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Shout out to that time a long-time friend of a friend who always had a crush on me was devastated when I called her out (and ultimately cut her off) for hitting her child.
No one is going to beat their child in public and expect to not get an ear full out of me. I dont care who you are.
@freemo Shout-out for doing the right thing, facing punishment and staying true to yourself.
And in private doesn't make it less evil!
Some people have wondered why (for instance) Sweden had so few (until recently) murders, compared to (for instance) USA. I think part of it is that "disciplining children" (by physical or mental violence) has been denounced for many generations, and illegal since (I think) the 1960s.
Good communities start by stopping violence against children.
For sure, i would call it out in private too.. In this situation she had done it in public and a bunch of people int he resteraunt gave her shit.. she came to me to complain how she was "disiplining" her kid in public and how she got in trouble.... this was when i learned she hit her kid and i lost it. I didnt see the actual abuse, she was coming to me to tell me how she was "unfairly" criticized for hitting her kid. My response was "good, they should have criticized you, your lucky thats all they did, stop beating your child"
@freemo @niclas @AmpBenzScientist Was it a beating, or a spanking?
Does it matter? The long-term trauma in the child is not so much "amount of pain", but the betrayal of the parents, who are their only source of protection, love and comfort.
@niclas @AmpBenzScientist @freemo I get that to a degree, but I’d argue that something very small like a singular, relatively gentle smack on the hand of a small child isn’t anything to be particularly worried about, depending on how and why it’s done.
A gentle smack ont he hand that doesnt inflict much pain is a non issue.. I wouldnt even call that a spanking, thats just a gesture, I'd do that with my friend if he tried to steal my food :)
@freemo @niclas @AmpBenzScientist I would too, if I had better boundaries 😂
But I think that would be a spanking in its best form, IMHO.
For me to qualify as a beating (including spanking) it needs to inflict some level of pain and suffering as a learning tactic.. if its just physical contact but doesnt raise to the status of "pain" then i wouldnt say it qualifies.
@freemo @niclas @AmpBenzScientist What would be some good alternatives to spankings for younger children? I’d be more apt to condemn all spanking if I knew of some good alternatives.
There might be alternatives to spanking, and they might work really well for some kids. But there might be kids who need some physical reinforcement. Until the vague concept of "a child" with all its superpositions of what a child could be collapses into "the child in front of you right now" you can't know exactly what will or won't work.
That said, it's something you have to be careful of because the purpose of any discipline is not to make the parent feel better, but to try to help the child in the long run. One of the dangers of using pain as a disciplinary tool is there's always a risk of misusing it or using it instead of better tools for the job because it feel better in a moment of negative emotion from the parent.
While I obviously agree that kids need very different ways to learn, the idea that beting them might be an effective child rearing tool for **any** child just sounds bonkers to me.
NO child is going to learn best from being beat, none.. . The few who might appear to be raised well will have serious underlying issues that scar them for the rest of their lives. How aware of it they are is another matter.
I think if I ended up in that hypothetical scenario where he did need that.... I dunno, might just let the little guy grow up to be a serial killer and just act dumb...
I mean thats what most parents do, they take their frustration out on their kids by beating them, call it disciplin so they can lie to themselves and not feel guilty when they beat their child out of frustration.
Not a lot of people implementing consistent rules and routines with positive feedback for success out of frustration.
"Listen here boy! I'm gonna come back there and give you the same fair and reasonable bedtime every night with a standard bedtime routine you come to recognise and follow. That'll learn you, you little bastard!"
