If you don't shut the baby up, I will shut her up for you.

[aronnax]

If it wasn't for all their strikes and farmers, it would be a pretty cool place.

That and all the French people.

Im on the fence with Child hitting. My mother canned me hard when I was a kid because of my failing Chinese grade. (She would hit me with a thin wooden cane because she assumed my bad grade for laziness when I just could not remenber). Once she canned me a 100 strokes repeatedly for locking myself in my room when I refused to be canned for failing yet another Chinese Exam.

I would come to school with faint grey stripes across my legs. Once, she hit me on my fingernail and it swelled up painfully for two weeks. Another time, a blow aimed for my legs also hit one of my testicles. That hurt.

Canning made me slightly resent my parents and overall slowed my learning of Chinese to a point of hate that I still cant reverse.

On the plus side. I think SOME canning can be good to discipline a child in extreme cases.

I told you I was on the fence.

 

[Turner]

But this is pure ignorance. Slapping isn't the way to go with puppies or children.

On the contrary, a brief moment of pain is quite the corrector. The analogy that I've used for a long time is that if your child puts his/her hand on a hot burner, the burner doesn't try to reason with the child. No, it hurts, and you learn to not do that again. But a brief pop on the butt can and does go a long way to telling a child "Don't do that again".

Now, I'm not advocating this guy slapping the kid. That was completely and utterly wrong. It's up to the parent to decide what punishment there is for the child. Maybe the kid was hungry, or tired. Or possibly sick...I don't really know. But it wasn't up to the stranger to decide what action should be taken to quiet the child.

When the children are older, definitely reason with them.

 

[Leifmk]

On the contrary, a brief moment of pain is quite the corrector.

I know this remains a common attitude in English-speaking countries, but it pretty much goes compeletely against what the American Academy of Pediatrics says regarding the matter. And the Canadian Pediatrics Society. And in the UK, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists both advocate a complete ban. And the Australian Psychological Society.

Hitting dogs is also Doing It Wrong, incidentally.

 

[Grisu]

When kids are growing up, it is important to imprint a sort of acceptable limits of what they can do and can't do.

obviously. nobody's denying that.

Physical punishment is very effective in sending the message that doing something bad is... bad.

says who? people keep saying that, but so far I've seen no proof of it...

It's certainly much more effective than the "alternative" punishments.

not in my experience

I don't say parents should beat their kids 24/7, but they should use this sort of punishment when it's really necessary.

Tell that to someone else, I am not arguing against good parenting

no, you're not, but you're implying that parenting without corporal punishment isn't good parenting, which is wrong.

Crying because something's wrong and crying because the kid just wants something it can't get are two fundamentally different things. I've seen so many kids acting like total brats in stores with clueless mothers who instead of giving them a slap just talk and talk and the kid totally ignores them and cries and shrieks.

maybe the czech republic isn't such a bastion of good parenting after all....I see that rather rarely here.

My parents used physical punishment VERY seldom, but in the hindsight I know that I fully deserved the few slaps I got. If my kid did/said the same things, I'd do the same.

my parents never used physical punishment on me, and yet I didn't turn into a screaming brat...

In short, it's a tool which should be used with discretion, but parents should definitely have the right to use it. Banning parents from giving their kids a slap is ridiculous.

(And yes, I know I am talking off topic.)

even if that were true (which I doubt), how does it include a complete stranger slapping your kid?

 

[azzaman333]

People who can't stop their children crying should be incinerated.

 

[Annex]

I can only speak from personal experience, but I got to say I agree with Turner. When I did something bad and got spanked for it you can guarantee I didnt do it again. Stuff that 5 mins in the corner probably wouldnt solve. I didnt even get punished that often this way either, though my parents would probably say I was a good child for the most part.

Slapping someone elses child though...thats a whole different thing.

 

[Dragonlord]

I'm of the faction that believes very occasional and very sparing corporal punishment for small children won't hurt and can help - by which I mean a slap or two on the buttocks, just enough to get their attention and sting a bit.

Slapping a kid in the face is totally out, and a stranger definitely has no business doing it! This is way, way beyond the pale! We've all been annoyed by crying or screaming children, but the most you can do in such a situation is suffer in silence, leave the area or, at most, ask the mother if she can't get the child to pipe down.

@arronax: caneing (I think that's the correct spelling: canning would be to put someone in a can ) should definitely be out, too, IMO. Besides, sounds like you weren't a small child by then anymore, anyway, and older children should be reasoned with and/or punished in other, non-corporeal, ways... cutting the allowance or whatever.

 

[RedRalph]

I've never been in a fight in my life, but after reading this story, I have to say: I would have ****ed that guy up if he hit my daughter.

Cleo

Well I have, and I would do the same. Honestly, I can't see myself stopping once he'd had enough in this situation

 

[Turner]

I know this remains a common attitude in English-speaking countries, but it pretty much goes compeletely against what the American Academy of Pediatrics says regarding the matter. And the Canadian Pediatrics Society. And in the UK, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists both advocate a complete ban. And the Australian Psychological Society.

Hitting dogs is also Doing It Wrong, incidentally.

Doctor's opinions come and go.

Experience has taught me that if I kindly ask my kids to not do something, chances are they're going to do it again. After I pop them on the butt once or twice for it, they stop doing it. I thusly save my time and theirs with a quick swat - hard enough for them not notice it, soft enough for no long lasting harm - instead of wasting it by repeating myself for the umpteen hundred time.

Tell you what...I'll make you a deal. I'll parent my way, and you parent yours. Then we'll both be happy.

 

[REDY]

That reminded me this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ

I am very calm person but crying child is very annoying.

 

[Brighteye]

Uh, unless they're more Americanized than America... As I said, in 19 European countries, corporal punishment by parents is illegal. This is not the case in any US state. This one, you can blame on Europe.

I suspect that Winner is uninterested in when laws were made, but more in the general culture that glorifies little children, coddles them and is both violence- and risk- averse.
This, in Europe, is seen as part of the great package of American litigation culture and the American way of living coddled lives: driving children everywhere, not playing out on the streets and so on.
Whether or not it was actually started in Europe by European busybodies who had no influences from the US, or the EU countries have gone too far in actually banning something that is merely socially condemned in much of the US doesn't really affect the perception or its justification.

Crying because something's wrong and crying because the kid just wants something it can't get are two fundamentally different things. I've seen so many kids acting like total brats in stores with clueless mothers who instead of giving them a slap just talk and talk and the kid totally ignores them and cries and shrieks.

I tend to be quite supportive of parents with screaming children. If the child is screaming, it probably hasn't got its way yet, and I regard that as a good thing. I save my frowns and disapproval for those parents who give in to the screaming.

 

[Dragonlord]

I tend to be quite supportive of parents with screaming children. If the child is screaming, it probably hasn't got its way yet, and I regard that as a good thing. I save my frowns and disapproval for those parents who give in to the screaming.

Good point. Doesn't mean you have to let them scream all day, though... at some point, a swat on the butt or two may be indicated to get their attention and show them when it's been enough.
... which doesn't mean a stranger get's to slap them around, I hasten to repeat.

Actually, I like to think I'd have let him have it even w/o being the Dad, if I'd been there and grasped the situation.

 

[IglooDame]

Not having ever been a parent of a youngling and not in any fights or fists-balled confrontations since high school I can't say for sure, but I think if I were told "I will shut her up for you" that my response would be something on the order of "you touch my child and you'll regret it for the rest of your life" (and I'd think I'd make it clear to him that I was armed).

Babies cry. It's part of their job. Deal with it.

 

[bathsheba666]

polythene bag over head; elastic band round neck; works every time

 

[Yared]

Are we talking about slapping babies (0-2) or kids (3-12)?

 

[Grisu]

Are we talking about slapping babies (0-2) or kids (3-12)?

...did not know the 2-year-old girl he stands accused of hitting

in this case it seems to have been a baby (or toddler)

 

[Turner]

Toddler. Babies/infants are under a year old. Okay, I'm being pedantic, but after six kids I know the difference between an infant, toddler and a child.

 

[Grisu]

Toddler. Babies/infants are under a year old. Okay, I'm being pedantic, but after six kids I know the difference between an infant, toddler and a child.

I thought Baby was more of an umbrella term for both infants and toddlers?

 

[Dachs]

Not having ever been a parent of a youngling

Why slap when you can slaughter?

SIDDOWN AND SHUT UP

 

[Turner]

I thought Baby was more of an umbrella term for both infants and toddlers?

I suppose it could be. I've found most parents will make the distinction between baby and toddler though.