Cherie Blair in boy 'slap' probe

[Liberator]

Here

My god, it's reallys gone beyond 'too far'.

I think whoever made the complaint or thought it was worth investigating should be made to pay the cost of this pointless exercise. Plus, sending six detectives in to investigate, they should sack whoever decided to do that.

Okay, I know child abuse is a very real and serious subject and I support anyone who's goal is to wipe it out, but how many officers do they send to real incidents.

The conflicting laws in England nowadays are ridiculess.

I was walking through Sheffield with a work mate on my lunch break a few months ago and I saw a mother and daughter (about 4 or 5 years) walking along the street, the daughter was acting up and generally pushing to see how far she could misbehave. The mother gave her a couple of warnings and she continued to 'act up', so she gave her a sharp slap to the back of the legs.

It was made to shock and sting, rather than cause harm.

Straight away the child stopped misbehaving and had a little "I've been told off" cry, both continued down street and nothing else happened, the child was now behaving "normally".

I've seen similar circumstances where the mother didn't do this but decided to use the phycological approach of "you know that you make mummy sad when you are naughty, now please behave because you don't want to make mummy sad" and watched the child continue to misbehave because they know that nothing will happen. Where is the reason in that, the kids thinking "hmm, if I 'play up', then she cries and I get off scott free, result".

I come from a family where my father would gibe you a smack with the hand and when it was really deserved, a belt, to the arse to punish, only a few times, but enough to make sure you didn't get caught the next time (obviously it doesn't stop you misbehaving, it just make realise you should only do it when you can get away with it and those times are few and far between so you eventually stop doing whatever it was and grow out of it).

Also if you came home from school and it was found out that you had been punished for something, you would get punished again.

I'm not saying the level of punishment was always correct, but it did enforce a real hierarchy in the house and a knowledge of what was right and wrong, you knew that if you did something bad and got caught, there were very real consequences.

I class myself as having excellent parents and think I was very lucky to have been in a family where values and 'consequence of action' was upheld.

I also went through school when the 'cane' from the headmaster was a very real punishment and I got it to the hand a few times. It was abolished  a few years before I left secondary school. But again, this was more of a shock to the system rather than lasting scar, the pain was real, but was also very short lived.

Today my father would get prosecuted for that and I and my brothers could have ended up on some "watch list" or something.

:blink:

[Dewey]

Lib, excellent post, as I was reading this, it was like reading my own childhood as regards to punishment, exactly the same as yours including being caned - I went to a Grammar School where they where quite free to hand out canings - I was caned twelve times in all (99% deserved it has to be said). I can remember that awful feeling of apprehension as the headmaster would make you wait outside his office for a good 15-30 mins. And then you would brace yourself on the fireplace before your caning where administered on your backside and afterwards... you had to say thank you to the headmaster - or recieve another one.
 
It might sound a bit old fashioned now, but jeez it worked, there was very few instances of bullying, fighting and messing around in my school, there was a clearly defined limit and if you went over that you knew what the consequences where.
 
It certainly did me no harm and helped me develp into the well rounded and respectable character you see before you today (erm.. yeah :lmfao: ) j- I think smacking a child is reasonable as long as its a last resort, is given consistently so a child knows when they've overstepped the mark and isn't too hard, it should be the fear of smacking that helps discipline the child not the smacking per se.
 
Good thread lib.

[sulky_uk]

i used to be a right lazy tawt at primary school, and i used to do get the bus from the raf camp to school and get there about 30 mins b4 anyone else, so i did my homework in the mornings, anyway to cut a long story short, the teacher didnt like i as it was messy and wrong all the time, so in front of  the class everyday i used to get caned.
 
then at least once a week id get strapped by the headmaster.
 
and that was in a posh primary school:blink:
 
didnt do me any harm
 
now wheres me axe:devil:

[Jamoe]

My wifes parents have never smacked any of thier children. Thier 15 year old son is one of the most polite, well mannered teenages I have ever met.

But, i am not anti smacking, everyone is different, some will respond to smacking in a way intended others wont.  A parent should know there child best, and know the best way to punish/encourage them.

[Carr0t]

I'm with the majority here, I got smacked as a kid (too young to remember canings tho :narnar:) and it taught me to behave (when being watched/there was a chance of being caught, anyways) and never did me any harm. I'm convinced I woulda turned out a lot worse if my parents hadn't been able to give me a swift smack or clip round the ear every now and again.

Having said that, I have a workmate who was beaten with no valid reason by his father when he was a kid, and he is (understandably, I think) all for the complete abolition of smacking. He says he'd rather deal with the kids that "don't turn out right" as a result of no reasonable punishment, than risk having some beaten for too viciously and unreasonably.

Unfortunately the number that "don't turn out right" is, I fell, far more than the number who get beaten unreasonably. Even in my day getting in trouble in school was scary mainly becuase you knew you'd get in trouble *again* when you got home. These days the parents seem to side with their kids most of the time! "Oh, he was pushing a kid 3 years younger over in the playground and kicking him? Well it's just his way, you had no right to give him detention!"... :ranting::ranting2::taz:

[suicidal_monkey]

rant/
bloody press selling the news ... that's all that was. Free press is all very well but sometimes I think they should answer for some of the messes they've made with their "objective" (yeah right) and unbiased (could've fooled me!) reporting. Unfortunately there's enough people out there just waiting to take things like this, get in a huff and go all righteous ... even once someone's pointed out that the boy involved said himself that nothing happened, it was all basically banter.
/rant


wrt physical punishment - some people need physical punishment to teach them right from worng, sort of like training dogs the rules of the house. Other kids don't need to be hit to understand and a few words will tell them they did somethig wrong and be sorry for it. I'm all for corporal punishment as long as it's carried out within reason. There's a line beyond which punishment becomes abuse. When your puppy pees on the carpet you smack his nose with enough force so he feels some hurt and probably rub his nose in it ... after a while the puppy learns to go outside. If you don't do anything the dog'll just stink out your house, and if you smack the dog around a bit it'll get confused, no longer associate the punishment with the crime and just think you're nasty, and turn out either nasty and bitey, or shy and unhappy. Not all parents are going to know or respect the limits and real cases of abuse need to be dealt with, but an all-out ban doesn't help, and actually hinders those parents that have some sense. If their kids won't listen to their reasoning in the first place what do they do next? Does grounding work? Being a parent sound like hard work:blink: then with the threat of legal action brough by your unruly child, the prissy neighbour, etc... good grief

[delanvital]

Excellent posts and a very good read.

My folks have never as much as grabbed my arm, nor my brother and sister. I dunno why it was never needed. Maybe because we could always sort issues verbally.

I would like to emphasise the need for corporal punishment to be only a last resort - the consequences if used in the wrong way can be very negative.

But then again, I am also influenced by the life of a childhood friend who had a dad that laid hands on him for the wrong reasons.

Tbh I must admit should I someday end up a parent with a kid spinning out of control I am not sure I could ever resort to that, having never been exposed to it. This is a subject my fiancee and I cannot agree on, her being a girl with a very hard upbringing, both mentally and physically, and naturally biased by that and of course suspicious towards my parents methods having never been exposed to them. I grew up with "freedom under responsibility " where she believes in a firm and more controlling method.

[Jamoe]

rant/
bloody press selling the news ... that's all that was. Free press is all very well but sometimes I think they should answer for some of the messes they've made with their "objective" (yeah right) and unbiased (could've fooled me!) reporting. Unfortunately there's enough people out there just waiting to take things like this, get in a huff and go all righteous ... even once someone's pointed out that the boy involved said himself that nothing happened, it was all basically banter.
/rant

agree 100%, I saw some pictures of the alleged "assuialt", utter BS. Everything is sensationalised, its impossible to trust the storys.

[Blunt]

Cherie Blair in boy 'slap' probe

I didn't mind the slap so much, but the probe was simply inhuman...is she an alien?