Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago.
Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago.
I’m of the position that violence (broadly speaking, including the smallest offences) is never the best answer to a misbehaving child (or adult for that matter), but there are times when it’s not the worst answer either. When parents don’t have the skills to raise children with other methods, the net result just becomes that the children aren’t raised at all.
Studies have shown that even small acts of violence have detrimental effect on the brain so no, it’s never not the worst, it is always bad.
Can you cite such studies, please?
Thank you for asking. Here is a more recent one. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/effect-spanking-brain
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Great source, thank you!
This will sound like I’m shifting the goalposts (and perhaps it is), but I was at least on some abstract level thinking of something more benign than spanking.
Even harsh verbal abuse is damaging
Somehow I seem to have gotten through 14 years of parenting a good kid without once hitting her for any reason.
The most violent thing I’ve ever done is grab her wrist and pull her quickly when she was a toddler and on the sidewalk and suddenly decided to try to run off the curb and into traffic. And that wasn’t punishment, that was a last resort to stop her from accidentally killing herself.
This is commendable of course. Do you think it’s because you’re just a better person, or because the child was a better person? Where would you put yourself in the nature vs nurture dimension?
I think it’s because there’s never a reason to hit a child. It has no idea with being a “better person,” whatever that means.
I agree that there’s never a good reason to hit a child. I mean unless you’re training martial arts with them or something, but that’s obviously not what this is about.
Surely a person with better self-control (like yourself, apparently) is a better person? Or a person who doesn’t turn to violence when they get too angry to control themselves. Especially as a parent, who is constantly pushed towards angry, at least at some points of parenthood. That’s what I was wondering about: were you a parent with superior self-control or were you a parent with the sort of a child that you didn’t really need superior self-control?
I had my first child decades ago, and until then I had the self-image of being a calm person with a pretty high level of self-control. That image sure vanished quickly, and I was poorly prepared for the dissonance.
You’re the one making this better and worse judgment, not me. All I am saying is that there is no good reason to hit a child.
Do you feel awkward being called a better person? I’m not doing it sarcastically or as a trap.
No, I just don’t think you are really in the position to judge it, only knowing a tiny bit about me. I could be horrific in other ways. But I appreciate it.