Nobody has smacked their kids for decades, that's why we've got a generation of young people who are all entitled, histrionic wetwipes with more personal pronouns than job skills.
Being violent with your children may be appealing to you, but it can do lasting damage. You can discipline your children without physically harming them. With your attitude, I hope you did not have children.
@windinhishair Here's a serious reference on the effects of corporal punishment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/
Even with these controls, physical punishment between the ages of six and nine years predicted higher levels of antisocial behaviour two years later. Subsequent prospective studies yielded similar results, whether they controlled for parental age, child age, race and family structure; poverty, child age, ...
Physical punishment is associated with a range of mental health problems in children, youth and adults, including depression, unhappiness, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness, use of drugs and alcohol, and general psychological maladjustment.
... no study has found physical punishment to have a long-term positive effect, and most studies have found negative effects.
I wonder if it mentions anywhere in this 'landmark report' the numbers in prison who can directly attribute the violent way they were brought up as a cause as to how they ended up
There are those that say "it didn't do me any harm". It did me some harm. It's not a good idea. In my experience it is simply abuse meted out by a poor parent that has lost control. In my recollections I hadn't even done anything that bad. It's abuse, pure and simple. How can we expect children to grow into good adults if we're showing them that violence "solves" problems?
Smacking children? Heck, why not go back to the days of hanging children? If a little violence is good, a lot of violence should be better, right??
Charles Dickens included story somewhere about a person hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. No one has ever confirmed such a case. Some fairly young kids were hanged though.
1814 – Five Children under the Age of 14 Hanged at the Old Bailey – Children in Victorian Prisons
Punishments were swift and harsh. In 1814, five children under the age of fourteen were hanged at the Old Bailey. One was a young man named William Potter who was hanged for ‘cutting down an orchard.’ Many other received months of hard labor for petty crimes. George Davey, age ten, was sentenced to a month’s hard labor for stealing two tame rabbits. Other found themselves in jail for stealing food and blankets. One eight year old young man identified by his sleeve number, No. 6, was asked by he was imprisoned, “for not moving on, Sir” was his answer. Sounds like Joe in Bleak House, only No. 6 didn’t even have Tom-all-Alone’s. No. 6 had no one and nothing.
I can't understand why people would want to endorse smacking their children around? Spanking could probably be debated,but smacking somebody around?(Not endorsing, anything ,so I don't really want to get into an argument)
People were also taught manners ,respect for differing opinions,they didn't have their own "truth", and they were taught to think about others not just themselves, along with working for what you want... I think the lack of this understanding is pretty significant to why there's such a difference today.
Smacking someone around just proves the bigger bully you are the more you get your own way.
I agree with your philosophy, but I think you are wrong to say that no-one has smacked their kids for decades. I know of two examples in the last two decades. And just read the accounts on SW, at least some of which are genuine.
The hitting hasn’t stopped, btw—it’s just done with more guilt and secrecy. People who were hit have still been raising today’s children, and it will take much more than one generation to make a difference. Hitting children teaches them that if you’re bigger and/or stronger, you have the imperative to bully others to get them to do what you want. That is a difficult mindset to reverse.
