Woman who slapped her daughter at a concert is CONVICTED of assault.

If your child goes around breaking stuff because they got grounded or told they can't have an iPhone I think you need to go for a long walk and think over all the awful parenting decisions you've made. My point all along has been that you should have been able to teach your children right from wrong without having to hit them

I wasn't referring to you personally, I was referring to the hypothetical situation you made up so there was no ad hominem to fail

That would be fine and dandy except for the fact that it assumes that parents are the only things that influence children.

Again I believe if you're a good parent you make sure your influence over a child overrides the stupidity of outside influences and part of your responsibility is limiting those outside influences

I'm not saying that you can't influence your children to do good. You can but there's only so much you can do because children have their own personalities.

I don't think it's about making your children obedient it's about making them realise what they should and shouldn't do so that you're not having to bark commands at them all the time.

I think if your child is leaning out of a window and you telling them to stop because it's dangerous has no effect that's likely because of persistently bad parenting over a period of time


Posted from TSR Mobile

I feel there must be an impending apocalypse because I actually agree with you on something


Posted from TSR Mobile

I think this is all well and good in theory, but children have to become able to realise what they should and shouldn't do, and they have to become obedient. They're not just born like that. It's a long, drawn out process to get them to that level. In the meantime while you're teaching them how to distinguish between right and wrong for themselves, emergency situations can and do arise.

Obedient is what you call a dog or something that doesn't really think for itself, I would never feel comfortable describing my children as obedient.

In some situations, a child needs to do just that though. He needs to follow instructions like "stop doing that right now", without question, without trying to think for himself and trying to understand why, because there is simply no room for disagreement.

If it's an emergency or a dangerous situation, the action needs to be immediate, there isn't time to have a big discussion, explanation or reasoned argument about it. That can come later. Although such situations might be generally rare, there is a time and a place for pure and simple "obedience".

This is something that has to be taught over a long time, and in any case no child is ever going to become 100% obedient like a robot. So I disagree with the idea that, if a situation ever arises that a child is simply not doing what their parent tells them, that necessarily means that it's the parent who has gone wrong somewhere in raising their child.

I feel like I'm going in circles because I've already said I would rather have children educated on the right way to behave than constantly bark orders.

I agree that no child is going to do the right thing all the time and it is sometimes necessary to tell them to stop doing something but in no situation do I believes it's right or even acceptable to hit your child, it serves no purpose in my view


Posted from TSR Mobile

I honestly don't know what goes through the mind of a person who thinks striking a child is acceptable. Hitting an adult is not acceptable and should be frowned upon, nevermind a child. The mother should have had a short time in prison. People who strike their children need educating on how to reason or put their point across without resorting to violence.

Given the horrendous state of kids' behaviour nowadays, and how so many are an actual menace to society, I find it hard to see how you can support some fantasy narrative that all kids can be reasoned with and we'd all be much better off if parents didn't have the right to discipline their kids lightly. The reality just doesn't concur.

^

Not promoting abuse or anything ... Attacking, maiming, injuring etc is wrong of course. Short slap ( as a last resort) - Not so much.

To those that are completely against such physical contact with children... Well, good luck raising kids.

You've told him not do to this many times, but so far he has taken no notice. (This is not necessarily because you've been a bad parent already, it may just be that the child hasn't yet learnt that he has to obey you. He sees no negative consequence of disobeying).

So then, suppose you have the following situation. You have a child about 5 years old, and a newborn baby. The 5 year old doesn't really like the newborn baby and, at any opportunity he gets, he always physically hurts it.

How would you make sure that the child never does this again, bearing in mind that the next time he does it there's every chance it could be very dangerous to the newborn?

Over time, you'll want the child to grow to love his sibling, and not hurt it out of genuine care for it, and understanding that its wrong. But that takes a long time to happen. You need to prevent the next instance of this misdemeanour that may happen within the next 10 minutes.

This paragraph sums up exactly what I mean. 1. Your child shouldn't be obedient, he/she should be taught the right way to behave 2.

To me the idea of hitting your child because they're misbehaving is pretty similar to hitting your girlfriend/boyfriend because they're doing something they shouldn't and you're trying to teach them the right way to act.

Maybe my views will change on this when I have children but at the moment I feel like I'm going round in circles


Posted from TSR Mobile

Yes, but we're talking about the immediate short term, emergency type events when you don't have time to "teach" a child anything. You can't afford for them to disobey you even once because the consequences could be severely dangerous.

You can't "teach" a child the right way to behave in just five minutes, so this approach isn't useful at all in preventing your child's next misdemeanour which may occur in the next five minutes. With this approach, what will happen is simply this:

- Child opens the window and leans out, or walks onto the road by himself, or throws a heavy plastic toy at his younger sibling etc.
- You tell him "Don't do that, it's wrong, dangerous etc."
- Five minutes later he's disregarded or forgotten all about what you just said, doesn't fear the consequences of his action, does it again, and someone gets seriously hurt.




Okay, so then in answer to my question, what would you actually do to prevent, in the immediate short term, your child's next major misdemeanour that could have very serious consequences?