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I've seen some "abuse" in public, but nothing worth getting involved in. I've seen far more "parents" involve their children in perfectly legal situations that set them up for a lifetime of failure to believe that saying, "Hey! Stop that," when I see a child get a pat on the butt will do any good.
If I ever witnessed a situation where a child was in immediate physical danger, I'd attempt to intervene to stop the threat, but short of that, parenting other people's children is not my problem, especially when the child is likely already a lost cause.
We had similar thread another thread a while back, so I'll repeat my opinion - I think there should be a public campaign to discourage this type of behavior and encourage better parenting. I agree with WriterDude, if something extreme is going on, it's best to try to get the police involved. But usually when I see these incidents there is no officer around, and most are not so clear-cut to make me feel sure that I'd be doing the child a service by getting law enforcement involved anyway. Luckily I actually don't see this an awful lot though.
"time out" is in a game, not in parental guidance.
Says who? Have you tried time out? It's also not the only piece of the puzzle. Teaching a child to stop, think, and react is a great trait. Hitting a kid doesn't do a whole lot. Many times a kid is frustrated because they want to do something but they can't. They feel powerless, so that is their weapon. Non physical punishments teach a child that they aren't going to always get what they want and if they cry and fuss they will be punished for it. You can go to work and hit people, so why can you hit someone that you are FAR bigger then?
"Time out actually works for my soon to be four year old daughter.. but time out means turning off the TV at that point sitting down quietly and no activities at all, and if that doesn't happen a butt spanking is needed..
Says who? Have you tried time out? It's also not the only piece of the puzzle. Teaching a child to stop, think, and react is a great trait. Hitting a kid doesn't do a whole lot. Many times a kid is frustrated because they want to do something but they can't. They feel powerless, so that is their weapon. Non physical punishments teach a child that they aren't going to always get what they want and if they cry and fuss they will be punished for it. You can go to work and hit people, so why can you hit someone that you are FAR bigger then?
no I haven't, and I am not about to.
besides my children are already adults now, so we didn't have this "time out" crap back in the day. btw and all three of my sons are college graduates, so I must have done something right.
maybe it was a little smack in the head when they went to go near the hot sotve, or when i grabbed their arm so they wouldn't fall down a flight of stairs.
or getting a swat on the behind if they ran into the street.
besides my children are already adults now, so we didn't have this "time out" crap back in the day. btw and all three of my sons are college graduates, so I must have done something right.
maybe it was a little smack in the head when they went to go near the hot sotve, or when i grabbed their arm so they wouldn't fall down a flight of stairs.
or getting a swat on the behind if they ran into the street.
time out, my ass.
Like I said before, it's NOT just time out. Its having conversations and having them learn the rules. It's taking away privileges. It's taking away allowances for things broken or issues caused. It's teaching life lessons. My Mom would be furious that I would just leave my clothes around the house. She would collect them and clean them and fold them. So basically she said any clothes not put in the hamper will not be washed. After ignoring it for awhile, I found I had no clean clothes to wear. At that point I had to wear dirty clothes. Thus I learned that I had to follow the rules and clean up after myself.
That's amazing they are all college graduates but a lot of the issues of spanking aren't easily seen. They can disguise themselves as addictions or lack of self esteem or other psychological issues. The concept that "my kids are okay and I spanked them" is a failed logic. It's like "I smoked cigarettes all my life, I never got cancer". There are plenty of side effects to spanking that can be avoided.
If you have to grab an arm or smack a hand to stop from serious injury, that's fine. You are stopping a situation as quickly as possible. But say, your kid breaks a vase. If you get angry and spank them, what does that teach them? If you break something, you get hit. How much of a chance do you think they would be willing to notify you that something broke? Talking to them and possibly a consequence for their actions if they were being negligent. They know they can come to you with an issue and you won't get furious and hit them.
Obviously these are decisions that each parent makes. They aren't easy. Even timeouts are hard. To listen to your child scream while she learns hurts. But overall it builds a good kid. Everyone can use the idea that this generation is so terrible, but that's because parents REFUSE to pay attention to their child. They just let them do what they want. Lazy punishment and ignoring cause these kids to exist. I see it plenty with 10 year olds playing Call of Duty on Xbox Live swearing and talking about screwing your mom. My question is first, why is a child of this age allowed to play COD? Second, why is he swearing and screaming the n word? Third, why is he allowed to play so much? Some kids are the max level in the game which takes months and months and months of heavy play to reach. Clearly they get home from school and play until they have to go to bed.
I've seen a parent take the SOUL from her son. Roam was kicked back one train one day and I heard a woman say "how the **** are YOU going to become a doctor?" insinuating that this 7-8ish year old kid for whatever reason wasn't capable of achieving that goal. My eyes quickly skid over to this youth's face just in time to see his optimistic gaze soften and the bright spark of life that children carry in their eyes fade into oblivion as he watched his mom in her face as she went back to playing with her phone.
I hope that kid deserts her at 18 and never looks back, and becomes a successful doctor despite her discouragement. Some people are absolutely worthless and do everything they can to beat it into their children's heads that they are worthless too. When I hear stories like this, it makes me happy that I had a dad that told me I could be anything and do anything if I set my mind to it. There was no such thing as "can't".
What bothers me about this is everyone has different levels of what they consider abuse. Some people equal a swat or pat on the butt with beating a cursing out a child. I used to work as a social worker they took this women child for giving her a spanking and it took a year to get her back by that time the child has been molested countless times. Unless its serious abuse don't intervene. And never say anything to the parent go to the police. But first really think would that child be better in foster care?
I swatted my son and his father spanked him two or three times in his childhood. He's a successful man and happily married. Understand there is a difference from a tap or occasional spanking and being beaten and berated every day.
Skilldeadly I gave you a rep for that and I agree wholeheartedly. Some parents are just to lazy to parent so it's easier to just hit. There have been studies about children who were spanked sure a lot of children grew up staying in line but as you said some other side effects happened like children living in fear and not freely expressing them self or feeling they can't turn to their parent out of fear of reprisals. I should know, I was one of these children.
Quakerchick I can somewhat agree with you. Some parents go overboard though. Some don't know when to stop.
Here's a story, this happened only a couple days ago. Someone stated that minorities tend to mistreat their children in public (my opinion anywhere). I agree, I see this a lot with single AA women a lot, usually the poor. What alarms me is the Carribean
Black females are even worse!
For instance, I boarded a bus and sat in the front. A Carribean mother and her daughter also boarded. The mother told the child to sit down in the first seat across from me. The child telling her mother she didn't want to sit there b/c the seat was dirty (it was, it had wads of dirty gum in it and who knows what else) but the mother was hearing it and tried to force the girl to sit. By this time she got the whole bus's attention being very loud and trying to push the girl down in the seat yelling at the girl not to defy her.
I couldn't stand it anymore so I spoke out. I asked the mother couldn't she just sit in third seat in that row which was clean or even asked the man who sat in the middle of both empty seats if he wouldn't mind moving down one seat. Oh no, she gave me a story about her daughter having to mind and what she says goes.......blah blah blah. I said no more and shook my head as she gearing up to say it was none of my business.
I just thought poor girl, she has about another 12 years with this power tripping mother who cared nothing for her child's feelings, not even for her sitting in a soiled seat but also not caring that she embarrassed her on a bus full of strangers.
Parents you have to choose your battles and what the hell difference would there had been if the little girl sat two seats over? The little girl looked to be about 8 or 9 years old.
What bothers me about this is everyone has different levels of what they consider abuse. Some people equal a swat or pat on the butt with beating a cursing out a child. I used to work as a social worker they took this women child for giving her a spanking and it took a year to get her back by that time the child has been molested countless times. Unless its serious abuse don't intervene. And never say anything to the parent go to the police. But first really think would that child be better in foster care?
I swatted my son and his father spanked him two or three times in his childhood. He's a successful man and happily married. Understand there is a difference from a tap or occasional spanking and being beaten and berated every day.
I dare say you have the most courageous post on here. It's easy to say this parent or that parent is bad but, to say a system is bad takes guts.
Also, it's the truth. The government's own statistics confirm that any child is more than - 6 - times as likely to suffer physical or sexual abuse. In rare cases where CPS takes kids that suffer abuse from their parents and, places them in group homes less safe than jail. In many cases, CPS workers are happy to take kids away from parents who give "the little swat or smack" or "some harsh words" some of you nosy people whine about and put them in said group homes.
You sound like you have a conscience but, many in your position have been caught validating foster parent papers for people whose houses were subsequently destroyed in meth accidents, or papers for prior child sex offenders.
Now if you see a kid about to suffer an injury so bad he might need surgery or some crazy crap, then tell who you think you need to but, if it's light or just words; leave it alone. ACS, DFCS, DFYS, all them CPS (Child Parent Separators) are almost all much worse.
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