France Bans Ketchup in School Cafeterias

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Ally]

So we can Ally.

That post was stupid and beneath you.

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

[Ally]

Parents who would never dream about taking a bullwhip to their child will hit them with a switch, which is the same thing.

Uh..no it actually is not. The major difference is mass, force and speed. A bullwhip used by a human hand is capable of achieving speeds that can break the sound barrier...that CRACK you hear. The speed being exponentially greater means the damage when something is hit is exponentially greater. A switch propelled by a human arm cannot in any way generate the amount of force that a bullwhip can. That argument is just ludicrous.

Pretty much all of your arguments are similarly logically flawed. The difference between a two by four and a paddle in terms of damage is similarly obvious as where as the location where the paddle is applied, obviously one of the most protected areas of the human body.

These things shouldn't even be considered part of a rational argument. But start talking about paddling and of course, rationality goes out the window and it's all "look at his hideous video of child abuse, let me tell you this hideous story."

[Errata]

Uh..no it actually is not. The major difference is mass, force and speed. A bullwhip used by a human hand is capable of achieving speeds that can break the sound barrier...that CRACK you hear. The speed being exponentially greater means the damage when something is hit is exponentially greater. A switch propelled by a human arm cannot in any way generate the amount of force that a bullwhip can. That argument is just ludicrous.

Pretty much all of your arguments are similarly logically flawed. The difference between a two by four and a paddle in terms of damage is similarly obvious as where as the location where the paddle is applied, obviously one of the most protected areas of the human body.

These things shouldn't even be considered part of a rational argument. But start talking about paddling and of course, rationality goes out the window and it's all "look at his hideous video of child abuse, let me tell you this hideous story."

First of all, I know exactly how a whip works, I've been working with them for 16 years. Similarly with switches. There is a string about 2 inches long at the end of a bullwhip called a cracker. That is the only part of the whip that breaks the sound barrier, and is not present on bullwhips used for work, as opposed to performances. In order for a piece of wood to qualify as a switch and not a cane, It has to be thin, flexible, capable of being bent into a "U" shape, and at least 30" long. The whistling sound one hears when one swings a switch is obviously that of it cutting through the air. The higher the pitch of that whistle, the closer it is to the sound barrier. A switch makes a higher whistling sound than a whip without a cracker. Both are equally capable of splitting skin, which despite what you see in movies, is not that common. It is certainly more common on the back, where there is no spare flesh to absorb the blow, and the capillaries so close to the skin make a cinematic blood sheeting effect. Unless a kid is getting hit with a whip for a Wild West show, there is in fact very little difference between getting hit with a switch and with a whip. In fact a whip doesn't have little protrusions where twigs have been cut off.

As for the difference between a 2x4 and a paddle, if the only difference you can come up with to make a paddle acceptable is that it is applied to a different part of the body, that is a problem. I certainly didn't specify where a kid was going to get hit with a 2x4, and I certainly am not so naive to think that someone is only ever going to use a paddle on the buttocks. And I am not even talking about someone losing it and beating a kid all over with one. I am talking about aim, where a kid gets hit in the tailbone, or the kidneys, the lower back... because the adult wielding it simply misses.

You want to boil it down to "let me tell you this hideous story" scare tactics. There ARE hideous stories. Children ARE abused. Terribly injured. Even by accident. There are any number of bad things that happen to children because we are using weapons on children. So they aren't scare tactics. We all know these things happen. The argument for using these weapons seems to be either "you don't tell a parent how to treat their own child" which is a little scary, or "It saves more children than it harms." If it saves more children then it harms, why don't the studies bear that out? And what exactly is going through the mind of someone who says "You know, I don't think striking a child with my hand is going to be enough. Let me go get a weapon."

I would bet a lot of money that nobody who strikes a child does it because they think the child is going to benefit. They do it because they were angry, or because their will was flouted, or they are trying to maintain "discipline". None of which has anything to do with a child's misbehavior. You don't think the definition of "acceptable force" or a legal definition an acceptable blow is part of a rational discussion? I don't think there is such a thing as an acceptable blow. You do. If you can't parse it, that's one thing, but it absolutely is part of a "rational" discussion on corporal punishment.

By the way, I've been hit with a whip, and I've been hit with a switch. I'd take the whip any day, and so would anyone else with those experiences.

[Ally]

Okay first of all, what you define as a "switch" is not what any other person on the planet defines as a switch, except for maybe the very small minority of whip and S&M fetishists that you hang out with and discuss whip and switch specifications with. Most people don't have a "switch" such as you described hanging around their house and that is not what is being used when kids are "switched". Possibly not amongst the freaks you play with, but you know, every other normal person on the planet.

And second, I didn't say the ONLY difference in a 2 x 4 and a paddle is where it is applied. To any logical, rational person, the other differences are clear and shouldn't need to be pointed out to anyone who has a functioning reason center and I said the difference is obvious AS is the location.

Yes children are abused. Life sucks. But you know what else is abuse? All the entitled spoiled brats who grew up with no discipline and the mistaken notion that life would just hand them what they wanted, because Mommy and Daddy found it easier to give in to their every tantrum than do the hard work of parenting.

Not to mention, kids are abused every day, without the parents ever laying a hand on them. There's emotional abuse, there's psychological abuse. There's kids who are starved and locked in cages and never once beaten.

People can leave more emotional and psychologically damaging scars on a kid without once ever laying a hand on them, so trying to make it all about a spanking or a smack is basically moronic. Abuse is abuse. And you aren't going to keep "abusers" from damaging kids, by making spanking the boogeyman.

For your example of " I don't think spanking with my hand will work so let me get a weapon" how about, I don't think sending him to his room will work so let me lock him in a box in the basement. Sending him to bed without his supper not effective? Don't feed him for a week! You going to outlaw all punishments because someone can take it to an extreme?

People who are warped will find a way to warp anything. Your view is extremely naive.

You say you've been hit with a whip and a switch and you'll take the whip any day, well you know what, take the bruises from a spanking which fades in two days, and the emotional scars that indifferent parenthood can engender, and which do you think most people would take any day?

P.S and possibly the reason that "studies" don't bear that out, is that people can pick and choose whatever they want their study to say. Like this one:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581882,00.html

[Errata]

Okay first of all, what you define as a "switch" is not what any other person on the planet defines as a switch, except for maybe the very small minority of whip and S&M fetishists that you hang out with and discuss whip and switch specifications with. Most people don't have a "switch" such as you described hanging around their house and that is not what is being used when kids are "switched". Possibly not amongst the freaks you play with, but you know, every other normal person on the planet.

Wow. I don't know who you hang out with, or why you decided that suddenly I must be a sexual deviant because I disagree with you, but what I define as a switch is what anyone who uses them defines them as. They are thin flexible rods or branches, often cut from a tree with the twigs and branches trimmed off. And I don't know that from attending any of your special S&M parties. Here, we have these things called horses. Quadruped mammal, often kept for the purposes of riding and competition? Google it. Anyway, in buggy riding competitions they are quite specific about what is a switch and what is a cane. Canes are illegal, having been deemed abusive to use them. Since I have worked with horses (remember those quadruped mammals I referred to earlier?) and because I have worked as a performer at renaissance festivals and have learned any number of weapons over the years, I have actually managed to learn these things without any lingering paraphilias, thus presumably sparing me the sight of you wearing a bit and bridle carrying some pimply freak on your back since you are the one who's mind immediately went to sadomasochism.

Now, this being said, I have no idea what you think a switch is. I'm inclined not to care. However there is a fine old tradition in the American south in which children were sent out to cut the switch that they would be hit with, so I'm pretty sure that my definition stands.

Quite frankly Ally, you post illustrates perfectly why you shouldn't hit kids. And I mean you specifically. You have a lousy temper, you are demeaning and cruel, and you are so secure in your own infallibility that when you are challenged you become hostile, insulting, and abusive. And anyone who reads your posts on this site can see it. You have no interest in debate, or in facts, or in (god forbid) re-examining your own assumptions. When you cannot articulate your argument in a logical way, you try to bully the person arguing with you. Perhaps because you think then they will drop it and your logical fallacies won't be exposed, perhaps because you have the self control of a four year old. If you hit kids, you do it because it makes you feel better. So do the world a favor, Ally. Don't hit kids.

And I imagine right now you are incensed because I am not without character flaws. You're right, I'm not. I have plenty. I too have a bit of a temper, and I too can be mean and condescending. I try not to raise it to an art form like some people, but yes. I am a seriously imperfect person. I get that this is tough issue. And I have stated that I have personal issues with it that do not always conform with logic. There is in fact a science and logic to punishment. And I realize it is not without debate. But you do not seem to be interested in debate. You only seem to care about capitulation. And I say this knowing full well that you have the power to get me suspended or banned. So you can do that if you wish. But my suggestion to you is that whether you do it or not, you either confine yourself to debate, or recognize that you are incapable of indulging in it. You are not the smartest person here, acting as though you are just makes you look pathetic.

[Ally]

Congratulations on completing dodging the relevant points I made in my post about all forms of childhood punishment being used for abuse when taken to their extreme. I applaud you falling back on the " I am so brave and standing up to you even though you will get me banned" form of parroting retardation that passes for "bravery" on this website. And you say I am not interested in debate? Your entire post was nothing but one long winded hysterical rant because I made a joke about S &M, you didn't even BOTHER to have a relevant on-topic point and you want to throw out that * I * am not interested in debate? Seriously? And you want to make claims about MY intelligence and my becoming insulting and hostile? Got a mirror?

I will just accept that you know you are wrong, you concede you are wrong, that people who are prone to abuse, will use whatever means necessary to abuse and you and your kinds tired "hitting is wrong" is nothing more than the same kind of hysterical dramatization like above.

[Errata]

Congratulations on completing dodging the relevant points I made in my post about all forms of childhood punishment being used for abuse when taken to their extreme. I applaud you falling back on the " I am so brave and standing up to you even though you will get me banned" form of parroting retardation that passes for "bravery" on this website. And you say I am not interested in debate? Your entire post was nothing but one long winded hysterical rant because I made a joke about S &M, you didn't even BOTHER to have a relevant on-topic point and you want to throw out that * I * am not interested in debate? Seriously? And you want to make claims about MY intelligence and my becoming insulting and hostile? Got a mirror?

I will just accept that you know you are wrong, you concede you are wrong, that people who are prone to abuse, will use whatever means necessary to abuse and you and your kinds tired "hitting is wrong" is nothing more than the same kind of hysterical dramatization like above.

Ally, I didn't address your assertion that children can be abused in many types of ways because I frankly did not even think such an obvious statement needed to made in the first place. I don't even know why you felt the need to bring it up. If the issue was about people who abuse children because they intend to abuse children, this wouldn't be a debate at all. The question of corporal punishment has never been about preventing sadism. It has always been about whether or not people are inadvertently abusing children in a sincere belief that physical punishment is a good or necessary part of discipline. And if that is a concept either too nebulous or complex for you to understand, you need to just say so.

My previous post was not hysterical. And if you think that it takes a brave soul to risk getting banned from this site, you seriously need some perspective. Nor am I familiar with anything known as "parroting retardation". And I would say that slurs don't become you, but clearly the facts wouldn't bear that statement out.

Now, does this mean I get to accuse you of hysteria because you refuse to address the nature of a switch, and it's similarity to a whip? You clearly stated that I have no idea what a switch is. And clearly I do. So were you wrong? Would you like to address how my definition of a switch fails this particular debate? Feel free. But do it without me. I have failed in this debate. I admit it. You cannot convince a sadist or a sociopath to either examine their own motivations, or act in the common good. I'm not going to convince you that kids shouldn't be hit. And as both of us have been growing increasingly hostile, that just means I'm beating my head against a brick wall. And I'm done with that. So declare yourself the victor, congratulate yourself on "defeating me", hell, even believe it if you want. I wish you every happiness.

[Phil Carter]

Perhaps of interest to some

Sorry, but if a 14 year old were to punch me in the face he'd get one back.

Hello Robert,

Although not 14 years of age (younger), this exact thing happened to me at work 10 days ago. I did not punch him back. The ages of the children attending my school are 1st to 7th grade (6-13years of age).

For those who may be interested...
The laws in Norway for use of physical restraint on a physically abusive child at school are two fold. Physical restraint is not allowed unless
a) the child is a danger to other children or adults
b) they are a danger to themselves.

For those of us working day in, day out with particularly difficult children, who can be, and at times are, physically abusive, there are also additional sub-sections of the law, which pertain to children with various forms of mental disability.

Here in Norway, there has been, since 1991, no such thing as a "special" school for children with special needs, and ALL children have the right to attend their local school. It is up to the school to provide facilities and to limited or partial, even full education and care, in the form of one to one education/care. The local authorities provide the additional monetary resource funds needed.

Should this not be possible, the nearest school in the area of that town/city that has such facilities is sought out. A maximum of [B]10[/B]% of the school's entire pupil attendance at any one time of such children, can attend a school. At my particular school, there are 30 children out of a total of 300 pupils. It is not unusual for children from as far as 6 or 7 miles away to apply to attend my school, as it has the staff, competance and facilities that other schools in the area do not have. These 30 pupils range from children with ADHD, Aspergers and Autism to Downs syndrome, Chromosone complications affecting the brain and physical and mental difficulties of various forms that make communication and/or any movement impossible..some even with a combination of both, such as sever cases of CP. Obviously, "education" in some cases is non-existant, and "care" the only emphasis or possibility. Some special needs children are taught in smaller groups of two, three and four. Others will attend the normal class year, yet have their one to one adult in close attendance. All in a multitude of variations, I might add, depending on the circumstances.
There are , including the school cleaners and administration, 80 adults at present working at my school.

The law regarding any form of physical punishment in the home is that it is illegal.

To return to the thread, it wasn't ketchup tricklng from my mouth either. Neither was the child being taught French either..lol

And yes, I really enjoy the work I do. Emotionally draining at times, occasionally physically difficult too. The rewards overwhelm all the problems, in my eyes. But that's me. It doesn't make me anything but doing a job that I really enjoy.
Others find the challenges too difficult to even contemplate, let alone attempt. I respect that. I could never be one who works as an ambulance officer and all that entails, nor a nurse working with chronically ill cancer patients for example. Horses for courses.

I realise that in other countries the methodology and systems are very different to those here in Norway. The laws are no doubt different as well. This I respect.
I only hope that this may have added to the understanding of the particular side discussion in some small way.

I have deliberately made no comment on what I personally believe to be the best answer to the "corporal punishment/physical abuse" as after 31 years in Norway, having been born, brought up, educated and lived 22 years previously in England, the society I now live in is so completely different to the one I came from. Comparing the two for the want to find the "better system" would, to my mind, be very difficult indeed, as times were very different when I was a lad in England.


best wishes


Phil