balance, it can be perfectly healthy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by WORLDSPRAYER:
I confess you just threw a curve-ball on that one. You just used a completely different form of situation. We're not talking about controlling/shaping a child's physical needs/requirements. We're talking about social change and instruction. Do you begin instructing and expecting social norms and desires to be met by a 6 week old? No you don't. A parents desire at that point is that the child simply live and be healthy. If that means waking up at all hours, feeding and cleaning then so be it. That's called the first steps of being a parent. How about a 6 year old? Hopefully IMHO Yes you do. As I stated above: but more clearly now I hope: Situation Specific. I most certainly did NOT..repeating here..did NOT state that physical punishment was to be used in response to everything, I'll even go so far to say that it shouldn't be used in MOST situations especially as the child ages into later childhood. All I am saying is that to rule out physical punishment as a tool entirely is foolishness in my opinion. To point back to my earlier example, in some situations, such as destruction of property, a punishment must be one that will embed itself into not only the child's immediate memory, but it's instinctual memory, so that the next time they feel the urge to destroy something not only do they have to think about it, but there is a natural, reflexive reaction against it. You cannot say that pain is not a form of instruction. I doubt there is a person alive who has not touched something hot as a child despite being told otherwise and learned that yes...it was hot. There is a reason the military smokes a soldier who misbehaves. Physical suffering creates a fast and lasting impression that resonates deeper than words. When experienced in balance, it can be perfectly healthy.
Eh, well I'm probably the worst person to talk to about military discipline, as I think generally it constitutes abuse and I abhor the whole culture...
Leaving that aside, I can honestly say I don't think there is ever a good reason to use physical punishment for a child, because there are other, better ways that you can teach consequences, and you named one yourself. If you touch something hot, you learn not to touch it. Kind of a natural consequence that doesn't need an additional piece of pain from a parent. Children learn consequences very early on quite naturally and parents can assist them in developmentally appropriate ways. I can't think of one instance where adding pain delivered by an adult would be beneficial. Perhaps you could describe one to me.
That being said, I have in anger smacked my child once or twice. Not on my better parenting days, I might add. It happened when I lost control and let a situation escalate to where I couldn't think of anything else to do. I think that is when most parents do smack. What did my child learn from all that. That we all make mistakes sometimes, I hope that is all that he took away from those occasions.
I don't want to come across as judgemental of parents who smack (I've been told that I do). I think parenting is a hard deal, particularly when we insist so vehementally on doing it in iscolation. Individualism and parenting = bad combination in my books, I do believe in that truism that it takes a village to raise a child. So while I understand why parents resort to smacking, I don't believe that it is an effective or moral way to raise a child because it delivers one fundamentally flawed message. It is okay to hurt the ones you love.
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Quote:
As a person serving in the military, I will say that I have witnessed first hand a shockingly large number of people, primarily in entry phases, demonstrate a true mis-understanding of consequence. They truly did not understand the difference between right and wrong. I have wondered for years as to how many of those "failures to adapt" (as the military calls it) had simply never been spanked as a child.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe they joined the military in the first place BECAUSE they don't know right from wrong, and are severely screwed up already, possibly from TOO MUCH corporal punishment as a child?
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Hooo boy.
Ok folks, this how it is - you got two options for dealing with a child.
Empathy and Reason, or Force and Fear - and no, this *IS NOT* something you can split the difference with, it really is that black and white, primarily because once you start down the darker path, if you don't check step IMMEDIATELY - you've done fucked it up beyond your own ability to salvage, period.
Quote:
“As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator’s threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.”
Boris Sidis, from “A lecture on the abuse of the fear instinct in early education” in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919.
Hell, people knew this as early as 1750, and there was much discussion about it, but here's the rub - along comes a lady by the name of Alice Miller, who managed to make the connections in a way that folks like Doc Perry have later scientifically PROVEN, but even then she had sufficient credibility for folk to mull it over, and in the end it resulted in the use of violence against ones own children being outlawed.
Did you never wonder *WHY* some places are socially and emotionally twenty some years ahead of us, leastways in my opinion they are, and what was the turning point where their development accellerated and ours stalled ?
The very MOMENT, you use violence against a child - you break them, maybe only a little, but then a little more, and a little more and a little more, and OMG why does my kid hate me....
Gee, I WONDER ?
And not just you, but your whole fucking culture, your whole society, everything and anything that enabled that violence - unless they choose the route of denial and continue the cycle by becoming exactly the thing that terrified them as a screwed up defense mechanism, and most of you KNOW this.
And it *IS* violence - just to be clear, grabbing a child out of the street when they don't look before they step, or snatching a childs hand away from a hot burner, that's force... and in response the child via empathy ALSO responds to your fear *for them*, they see and respond to your protective effort as something OTHER than harm, this is as clear a demarcation as there is.
Violence is something altogether different, "I'm going to cause you pain and harm" - whatever your reasons, the *INTENT* is pain and harm, you can not shovel any mountain of bullshit big enough to cover that up, it is what it is, and it causes quantifiable damage, emotionally, psychologically, even physically.
Not to mention every single excuse shovelled out in respect to using violence against children was at one time used to justify beating your wife - ponder THAT for a moment, still think it should be okay to beat your wife ?
Show of hands, now, WHO thinks that should be okay ?
WHY NOT ?
It's the same fucking argument, don't dare try to deny it - that they are not people, they are property.
Besides which, what lesson are you teaching but "might makes right", your ACTIONS mean everything to a child, and when you instill such lessons in children, we ALL face the consequences of those actions, not all at once, but many years later when the bitter harvest of that foul sowing comes to pass.
And I for one, and sick of choking on your evil.
Damn RIGHT it should be illegal to use violence on children as a control mechanism.
Quote:
"Every Smack is a Humiliation"
A Manifesto
By Alice Miller
Many researchers have already proved that corporal punishment can indeed produce obedient children in the short term but, in the long term, it will have serious negative consequences on the child's character and behavior. This disastrous development toward later crimes can be prevented if there is at least one single person who loves and understands the child. During their whole childhood, dictators like Hitler, Stalin or Mao never came across such a helping wiNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME