France Bans Ketchup in School Cafeterias

[Ally]

So we can Ally.

That post was stupid and beneath you.

Funny, I thought the same about the post you put up.

[Adam Went]

If in doubt about how to parent your kids, ask your grandparents. Generations past have done a pretty reasonable job of raising the next generation, without the technological luxuries and government benefits that go with it all these days. Parenting should be a simple job in 2011 compared to 100 or 200 years ago, and yet it seems to be the opposite - parents are struggling more and more with the right methods and are more and more being force fed what they should and shouldn't to.

To hell with all the bureaucracy, why change a system that works? You wouldn't have seen many teenage children roaming the city streets at night in gangs, bullying people and smashing stuff a hundred years ago.....yet these days, they are everywhere and once control is lost, it's very difficult to regain it.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

What I have a hard time understanding is this huge spectrum between what is an acceptable hit to a child and what is not. And at least here there seems to be a lot of seemingly contradictory thought. I mean, most people seem to think that breaking bones "goes too far", although there seems to be an even split as to whether or not drawing blood is acceptable.

Parents who would never dream about taking a bullwhip to their child will hit them with a switch, which is the same thing. Parents who would kill someone for hitting their kid with a 2x4 allow their children to get hit with a paddle, which is a 1x5 with holes drilled in it for the express purpose of allowing you to swing the paddle faster, thus hitting the child harder. People who slap their kid's face get yelled at by onlookers, but getting hit "upside the head" is not worthy of comment.

I seriously have no idea what constitutes an "acceptable" blow. I mean, obviously in my mind there is no such thing as an acceptable strike, but I can't even pin down what other people think the rules are. Where is the line between a spanking and a beating? Even the state of Tennessee cannot define it. It has that old Supreme Court pornography standard, "I know it when I see it". Some kids with bruises and breaks stay with their families, some kids who almost never have physical marks are taken away. It actually shouldn't be that hard to codify what constitutes a legal physical blow to a child, so why don't they? Or why can't they? Even our schools have very vague instructions as to what is permissible. What is the big problem with nailing it down?

[Stephen Thomas]

Yeah and I can find forty five thousand videos of obnoxious little brats running around who need to be beaten to within an inch of their lives because their parents refuse to discipline them at all.

We can all pull up hideous "OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE" examples in the battle of who can out drama the other side.

So we can Ally.

That post was stupid and beneath you.

[Robert]

Christian, there are currently moves afoot in Wales to outlaw the smacking of children by parents. So one can imagine an assignment "What did you do at the weekend?" and little Johnny writes "We went to the beach and had ice creams and mummy smacked me for hitting my sister." Does the teacher get on the phone to the police? The mind can only boggle.

[chrisjd]

I think there's a difference between what we saw in that video and a slap from the parents. And no, I don't slap my daughters.

[Errata]

I know that my own bad experiences color my opinion.

It was not getting hit by a vice principal that made me really examine things. It was putting a six year old girl in the hospital. Not because I was disciplining her, but I thought she had gone to sleep hours ago, and I'm creeping around a big dark house, and she jumps out of hiding onto my back, wrapping her arms around my neck. I didn't even know what happened, I just freaked out, reached behind me, and threw her off of me. I threw her down the stairs. It was an accident, and I acted on reflex, and her parents were very kind once they knew she wouldn't suffer any permanent damage, but I was completely freaked out. I could have killed her because I wasn't thinking. And eventually I got over the guilt, but I was terribly reluctant to have any physical contact with kids after that. I certainly wasn't going to strike them on purpose. And obviously that was not a decision based on moral outrage, but based on guilt and fear. But I was still around a lot of kids, and after awhile I realized that I could discipline them just fine without touching them. Which isn't to say I didn't make them feel terrible or scare the crap out of them, but I didn't have to use any physical punishment.

And that's what got me curious about the mechanics of it all. Does spanking work, and if so why? If not why do people think it does? Is there a study for every opinion? Of course. I've made my choices, and they have not failed me so far. Certainly a day could come where they do, but as it stands if I can get the job done without laying a hand on a child, then I can't even consider it. Did I make the initial decision out of fear? You bet. But I stuck to it because it feels like the right choice. And frankly, I haven't been confronted with anything in the past 20 years that made me think that physical chastisement was going to work better than other methods.

Not that I haven't occasionally wanted to belt some smart ass teenager, but I've always wanted to do it to make me feel better, not to make them better. So I refrain.

[Ally]

Yeah and I can find forty five thousand videos of obnoxious little brats running around who need to be beaten to within an inch of their lives because their parents refuse to discipline them at all.

We can all pull up hideous "OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE" examples in the battle of who can out drama the other side.

[Stephen Thomas]

And as for corporal punishment in schools, I am actually against it. Not because I believe spanking a kid is evil, but because it's not the school's job to discipline the child. Instead, I believe that schools should have the right to expel the child permanently, if the parent doesn't handle the discipline and then the parent has to pay for private education.

This is a most complicated argument, Ally, which even sets good people like Robert and Errata against each other. There's an example of parental discipline which you have probably seen that's all over the Internet at the moment that even made its way onto UK TV News.

Anybody wanting to be disgusted, watch this....

http://gawker.com/5855478/reddit-video-apparently-shows-texas-family-judge-beating-disabled-daughter

[Errata]

The job of the school is to teach math, reading, science, etc. Not to discipline unruly brats because their parents are too lazy to raise them properly.

I agree there. My old school was pretty firm on the idea that their job was to make us want to learn. Not even make us learn, just make us want to. And of course they weren't miracle workers, because it would take some divine intervention to make me interested in math, but they did a good job. Even today me and everyone else I went to school with are constantly curious, constantly looking things up, trying new things. We want to know things, and we want to engage in the world around us. And to this day I don't know how they did it. But every teacher I ever had at that school assumed we were going to go on and do amazing things. And it was all of us, not like "I think this one kid might do well". Starting in Kindergarten. We all thought we were going to change the world somehow. Become President, write the great American novel, invent a car that runs on poop... something.

And as it stands I'm the only one in my class who hasn't done "Something". I've done a lot of "somethings", so I don't feel too bad about it. But class reunions are... daunting. And I don't know if its the expectation that made the difference. We were a flat broke little private school, so there are any number of factors that could come into play. But I know that public school was an immense shock for me. And I know that my old school clearly got something right when the public school I went to clearly got it terribly terribly wrong. And if I could figure out what it was and translate it to a public school system, I think I would be a national hero or something. But I can never seem to pin it down. Which is irritating, but such is life.

[Ally]

Actually he did learn a lesson. He learned that some people allow themselves to be abused, and some don't and if he wanted to hit someone, he needed to confine his hitting to those who would allow it. If everyone responded the same way and hit him, he'd have learned not to hit everyone. Instead he learned he could be a bully to those willing to take it.

And as for corporal punishment in schools, I am actually against it. Not because I believe spanking a kid is evil, but because it's not the school's job to discipline the child. Instead, I believe that schools should have the right to expel the child permanently, if the parent doesn't handle the discipline and then the parent has to pay for private education.

I believe that education is a privilege that all have the right to--right up until they abuse the privilege.

Parents aren't doing their jobs as parents and it's the education system that's suffering. The onus needs to be placed back on the parent, not on "failing schools".

The job of the school is to teach math, reading, science, etc. Not to discipline unruly brats because their parents are too lazy to raise them properly.

[Errata]

I can tell you one thing, the schools have gotten a lot worse since kids stop being hit. That's one fact that's kind of hard to argue against.

Well, no study can prove a child's motivation. Of course, there have been any number of psychiatrists who have spent countless hours talking to kids about their motivations, but even that is besides the point. You are correct. I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe. But your own story illustrates a basic flaw in the physical chastisement of children. It doesn't work. He did not stop hitting people after you smacked him. He didn't learn the lesson. He didn't think "Oh! now I understand why they don't want me to do this". He just stopped hitting people who hit back. So he didn't learn not to hit people, he just learned to only hit people who wouldn't hit back. He kind of learned to be a bully. A clearly your friends method of calm discussion didn't work either.

There are any number of people who hit their TV when the picture goes wonky, and that seems to fix it for the moment. But until you open up the TV and screw down the loose connection, you aren't fixing it. Which isn't to illustrate some need for all children to psychoanalyzed, just illustrating that in the end it saves time to fix it the first time rather than just postponing it.

If I recall, you live in Florida, and there are many school districts that still use corporal punishment there. They hit kids in school here, the hit kids in school in my baby cousin's state, my grownup cousin's state, my best friend's state... They still hit kids in school. And I'm in Tennessee and we have some of the worst schools in the nation. I'm not sure that on the surface of things there is a correlation between a lack of corporal punishment and the downfall of schools.

[Ally]

You know what, Errata, I could find you five studies that say the exact opposite of what you just said, but it all comes down to this: in the end, you are going to believe whatever you want, and in the end everyone else is going to believe whatever they want. There is no study that can prove a child's motivation. People decide about it what they want according to what fits their own personal beliefs and go to what appears to prove it.

You can throw up all the sociological psychobabble in the world and I could do the same but the fact is, the kid didn't hit the people who hit back, which included a couple of his friends in day care.

You hit me, I hit you. You stop. Works well. I can tell you one thing, the schools have gotten a lot worse since kids stop being hit. That's one fact that's kind of hard to argue against.

[Errata]

He spent the next few months continuing to hit his mother, but he never once tried to hit me again. He knew I wouldn't allow it and he knew he wouldn't like the result.

They've done studies on just this kind of scenario. And I think that you would agree that even through you slapped him kinda hard, it wasn't really that painful. Probably more startling than anything. According to developmental psychologists, it wasn't your slap that modified his behavior. He ran crying to his mother, and she essentially told him "I will not protect you from her. I am taking her side, and you no longer belong in this group." When she didn't immediately show concern for his well being and told him that you were allowed to do that to him, that made YOU her favorite instead of him. His status in his mother's eyes was now in question, and children are very very protective of their status in a family group. If they feel they do not belong in a group, they will do whatever it takes to be welcomed. Including modifying their behavior. It would have worked if you looked him right in the eye and screamed bloody murder. The only requirements are a conflict that results in the child running to their parent for reassurance as to their status, and the parent not giving it to him.

Had your friend understood this, she probably would have immediately instituted the same conditions whenever he hit HER, and it would have stopped pretty quickly. Having someone explain to you why you shouldn't hit people is really not terribly realistic. Had he hit a friend or a classmate, they would have shrieked, cried, and been really mad at them. Those are consequences, and kids don't like anyone being mad at them. A kid hits an adult, they don't get that reaction. There maybe an "ow" some awkward laughter and then mommy pulls them aside for some one on one time (which is probably what the kid wanted) to explain why he shouldn't do that. But he wants mom's attention, he hits an adult, and he has it. So it's a pretty successful strategy on that kids part. Mostly when a kid stops getting the payoff they want, they stop the behavior.

I had an English teacher who realized a very fundamental truth. The only thing a teenager wants more than to cheer on a fellow classmate for flouting authority is a chance to assert dominance over a peer. So when someone acted up in class, she had us all turn our desks towards that kid and say "Well Gabe wants attention everyone, so we're all going to look at Gabe for the next five minutes. No don't look at your books... Gabe really needs you. Look right at him..." And the typical teenage smartass can totally milk that for about two minutes. Its that extra three minutes that's just super humiliating. Cause your classmates adore watching you squirm. And she was our 10th grade teacher, and we started hearing about this teacher and her brutal punishment in 4th grade. It was like you had six years to plan how you were going to spend that five minutes, and the day comes and after two minutes you're begging to be sent out in the hall. She was kind of an evil genius.

[Robert]

Caz, I am not suggesting that schoolchildren should be forced to eat what they don't want.

My own memories of school dinners (which I only had for a short while) was that they were OK but not a patch on home fare. After about a year I stopped going in for them, as I was too busy playing chess.