Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Spanking Controversy Pt II


A pat on the butt is at least 4 things to a child;
1. Most importantly, it is a withdrawal of love or at least a threat of such withdrawal. 
That's a scary thing to a child whose life literally depends on primary care givers.
2. It is a threat of greater violence to come, if they don't blindly (obediently) follow the adult's wishes and whims.
3. It is a shutting down and discouragement of rational discussion. A lesson that frustration justifies force. A lesson that rational discourse and search for compromise is only useful up to the point when impatience calls for forceful "action".
4. It is a lesson that they don't need to learn their boundaries, because someone else will always be there to swat them when they go too far. They learn the opposite of self-control and empathy for others. By stopping wild behavior with irrational hitting, future wild behavior is reinforced. And they learn to self-attack instead of self-control. The seeds of self-hatred are sown.

Children should be taught to control their behavior using their own intelligence and judgment. Children should not be taught to "be obedient".  Obedience is a large part of what is wrong with the world.

I'd rather err on the side of being "too gentle" and "too reasonable" than making the mistake of teaching children that force and threats of force are acceptable options for settling disputes and misunderstandings.

I know the argument, "children are hard to reason with, so you have to use a bit of force for their own good and safety". Then why don't we give a little whack to a retarded person to get them to respond to our wishes or reasoning? For his own good. Why don't we use a little whack for grandma when she is acting a little crazy? For her own good. How about a little whack from your boss when you resist or hesitate to follow his confusing orders?

If it's proper and useful for you to swat a child to "get his attention", why don't we encourage kids to swat us when they want something and we won't listen? Why is it okay for us, but wrong for them? Kids get the message that we don't know we're sending: It's right for us because we're bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer than them. So, because kids get this lesson, they grow up and start to use force and manipulative bullying behavior as soon as they get bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer. 

Why, when kids are expressing frustration, anger, impatience, or disrespect - why is it okay for us to swat them instead of spending time figuring out the causes of their negative feelings? Why can't they "paddle" us when we are angry, frustrated, etc? If the argument is that we are responsible for the children and they are not responsible for us, that is so very correct. And that responsibility dictates that we act with all the intelligence, love, and respect we can muster. And when we are at our wits end we ought to blame ourselves, not the child. 

Children do not choose to have you as a parent, you are the one who chose to have a child. There is absolutely no ground to stand on when culture says, "children should honor and love their parents". Baloney. You can't command true love and respect. Like anyone else, parents have to earn love and respect. The reasonable and moral rule is the exact opposite of what is commonly taught. Parents have an obligation to love, respect, and care for their children until the age when they can take care of themselves. Because the parents chose the child, the child did not choose the parents. Parents have no excuse that they are "too tired" or "too busy" to learn how to give proper care and love to their children. Kids are busy too. They are busy learning about life. What's more important, your trip to the grocery store, your phone call conversation, ... or your child's healthy mental development? You owe your child your time and patience, not the other way around. I repeat; you chose them, they didn't choose you.

"I don't have time to use logic and love, it's easier to give a quick little swat". This is weird reasoning. If you get to have the excuse that you are too busy, too tired, too distracted, etc., to take time to carefully figure out the root of a child's bad behavior, then you have no right blaming a child for anything they do. They also are tired, busy, distracted, ... If it's a good excuse for you, then why not for them? AND it's not their fault; it's your fault if they never were given the tools and training and EXAMPLE of how to act differently. 

It's barbaric to blame children for their lack of understanding and patience. You are responsible for everything they have learned, for better or worse (even if they learned it from cartoons, movies, daycare, school, or "popular culture").

Popular Culture is the last place to go for this kind of knowledge. Popular Culture is a purveyor of mistakes, lies, and made-up crap. (The biggest lie is that we ought to revere culture and never question the "wisdom" it passes down.) You have to see what actual evidence has been found and studied.


The ideas that I am encouraging here are inspired by Stefan Molyneux at FreeDomainRadio.com

Monday, June 18, 2012

Spanking Controversy Pt I

A friend of mine defended spanking on her Facebook page, so I had to reply.
She wrote back to me after I said, "all spanking is wrong, period".
okay I can tell your really serious about this and....maybe I shouldn't have said the word spanking, is swatting on the butt a spanking??guess it depends on one's definition..I think a swat when all else fails doesn't hurt and it gets my grandson's attention...
I replied:

Yes, I am serious about this. I doubt if any other topic is more serious. Wars, depressions, murders, rapes, all criminal behavior and social problems in the "adult" world stem from negative experiences in childhood. You look at a jerk in the bar or an idiot co-worker, you are seeing the scars of childhood. You look at wars and corporate greed, you are seeing the effect of a long causal chain that starts with the evils inflicted on children who grow up with dark shadows in their brains. 

When we look at ourselves and the times we disappoint ourselves, we are looking at our own scars from things we learned in childhood. NOT just things consciously taught and not just from parents, but from peers, teachers, baby-sitters, books, movies, and TV. It's a cultural meme that we are up against, and it's permanently etched on our brains. We need to raise a new generation that is free of the "might makes right" meme.

The Institute for Psychohistory
http://www.psychohistory.com/
The Psychohistory website examines the childhood experiences of evil tyrants and war-mongers throughout history. Guess what? From Stalin to Hitler to Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein, from the World Wars to the modern-day Mid-East wars, ... all have deep roots traced back to culturally-approved aggression towards children. We need to evolve beyond this horror.

I have no argument with the short-term "usefulness" of using a swat to get a kid's attention. We know that this works in the short run. But what are the long-term consequences? Are we teaching the child to be even more sneaky and evil? 

Are we teaching the child to swat other children who don't fill their desires? 
Are we teaching children that utility (convenience and usefulness) trumps morality?
Utilitarian arguments replacing moral arguments is how we get all kind of horrors and atrocities throughout history and throughout our present world.

If you read up on this, you'll find that the research numbers on adult violence rooted in childhood trauma DOES NOT find a distinct line between actual "beating" and "light paddling". The line is blurry. You're making a huge presumption to declare that light paddling doesn't hurt, when the research actually points in the other direction. Yes, children are more likely to grow into violent criminals if they experience more violent abuse at a younger age, but there is a fuzzy line dividing "light paddling" and "violent abuse".

If a swat doesn't hurt, why don't we use swats on our husbands, wives, friends, and co-workers? Is it because we can reason with adults? So, if a living creature has a problem with reasoning, we need to resort to swats? What do animal trainers say about swats? What about dealing with brain-damaged adults, or demented and forgetful oldsters? Should we hit them to "guide them" or "get their attention" when they are disobedient or troublesome?

You and I are in no position to have an opinion on this until we study into it quite deeply. I'm just getting started myself. I suggest that you read up on this, and trace the roots of this cultural attitude that says "swatting children is harmless". We also need to track down some good research that has studied into the long term effects of using force on children.

These same arguments have been going on for centuries. It used to be okay to slap or do whatever to someone of lower class. Slowly, we started to recognize that no person has any right to use any aggression against others, except when lives and property are directly threatened. First the lower classes had their rights recognized, then slaves, then women, and now we're working on recognizing children's rights. Funny "strange" that the most helpless humans are the last to be liberated and have culture recognize their right to be respected not threatened. "The husband by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction . . . in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children."