A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:


"Scott Weiser" wrote in message
...
A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:

You recommned a SMACK for ADHD students.

No, I recommend appropriate corporal punishment for students who haven't
been taught by their parents to be quiet, respectful and obedient to
authority and who haven't learned to concentrate.

LOL!

How brilliant!

Take kids who have trouble at home and beat them at school!

I didn't say "beat them." But as to discipline, somebody's got to do it,
or
the kids grow up to be criminals. Even young children can distinguish
between unprovoked physical abuse and just punishment for wrongdoing.

Corporal punishment is usually administered in aid of the person
administering it.

Well, yes, that's rather the point. The person administering it is
authorized to do so in order to obtain obedience and proper conduct.

The myth of the detached robotic corporal punisher dishing
out emotionally detached consequences is just that...a myth.

Hardly. Billions of people for thousands of years have benefited from the
focusing effects of corporal punishment.


That'll learn
'em to concentrate!

Most of the time, yes.

Yup, concentrate on revenge.

Corporal punishment is not "revenge." It's punishment for wrongdoing
intended to instill discipline and understanding that misbehavior has
negative consequences, provided by persons in authority who have license to
maintain and teach discipline.

And who they are going to beat in the
schoolyard just like the teacher beat them.

Nobody, if the discipline policy is properly and rigorously enforced. The
reason we HAVE rampant schoolyard violence is BECAUSE there are no
substantial (and painful) consequences for inflicting unlawful and wanton
physical violence on classmates.


And also that violence is acceptable,

Violence is acceptable, in proper context.

A classroom is not the proper context.

Sure it is. More than just the physical discomfort, the psychological
effects of the acute embarrassment of being spanked before a roomful of your
peers is most effective at preventing repeat misbehavior. It also acts as an
object lesson to the other students in the class that such misbehavior will
not be tolerated.


The unlawful violence against me
in junior high school stopped when I stood up to a bully, took my lumps,
and
beat the crap out of him in self-defense after he wantonly attacked me
without warning or provocation. After that fight, I never had another
problem with any of my peers trying to bully me. But, it also taught me
that
it's a really good idea to do everything possible to avoid a fight,
because
even winning a fight *hurts.* I haven't been in a *single* fistfight since
then, including during my tenure as a police officer, where I was always
able to verbally convince people that fighting with me would be a very bad
idea because one way or another, the law was going to win. More than 40
years of successful non-violence directly resulted from one single
incidence
of the lawful and appropriate use of physical force in self-defense.
That's
a lesson that *all* children ought to learn.

When I worked as an EMT in a hospital ER, the people we saw most often
from
bar fights were the *winners.* They usually broke bones in the hand as a
result of the punch that ended the fight, and ended up in a cast.

Consider appropriate corporal punishment, both at home and in schools, as
prophylactic self-defense by society against the inevitable violence
perpetrated by undisciplined children who grow up into undisciplined
adults.

It doesn't work that way.

It absolutely works that way.

Kids who already have problems end up getting
beaten by their teachers,

Corporal punishment is not "beating" a student. It's physically harmless,
mildly uncomfortable, and highly embarrassing, nothing more.

thus teaching them that violence and aggression is
how the world works, and the message definitely gets passed on.

You sure don't give human children any credit for intelligence. Even a dog
can easily learn that getting swatted with a rolled-up newspaper for chewing
on slippers means "don't chew on the slippers," not "go out and bite
everything that moves."

Corporal punishment is not "violence and aggression," it's duly-deserved and
duly-administered punishment for misdeeds, and kids are quite adept at
discerning the difference between abuse and justified punishment.


after all, school
is a good and fine social institution, and they use violence, so it's OK
for
me too!

Context is everything. Moreover, violence is an inherent part of human
nature. Learning to control one's behavior because the painful
consequences
of not doing so is an important lesson to learn, because no matter who you
are, there's always somebody bigger, badder and more violent out there who
can hurt you if you **** them off. Children who don't understand that they
must learn to control their behavior or they may suffer *even worse*
violence are in grave danger.

Teach them not to be violent by hitting them. Interesting.

You need to learn to distinguish between justifiable violence and
unjustifiable violence. Most people comprehend the distinction.

Have you ever
heard about cycles of abuse?

Yup. But corporal punishment, properly applied in response to documented
misbehavior is not "abuse."


And the reason there are "cycles of abuse" is because those who abuse have
never learned that they are not allowed to use unjustified physical force
against others, and that there are penalties, often harsh ones, for doing
so.

The way to break the cycle of abuse is to teach the children that an
unjustified use of force against another will result in severe punishment.
Children are well equipped to understand by analogy, and the analogy of
corporal punishment is "you suffer uncomfortable and humiliating
consequences for wrongful behavior as a child, and the discomfort and
humiliation only gets more severe as you grow up and continue to misbehave."

Not teaching them this lesson, beginning VERY early, is a disservice to the
child and to society.


Smacking a child's hand or giving them a swat on the bottom to enforce
obedience is not, contrary to liberal permissive dogma, going to turn them
into psychopathic killers.

Nope. But it will teach them that physical force is an appropriate way to
deal with problems.

Physical force is an appropriate way to deal with problems, depending of
course on the nature of the problem. Using justifiable physical force in
self-defense is a perfectly appropriate way to deal with an unlawful
assault, and children need to learn this, as well as learn the distinction
between self-defense and unlawful assault.

It will also make them very angry.

Tough. They'll get over it. Learning to control anger is yet another vital
lesson children must be taught. A disservice is done to children whenever
adults pander to them in order to curry favor and avoid making their
children angry or upset. Children must be TAUGHT to control their anger and
they must be TAUGHT how to analyze and redirect anger in proper, acceptable
ways. They will never learn this lesson if they are a) never angry, and/or
b) never disciplined for inappropriate displays of anger and resentment.



Not doing so, however, stands a very good chance
of turning them into uncontrollable, wild, selfish and violent adults who
don't recognize any limitations on their behavior. That fact is perfectly
clear. One needs only look at the decline of civility and the burgeoning
juvenile crime rates to see this.

It is a rather juvenile leap to attribute these problems to a failure of
teachers to beat their students.

Corporal punishment is not "beating." And I blame the parents far more than
I do educators, but educators are still responsible for failing in their
duty to properly teach and discipline students.


I deny that just because a
student is disruptive and unwilling to concentrate or obey, that the
student
is *unable* to concentrate or obey due to some phony, concocted
"diagnosis"
that is little more than a marketing tool for Ritalin.

I agree with you on this point. Drugs are being unbelievably
overprescribed.
By SMACKING the kids is not the answer. Obviously.

Why is it obvious to you? How do you deny thousands of years of corporal
discipline that resulted in generation after generation of rational,
peaceful and well-behaved adults?

LOL. Which generation are we talking about? You mean the generations where
wife-beating was an accepted social practice?

Strawman argument. There is absolutely no credible correlation between
persons undergoing appropriate and justified corporal punishment as children
and their becoming "wife-beaters." Besides, you make a sexist strawman
argument as well.


Overcoming "ADHD" is something you *learn* to do, not something you can
be
medicated into. Sometimes children need to be caused to focus, and
corporal
punishment, in appropriate measure, can be an effective tool for
obtaining
obedience and stimulating focus.

Ridiculous. That's the recipe for a volcano that will erupt (internally,
externally, or both). It just teaches the kid that when you have a
problem,
you lash out at it.

Balderdash. The most violent teens on the planet are those who have
*never*
been disciplined.

Not in my considerable experience. Do you have some research to indicate
that violent teens come from peaceful environments?

Who said anything about "peaceful environments?" Most undisciplined homes
are anything but "peaceful." They are usually utter chaos and violence at
all times. That's what happens when you let the kids run the house.

You do realize that
there are disciplined families that have never raised a hand to a child,
right?

Sure. But because that occurs, it does not follow that corporal punishment
creates abusers. You must also recognize that there are families that "never
raised a hand to a child" who ended up with violent, out-of-control
children. Watch any episode of "Nanny 911" or "Supernanny" for weekly
examples of undisciplined permissiveness resulting in uncontrollable,
violent children.


Teaching self-control is a necessary part of any child's
upbringing, and teaching a child that authority has teeth, and that
defiance
may have painful consequences is absolutely necessary if the child is to
grow up into a responsible adult.

Being beaten teaches children to beat others.
Are you saying that there are
no responsible adults who were not beaten by their parents and teachers? How
silly.

Once again, corporal punishment is not "beating."



Heck, even the teacher hits me, what's wrong with me
hitting a kid that I don't like?

The answer is quite simple: You are not a teacher, and you do not have any
authority to administer corporal punishment. Even small children are
capable
of distinguishing between punishment administered for wrongful behavior
and
wanton assault.

Actually, you hear those exact words all the time. The teacher does it, so
why shouldn't I?

Here's the answer: "You may not do so because you are not the teacher, you
are the student. You don't get to do many things a teacher does, and one of
those things is that you don't get to administer punishment for misdeeds,
whether the punishment is corporal or otherwise. That is not within the
sphere of your authority. If you presume to usurp the authority granted to
teachers, then YOU will be punished appropriately for overstepping the
bounds. When and if you grow up to be an adult with authority over others,
including perhaps children, then you may be authorized to administer
punishments. Until then, you may not do so."

The fact that an ignorant child may attempt to rationalize his bad behavior
and excuse the unauthorized use of force on another does not mean that
society is required to accept that rationalization. Instead, children should
be taught that punishment is administered by duly-appointed authorities
ONLY, and than any use of force against another, for any reason other than
in legitimate, justifiable self-defense, will be harshly punished.


Most of the time, "ADHD" is nothing more than a sugar high caused by
poor
nutrition and breakfast cereal combined with lax, permissive parenting
that
spills over into the classroom.

There are a proportion of kids diagnosed ADHD who experience a
life-changing
experience with medication.

I'd say *all* of them do. The question is whether or not the changes are
positive or negative. The vast, vast majority of the time, the changes are
demonstrably negative and extremely harmful to the child's future.

With proper medical care this never has to happen.

Yes, yes, it's possible to narcotize all children into a compliant stupor,
but that doesn't teach them anything, and once they get off the drugs, they
STILL won't have the ability to concentrate, and will be too old to learn
how, presuming that they don't end up on "Adult ADHD" medication for the
rest of their lives.


The dosage needs to be monitored closely with
the intent of reducing it as soon as possible, and the goal of
eliminating
it.

In 90% of the cases, the dosage should be zero.

Could be.

The medication should be combined with strategies for the teacher,
parents, and child. The strategies should be tried first before
medication
is even a consideration.

Yup. And corporal punishment is one of the prime strategies that should be
applied LONG before medication is even considered.

Only if you want a child with even more problems who will end up with even
more medication.

Nah. Wayne just told me about an interview he did with the Commandant of a
prep-school military academy here in Colorado. When asked about ADHD
students, the Commandant said, "We don't have any. If they have a problem
when they get here, we cure them in about a week."



That said, I agree with much of what you say (regarding misdiagnosis and
slapping of labels on kids so they can be dealt with through medications)
but I think your focus on the need for the child to have a smack is way
off.
They need people around them who can set boundaries and help establish
routines and structure that are appropriate.

And how, exactly, do you set "boundaries" with an out-of-control child who
refuses to acknowledge parental (or teacher) authority, no matter what
punishments short of corporal punishment are applied?

I find out what is going on.

How does that help the child to learn what boundaries are?


And then there's the issue of how you teach a child to stay away from
danger.

You can do this without smacking people.

Most of the time, yes. Sometimes, a smack is the proper technique.


Telling a two year old that something is "hot" is only marginally useful
until they understand what "hot" means. In my home, we have a wood stove
insert to heat the house. There are no barriers, no guard rails, nothing
to
keep a child from touching the hot stove. And yet not one of the children
has ever suffered a serious burn, because they learn very quickly not to
touch (or even get near) the stove when it's lit. Has there been the
occasional burned finger? Yes. But not more than once per child. Is
allowing
a child to burn his finger so he understands the concept of "hot" violent?
To many parents, probably so, but to us, children have to learn to live in
the real world, which is filled with real perils, which requires that they
be absolutely and reliably obedient to parental commands. Unless we are
willing to let them experiment with dangers that can severely injure or
kill
them, we have to find ways to teach them the painful consequences of
carelessness or disobedience by using techniques that demonstrate the
physical pain involved in doing such things while protecting them from any
real harm. Wrapping children in bunting so as to keep them from any pain
is
a disservice to them. Corporal punishment is the way that rational adults
teach the very real consequences of misbehavior in ways that are
uncomfortable and unpleasant, but harmless.

I never once burned myself on a stove but also was never smacked to learn no
to do so.

Neither did these kids. The point, which you evidently missed, is that
children are perfectly capable of correlating cause and effect, including
when corporal punishment is administered in response to disobedience.

I have worked with many vulnerable people with limited cognitive
abilities and have never smacked them to help them learn not to burn
themselves on a stove. And none of them ever has.

You miss the metaphor.


Thus, when teaching the two year old not to run out in the street, a
bare-butt spanking that makes the consequences of disobedience much more
real, immediate and painful than the abstract concept of "you might get
hit
by a car" is perfectly justifiable, reasonable, rational and effective.

Being beaten by your parent is not a logical consequence to running on the
street.

Once again, corporal punishment is not "beating."

It only teaches that your parent is unstable and lacks the parenting
skills to help you develop boundaries.

Only to brainless liberal simps who deliberately ignore several thousands of
years of human history in child-rearing.


Likewise, smacking the back of the hand of a disruptive student who has
refused polite requests to settle down to work is perfectly reasonable
because it is harmless, but it makes the consequences of disobedience more
unpleasant than those of obedience.

It's not harmless at all.

Sure it is. In fact, it's helpful.

It meets the needs of the teacher.

Indeed. And the need of the teacher is "teach discipline, respect and
obedience."

It is a strategy
for the weak of mind,

No, that's the strategy of liberal permissive apologists.

and demonstrates a lack of discipline by the person in
authority.

Nah. Not disciplining children demonstrates a lack of discipline on the part
of authorities.


When I was about 4, my dad caught me putting paperclips in the wall
sockets.
I didn't respond to lectures on the subject, so he bought a crank-type
telephone generator and gave me a couple of very unpleasant but harmless
shocks. Then he told me what was in the telephone box was "little
electricity," and that what was in the wall socket was "big electricity."
I
got the message instantly, and never ventured near the wall sockets with a
paperclip again. It was a valuable and well-crafted lesson that made it
absolutely certain I wouldn't be in danger of death.

But, if a parent today did the same thing, he would undoubtedly be
arrested
for "child abuse" merely because he subjected his child to some minor pain
out of concern for his life. So, instead of children who understand the
dangers of AC line voltage and current, we have plastic plugs which any
three year old can remove and a generation of kids at risk for
electrocution.

Oddly enough, I've also never electrocuted myself. But what you are
describing above is quite different from administering a rap on the hand to
bring about classroom compliance.

Not really. The lesson is the same: "Does it hurt when you do that? Then
don't do that."


Sorry, but life is full of danger and pain, and there's nothing wrong with
instilling discipline and obedience through reasonable and appropriate
corporal punishment in order to prevent greater, potentially fatal harm at
a
later time. Never has been, never will be, so long as it's done with the
proper motives and in the proper proportion.

Those are mythical motives and mythical proportions.

Affirmed and supported by tens of thousands of years of human behavior and
efficaciously applied to billions upon billions of children over the
millennia. That's my kind of "myth."


And please don't bother trying to forward the specious argument that any
corporal punishment is, or inevitably leads to, genuine physical abuse,
because it's not true. For example, I don't run around the house with a
cattle-prod zapping the two year old every time he disobeys just because
my
father used an electrical shock to reinforce a vital safety lesson.

I'm sure your father and you are special exeptions.

Nah, just ordinary people.

It's not like you walk
around with a gun waiting for the day you can shoot someone.

Quite right, I don't.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser