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SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD?
An overly permissive society creates overly violent offspring
It was in Back in 1985 that Dr. Benjamin Spock, an American pediatrician, authored a book in which he warned parents not to spank their children. His book claimed that corporal punishment “teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way whether or not he is in the right.” He further suggested that the “American tradition of spanking” contributes to violence in the United States.
So powerful was this argument, and so desperate were housewives and mothers across the nation, that they almost immediately accepted his advice and ceased corporal punishment in the home. It was about that time that school districts across the country began wholesale banning of corporal punishment. A popular axiom, a twist on biblical scripture, became very popular.
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“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
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After that, most parents abstained from corporal punishment. They were loath to spank or slap their children, or to physically punish them in any way. Capitalizing on Spock’s success, ‘self-help child care’ books appeared on bookstore shelves almost daily. Among the many failed approaches taught was ‘Time Out’, in which a child is theoretically to be confined to his or her room or a special place in the house for a given period of time. Let me ask you, “Do you have children? Do you think you could keep an angry 6-year-old in the corner or in his room when he knows there is no consequence greater than time out?” Get real! When a child knows there will be no physical enforcement of any rule, he is bound to rebel … and get away with it!
Predictably, the results of these new, totally non-violent approaches were that violence actually increased. It increased in frequency, variety, and severity – just the opposite of what Dr. Spock had predicted. It was this sudden disappearance of boundaries of behaviour that led to the expanding epidemic of violence which has engulfed our country, especially over the last 36 years.
According to the NCIC [National Crime Information Centre] the incidence of homicide among minors [children] has risen nearly 1500 percent since 1986 [which is only a year after the publication of Dr. Spock’s book]. Incidences of ‘child-on-parent’ assault have risen nearly 1700 percent. Finally, incidences of ‘child-on-teacher’ violence in schools have risen 800 percent!
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Many of the recent mass shootings and attacks in and out of school can be traced directly to ‘sparing the rod.’
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Today’s parents are deathly afraid to strike a child. This is because of the looming threat of CPS [Child and Protective Services] action against them for even the slightest infraction. Over-reactive and over zealous CPS agents are rabidly eager to take part in the drama of removing children from their homes and placing them in foster care.
In the case of CPS it is
always a situation where, according to the late Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Horror stories of violence not only committed by children but the adults they have become in the last 36 years bare incontrovertible proof of the violence born through passive parenting. Such stories proliferate in today’s media on all platforms.
According to Dr. Amos J. Brown, MD, Ph.D. “We can directly link a lack of corporal punishment in the home and schools to a marked increase in violent crime at all ages. This situation has brewed for nearly 40 years and the chickens have come home to roost. This isn’t just a child problem because problem children grow up to be problem parents and adults. When these problem parents have children, they in turn become problem adults and the cycle continues.”
Looking for a solution to this growing plague of violence, it has been suggested by experts on both the legal and psychiatric sides of the fence that corporal punishment, meted with consistency, is the answer. In fact, Dr. Balan Sha, PhD, a noted criminologist, has suggested that corporal punishment in the justice system would also be greatly effective. He cites Singapore, Thailand, and a number of other Asian countries which do administer corporal punishment in the form of caning. His studies show a remarkable drop in violent crime, and crime altogether, when would-be crooks realize that the consequence for their crimes may well be a sound beating accompanied by military-style incarceration.
Dr. Sha says, “In 2002, caning was introduced into a Pradesh in India which did not use corporal punishment in their penal system. Within 2 years of the caning alternative’s introduction they reported dramatic lowering [89%] in the number of violent crimes. Surveying inmates within the jails and work camps showed that nearly 95 percent of those questioned cited corporal punishment as their greatest fear and therefore their greatest deterrent against committing crimes of violence. None of them wanted to ‘come back for more of the same’, especially in the form of caning.”
In summary, corporal punishment at all levels is the cure for our current plague of violence. From the youngest child to the oldest criminal offender, corporal punishment is the one ‘magic bullet’ for nearly all wanton violence.
I’m Max, and that’s the way I see it!
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