Discipline

[Bluewolf]

Before we start, anyone hoping this might be a thread about bondage or any of the 50 shades of grey type scenarios can jog on.. I will leave that to the toe twiddling lovers out there.. I am talking about the disciplining of children.. 

Interestingly Wales are just about to try and end the common law defence for 'reasonable punishment for smacking a child' something that has been in place since Victorian times and campaigners have warned that they will be 'playing with fire' if they are successful as it could lead to a serious implications for parents, police and the courts going forward.

Wales are trying to join the other 54 countries that have outlawed the smacking of children so in a lot of respects they are lagging behind modern thinking elsewhere around the world so what's the problem?? Here is the law as it stands now...

At the moment it is illegal for any parent to smack their child, except where it amounts to 'reasonable chastisement.'

This loophole has been used in law since 1860 and is currently available in England and Wales for parents or adults acting in loco parentis against charges of common assault. The defence is stipulated in section 58 of the Children Act 2004.

The most recent figures available show between 2005 and 2007 there were 12 cases where the use of the defence resulted in an acquittal of a defendant or a discontinuation of proceedings against them in England and Wales. A change in law is also being considered via a private members bill in Scotland which is being considered by MSPs which would remove the defence of 'justifiable assault' in Scottish law as well. 

If the Scottish Parliament and Welsh National Assembly pass their respective pieces of legislation it means both countries will outlaw smacking children.

But, at the moment, the Victorian loophole will still be available for English parents. 

Quote

Viv Laing, head of policy at NSPCC Cymru, said: 'It's wrong that children in Wales have less protection from assault and that a legal defence which does not exist when an adult is hit can be used to justify striking a child.

'We have long campaigned for equal protection for children and we strongly believe a change in the law is a common-sense move. Closing this loophole brings Wales in line with dozens of countries across the world and is simply about fairness and equality for our children.'

Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: 'When a parent raises a hand to a defenceless child, whether that's a smack, slap or another physically harmful behaviour, they have lost control.

'Research tells us that children who are physically punished are more likely to have poorer mental health and physical well-being and when they grow up, are more likely to engage in self-destructive or antisocial behaviour. Hurting a child isn't acceptable and it is a form of child abuse.'

Jamie Gillies, a spokesman for campaign group Be Reasonable, told the Welsh Assembly's Children, Young People and Education Committee: 'The Government is playing with fire if it thinks it can make this change in the law and not affect the lives of parents and by extension children.'

Mr Gillies added that changing the law would be 'disproportionate'. Referring to data from the Police Liaison Unit, Mr Gillies told the Committee that it deduced there 'could be around 1,300 investigations into smacking as an assault after the law changes in the first 5 years of implementation'.

He continued: 'So how many parents are we going to see criminalised for actions which we now call smacking or reasonable chastisement? 

'How many parents are going to have police cautions, which would appear on DBS checks which could affect potentially their employment?'

 

Now I am about to embark on one of my "didn't do me any harm" solos from years gone by but bear with me on it...  Talking from my own childhood experience and since that  time being a parent of 4 kids of my own + 4 Grandkids I feel in a good place to chuck in my ten pence worth...

A law that has been in place since Victorian times does in some respects give you an inkling into the thinking on this subject, something out of touch and very old fashioned in today's modern world perhaps, One might argue it's the reason why kids/teenagers of today tend to follow the wayward path because they got smacked/beaten when they were younger and it might have turned them into career criminals and in some cases they may be right but for me personally it taught me one thing 'respect' You never lipped your parents or you would probably get the belt or a serious thick ear, you never lipped seniors at school or you would get a swift smack in the mouth and you sure didn't lip your teachers or it would be the Cane or Book. Now none of them were very pleasant but I do wonder if they were not in place as a discipline method what kind of a person might I have turned out to be if allowed to do and say pretty much anything I felt like with no consequences?? I think with all things in life children need to understand that there is a limit and a line not be crossed. I know for a fact that trying to talk badly behaved children into behaving when they are 'on one' just does not work in all circumstances... 

I have in my time given my girls a smack or my boys a solid clip round the ear for being out of order or behaving in a manner I consider disrespectful and pretty much like I received as a youngster it was never over the top or continued and 'in line with the crime' so to speak.. I am not a fan of it but do appreciate the merits of it if applied sparingly and at the right time. I will admit that anything I received as a youngster was probably deserved so I have no complaints about that and having grown up to be a well balanced sensible bloke with 4 equally sensible kids that there is a right time and place for everything including reasonable discipline.. 

Although making it against the law will help reduce the over the top abuse that some kids suffer, and god knows I am all in favour of that, I do worry that we are losing something else that helps give us some control over the behavior of children. I dread to think how many parents are going to find themselves in the shit with schools, police and even social services if their kid rocks up to school one morning crying because "mummy slapped me" 

Thoughts??? 

[Bluewolf]

For some reason it has put a quote within the quote?? not sure why

Can't seem to edit it either.. 

[nudge]

6 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

For some reason it has put a quote within the quote?? not sure why

Can't seem to edit it either.. 

Edited it for you...

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, nudge said:

Edited it for you...

[CaaC (John)+]

12 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

For some reason it has put a quote within the quote?? not sure why

Can't seem to edit it either.. 

Firstly,  thank fuck you re having problems with quotes and Edits, so am I lol, and I thought it was just this laptop causing the problem. 

Now, back on topic, I was bought up the old fashioned way with my parents, misbehave and I would have got a good old scalp across the ears by my old man or my mother putting me across her knee's and a good spanking to boot where I could not sit down after for ages because it fucking hurt, then get grounded for a week, at school if you misbehaved it was the cane across your hands and in Australia it was the strap, nowadays you just have to touch a kid with your finger or grab their shoulder then you have broken the law, what a load of bollocks.

I am not advocating the likes of beating a child senseless with a fist, open hand or any other object is ok, people who go to that extremes need to be beaten senseless themselves, I can remember our son telling his son (our grandson) who was being cheeky to him "I never talked to your granddad, my dad like that, If I did or misbehaved I would have got a good smack around my ear or the back of my legs", he was right, that's the way I disciplined our two kids growing up and it worked.   

Also the local 'Bobby on the Bike' or policeman in Tilbury Docks in Essex where I grew up and that was bloody rough if the 'Bobby on the Bike' caught us misbehaving like scrumping, fighting or anything else bad he would grab you by the ear, scalp you around the back of the head and then march you home and tell your mum or day who would thank the policeman and tell him we will deal with it which they did, a good old fashioned spanking or a slap around the back of the head then grounded for a week..  

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, CaaC - John said:

Firstly,  thank fuck you re having problems with quotes and Edits, so am I lol, and I thought it was just this laptop causing the problem. 

Must be an age thing mate.. 

1 hour ago, CaaC - John said:

Also the local 'Bobby on the Bike' or policeman in Tilbury Docks in Essex where I grew up and that was bloody rough if the 'Bobby on the Bike' caught us misbehaving like scrumping, fighting or anything else bad he would grab you by the ear, scalp you around the back of the head and then march you home and tell your mum

We used to have a Bobby on the Bike as well and he knew everyone in the area... When I got my first bike ( fizzy 50 ) I took it up the school to show my mates totally illegal of course and as I was waiting round by the station he turned up on his bike and I thought shit!! He came over and we were talking for a bit and all the time he is giving the bike the once over and just before he left he turned to me and said " that will be worth a nick later" and smiled at me... I made off pretty sharpish not wanting to push my luck and never took it up the school again.. 

The Bobbies on the beat back then had people skills especially where kids were concerned... 

[The Artful Dodger]

It's difficult, you can see the inherent issue with allowing an adult to define 'appropriate violence' against a child, I think we'd all agree than ideally it would never be needed. Using our own experience is seldom a good argument for everyone else, I got a few slaps on the legs from my mother and don't think any the less of her for it or that it did me any harm. Sadly, I do think human beings need an element of fear to behave themselves, if people don't fear any consequences they'll behave in the natural human way; greedy, selfish and boorish. I'm not necessarily against outlawing hitting children in any way, but I do think we need a more firm Justice System which properly punished people, whatever age, for the seriousness of their crimes.

[CaaC (John)+]

1 hour ago, Bluewolf said:

We used to have a Bobby on the Bike as well and he knew everyone in the area..

 

1 hour ago, Bluewolf said:

The Bobbies on the beat back then had people skills especially where kids were concerned... 

Aye, they knew everyone in the area and just knew how to treat people, our local Bobby use to drink with my old man and all the others at the Tilbury Dock's Dockers club, we would run a mile if we saw him biking around, one of my mates got grabbed by the Bobby when he caught him scrumping apples, he grabbed him and clipped him around the ears and said "You wait until I see your old man at the club tonight...now scarper!!" and booted him up the arse.

My mate Billy was shiting himself before he got home, and sure enough, I knocked at his door the next morning to see if he was coming out and his mum answered, gave me a horrible stare, and said "NO!!!! He has been grounded for a week for scrumping, you didn't have anything to do with this did you?"  His mum was the spitting image of old Enid Sharples from Coronation Street with the curlers and what not and was rough as nuts, I whispered " no " and I fucking legged it quick smart. 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

I have a very loud deep voice and when I yell my wife said I could break a glass, and when my kids were young and misbehaving a yell from me would stop them in their tracks and if that did not work then a slap around the back of the legs did the trick, our children will never slap their sons but will take away their privileges like watching tv, mobile phones, Playstations etc and ground them for a week or more and will only allow them to draw or read books which works nowadays. 

[RandoEFC+]

Physical violence doesn't help and there's been countless studies to prove that. 

A lack of discipline comes from ill-equipped parents and it's a struggle in this generation. You have to teach your children how to behave, you do that by encouraging them when they do the right things and punishing them when they don't. For young children that might be that they don't get to go and get their £1 pick and mix at the end of the shopping trip if they run around banging into random strangers while you're getting the actual shopping done. For teenagers that might be no you're not going out tonight for being a rude shit or you're staying up too late on your Xbox too often so it stays in the living room from now on until you prove you're mature enough to be responsible about your gaming time and sleeping pattern.

It's not rocket science but you have to get it right from when they're young otherwise it gets harder and harder to rein them back in.

Too many parents care more about their own peace and quiet than their kids growing up with good discipline though. This is why you see young families at meals when the kids are sat there with an iPad or a phone that they really don't need at 7 years old to shut them up. All this teaches them is that as long as you don't bother mummy and daddy too much then you can keep this screen, a source of constant instant gratification so that you never learn the value of actually having to earn or wait for the things you want.

Fast forward a few years and you've got half a classroom full of teenagers who learn nothing in school because they think that as long as they don't bother the teacher too much it's okay to play on their phones under the desk, do nothing and learn nothing ignorant of the long term costs this will have on their lifelong prospects.

Yes I know it's typical of me to bring teaching related gripes into the thread but all of it is linked together. The bottom line is that parents need to be more responsible and actually take responsibility for some of their kids education on a social level. I fear now though that even if your parents bring you up properly then most schools have too big of a majority of rude and entitled children who have never been taught manners and are obsessed with either their devices and games or worse so that even the good kids are at risk of getting sucked into the same crowd.

I'm really fucking lucky that my parents made sure they did things right raising me and my brother, and my grandparents before them. I can count on one hand the number of times I got 'smacked' though and never did I properly get the belt or anything. Physical discipline doesn't come into it and like I said originally has been proven to be the least effective approach. 

[CaaC (John)+]

12 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

Too many parents care more about their own peace and quiet than their kids growing up with good discipline though. This is why you see young families at meals when the kids are sat there with an iPad or a phone that they really don't need at 7 years old to shut them up. All this teaches them is that as long as you don't bother mummy and daddy too much then you can keep this screen, a source of constant instant gratification so that you never learn the value of actually having to earn or wait for the things you want.

 

True, if our grandsons are visiting and the wife will put out food and the grandsons are on a tablet or mobile our son or daughter will tell them to put them away while you are eating if we are watching them and our son & daughter are not there then we will do the same and tell them to eat their meals first and put them away which they do.

In my days at school we had no mobiles or calculators but a teacher with chalk and a blackboard, if he/she caught you not paying attention then you know you would get a ruler slapped on your hand and a hundred lines you had to do when you got home and a letter to your parents saying why you had a hundred lines and they made sure you did them before they would let you out the door to play.   

 

13 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

A lack of discipline comes from ill-equipped parents and it's a struggle in this generation. You have to teach your children how to behave, you do that by encouraging them when they do the right things and punishing them when they don't. For young children that might be that they don't get to go and get their £1 pick and mix at the end of the shopping trip if they run around banging into random strangers while you're getting the actual shopping done.

Our daughter has a misbehaviour chart on her kitchen wall for our grandsons if they act up they will get points put on the chart if they go over the number then restrictions like no tv, PlayStations, computers etc for a number of days, if our eldest grandson plays her up (13 years old) then she will remove his tv, iPad, tablet, laptop from his bedroom and put them in a box, he can only use his mobile when he goes to school and when he comes home she will take the mobile off him, they can read books or write and draw if they want, that works for her and our son does the same with his laddie.