Topic: Pope Francis: parents can smack their children for bad behaviour (Read 1827 times)

Lethn, while I too dislike the current educational system, I'm pretty sure most of these kids that disrupt classrooms are NOT googling relevant information, but are gaming or using social media instead, thereby preventing the other kids that actually NEED to memorize what's being taught if they ever want to graduate. Unfortunately, the current educational system is not a place of learning but of repeating. Therefore, as a freethinking kid that actually wants to learn, you'll need to save your googling time for after class. If you want to pass your class, you'll have to parrot whatever the teacher is saying. If you're actually actively doing something to change the system, playing games and using social media during class time not being any of those things, you're still going to have to do the parrot thing until you've succeeded.

You've made some other statements in this thread I'd like to address.

RE: Respect - While I do agree respect is a two way street, I disagree when you say respect needs to be earned. Do you go around disrespecting people as a default until they EARN your respect? That's just fucked up. All people should have your respect as the default and only if they lose it gain disrespect.

RE: Obedience - You seem to have a big problem with kids being obedient. Although kids should be taught to be skeptical, there's a time and place for everything. Good luck raising your own kids someday without obedience.

I'd like to take a moment to commend every parent that has never felt the need to spank their children, as well as the children who made it possible by choosing not to be little shits. Clearly they are all extremely intelligent and caring individuals. Definitely not the norm. It will certainly be a sign that we are living in a utopian society once everyone reaches such a level of maturity and enlightenment.

My sisters kids have never been spanked, yet are a delight because they are considerate.

I think we agree on most of this.  I never asserted that you were violent.

They haven't changed their stance on homosexuality for centuries despite it being blatantly obvious they're full of shit and where gay marriage has been introduced the sky hasn't fallen and people haven't turned to beastiality, hell even with taxes they act they have the same attitude, Finland is as far as I'm aware one of the only countries out there that taxes religious organisations and again, nothing disastrous has happened and the world hasn't fallen to pieces, in fact, people seem pretty happy over there.

Also, when are stupid people going to understand that I'm against all forms of physically unprovoked violence? Self-defence is one thing but you have to be a serious asshole to think it's 'okay' to go punching an asshole just because he said some mean things about your mother, granted, it's not like I wouldn't feel anything from it, I'm human too but it's a total joke when I hear people lecturing others about freedom of speech etc. and then suddenly changing their minds and deciding it's okay to get violent over a simple comment.

Yeah, there should be times when it's justified to punch someone for saying the wrong thing but in most situations today that escalation results in assault charges.

A slap rarely probably teaches people to be more careful.  I know I learned that way myself.  I also learned the other side that you can get in a lot of trouble for the slightest physical confrontation.

Ultimately, non-violence is always better.  Just stay away from idiots who say stupid things and if you can prove they did something provocative then you can actually press charges for that too.

But when it comes to kids and discipline, there are just so many non-violent approaches to discipline. Everyone just has to be careful and be sure they are talking to their kids about the consequences of their actions.  And not just consequences for the kids but consequences to others based on what the kid did.  That idiot who shot up the Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, didn't just land himself in jail he damaged 100's if not thousands of lives: those he killed and their friends and families.

Violence has a tendency to escalate.  That first little smack can seem so innocent until that kid gets older and turns it around.  I'm sure you do it just right and may not ever have that problem.  But for your one example of physical restraint there are literally hundreds that don't turn out so well.

I'd never assume to tell anyone how to parent.  Go ahead and beat your kids but pay attention to the world around you and self-monitor.  I've seen many different approaches ranging from spankings to nothing at all and those kids are completely rebellious and do whatever they want.  Believe me, when I command obedience from kids they listen because they know there will be consequences that matter to them.

Corporal punishment teaches kids that a physical reaction is an appropriate response to events that are often not worthy of a physical punishment.  Punishment should educate children about how the world works.  Losing their iPad or losing some other liberty is way more effective than an emotional outburst of physical action.  

There are so many long-term empirical case studies that advocate against corporal punishment because of the myriad of god awful future outcomes.  But it is also proven in recent case studies that when people's values are proven wrong by empirical evidence then they cling to their own values even more.

Wait a second here, are we talking about some random "smacks" when kids are bad, or are we talking about abuse?
Noone ever said that its ok to abuse, nor is church endorsing such a behaviour.
You got your balls mixed up mister, or do u consider every smack to be abuse?!

How about a soft slap rarely? I got slapped softly when I behaved bad (maybe 3-4 times untill I was 5 years old) and I think it was justified. But then again there are always the morons who take it way way too far. The chock from getting hit was enough to make me stfu, and I deserved it those times.

You know, now that I think about it more... maybe the church should change their stance about behavior that has proven to be abusive and repeatedly leads to bad futures.  There are just too many examples of abused children that end up being murderers or abusive in other ways.

Plenty of people who claim to be spanked and are fine prove themselves to act like total douchebags so as far as I'm concerned the experiment has failed, as usual with most things bad, people are just in denial.

Giving punishment for bad behaviour is called parenting.
I've seen enough of kids that act insane infront of their parents, but they still do nothing about it xcept to tell them its wrong.
I'm a parent of two, and trust me when i say; the toughest thing i have to do is to send them to a corner or smack them on their butts, but it needs to be done.
Its easy to judge when ure just observer, but the last thing i want is for my kids is for them to be a**holes when they grow up.

Yes how dare those fiends find more interesting things on the internet than listening to a boring teacher lecture them without knowing what the fuck their talking about and that their claims can be refuted with a five second google search!

I remember being kicked out of the room because I talked with my mates interrupting the teacher. Nowadays its probably hell being a teacher, kids have laptops and are playing games all the time lol.

Good luck spreading anarchy.

Good point. I remember when I was a kid teachers had the right to for example remove you from the classroom and take you to the detention by force. Later on they were not allowed to touch a kid if he's resisting, which just caused more problems.

Ohhh man I love that rage, by the way I'm actually an Anarchist so by the way, just because humanity has repeated something for several thousand years doesn't make it a good thing.

Nobody said that you have to hit to teach manners.You can if you really have to and it should be mild and not damaging.
You have to accept the fact that not everyone is ultra-evolved liberal creature like yourself.There are traditionalist and conservatives as well.Also it is accepted practice in many societies.

LOL! Ah, circular logic, the last refuge of the pious.


As I've said to other people, I've met plenty of kids who don't get hit that are totally nice, clearly there's more going on than people who are pro-hitting care to admit, people who talk about discipline are full of shit.

You can't just say that there are some kids that don't need a good slap.

I think that some of our problems in schools are due to school personnel not being allowed to use corporal punishment anymore.

These kids know that it’s against the law for anyone to physically touch them. Which probably leads these kids to think that they can get away with more and more, without consequences.

It’s getting to the point where we won’t be able to physically discipline our own kids.

Just refer back to your response #1 to me.I had to get to your level.

ROFL! Yes, of course I'm against the brainwashing and subjugation of an entire species in the name of an invisible god aren't you? Oh wait, of course not, especially considering the level of response you just gave then. Respect is a two way thing, if you think that being beaten up and doing what that person tells you is respect then you have a very broken view of the world. What you're proposing isn't respect as I said, it is just obedience, you don't seem to know what respect actually is which can be clearly seen from the upbringing you've described, oh and if this isn't evidence of psychological damage from being hit as a child I don't know what is.

I think respect can be a very positive thing, but it isn't something that can be enforced, it has to be earned and you do that through reasoning and logic not threats of violence.

GTFO religiophobe. If respect and obedience means killing and stealing to you then its your own fault.

What the fuck does that even mean? Also, your 'value' system seems to revolve around pure obedience, it doesn't seem to matter if you kill people or hurt them just as long as there's someone above in the hierarchy telling you what to do, to me that sounds an awful lot more like animal behaviour than anything children who don't get hit come up with and very much a pack mentality, in this case the alpha male/female is your parents. As I said, I'll settle just for children not killing, stealing or hurting other people, and religious people are such shining examples of all those three things aren't they? Even the fucking commandments are completely against that yet you have people blatantly committing to it as if it's not a big deal.

Technological advancement doesn't mean that you should let go of humane values and become a practical animal.

Considering the shit that our elders have put us through including fucking up the planet, world war 1 and 2, global warming, the idea of religion itself, the fact that they've indebted us to pay for their shit so they can have an easy life and are making it much more difficult for us to earn as a result. I don't see why we 'have' to be respectful towards them in the slightest, but then again, I didn't have it beaten into me as a child that I had to put up with peoples shit just because they're bigger than me when I was little which is all this amounts to in the end.

You guys are like hostages that have been beaten up by terrorists and suddenly start to like them for it for no fucking reason other than "They beat me up so now I respect them" you've had your so called 'respect' and manners beaten into you, these people aren't respectful, they're thugs.

I never witnessed any children questioning about their religious ideas or smacked for this.This mild smacking is for children being disrespectful to elders and teaching them manners.

•••
My parents spanked me as a child

As a result I now suffer from a psychological condition known as
"Respect for Others"
•••

You mean obedience don't you? I believe one of the reasons religious morons defend the hitting of children so much is because they hate having their ideas questioned and since their is no way to legitimate prove their ideas are true ( Though science is bit by bit proving everything in the bible is bullshit ) they therefore resort to hitting them whenever they try it. Oh and that whole respect argument is a load of bullshit, respect has to be a two way deal, what they're talking about is obedience, these people are 'obeying' their elders because they're afraid they'll get hit, that's all there is to it.

  
The physical consequences of physical punishment vary, but especially hitting or smacking anywhere around the head may lead to serious injuries, loss of hearing, dislodged neck, death. For one thing, adults often do not have good judgment of the strength they apply.

The emotional consequences also seem to vary a lot, on an individual basis as well as depending on the cultural climate surrounding the child. Certainly nobody other than the child's own parents should be permitted to use physical discipline. There is a lot of horrible evidence from boarding schools etc.

This question of physical discipline in bringing up children was central in a court case in Sweden, against Malaysian parents (physical punishment of children is a criminal offence in Sweden (as also here in Norway)). The couple were found guilty and were given fairly hard prison sentences. Through their detainment, the court case and subsequently there was a lot of writing about it in Malaysia, people arguing for and against physical punishment of children.  

Personally I do not think spanking or hitting children is a good thing at all, the drawbacks are unforseeable and too serious. But one particular internet posting in that debate, from one Roslina Abu Bakar, made me smile; you can view it here! :

http://forum.r-b-v.net/viewtopic.php?p=34346#p34346

  

I'm not a parent myself; I'm a boy 17 but I do believe in mild smacking it may be helpful in good breeding.

Fuck you and fuck the pope.

This idiot keeps saying dumber shit everytime.

I agree with Pope.

Typical parents. When I started using the internet my father was constantly asking me if i'm watching porn because obviously the internet is nothing but porn. 

The strangest thing is that some people (usually from the left side of the scene) have been putting a child on a pedestal, like some untouchable exhibit. You can't bathe your children because, who knows, maybe you're a pedophile. If a child says he doesn't want to do something you can't force him and so on.

That'd be a serious case because he's trying to hurt an animal, I'd pull the twat away in that situation even if he decided to kick and scream lol but like I said, my point is you should only interfere when there's a genuine danger etc. or they're harming someone/something else, anything more is just people trying to enforce their own trivial bullshit. Point is though, you should also explain why that's a bad thing, because otherwise they won't realise, if an adult is just slap happy they won't ever realise what they're doing wrong and will just get utterly terrified and hate their own parents as they get older.

Don't go onto the internet? Stop using your phone so much? Classic complaints and I'm sitting there thinking "Well how the fuck do you know they're playing games all day? They could be researching cryptocurrencies!" my parents always think I'm just sitting at a computer doing fuck all then I start lecturing them about economics and they don't like that trolololool

I didn't mean abuse and it seems we have a similar view. Physical force would be the last resort for me, but I laugh at people who try to condemn parents who hit their children from time to time. I've seen spoiled sadistical brats in my days who deserved a slap in the face, really. When you see a kid pulling your dogs tail you tell him to stop because it hurts and he just laughs at you and does it again you just feel this urge

There's 'physical' force and then there's just blatantly hitting a child, if it was a serious situation I'd restrain them just like you would an adult if they were trying to pick a fight with another, but the amazing thing is, is when you hear about parents hitting a child over disobedience, so if it was over some stupid thing like not cleaning a room ( which some crazy lunatics genuinely think is okay ) then maybe it's better to explain why it's a good idea to clean it instead of just telling them to.

That said, we all have different standards, my room can end up a mess at times especially if I'm doing lots of work, I think the way people react as if it's going to be the end of the fucking world if it's not taken care of is ridiculous though. I can understand getting physical if it was a serious thing ( Hitting like I said is a no go just like with adults ) but I think some people just need to get their fucking priorities straight, as long as your child isn't trying to kill, hurt or steal then that's all you can ask for as far as I'm concerned.

Teaching them about fraud comes later when they're better at talking with you but basically I'm completely against this whole obey or die attitude that a lot of control freak parents seem to have and as usual it's something very consistently found in religion.

My parents did that to me occasionally and I don't blame them. I don't think it happened more than once or twice a year and I know I deserved it. They were telling me to stop doing something and I ignored it just to see what will happen, or because I just didn't feel like listening to them.

You seem to be completely against using physical force towards children, so how would you persuade a kid to stop if talking didn't work?

In all seriousness the funny thing is I see these parents who complain about their children all the time etc. and I'm afraid the majority of the problem really is that parents genuinely don't talk to their children but tell their children what they can and can't do. Parents who use spanking etc. are enforcing obedience, not discipline, the reason being is because that's the only way they can enforce their bullshit in the household only parents who don't have a leg to stand on use assault to get their point across.

I have a big family that of course also has lots of children and when they ever get together there's hardly any drama, children mimic their parents, so if they're acting like total assholes guess who's fault it is? My favourite and most personal ones are parents who blame Video Games etc. for the deaths or them committing murder when those stupid assholes are just sitting in a room watching television because they can't be bothered going to check on their own family.

LOL! Really? Sorry 'bout that. 

I've already stated that they did and I'm fine with it. I think the "rage and emotion" you're sensing is from all the kids I see these days running their parents lives and the parents doing nothing about it.

Gee that's an awful lot of rage and emotion in one paragraph, did your parents hit you when you were young?

Lawful corporal punishment is not assault. An assault is an attack, not punishment.

While we argue semantics little assholes run amok and grow up to become big assholes, because of bleeding hearts that think you can always reason with children and make laws that prevent people from exercising control over their own kids. This isn't child abuse we're talking about, it's discipline. Time outs or lengthy discussions are not always effective or appropriate. Also, many kids just don't have the ability to understand reason, as well as there being adults who aren't as able to convey it, but they do know right from wrong. So to spare these kids a spanking you would rather the parents do nothing or just give them up to the state to deal with them? I think that would do the child far greater harm than good. While I admit that spanking also isn't always effective or appropriate, until we live in this perfect world you're dreaming of, where adults are always able to communicate intelligently with their always reasonable children, I believe spanking has its place as an acceptable disciplinary tool, provided it isn't used solely or abused.

Ah the old "My parents did that to me and I didn't grow up badly" lololololol by the way, let's not call it 'discipline' please, it's assault, if it was done towards an adult it would be considered assault.

The same way I have a problem with parents who don't even try to reason with their children, I also have a problem with those that don't discipline them when necessary.

Obviously reasoning with a child is always preferable and parents should never neglect to do so, but if your child is being unreasonable then what? Just let them continue to be assholes and eventually the state can deal with them? If my parents weren't as strict as they were and if they didn't discipline me when they did, I most certainly would have done some jail time or maybe even be dead.

Congratulations you just justified assault on a child.

This is gonna sound bad but I thnk a loose slap is okay when the kid is yelling CANDY CANDY in a store for example. They get chocked, it doesn't hurt them but they learn not to do it. Telling them to stfu is never enough. :/

As long as they start a fire under a pyre with some evil heathens attached to it it's all okay!

Scandalous! Next he'll say it's okay for the scout leader to pat boy scouts on the bum when they start a good fire.

I'll never hit my kid but I know it's a common thing in religion.  I think the term they use is something like don't "spare the rod".  I've just been through too many college classes where case study after case study shows all sorts of bad things for kids who are abused:  lower grades, jailed often later in life, higher murder rates... the list is endless.

Incredibly sad, he's clearly just another religious prick that uses an invisible god to justify violence against other people.

More...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/the-pope/11392641/Pope-Francis-parents-can-smack-their-children-for-bad-behaviour.html

Are you Catholic and are you of the pro-Pope group (typically of liberal persuasion) or anti (conservative)? Or, name your religious and/or political persuasion as a fun exercise in this topic. Or, just state your opinion in any fashion. I'm just curious what people across the world think/feel about this topic in general and subsequently what they think about the Pope's comments. I'll chime in later on.