[Livaud]

Quote

15-year-old called 911 last week after his mother and father took away his Xbox as a punishment for an undisclosed transgression.

http://www.parentdis...ke-away-xbox%2F

[Corrderio]

Why don't we beat kids this stupid anymore?

[pathwriter]

Because corporal punishment has repeatedly been shown to be counterproductive? The kid reached out to authority, though apparently he thought better of it halfway through, and actually conceded when authority got involved. Except for the fact that we can stand back and say that it was a stupid idea and probably a waste of the officers' time, this is hardly a bad sign. Would you rather he went nuts and shot both of his parents, as happened a year or so ago? Or ran off into the woods to freeze to death? Learning how to use the law effectively as a tool is probably coming close to a survival skill with how litigious and controlling our nation and its government have become.

[Seigrith]

pathwriter, on 23 November 2009 - 03:28 PM, said:

Or ran off into the woods to freeze to death?

Yes, a thousand times, yes. The problem with kids today (and by "kids" I mean most people in excess of five years younger than me) is that it's become taboo or politically incorrect to either bitchslap the dogshit out of them or instill the ever-present fear in them that you could do it at any moment. Instead, parents have to coddle and bribe them and the minute the parents decide to put their foots down, the spoiled little pissant goes and pulls some shit like this. Did he really fucking think that the cops would come and arrest his parents for taking away an X-Box 360 that in all likelihood they fucking bought him in the first place? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[Scrye]

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[Velhart]

Corrderio, on 23 November 2009 - 03:22 PM, said:

Why don't we beat kids this stupid anymore?

Now I don't think you should physically dicipline a person at his age (even though he deserves it x 1000), but I hate it when parents give wussie like punishments. It shows how dicipline is weakining generation by generation, South Park made a episode about this.

Should do stuff like, rake the leaves outside with a fork, or send him to a Meatloaf concert. But it is pretty obvious the parents spoil the kid since he would take something as little as this and make it into a domestic issue.

[Demonsquall]

There really are certain things law enforcement should just not be involved in, such as reasonably punishing a child for wrong-doing, or an argument amongst couples. (Not domestic violence, just when the nosy neighbor decides he wants to call the cops because he hears raised voices. This nearly always ends in someone going to jail for some STUPID reason.)

And I don't mean beating the shit out of them mind you, but if the little hellion wants to do some stupid shit, make'em go get the hickory switch and whip their ass with it.

[Phlow]

pathwriter, on 23 November 2009 - 03:28 PM, said:

Would you rather he went nuts and shot both of his parents, as happened a year or so ago? Or ran off into the woods to freeze to death? Learning how to use the law effectively as a tool is probably coming close to a survival skill with how litigious and controlling our nation and its government have become.

Congratulations on citing two incidents in which physical abuse by the parents towards the teens has not been discussed or discovered (Brandon Crisp & Daniel Petric). Perhaps if Brandon or Daniel's father had instilled the unholy fear that I felt as a child they would not be so brazen. You know why I never shot my father in the back of the head? Because he was like the fucking terminator - shooting him wouldn't stop him, it'd just piss him off. And if he was angry when I said a dirty word, can you imagine the ungodly wrath he would bring down on me for shooting him? No sir, please take my video games, I don't need them.

That's the thing with parents today - They want to sit down and reason with their children because they think they can be best friends. Bullshit. You're not their best friends. You're the boss and as a boss, you can't be their friends all the time. And children aren't nearly as developed or experienced as an adult that can, you know, relate personal experiences and empathize. That's why you need to resort to the ole classical conditioning model of "You feel pain when you do X. You feel good when you do Y. Do less X, do more Y."

[pathwriter]

Yeah, that's a nice hypothesis and it certainly seems to be popular, but how about you back it up with some kind of science? Children are highly impressionable and violence begets violence, it doesn't prevent it. If all the world just needed a spanking, street gangs and soldiers would stop shooting one another once the first body hit the ground.

[Kay]

I always believed that the use of spanking would only encourage your child (especially a boy) to more often rely on violence, but I don't believe that it is true for everyone.

[Phlow]

pathwriter, on 24 November 2009 - 02:38 PM, said:

Yeah, that's a nice hypothesis and it certainly seems to be popular, but how about you back it up with some kind of science? Children are highly impressionable and violence begets violence, it doesn't prevent it. If all the world just needed a spanking, street gangs and soldiers would stop shooting one another once the first body hit the ground.

Technically, a large amount of problematic inner city youths come from unwanted pregnancies. If they child is unwanted, then it of course does not receive the disciplinary actions required to become a logical productive member of society (either in absence of a parental figure or simple carelessness). I doubt that, had Gang Member Jacob been backhanded for stealing a candy bar when he was 5 he would be willing to set up with a peer group that felt so lax about stealing given the harsh lessons he learned earlier in life (especially because now he knows better). The problem is in so many single parent homes or homes that both parents work there isn't enough time to properly observe the kids. We could go into a retarded amount of solutions for this problem and explore each one individually, but it wouldn't change the fact that corporal punishment did not cause these street gangs to steal, kill, vandalize, etc. It's a very case-by-case example, but ask a successful black man that grew up in the inner city how his mom or pop disciplined him, and you're bound to get a story of a heavy handed parent.

[Corrderio]

Velhart, on 24 November 2009 - 12:40 AM, said:

Now I don't think you should physically dicipline a person at his age (even though he deserves it x 1000), but I hate it when parents give wussie like punishments. It shows how dicipline is weakining generation by generation, South Park made a episode about this.

Should do stuff like, rake the leaves outside with a fork, or send him to a Meatloaf concert. But it is pretty obvious the parents spoil the kid since he would take something as little as this and make it into a domestic issue.

Yeah, probably got a point, however I'd still do something severe if I had a kid go that emo.

[Demonsquall]

My dad is retired USMC force recon, you can bet your ASS i've never tried to pick a fight with him, because like Phlow said, he'd take my ass out in a heartbeat. Morals are not part of our survival instincts, they are instilled at a young age by our parents and society. I'm not quite sure how a teen callng 911 discussion devolved into shooting parents, but anyway~ Go read starship troopers (no, the movie isn't the same.) It's pretty good and covers most of this entire discussion.

[firefeng]

pathwriter, on 24 November 2009 - 02:38 PM, said:

If all the world just needed a spanking, street gangs and soldiers would stop shooting one another once the first body hit the ground.

If all the world just needed pacifism, street gangs and soldiers would stop shooting one another once they realized the moral horror of their bullets finding purchase in the supple, innocent flesh of non-violent, idiot idealists. Non-violence suffers the same flaw that communism does: it requires everyone to be on the same page to actually work. Psychological studies applying to the rearing of children in wholly non-violent environments only carry weight in the isolated instances of their individuals' psychological microcosms; I have yet to see a scientific proof that exemplifies the superiority of such a philosophy on a societal level. You are no more capable of pragmatically validating your position than Phlow is.

[Griss]

they should have "arrested" the kid for screwing around with 911.

[Velhart]

Griss, on 25 November 2009 - 06:39 AM, said:

they should have "arrested" the kid for screwing around with 911.

It only counts when you intentionally call 911 to mess around with them.

[pathwriter]

firefeng, on 25 November 2009 - 05:42 AM, said:

I have yet to see a scientific proof that exemplifies the superiority of such a philosophy on a societal level.

Feel free to take a look at Sweden some time. They came down like the fist of Thor on corporal punishment in the home over 30 years ago and the immediate reaction from detractors was that parents would be totally unable to control their kids and chaos would run rampant. The precise opposite has proved true, even though many still resent the law that prohibits them smacking their kids around. In the United States and western Europe, the percentage of parents who spank their children has decreased substantially with or without the intervention of government in the past several decades. The result coincides with major decreases in youth violence and violent crime in general (there's been an increase in escalation, but the sort of daily schoolyard fights and bullying that older generations perceive as normal are fading into the realm of mythology). I know that correlation does not equal causation, but the reduction in physical violence against children does correspond to a reduction in violent outburst by those children.

Phlow made the point that the two cases I pointed to earlier (which, of course, we only know about because they were sensational enough to make the news -- now a lousy 911 call is enough to make the news, which suggests positive things) involved a pair of teens who hadn't been "abused." That's not the same thing as saying their parents never hit them when they were younger.

I'm not about to pretend that children grow into docile and non-violent adults simply because their parents do not spank them. In my entire life, my parents laid hands on me once and I was a teenager then. My mother slapped me and was shocked to discover that I returned the gesture in kind. Since we were both rational, the message was delivered loud and clear to both parties: hitting one another isn't going to work. Nonetheless, it demonstrates an impulse towards violence that exists regardless of rearing. By the same token, however, although I'll hit a wall when I'm angry, I've yet to so much as give another person a bruise. My brothers are the same way. We are all prone to having our tempers flare and we're fond of shouting, but we don't strike other people.

If we put aside all this debate, though, the question of corporal punishment becomes "When is enough?" A swat to the behind would get the point across the first time, I'm sure, but most of the "pain" is surprise and shock. After a couple such attacks, particularly with the padding of clothing, there is no meaningful effectiveness left and, thus, harsher methods must be employed. It's no surprise, then, that mothers who admit to spanking their kids are also about three times more likely to escalate to abuse (caveat: talking about a jump from 2% to 6%). Sooner or later you have to leave someone bloody and unable to sit down for a week, is the point, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that. Even then, humans can adapt to almost any kind of pain given time and motivation, though they might just skip the adaptation and murder their parents first.

[Phlow]

pathwriter, on 25 November 2009 - 02:42 PM, said:

I'm not about to pretend that children grow into docile and non-violent adults simply because their parents do not spank them. In my entire life, my parents laid hands on me once and I was a teenager then. My mother slapped me and was shocked to discover that I returned the gesture in kind. Since we were both rational, the message was delivered loud and clear to both parties: hitting one another isn't going to work.

But defiance towards authority figures is perfectly acceptable. I guess we have two entirely different ideologies, which is fine and explains why we clash so much on various issues. A child would never strike me though.

[pathwriter]

Phlow, on 30 November 2009 - 09:03 AM, said:

But defiance towards authority figures is perfectly acceptable.

Whence descends this authority? This is clearly a matter of ideological clash, but that's pretty much a given because the core subject of the debate cannot be ethically studied in a truly scientific manner. Nonetheless, the suggestion that someone else has the right to lay hands on me as a form of behavior modification and, further, that I lack the right to respond in kind strikes me as nonsense. Think about it for a moment. Not even cops or, if you check the thread where Treelo and Cruzander are arguing back and forth, soldiers are permitted to strike someone at their whim, so why do some avert their eyes when it happens to be some idiot who is just barely capable of reproduction smacking the hell out of a 35 lb. child because their parenting skills are so top-notch that they cannot figure out a better solution?

[Phlow]

pathwriter, on 30 November 2009 - 01:06 PM, said:

Whence descends this authority?

Experience and a healthy respect for it. Not to mention that this parental figure, if biological, gave you life.

Quote

Think about it for a moment. Not even cops or, if you check the thread where Treelo and Cruzander are arguing back and forth, soldiers are permitted to strike someone at their whim, so why do some avert their eyes when it happens to be some idiot who is just barely capable of reproduction smacking the hell out of a 35 lb. child because their parenting skills are so top-notch that they cannot figure out a better solution?

Both police and soldiers are able to employ physical methods of behavior modification if the situation deems it. Normally, these cases are highlighted by the phrase "Failure to Comply". They simply have greater oversight into brutality charges whereas a parent does not, mostly because police officers aren't necessarily blood related to their suspects and might in fact hate their guts.

Reminder, though, we're not talking about abuse/brutality cases. I think we can all agree that those instances are bad.