I disagree with your argument that corporal punishment has no place in child rearing.
I do also! I merely believe that those who do not know how to correctly implement corporal discipline should not be allowed to do so. Perhaps parents should require permits or licenses for it.
My position is that if you are dealing with a child that misbehaves in a way that may cause them serious physical harm or even death, such as running into the street without looking both ways, then it is better that they feel the pain of a smack to their behind than a smack from the grille of a car.
Therefore, I believe that we should implement a leash-law for children under five!!!!
By the way, I apologize for breaking up your post into such small quotations. There is just so much that comes to mind at the spur of the moment as I read through, and I mean no disrespect by it.
Whether this is effective or not is open to debate, and is debated daily by people far above our paygrade.
Yes, and I have spoken with many of the people who fit that description. Most of them tend to believe that it is beneficial to society for this kind of issue to be discussed actively by the general public, and they tend to believe that it promotes greater public awareness in general. After all, they are the people who are paid to do studies on this sort of topic, and those kinds of topics that people are craving valid, authoritative information on are the kinds of topics that result in them receiving large, fat grants. Their support for public discussion is motivated entirely by self-interest, but they support it nonetheless. Talk it up. They don't mind.
Oh, wait a minute, you have no children, so you really are arguing from a position of ignorance, at least as applies to personal experience.
Whereas I can tell you all that you need to know about dogs, and have you ever seen a dog fly? I take offenses like dashing out into the road extremely seriously. If that is not the place for showing your temper in full color, then nothing is. If you show your temper in the wrong contexts, though, the animal will eventually quit taking you seriously.
Of course, one mean thing that I do with a dog that keeps trying to steal food from my plate is to keep rapping him on the nose, not quite hard enough to scare him away for long, whenever he tries to sneak in under my arm. I can get into fits of mad hatter giggles over the fact that the dumb animal keeps coming back for more. I mean it's so funny! They're like Bobo dolls you give to little, future sociopaths to teach them how to beat their hos! I am not actually causing any HARM to the animal, but...it's funny!!! Eventually, the animal will realize he is being laughed at, and he will lay down somewhere to glare daggers at me. I mean, if looks could kill, I tell you. I think we mutually consider this to be one of our petty wars or something.
In any event, although the degree to which dispensing discipline to animals is anything like dealing with children could be subject to some debate, this is really all that I would have to go on if I were approaching the job of raising a child. That is the experience that I am speaking from, and that is the only experience that I pretend to have. Nevertheless, animal models have been used for centuries to learn things about human behavior, therefore I believe that I have
some experiential grounding for what I say on the topic. I think I would also like to have some feedback on how well I am extrapolating lessons gained from working with
one species to helping deal with another.
If canine behavior correlates with child behavior, then it should only be necessary to
startle the child. A spanking is likely to be more, not less, effective if the punishment terminates before the effects of prolonged stress have time to set in. Under prolonged stress, a very young child is likely to forget that there was a point to the correction. I do not
know that this applies to human children, but I do know that it applies to the animals that I am experienced with handling. If put into the position of caring for a child, I would use the same bag of tricks for dealing with it until I had time to figure out the fine distinctions.
For example, if an animal poops the floor, it is a myth that you can illustrate your point to the animal by rubbing his or her nose in it. This could succeed in making the animal angry, but this is the only effect it is likely to have. It is more effective, after the deed has been done, to make sure that the animal is
politely paying attention while you clean up the mess, not scratching itself or goofing off. When the mess is no longer there, simply pretend that the event never occurred at all. Criticize it if you want to, but it is a technique that works for me very very effectively.
Well, extrapolating from my experience with animals, I would deal with a child who has made a mess in the kitchen with some flour in a very similar fashion. I would have the child sit quietly in a chair while I cleaned up as much of the mess as I could. Afterward, I would not make very much conversation with the child, but the event would be considered to be over. If the results correlated with my experiences with animals, then I would expect the child to understand that there is a certain way I like to keep the kitchen, and that is how I want it kept.
No, I do not know how to deal with a human child. I know how to deal with a brute animal. To whatever extent that
you personally believe that these different animals are similar, though, I have at least
some notion of how their clocks tick.
Psssssssst. One thing that I have learned from dealing with animals, by the way, is that they eventually lose respect for you if you look like a stupid, red-faced clown.
I think the best way to articulate my feelings about this is to say, "
If you slap your children to keep their fingers away from a hot burner or electrical socket, that is one thing. If you slap your children in an effort to correct them, I disagree with you, but good luck with that. If you slap your children to vent out your frustrations with them, then I am on the phone with child services, and they can hear every word you are saying." There is a point where I disagree with you, but it is no business of mine. Then there is another point, where it is everyone's business.
