One of my absolute red lines is using anything but your hand for this.

My parents sent me to the corner when I did things wrong, and it worked for them, in retrospect, to an age when I should “really have known better”, which speaks to their parenting skills.

I don’t want to write an essay here but here’s some food for thought: There is a difference in kind between a punishment that the child fears and a punishment that makes the child fear the punisher. The former *may* be appropriate; the latter never is. This distinction is independent of whether the punishment is corporal or of some other kind.

@30 – Good Stalinism!

@31 – Ah yes, like any good bigot your views come out into the light. Thanks! A typical “nits make lice” comment, from a enemy of modern civilization. How many million do you want to kill?

When I was eight, my parents took me to the station. Here’s the train, here’s your ticket, your grandparents will meet you at the station. Two years later: here’s the train, here’s your ticket, here’s a subway token, you know where your grandparents live.

I had my share and more of childhood and adolescent fears, but they did not include a fear of coping with the world.

As for teaching kids not to destroy property: look kids do need limits. And I believe those limits include an absolute prohibition on harming other people, hurting animals, or damaging their property. But I believe most adults, if we work at it, can get that message through to children without hitting them. I agree most corporal punishment does not arise out of sadism, but I still consider it, at best, a last resort.

DNFTT.

Helmut O’ Hooligan passed word to me in an earlier thread.

I’m just passing it forward.

If you want any substantive response to whatever point you were trying to make, you should express your disagreement in civil terms.

Or you could actually fix the issues rather than being a sadist. Nah!

#15 | Warren Bonesteel | August 14th, 2012 at 1:58 pm

Am I evil for calling DHS and the cops when those kids get out of control and start destroying not only my property, but my peace of mind?

No, you are protecting yourself. Not too many years ago, you would have been completely within your rights to slap the spit out of them, too.

Ah for the Good Old Days ™ (How I miss the Diptheria.)

Child: “Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.”

Adult: “But that trick NEVER works!”

“This time for sure!”

(pulls lion out of hat….)

Silliness aside, I stand corrected. Some people do consider themselves as children…but never stop to consider that that makes them incompetent to tell others how to run their lives.

In the eyes of the scumbags who want to impose their values on others, everyone is a child. Except themselves, of course.

No, many of the people who want to treat everyone as children include themselves in that estimation. “I can’t quit smoking on my own, so the government needs to prevent me from doing it.” “I can’t make a decision about health care on my own, the government needs to make the choice for me.” “I can’t stop texting while I drive, so the government needs to pass a law against it to stop me.”

I bought the tickets myself and the only thing they checked was that I had the money to pay for it.

If I remember correctly, I also had a semi-auto .22 rifle in a case in my luggage.

Millions of children, including myself, grew up as “latchkey kids.” I got home before my parents and spent the time after school unsupervised for years. Somehow I managed not to destroy property because my parents weren’t there.

#12: “As with most issues, it’s not always as easy or simple as many people seem to think.”

Oh yes it is. What you describe is the product of bad parenting, not lack of supervision. Had those children been taught, with a strap if necessary, that destroying property and peace of mind is not tolerable, the lack of supervision would have been unimportant.

I’m fine with the idea that child criminals need to be supervised, but that’s no excuse for requiring parents to supervise all their children all the time.

Little Lord Fauntleroy was actually a rather self-sufficient little chap, if too sweet and nice for words. Maybe the poor boys (my Grandfather was one) whose mothers went for the fad at the time weren’t; if you are going to have a small boy wear that kind of velvet-and-lace- crap it helps if the author is on your side.