From: dsc@gemini.tmc.edu (Doug S. Caprette Bldg. 28 W191 x3892)
Subject: Re: Plain Talk About Spanking (long)
Organization: NASA GSFC CDP VLBI
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 23:06:45 GMT

In article <1992Nov4.175052.17934@cs.tulane.edu> js@cs.tulane.edu (Jan Silbermann) writes:
>Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-17906]: caesar
>Sender: news@cs.tulane.edu
>Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
>References: <10098@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM> <1713@doral.UUCP> <25798@optima.cs.arizona.edu>
>Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1992 17:50:52 GMT
>Lines: 34
>
>>...
>>1) Spanking isn't a logical consequence of any action.  Our society
>>doesn't use physical punishments.  Children (and adults) learn best
>>from consequences that follow logically.
>>
>>4) How can you teach children to be respectful if you don't respect
>>them?
>>
Why should this argument apply only to spanking, and not to any other form
of punishment?

I was once told by a little girl (5 year old) after scolding her that "You
don't love me!".

I told her that it was because I loved her, that I wouldn't allow her to be 
bad.  I think she actually understood.

>>
>
>I agree that spanking isn't logical. I witnessed a beautiful case of the
>illogic of spanking yesterday. My daughter and I were in Penney's
>portrait studio, everybody had been waiting for ages because the store
>opened late. There was a little boy of about four with his mother.
>The kid had had enough waiting around and was obviously very tired and
>cranky so he lashed out at my daughter and hit her. Immediately his
>mother grabbed him, gave him a slap on the hand and said "You are
>not allowed to hit." Talk about illogical. 

In what way is this illogical?  There are many, many things that children 
are not allowed to do, which adults are.  Children are quite capable of 
grasping this concept.

>                                              I don't think the child
>had the least notion of what he had done wrong. The punishment didn't
>make him less cranky and tired. 

Of course not!  The purpose of the punishment was not to make him less
cranky and tired, as you well know.  Did he hit your daughter again?  
If not, I daresay that he knew what he had done wrong.  Was slapping his
hand appropriate?  I don't know.  But I have seen cranky and tired children
that if spoken to sincerely or scolded, immediately retaliate by repeating
the offense.  (In this case it would mean hitting your daughter again). 
Perhaps this parent had learned from experience that this was how her child
would respond.

Please note also, that spanking is a subset of hitting.  People who respond
to the idea of spanking by relating stories about children being slapped in 
the face, or beaten with belts, are equating apples with oranges.  Spanking 
is a means of inflicting pain with minimal (not the same as noexistent) risk
of serious injury to the child.  If I were to post about scolding a child,
would you think it inappropriate to equate that with a story about someone
screaming and cursing at a child?  (Oh Oh, here comes another thread.)

>                                  The child cried for about 15 mins after
>the slap. the whole time he was crying the mother was saying how
>sorry she was that she had "HAD to hit him." 
>

I agree that this kind of behaviour, (the profuse appologizing) is confusing 
to the child.  

>                                                   Maybe when he hit my
>daughter the child also felt that he "HAD" to hit?
>

As a child, I had no problem whatsoever with learning to distinguish be-
tween hitting without provocation, fighting back, and being punished by the
time I was four.

I am not suggesting that it would be impossible for a child raised without
corporal punishment to learn these distinctions.  Just that corporal punish-
ment does not, by itself, present such a confusion either.  Many children
have pain inflicted on them because of the mood their parents are in, rather
than as a consequence for their misbehaviour.  This is not punishment, this
is abuse.  This is what confuses and harms the child.   Pain, physical or 
emotional inficted on the child due to factors entrely unrelated to the child's
behaviour is clearly harmful, and is just as clearly not punishment.

I am astounded, that in the 50 or so posts that I've read so far, no one has
suggested this.