Talulah

I think this shows your attitude quite clearly. While I am not that knowledgable about Stockholm Syndrome, I do know a good deal about PTSD and I can assure that it is very real. Often with visable and documentable (in serious cases of flashbacks and regression) symptoms.

Guillaume

Personally I think that using any kind of “discipline” is an incredibly harmful way to raise children. In fact, I never understood why parents resorted to discipline in the first place.

Indeed, when a colleague or a friend says or does something that hurt you, you don’t order him to sit in a corner for 5 minutes or prevent him from watching TV. You discuss with him, you explain your position, you try to reach an agreement. So why do you act different when it comes to your children ?

Is it because you the luxury to dominate them as they are too weak, to dependant to fight back ?

Why do you violently impose your own opinions on them, effectively denying their freedom and their choices ?

…

Imagine a person. That person is you master ; you have to follow his rules. You didn’t chose him, yet you are forced to obey him. That master dictates your life. He dictates at which hour you sleep, at which hour you eat. He dictates what your pastimes should be. He dictates what your hairstyle is, what cloths you must wear. He dictates what you must believe, what your ideals needs to be. He dictates who is your friend and how you aren’t allowed to see. Fail to comply or meet his exigencies, and he will severely punish you.

Who would passively obey such dictatorship ?

Someone who is too weak to contest it.

But what happens when the weak gets strong ?

He rebels. He becomes a teenager.

Indeed, the “teenager rebellion” is in fact nothing more than the direct result of discipline : the child, who was forced to obey his parents from day one, now finally has the power to revolt against their rules and chose his own destiny. Indeed, the parents only used power, authority and fear to deal with the child ; once the child grow up and gets power and independence, he no longer as any reason to obey. The parents, however, are too dumb to understand this and instead foolishly and arrogantly continue and dictate the teenager. Thru starts the war between the parents and teenager. The teenager, filled with hatred for his parents, starts to make them suffer to avenge his own suffering. The hatred for his parents quickly becomes a hatred for his teachers, a hatred for society and a hatred for himself. Each act he does against his parents and society is a statement of his hatred, and with each new aggression perpetrated he becomes more and more a monster, a monster that he does not want to be, a monster he hates.

….

Such is the path that I once took, the path of sadness and hatred, the path of mediocrity. Unlike many, I got lucky : some twist of fate made me realize what I was starting to become. I was able to finally become great and exceptional, I was able to finally feels proud of myself. In fact, my superiority was so great as to consider others, including my parents, as mediocre being not even worthy of attention. I made then the vow to never allow someone to ruin my life again . This, I believe, is the turning point of my life. This is also when I found my first and only hero in the person of Raistlin. Even now, I still consider myself an eternal rebel, an extraordinary being freed to do as he wish, and nearly every day I can’t help but think of Raistlin…

nermal

Bad choice of words there. I certainly didn't mean to imply that these disorders are nonsense; but that the idea that spanking leads to them is nonsense. Social "scientists" have attributed all manner of extreme disorders to spanking, including PTSD. I was making the point that such speculation is nonsense.

Before anyone nocks their arrows, let's be clear. I'm talking about spanking, not dragging the child about the house beating him with sticks, belts, bottles etc. or any other manner of favorite child abuses anyone can dream up.

Ed

nermal

I'll bite. Who's Raistlin? The sixth Beatle?

Ed

lpetrich

Why not do with little children what one does with dogs? Like make anything dangerous physically inaccessible to them, put them on leashes, use nonviolent forms of discipline like sounding very disapproving, etc.

yelyos

Under what circumstances would it be acceptable/desirable to spank an adult? What if you encountered an adult who wanted to stick things in electrical sockets? What would you do?

nermal

I'd let him, as long as they were his, and he only risked burning down his own house.

As for spanking adults, that's non sequiter. When would it be permissible to force an adult into time-out? Ground an adult? Make an adult eat his vegetables? Don't be absurd.

Ipetrich--
You do all those things with children (though I personally don't leash mine). Spanking isn't a replacement for other techniques. In fact, it is usually applied only when the others have failed, or urgency requires (electrical socket example.)

Ed

yelyos

Exactly. What makes spanking adults absurd, while spanking children is acceptable? IMO, corporal punishment should not be used, but IF there is a distinction between those that should and shouldn't be corporally punished, it should be based on mental capacity rather than age.

nermal

By your logic, no disciplinary techniques may be used. You are against spanking children arbitrarily. I am in favor of it because it works.

Ed

Harumi

Set a two year old down and try to reason with them the way you would with a colleague. I guarantee that the child will not understand what you are trying to say.

The reason why we discipline children is precisely because they are too young to reason. Especially when they do something that's extremely wrong, such as for instance: biting other people, hitting other people, or screaming on the top of their lungs because they wanted to play with the razor blade and we wouldn't let him.

As it is, I'm not even sure that your analogy with the colleague is correct. Do we set murderers down and discuss with them, then let them go scott free? No, we put them in jail. What about shop-lifters? Community service, or again jail. Discipline.

Why do we violently impose our beliefs on them? Because their actions are harmful. That's what discipline is.

*Note: I'm not supporting spanking, I'm supporting non-violent discipline.