Corporal Punishment -A Parental Right or Wrong?

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Define "corporal punishment".

There's a measurable difference between spanking a kid on his behind with a bare hand and smacking him across the face with a ruler.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Define "corporal punishment".

There's a measurable difference between spanking a kid on his behind with a bare hand and smacking him across the face with a ruler.

They're both punishment by pain, and unless one pain is worse than the other I question the real difference.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Define "corporal punishment".

There's a measurable difference between spanking a kid on his behind with a bare hand and smacking him across the face with a ruler.

They're both punishment by pain, and unless one pain is worse than the other I question the real difference.

Uh, one pain is worse than the other. Do you really think being spanked is as painful as being smacked across the face with a ruler?

[Nobel Hobos 2]

They're both punishment by pain, and unless one pain is worse than the other I question the real difference.

Uh, one pain is worse than the other. Do you really think being spanked is as painful as being smacked across the face with a ruler?

The face is very sensitive. How about being suddenly slapped with the ruler, on the arm? And let's say that is carefully calibrated to hurt exactly as much as spanking on the behind.

What I'm getting at is that there are differences besides how much it hurts.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Uh, one pain is worse than the other. Do you really think being spanked is as painful as being smacked across the face with a ruler?

The face is very sensitive. How about being suddenly slapped with the ruler, on the arm? And let's say that is carefully calibrated to hurt exactly as much as spanking on the behind.

What I'm getting at is that there are differences besides how much it hurts.

"Carefully calibrated"? We're talking about parents, not sadistic torturers.

Jesus.

[Alessandretta]

The face is very sensitive. How about being suddenly slapped with the ruler, on the arm? And let's say that is carefully calibrated to hurt exactly as much as spanking on the behind.

What I'm getting at is that there are differences besides how much it hurts.

"Carefully calibrated"? We're talking about parents, not sadistic torturers.

Jesus.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

The face is very sensitive. How about being suddenly slapped with the ruler, on the arm? And let's say that is carefully calibrated to hurt exactly as much as spanking on the behind.

What I'm getting at is that there are differences besides how much it hurts.

"Carefully calibrated"? We're talking about parents, not sadistic torturers.

Jesus.

Actually I expect parents (if they're going to use spanking at all) to carefully calibrate how hard they spank.

I read somewhere that most parent get angrier as they spank, expecting some self control of them is quite the opposite of sadism.

[The Free Joy State]

Corporal punishment is ineffective and counter-productive. Parents should avoid reponding physically (something like the NSPCC's guide to positive parenting might help), as hitting a child only teaches them that the response when you want your own way is to hit and humiliate.

A meta-analysis of 88 studies, looking at the use of corporal punishment by parents found the two most common associations were immediate compliance (which is only short-term) and physical abuse from the parent. The same meta-analysis study found that corporal punishment was linked with increased child aggression, more anti-social behaviour, abuse of the child's own spouse or child, reduced moral internalisation, and reduced mental health.

[Sapporo Hyperspace Riftgate Laboratory]

Corporal punishment is ineffective and counter-productive. Parents should avoid reponding physically (something like the NSPCC's guide to positive parenting might help), as hitting a child only teaches them that the response when you want your own way is to hit and humiliate.

A meta-analysis of 88 studies, looking at the use of corporal punishment by parents found the two most common associations were immediate compliance (which is only short-term) and physical abuse from the parent. The same meta-analysis study found that corporal punishment was linked with increased child aggression, more anti-social behaviour, abuse of the child's own spouse or child, reduced moral internalisation, and reduced mental health.

TL;DR Corporal Punishment is wrong

[Page]

I was hit as a kid and had some shit thrown at me from time to time and it caused me harm. It's been over a decade since I've become an adult and I have mostly gotten over the trauma but I still have some lasting damage - I believe that being hit, often suddenly and without warning, is responsible for my bad reaction to unexpected touching, like if a guy gives me a pat on the back I recoil and feel anxiety in my chest. I might be wrong, maybe it wasn't from being hit, maybe I was born that way, but I am absolutely certain that being hit did not benefit me in any way. Having a baseball thrown at my face at age 8 for the transgression of derisively comparing my mother to the overprotective and abrasive mother of one of my childhood buddies is just one of many incidents and I'm sure there are some I've forgotten. Sometimes anger was directed at inanimate objects instead of me like my parents breaking down a door because I locked myself in my room for a half hour. Good going, now you have to spend your own money to replace a door that I would have opened as soon as I got hungry or needed to take a piss. There are more traumatic incidents I won't discuss here. That said, I have forgiven my parents for all of it which I'm able to do because I no longer live with them, but even after making the conscious decision to forgive them I still harbor some residual resentment I can't completely shake off.

Now I bet some of you will say "that's fucked up but a smack on the butt is totally different." It's not. I was never bothered by physical pain, it goes away. It's not about the pain that's inflicted, the trauma comes from being the victim of aggression from people who are supposed to care for you, and more so the feeling of helplessness. When you're hit and incapable of defending yourself, you feel helpless and humiliated, and that is the biggest reason why hitting children is wrong.

I find it odd that it's called domestic abuse when one hits a grown adult who might have the capacity to defend themselves but not when one hits a child who can't. Abuse is violence + power.

I think a lot of people prefer to rationalize and excuse being hit because it's easier than confronting the fact that you've been victimized, especially if you love and respect your family - there's uncomfortable cognitive dissonance when someone you want to love has done things to hurt you. So you decide you deserved it to quell the conflict.

I don't expect to change anyone's mind, many of you have decided you're okay with it and you're firmly entrenched in that position. But I speak out anyway to give a voice to those of us who aren't okay with it. I was hit and it fucked me up, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

[Sapporo Hyperspace Riftgate Laboratory]

I was hit as a kid and had some shit thrown at me from time to time and it caused me harm. It's been over a decade since I've become an adult and I have mostly gotten over the trauma but I still have some lasting damage - I believe that being hit, often suddenly and without warning, is responsible for my bad reaction to unexpected touching, like if a guy gives me a pat on the back I recoil and feel anxiety in my chest. I might be wrong, maybe it wasn't from being hit, maybe I was born that way, but I am absolutely certain that being hit did not benefit me in any way. Having a baseball thrown at my face at age 8 for the transgression of derisively comparing my mother to the overprotective and abrasive mother of one of my childhood buddies is just one of many incidents and I'm sure there are some I've forgotten. Sometimes anger was directed at inanimate objects instead of me like my parents breaking down a door because I locked myself in my room for a half hour. Good going, now you have to spend your own money to replace a door that I would have opened as soon as I got hungry or needed to take a piss. There are more traumatic incidents I won't discuss here. That said, I have forgiven my parents for all of it which I'm able to do because I no longer live with them, but even after making the conscious decision to forgive them I still harbor some residual resentment I can't completely shake off.

Now I bet some of you will say "that's fucked up but a smack on the butt is totally different." It's not. I was never bothered by physical pain, it goes away. It's not about the pain that's inflicted, the trauma comes from being the victim of aggression from people who are supposed to care for you, and more so the feeling of helplessness. When you're hit and incapable of defending yourself, you feel helpless and humiliated, and that is the biggest reason why hitting children is wrong.

I find it odd that it's called domestic abuse when one hits a grown adult who might have the capacity to defend themselves but not when one hits a child who can't. Abuse is violence + power.

I think a lot of people prefer to rationalize and excuse being hit because it's easier than confronting the fact that you've been victimized, especially if you love and respect your family - there's uncomfortable cognitive dissonance when someone you want to love has done things to hurt you. So you decide you deserved it to quell the conflict.

I don't expect to change anyone's mind, many of you have decided you're okay with it and you're firmly entrenched in that position. But I speak out anyway to give a voice to those of us who aren't okay with it. I was hit and it fucked me up, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Shite, why are you conceding to the enemy?

[Geneviev]

Corporal punishment should only be used as a last resort. If it's limited, then it's not child abuse.

[Page]

Corporal punishment should only be used as a last resort. If it's limited, then it's not child abuse.

Is slapping your partner not domestic abuse if it's limited and only used as a last resort?

[Geneviev]

Corporal punishment should only be used as a last resort. If it's limited, then it's not child abuse.

Is slapping your partner not domestic abuse if it's limited and only used as a last resort?

You shouldn't be trying to teach your partner right and wrong. You do need to do that with children.

[Page]

Is slapping your partner not domestic abuse if it's limited and only used as a last resort?

You shouldn't be trying to teach your partner right and wrong. You do need to do that with children.

So if your adult partner needed to learn something and you felt the conditioning them through pain was an effective method, would it then be okay to hit them?

[Geneviev]

You shouldn't be trying to teach your partner right and wrong. You do need to do that with children.

So if your adult partner needed to learn something and you felt the conditioning them through pain was an effective method, would it then be okay to hit them?

Absolutely not. It's not your place to do that.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

Hmmm, back when I was younger I had the questionable pleasure of being on the receiving end of corporal punishment. Spanking my behind, slapping me in the face, twisting and lifting me up by my ear, hitting me with the belt across the back.

It certainly had immensely good short term effects.

I am not sure yet on the long term effects. My memories of the punishment dished out by my parents tend to be ones of pride rather than resentment. In fact, my primary resentment towards my parents always came from their non-violent means of enforcing their rules. Taking the computer cable/Nintendo DS, forcing me to engage in sports, forcing me to go on walks, forcing me to wash the dishes, forcing me to eat three more meals over the course of the afternoon, constantly asking me about my weight etc.

Violence is...something I do not employ. Perhaps I like to engage in it in my games, preferring games with violence/action/war at their core but tend to rather attempt to solve things peacefully and without violence when in person. My tendency for game violence was also pretty much present within and before my spanked era and never even once stopped. Nothing was better than playing with tanks and soldiers and knights, throwing things around the room to simulate them exploding and whatnot. Physical violence against other people was limited to Kindergarten/early elementary where lunch break basically meant "All boys go out into the sandpit and turn it into a moshpit". We grew out of it fairly quickly. By the time I reached the Gymnasium physical violence was barely a thing. Then again, perhaps the lack of a sandpit and the presence of pure, old concrete ground helped there?

I make my computer and access to the Internet responsible for my poor social development. I was, afterall, still completely fine socially in the time between the end of spanking and when I got my PC.

Has it lowered my IQ or anything? I don't know. I made it into the Gymnasium in 5th grade so if there occured some loss there, it must've been negligible.

I am not sure about spanking in general. Like, I can see that it seems weirdly hypocritical, I can see how it hurts rights and there seem to be an awful lot of studies proving all kinds of bad things about it.

But at the same time I look at my parents, my grandparents and literally most of the everyday people I see and meet and think "So these people are all mentally scarred, handicapped, parent-hating and violent because they grew up in times when spanking was common?" Like...that just doesn't seem right either. Sure, my dad doesn't like grandpa but that's because Grandpa is basically an increasingly senile, working class man who completely neglected his children and not because of any spanking he administered.

So yeah, not sure, don't have an exact position. Just my own personal experiences which are of course personal and cannot really be applied to others.

[Page]

So if your adult partner needed to learn something and you felt the conditioning them through pain was an effective method, would it then be okay to hit them?

Absolutely not. It's not your place to do that.

It's not my place to hit an adult who could hit me back or walk out on me if they wanted to but it's different when it's a defenseless child who can neither protect themselves nor leave? That seems like quite a perverse moral opinion.

[Geneviev]

Absolutely not. It's not your place to do that.

It's not my place to hit an adult who could hit me back or walk out on me if they wanted to but it's different when it's a defenseless child who can neither protect themselves nor leave? That seems like quite a perverse moral opinion.

Because it's a defenceless child, you should only do it when you have no other choice because it's your responsibility to teach them.

[Page]

It's not my place to hit an adult who could hit me back or walk out on me if they wanted to but it's different when it's a defenseless child who can neither protect themselves nor leave? That seems like quite a perverse moral opinion.

Because it's a defenceless child, you should only do it when you have no other choice because it's your responsibility to teach them.

Offer me a scenario in which there is no other choice.

[Geneviev]

Because it's a defenceless child, you should only do it when you have no other choice because it's your responsibility to teach them.

Offer me a scenario in which there is no other choice.

If the child didn't change their behavior after anything else.

[The Alma Mater]

You shouldn't be trying to teach your partner right and wrong. You do need to do that with children.

So if your adult partner needed to learn something and you felt the conditioning them through pain was an effective method, would it then be okay to hit them?

Only if you agree on a safeword first.

[Page]

Offer me a scenario in which there is no other choice.

If the child didn't change their behavior after anything else.

What kind of behavior deserves violence? I can entertain the notion that if I had a kid who started trying to stab me or set the house on fire that I would use force to subdue them, but it's quite rare for a kid to be homicidal.

I never tried to stab my parents. I was hit for petty and irrelevant bullshit like not wanting to wear the clothes my parents wanted me to, or using profanity, or "talking back."

[Page]

So if your adult partner needed to learn something and you felt the conditioning them through pain was an effective method, would it then be okay to hit them?

Only if you agree on a safeword first.

To be honest I think S&M fetishes might sometimes stem from trauma from being hit as a kid, that one consents for their partner to spank them as a way of taking back control. Just a theory.

[Geneviev]

If the child didn't change their behavior after anything else.

What kind of behavior deserves violence? I can entertain the notion that if I had a kid who started trying to stab me or set the house on fire that I would use force to subdue them, but it's quite rare for a kid to be homicidal.

I never tried to stab my parents. I was hit for petty and irrelevant bullshit like not wanting to wear the clothes my parents wanted me to, or using profanity, or "talking back."

If they're bullying other kids, or they're doing something dangerous, or if they refuse to listen to their parents and it becomes a serious problem.