>>>>>Punishment !== Corporal Punishment
>>>>
>>>>That's so true. Not everyone needs the beat down, but it should be about the last thing on the disciplinary continuum. It's not in the list today, and that is part of the problem.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Somehow, plenty of us are managing to raise kids without hitting them. I see no place for beating kids in the discipline spectrum.
>>>
>>>That said, I have no objects to wrapping up a little kid in an adult's arms to calm them down. Did it many times, but I didn't hit my kids.
>>>
>>>AFAIC, hitting/beating/paddling a kid is an admission that you don't know how to discipline them.
>>>
>>>
>>>Tamar
>>
>>If your strategy worked all the time, I'd be for it. However, out here in the real world that's not the case. Many people mistake kindness for weakness. Spanking is just another form of behavior modification. It's the option you use afte all the others have failed. If that option doesn't work, then you move to the next level, which could include removal from the system, or inclusion into another system. Your "touchy-feely", give me a big hug strategy won't work on a gangsta who comes from the mean streets.
>
>Most people's fears now are of the hoody-wearing feral kids hangingh around street corners. Many of them barrack-room lawyers and a rsult of the failed laisee-faire school regime. The leader of the opposition (Tory Party) over here was widely ridiculed last year when he encouraged people to "hug a hoody" - show love and compassion rather than fear and loathing.

A result of the laisee-faire school regime? I have a bit of a problem blaming it on the schools. Fwiw I think most children's behaviour patterns are set by the way their parents raise them before they get into the school system.

Far too many parents these days don't have any idea of how to raise their children. The kids see something they want on TV, they cry and their parents either buy them whatever it is, or they negotiate with the kids. My parents (who btw were not rich - we just got by, and I didn't understand how sometimes) never negotiated with us. It was always clear who was running the place. Having said that, I have to add that we were never hit, and I agree with Tamar that hitting is not the answer. By the time kids are in school it's usually too late for hitting to matter.

On the other side of the scale, a kid who is being constantly hit at home isn't going to take corporal punishment at school very seriously and kids who see jail time as some sort of badge of honour aren't going to worry much about being hit by a teacher.