Being Grounded/Punishements

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Cacian, Jan 18, 2012.

  1. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    This is a very common statement that all of us make.
    I was wondering wether an underlying better statement was gotten from being disciplined.
    I am one to think that every action has a reaction and turning out OK is a docile non reactionary to a disciplinary action.
     
  2. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    I think the 'extreme reactions' probably apply to 'extreme sides of the discipline' - if children receive little or no discipline (ie, no direction) or if they receive absolute discipline (ie, abusive), that's when the problems will occur. But, as you say, parents who care either know or learn what works best for their kids, and understand what they do will affect the kind of adult the kids turn into (responsible/irresponsible, happy/unhappy, etc). I probably spanked my son four or five times in his life (one hard smack to the behind) and they were almost always an 'attention-getter' (ie, Mom's serious, buster!). Most of the time sternly saying his name and frowning worked wonders. But that was my kid, how his mind and personality worked. There were stumbling blocks along the way, but eventually we both learned what we needed to. Today, he's healthy, happy, responsible, has a good job - he turned out great, frankly. And he's told me I was a great mom, and a lot of fun. So I must have done something right. ;)
     
  3. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    the thing is, it's not really possible to tell if folks 'turned out okay' because of, or in spite of the way they were raised...
     
  4. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    But it is possible to say that a few whacks on the butt when we were young didn't harm us physically, mentally, or emotionally.
     
  5. Lydia

    Lydia Contributor Contributor

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    I got my share of spankings when I was a kid, and I deserved every one of them. :p
     
  6. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    As with most behavioral responses, and I'm talking about the adult behavior here, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that there is an objective answer to this. Raising children is difficult. As with any difficult task, we can only ask someone to do the best they can. Do I can cringe at what passes for some peoples 'best'? Sure. But they are guided by both the nature and nurture sides of the equations and all peoples bests are not created equal. Running through the sprinklers in your Sunday best is almost certainly to be seen as 'bad' when you're eight years old - but at eighty years old, it may be seen as life affirming. We're all at different emotional ages and other peoples behavior only sucks if I am comparing them to my emotional age instead of theirs.

    Too, social conventions play a large role. If one grows up in a place where corporal punishment is the societal norm, children will be less emotionally affected by the act than if it is practised in a country that has all but outlawed the practice. Imagine you made your child eat out of a bowl on the floor. They would no doubt be scarred for life - yet if everyone in society ate out of a bowl on the floor, it wouldn't affect adversely them at all.
     
  7. unreasonable

    unreasonable New Member

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    Punishments welcome you to the real world, letting you know that when you do things that you aren't allowed to do their are consequences. If their weren't consequences, what would stop you doing it again?
    The police force don't give thieves and murderers a good talking to and an explanation of what they've done wrong and why. They put them in prison. Consequences.

    If you don't want to be grounded, don't do anything that's going to get you grounded. It's that simple.
     
  8. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    easily said then done. Go tell that to a 5 or 7year old.
     
  9. VM80

    VM80 Contributor Contributor

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    That's a very extreme comparison. Actually, it isn't one.

    Most kids acting up are not commiting crimes; they're being kids. They're still learning. Do they need a 'talking to' at times? Sure thing. Many do learn their lessons too. Explain to them it's dangerous to put your hand on the hot stove, and they'll often get it. If they don't, experience will certainly teach them.

    Not all kids who never got punished/grounded or spanked end up being spoiled brats, either.
     
  10. James Berkley

    James Berkley Banned

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    the thing is punishment is needed. it is part of the real world that the kids will have to deal with.

    personaly i think it really helped me that my parents saw parenting gone bad. hence they where very disciplin and punishment happy. my mother in particuler was not squimish about useing physical punishment or phycology agains us.
     
  11. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    I would venture, however, that those would be cases of "in spite of". ;)
     
  12. unreasonable

    unreasonable New Member

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    Yes is is a comparison, of how being grounded shows kids that their are consequences to their actions. I've never heard myself, of young children being grounded, something I've found to be reserved for older children, who have already been taught right from wrong, and been 'spoken to'.
     
  13. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    All of the people I know who have been convicted of murder have had corporal punishment the likes of which would make their victim's family squeamish.
     
  14. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    Well, if I take my own life as an example, it's definitely 'in spite of', because I was on the fast track to becoming a major criminal when I turned my own life around at 23. I did that because I realized that continuing on the same track would mean I'd be dead by 30. The reason I was on the fast track had a lot to do with how I was raised, or rather, how my parents failed to raise me.

    Look who's talking. YOU are all for arguing rationally with a 5 or 7 year old. I can have a five-year-old very temperamental boy and when he keeps misbehaving and gets a time out to sit on the stairs to think about his misbehaviour, only then is he capable of talking about what he did and why he shouldn't do it. Being grounded or a time-out teaches children self-reflection on the consequences of their acts. And since it's hardly abusive and helps the child to mature, I don't see any disadvantages.

    I know about parents pressing children's hands against hot stoves to teach them not to touch hot stoves, but I'm not so sure if that's the best way to teach them.

    Probably not, but if they're not grounded/punished/spanked, they must've received another form of discipline, because children with unchecked boundaries will become monsters.

    How many murderers do you know?
     
  15. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    I am sure you didn't.
    It just happened and spanking is not really justified althoug we might all do it at some stage no matter how light the spanking is.
    Which makes me think about some minority of adults take spanking to another level.
     
  16. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    Really depends upon how you define murder. Taken from a letter I wrote to the parole board: "Society makes a distinction between murder on the battlefield and murder on its streets but it has been my observation that the effect on the person who actually takes the life is the same. I’m certain it makes no difference to the dead and, emotional pronouncements to the contrary, I don’t think it makes much difference to the loved ones of the fallen either; hero or victim, dead is gone forever."

    Assuming that you just mean 'murder on the streets', I know dozens at least. My wife was released fifty-one days ago after twenty-four years in prison for murder. She was fifteen years old at the time and escaping from a human trafficking situation. Anyway, she was certainly away long enough for both of us to get to know many people inside well, many of them murderers.

    I know that in the military I came to kill without conscience - not all were situations of kill or be killed, though all were in keeping with my responsibilities. Though the first time was kill or be killed; I threw up and shook violently for the rest of the day. The last time, I was completely impassive. We can be conditioned to violence. Corporal punishment is physical violence though arguably justifiable. I however, wouldn't go down that road; there's no need for it.

    As for those who say that, 'we got hit and turned out okay', I would just offer this: I have sat in the waiting room to see my wife and had some 450 lb. woman tell me that she can't understand how her sister could do something like this. That they both had rough childhoods but that she had turned out okay. What I would like to have told her was that at 450 lbs, you've turned that violence upon yourself; she turned it outwards. If I thought it would have helped, I would have. Everyone thinks that they are okay - your behavior is normalized to you, or you wouldn't do it.
     
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  17. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    So basically it's a no-win discussion - if we say we're okay, you say "Well, to you, you are.". And then we have to somehow prove that yeah, we really are okay. Or we could counter and ask that you prove we aren't okay - and also prove that that not-okay is directly related to having had corporal punishment administered as children.

    There's a difference between corporal punishment and physical abuse, just as there is a difference between reprimanding a child and verbal abuse.
     
  18. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    Definately agree.

    I think it's nearly impossible to prove. I mean, the 450 lb woman is, quite probably, convinced it's a metabolism or gene problem and no amount of discussion is going to convince her otherwise. Too, proving causality is next to impossible on an individual basis, though I think the law of large numbers shows patterns that are undeniable.

    I think that physical and emotional violence lies on a continuum. Our views as a society have evolved, or changed if you like, with time. What once fell neatly into the 'disciplining your child' range often falls clearly into the abuse category today. What will we think or realize is abuse 100 years from now after 100 years of understanding and studying developmental issues? I don't know the answer to that question of course and am not proposing that I do. What I do know is that it was only 60 years ago in the United States that the first child abuse case was successfully prosecuted against a parent who claimed they were simply disciplining their child. The prosecutors brought in a biologist who testified that the child was, by scientific definition, an animal. The judge then sentenced the parents to concurrent terms for animal abuse. Sixty years isn't that long - we've come along way. Personally I believe, and that certainly doesn't make me right btw, that in another sixty years or so, we will look at some disciplinary actions that are socially acceptable today and feel sick to our collective stomachs.

    I think corporal punishment will fall into such a category.
     
  19. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    The problem is that many people today think that almost any kind of discipline is abuse. So many new parents are bombarded with people telling them they can't raise their voice, they can't give their kid a swat on the butt, they have to 'reason' with their kids - and then the rest of the world has to deal with screaming, tantrum pulling brats - and the parents sit back and say, "What can I do?".

    I'm not condoning abuse. No way. (And even years ago, people knew the difference - they just didn't know what to do about it.) But parents need to do what's best for their kids and their family, instead of listening to a bunch of people who have no idea what their kids or their family are like. Just like writing - you can't raise kids by committee. You can listen to advice, but in the end, it's up to you.
     
  20. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    I agree and empathize.

    Right, and as we know, perhaps better than most as we are here on a writing forum, some people can reason and communicate better than others. What does someone do when they exceed their capacity for reasoning? I have often said that violence is the last resource of the otherwise powerless. I know you don't agree that all physical discipline is violence but I'm quoting something I said that was close - and I used violence when I said it - not abuse; it certainly could paraphrased. :) But I do think physical discipline is what parents turn to when they feel they have nothing else - there is nothing else in their tool bag; they've come to the end of their reasoning ability, communicating ability, non-corporal punishment tricks etc. Some we see come to it much sooner than most of us would like - others seem to have skills and patience levels previously undocumented.

    I know that you're not (which is why I started this back and forth with you ;) )As for your second statement here - that parents need to do what's best for their kids and family - that's pretty much what I was saying in my very first post I offered in this thread. Holding parents to behavior models that they are not only unqualified to attain while living in a world that the experts can't understand. A good example is immigrant families who come to their host country with a skill set for parenting that doesn't meet the societal norms of the new country but who would be considered loving, even permissive parents in their old country.

    Though I never watch the show, I was at a friends house and they had a television show on 'Cops'. In it the police showed up to question a man about allegations they received that he slapped his daughter in the face (made by the daughter who learned at school that she could do so). The father proudly acknowledged that he had and explained why very matter of factly, certain the police would not only applaud his parenting but have a stern talking with his daughter. The shock and fear on his face when they led him away in handcuffs....well, it was very sad and it probably destroyed their family.
     
  21. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    The sad part of that example is that, had it been handled reasonably, the family could have learned a few things. Instead, rest assured, the courts and the social workers are now watching every minute detail of that family's life, and woe be to the parent who tries any kind of discipline in the future. And the daughter has now learned that she holds the power in that family. All she has to do is threaten to call the cops. Any parental control is gone.
     
  22. Lydia

    Lydia Contributor Contributor

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    Eh, I don't think you can really say that I did or did not deserve them.
     
  23. Fullmetal Xeno

    Fullmetal Xeno Protector of Literature Contributor

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    I don't know because of my 14 and a half years of living, I've never been grounded.
     
  24. Gallowglass

    Gallowglass Contributor Contributor

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    I was out until 2am yesterday shuttling drunk friends back and forth.

    Needless to say my parents weren't impressed.
     
  25. AmsterdamAssassin

    AmsterdamAssassin Active Member

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    Assuming you were not drunk and you were taking care of your friends to avoid them having accidents when drunk, I'd be impressed. Depends on your age and the relationship you have with your parents. And your friends. If your friends knew your parents wouldn't be happy shuttling them back and forth, they might have made it easier on you to get home a little earliers.
     

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