Here goes, Traps. For the 2nd time today, I am posting something controversial on your blog; I think it’s your fault. Must be because you are a racist…..(heeeeeeeheee; it must be love, Traps)

I think you are right. Corporal punishment, well administered, is good for the little ones in the same way that it was good for me.

Strangley enough, I was only spanked once by my father….I never forgot the spanking and the lesson it was meant to instil within me.

I have two children. I have never laid a hand on them ever. It hasn’t been a long 8 years, really. But I think SOMEDAY I will spank them in a very responsible way.

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I am against corporal punishment in schools. I am a graduate of the SA school system from a time when corporal punishment was rife. I can tell you stories of children being hit until they bled, being brutally punched, having their heads bashed against blackboards, being smacked through the face. And my stories are nothing out of the ordinary - I can ask anyone and they can tell you similar stories of abuse. I don’t want to insult the good teachers out there, who either don’t hit or who used corporal punishment carefully and not in anger. But I don’t trust the educational system as a whole to respect the limits of corporal punishment.

Corporal punishment is a quick fix solution that is no solution. I knew boys (especially) in school who were “problem” children and all of them were hardened by corporal punishment. It became a mark of pride to see how much punishment you could take without showing pain - there was no deterrant value that I could see. The best teachers I had were ones who rarely used corporal punishment. They controlled their classes because their students respected them. Even the unruliest children behaved in their classes.

Discipline starts at home, with parents. Palming that responsibility off onto teachers is pointless. Parents are the ones who must decide if a child’s behaviour warrants a spanking or not and they must be the ones to administer the punishment, not someone who is practically a stranger.

I know that the situation in schools is not rosy and in too many schools it’s downright violent and dangerous. But I doubt that a child who is already capable of assaulting someone will be deterred by being caned. That child is way past that.

South Africans want a quick-fix solution to everything, instead of focusing on the bigger picture. My eldest brother went to a small boys high school. The school didn’t have much money and had almost no facilities but what they had was a principal who made it his business to know the families of all his students. He knew every child’s family situation and he made it his business to know WHY a child acted up. Even today, the old boys from that school speak of him with love and respect. He pulled problem children back from the brink, not because he hit them, but because he bothered to find out what was happening in their lives.

I’m concerned that we are demonising our children - portraying them as violent, sex-mad future criminals. If that behaviour is evident, even prevalent within the schools system then it is because we, as adults, have failed our children. We are supposed to be their role models. We are supposed to teach them manners, morals, values and standards of behaviour and we are failing if this is how our children behave.

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Traps

I am with you on this one.Odette’s experiences
reflects a system that got out of hand and reflects
the society in which she had to grow up.

I went to an all boys school of close to 900 in the
fifties.
Strange as it may be discipline at school was
maintained not by teachers but the grade 12s
who would put any grade 8 ‘too big for his shoes’
quickly in his place.

Having been the recipient of ‘ 6 of the best’
on occasion,it installed the discipline so sadly
lacking in our youth today.

I think I turned out all right and did not fear
the harshest army training and felt sorry for
those who came from an ,let’s say ‘psychological
household’ they really suffered and on may
occasions found the going to tough.

It is no joke to go an a quick 25k
route march in full kit.The stragglers were soon
throwing away surplus kit,like coats etc. only
having to replace same at a price at the next kit
inspection.

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I totally agree with Odette. That said, this is one of those topics — like abortion and the death penalty — in which people only see two extremes. Either you’re “for” or “against”. And boy does it get the blood boiling on both ends.

Like those other two topics, this is an extremely complex issue. Many studies have been done, and the results are far from singular.

However, saying “little diddums needs a patz in tochas when he’s naughty” is the kind of wisdom my grandfather might have tossed around. It’s got that homespun twang about it, with the freshly baked bread smell, but really, is that what we’re going to use to inform our growth as a species?

The fact that teenagers have become vicious and undisciplined reprobates, or that the US has redefined molestation as one kid slapping another are both damning indications of something gone wrong. But retreating to a third wrong doesn’t make a right.

Humanity has embarked on a journey beyond the animal. It’s a slow walk, but we’re on it. And that path does not lead to us chaining each other up, killing each other when we’ve done something wrong or beating each other and using pain and fear as educational tools.

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I have been in conflict as to which approach in disciplining a child is correct for some time, and for the rest of the comment, assume a smack is a measured response to a transgression, not having your head smashed against a board or being punched, that is abuse.

I realise that although I was smacked when I did something wrong, my parents never failed to explain to me exactly why I was being punished. This little addendum however is probably not used by parents who have delinquent children who also get smacked. Here irritation or anger is meeted out with a beating and not much communication before or afterwords, so the effect is wasted.

I think the problem with corporal punishment, especially in a society as violent as ours, is that by agreeing to smacking someone for a transgression, we are agreeing that we can sort out problems with violence, and this therefore makes violence more acceptable and less abhorrent. I believe the same effect is achieved by gratuitous violence on television, you become unresponsive to violence that would ordinarily repulse you.

The non-corporal method of child rearing can be just as abused and be just as damaging as corporal punishment. Physical and psychological abuse could be considered one and the same thing on a developmental perspective. Although I’m unsure of how these effects are measured on children, it is very difficult to control for the effects of rearing methods.

I think the problem is not the method of child rearing, but rather the effect of an increasingly disconnected family life, single parent homes, and unwed mothers or fathers. Parents who do not spend time with their children, work 18 hour days, and buy their children whatever they want are causing their bad behaviour. Attempts to correct behaviour through either corporal or non corporal means, would be inneffective, when they are not treating the cause of the problem.

Look at England, children who are neglected, seen and not heard, become louts easily influenced by the evils of society. Marriage, although probably originally a religious arrangment, is there because it results in a functional society. Dropping marriage rates, result in dropping values, dropping functional citizens. You can try and deny it, by the relationship between a functional less violent society and marriage is a well established inversely correlated relationship.

The issue is not corporal punishment, there is something deeper wrong with our society.

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Cool you’re de man - We had canings if you were naughty. Cadets during school - Compulsory sport in the afternoons.

Then you went to the army.

As Bongikosi says he had one spanking and that was it.

Last time I gave my boys a hiding was about 7 years ago - Flat hand on the backside. Never had to repeat it again.

That is considered barbaric - Taking kids to OT,bridging classes, etc etc is humane….

Why is anything physical bad?

My middle son Gabriel is autistic and he’s better behaved than most normal kids.

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I think it should be the priority of parents to teach their children about when they deserve a ’smack’ (very different to ‘beating’). I was on the receiving end of a few smacks up until I started primary school. I never got smacked from then on - at home or school. I didn’t cross that line.

The classmates receiving disciplinary measures at school tended to be those without discipline from their family.

Parents presume that teachers should take responsibility for learners, but discipline should start at home.

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It’s not that spankings are inherently bad. It’s who does it and how it is done.

I maintain that spanking is the preserve of parents, who should take the responsibility to see that it is administered in the proper circumstances and in the correct manner. Trusting that a relative stranger will do the same is ludicrous. You have absolutely no gaurantee that the teacher will administer corporal punishment in a manner that is acceptable and under circumstances that warrant it.

Corporal punishment is all too often used as a means to humiliate children. Even then there were supposed to be guidelines about who could administer corporal punishment - principals and vice-principals were supposed to do it and in their offices, not in front off the entire class - that rule was completely ignored.

You guys are talking about a lovely world where corporal punishment is a normal caning. That was not reality for many, many students in the days of corporal punishment. In the schools I attended (and they were considered fairly good schools for that time) and the greater network of similar schools, corporal punishment was routinely taken to the extreme. It was common for boys to be punched and girls to be slapped for the smallest infraction. Many of those teachers are still in the school system today. They haven’t changed. Give them half a chance and they will go back to bashing the children in their care.

I will never believe that giving a stranger the right to hit my child is the answer to society’s ills. Parents must put in the time and the effort to ensure their children are properly socialised. They must decide if, when and how to spank their children.

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I’m thinking of having the kids spayed and if that doesn’t work our vet says he’ll put them down.

Do any of you know the government? (Mrs Traps)

No?

Excellent!

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Mike, bring it on!
I matriculated from an Afrikaans high school and there discipline was maintained by the prompt administration of paddywhacks. I do not know of any of us who retained any psychological scars causae by the burning sensation in our butts after being disciplined.
But I know of umpteen very unhappy young people who are desperately unhappy because of traumas suffered at the hands of their out-of-control, brattish, hooligan schoolmates.
If I look back at my schoolyears I shudder to think what mayhem we would have perpetrated if not persuaded to cease and desist by the threat and application of corporal punishment.
Political correctness is a peculiarly Western madness. Eastern countries have no qualms about corporal punishment.
Our children cannot keep up with them in any intellectual endeavour. Wonder why?

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Traps you fool You get me all worked up and then make me giggle with that last comment.

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Strangely enough, some of my best teachers never laid a hand on us…they were the “fierce type” they had the voice and the demeanour. The consensus was that the teachers who did give “jacks” were only giving out what was due.But more than anything, I think our teachers knew that they had the full approval of our parents when it came to discipline. The two were in tandem. We grew up with a strong sense of right and wrong and respect for each other and those in charge. Of course, the PCs will shout that this stifles creativity,etc, ehich is just a lot of twack. I went to school with some amazingly creative people. The boundaries were there and you worked within them, stretched them if you could. But true creativity needs discipline, and looking at school kids today, they display neither. THEY are the true sheep

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Corporal punishment made a good God-fearing corporate citizen of me. i knew that if i messed up Mr Immelmal would introduce plankie to my ass. then daily report came along and did nothing for me. maybe thats why i’m a drop-out.

its why kids have issues these days, no belting at home. no canes, plankie and such wonder thingies at school. now kids tell the teachers in their faces that they’ll stab them outside the school property.

i’m black, i’m for it..and don’t bring the ANC into this. they need some corporal punishment as well

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Take a look at http://spearpoint.wordpress.com

This guy says some interesting things.

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It’s fairly simple really. If you can go to jail for doing it to an adult, you probably have no business doing it to a child. How hard is that to grasp?

By the way - I’m from the U.S. & I agree with you wholeheartedly about the pitiful state of child-rearing here, where corporal punishment is the social norm and so deeply embedded in the national psyche that a legislator who suggested outlawing it would be run out of Congress on a rail.

But don’t let that get in the way of your folksy perspective! Folksiness is what we’re all really after, you know. Trying to figure out the best way to raise children is a pale second place.

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I started high school in 1999 and the school still had corporal punishment.

I remember when I, was grade 8,in an all boys class, (the one teacher was the Afrikaans department head for the province) and one Friday she unexpectedly came into the class and the whole class was sent to the vice-principal cos our work wasn’t up to her standards

The whole class got a spanking from the vice-principal and his “rottang” after that experience our class had the best average for Afrikaans till Matric.

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Odette I bet you would give me 6 of the best if I was your child! Another who is in desperate need is “the government” who gives new meaning to the word “driving” in a guest spot I did for My Rosebank. Nick van der Leek was kind enough to link to Thought Leader so here is the article on Mrs Traps on the roads - near you!

http://myrosebank.blogspot.com/2008/04/trapido-government-on-driving.html

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I am also a graduate of the days of caning. I had a number of hidings and I deserved every one. Not once did I ever get flapped for the same offence. I’d learnt the lesson. And so I’d gladly support a return of the strap or cane to underline the same lessons I had to learn. We DO want to go back there. To hell with the touchy-feely bunny-huggers.

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Why don’t we approach Pandor on school caning? Bet you she says : “Shoot the bastards…kill them all”. Some sort of ministerial directive on dealing with issues relating to violence…Bet those kiddies start behaving quickly!

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Why stop with the kids?

I could suggest a couple of armed robbers and rapists that would benefit from more than the odd lashing.

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Amused Reader - Corporal Punishment would include police jacking criminals.

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LAW AND ORDER ISSUES IN THE CLASSROOMS SPILL OVER ONTO THE STREETS

No one with any sense of responsibility will suggest punishing a child with the intention of harming him/her.

I went to school in South Africa the 1940’s and 1950’s and since then taught in South Africa for 19 years, in schools, Technical Institutes, a Teacher Training College and two Universities, before moving to Australia where I taught for 17 years, and then in London for a time. I can tell you, dear readers, as society has fallen for the nonsense idea that punishment harms a child, so the behaviour of our young people has gone down, down, down.

Now don’t blame the teachers. The teachers can, generally speaking, no more be blamed for unruly classrooms than a surgeon can be blamed for failing to perform an operation satisfactorily, if that surgeon is trying to operate an unanaesthetized patient, who is running around the operating theatre, with the full sanction and knowledge of the hospital authorities and society.

I am increasingly most alarmed at the lack of what I see to be an appropriate response to bad behaviour in the classroom.

Unruly behaviour in the classroom takes away the rights of the ambitious pupils who want to work in a classroom climate that is conducive to effective learning. This anti social and rude behaviour also shows disrespect for the school, the school rules, the parents who want their children to make good progress, and the teachers who are working under the most stressful conditions.

My concern is that the consequences of anti social behaviour and disobedience, in my opinion, are clearly not acting as a deterrent in the schools. On the contrary, the offenders and onlookers alike are getting a clear message that the most disruptive behaviour, bordering on anarchy, has no consequence sufficiently unpleasant to act as a deterrent. These same young folk now go out into society with that message as part of their normal thinking. One simply has to ride on a bus, and witness the “take over” mentality of so many young folk, even in their school uniforms, who use the most foul language, throw papers around on the bus, with their feet on the seats, with no apparent consideration for other passengers.

This communication is not about demonising youth. It is not about blaming youth. Most of our youth are law abiding, decent young people. However, human nature being what it is, most people, irrespective of age, will, I believe, use all or most of the rope that society and the authorities give to them. This communication is about a serious problem of lawlessness in our schools, which calls for a serious, effective and hasty response. How many more people must be disadvantaged by other people’s anti social behaviours before the situation is seen as needing the most urgent, effective, and zero tolerance response? Why tolerate any lawlessness? Non payment of income tax is, as far as I understand, not tolerated. Smoking in a designated non smoking area, is also, I believe, not tolerated. In my opinion, and applying the same reasoning, anti social behaviour, in any age group, which is most offensive to most people, should also not be tolerated.

In my opinion, an objective observer, in many of our schools today, would not be at all surprised at the levels of lawlessness in society. If the school does not teach respect for and observance of common sense rules (unfortunately too many parents themselves do not set the appropriate example here) then who will?

The schools (as well as the mass media, for that matter) have the most wonderful opportunity and responsibility to help shape and build law abiding citizens, who show courtesy, common sense, cooperation and consideration for their fellow citizens. It is much better and easier and less costly to build a boy and a girl than, later, to have to mend a broken man or woman. As the saying goes, “A stitch in time saves nine.” As far as the schools are concerned, this need not be a financial burden. The schools are already in place. The teachers are already qualified and employed. Let the schools do their part, and concentrate on instilling into our youth, the non negotiable expectation that others are to be treated with the highest levels of respect and dignity. Being of school going age should not be seen as an excuse to act irresponsibly, or as a reason to turn a blind eye to anti social behaviour. On the contrary, it should be recognized as the very age where it is most important to teach and instil the values that will work against lawlessness. I have spent years in schools, and I know that this matter is clearly not receiving the attention it deserves.

Motorists are targeted to have their speed monitored by speed cameras. Similarly, they can be targeted to have their bloodstream alcohol percentage monitored by breathalyzer tests. By the same reasoning, the police, I believe, should be given the power to use their discretion and discernment to target folk on the streets, on public transport, in public places and in night clubs, who are, in my opinion, the product of weak and ineffective discipline measures in the schools, and to search them for knives and guns or any other offensive weapons. Perhaps there are other methods of checking for these weapons. The specialists in those fields know.

One knife crime is one too many. One gun offence is one too many. One break and enter into someone else’s home is one too many. The problem is here. It needs to be addressed most urgently.

After all, is that not one of the functions of government? The citizens need to be protected against the lawless elements who pray on the innocent and unsuspecting folk. Wake up!

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The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.This is now way beyond just a police action. This is open warfare! Can you imagine this happening on this side of the boarder?What this means that for those of you living along the border, your lives are in danger. Your homes, your children and anything you hold dear is in dire jeopardy.
Once these guys get control of the police and army, these guys will not be afraid to take on the border patrol and if you think our own border patrol and border town cops won’t be targeted next, you aren’t thinking.
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juliana

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Gathering evidence is a difficult process that must be accomplished by highly trained professionals. The analysis of such evidence takes place in specialized laboratories by trained forensic staff. On TV, a scene is often dusted for fingerprints that are sent to a lab for processing. In the lab, the prints are compared to fingerprint cards of known people who have been arrested, all during a 30-minute show. This sounds easy, but in reality, comparing prints is very time consuming and many prints do not include enough detail to be identified.
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kevinpeters

Crack Cocaine

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