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Old October 26th 03, 08:06 AM
Kane
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Default Dennis was U.N. rules Canada should ban spanking

On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 21:41:06 GMT, "Dennis Hancock"
wrote:

Thank you for interspercing your comments in proximity to my post. It
makes for much more readible and interesting posts to my mind.


"Kane" wrote in message
om...
On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 22:42:01 GMT, "Dennis Hancock"
wrote:


"Kane" wrote in message
It isn't dishonest of me to consider the link between abuse and
spanking nor is it dishonest of me to consider the state of the

world
and its societies as possibly being linked to the use of pain

and
humiliation in parenting.

One can find a 'link' to just about everything,

Kane wrote:
Yes, one can. I've noticed the spankers do, just as you will do

very
soon in this reply of yours.


No Kane, it's apparent that only YOU see direct links which do not

exist.

No, I am not the only person to see such links. Those doing research
in brain scans and behavioral observation research are my sources. As
well as my own long history of observation and treatment of abused
children.

Amusing that you now can predict what others will say.


It's no mystery or special claim. There is a long history of responses
to the spanking issue by spankers in these negs. I daresay you could
have made the same claim about me. I tend to repost or reuse data and
information that is relevant.

Kane wrote:
Do you believe that pain received in childhood reduces the pain

given
by that child when she grows up?


I haven't seen a single person make that claim here, your kind of

stretching
a bit aren't you?


I have seen numerous persons make such a claim. You just fail to
recognize it. Many times the unwanted behavior a parent spanks for is
hitting and biting between children or hitting the adult.

My question though wasn't really that narrow in scope. I am, of
course, referring to the fact that many who were spanked do so to
their children, and tend, all too often, as was recently posted to
this ng, escalate to more pain by way of spanking.

Pain received in childhood teaches a child at the
simplest most basic level to avoid certain situations BECAUSE they

can be
painful.


I agree. Natural consequences are extremely educational, but cause the
object of the pain is the object or action the child touchers or does.
Children get plenty of that, from the very first.

They watch and study with great intensity even the expression and the
body language of their primary parent, usually their mother. Mother's
who are observant notice very subtle responses from their child
according to how the mother presents to them.

It doesn't 'reduce' adulthood pain, it reinforces against stupid
behavior.


I agree. I doesn't reduce adutlhood pain. I would argue that it does
increase the likelihood of the pain parented child to find MORE pain
in adulthood. Some of it psychological and some behavioral.

In other words the spanked child tends to have reactions that interfer
with them getting what they need and want without a lot of pain
involved. Sometimes for themselves and sometimes for others.

And your second point: "it reinforces against stupid
behavior" something of a puzzle.

I've done a great deal of animal training, and some of my most
interesting work was undoing the bad training of others. I did a great
deal of it.

And incident that comes readily to mind was a young polo mare trucked
in for training at a large stable I managed. I'd say she was probably
a 3 year old. Had been range bred and belonged originally to one of
the Rockerfellers. I watched the "trainer" work with her. He was a
quick hand with the polo whip. Ever see one?

It's about three feet long, leather covered with a nylon core, very
springy and stiff. If you took the leather off you could cut a horse
with it...and even with leather it leaves a terrible welt. Very
painful.

She managed to survive all his "training" pretty well...after all
horses if well bred tend to have temperments to cope with and tolerate
man. She was a Thorougbred.

It came time to ship her out to the new owner for her introduction to
the game in scrimmages and practices. The "trainer" was putting her in
the truck, up a short ramp at a kind of steep angle, but one she could
make easily.

She fought going into the truck, a flatbed with high stake sides. He
would get her to the ramp (he was mounted on her) and she would balk
just at the first step, the touch of the wooden ramp. He'd whip her,
hard with that polo whip, and she would immediately start running
backward pretty fast away from the ramp...a very dangerous thing for a
horse to do, what with bystanders, etc.

I was known for teaching horses to trailer and truck very quickly,
usually in 10 or 15 minutes with the lead rope just thrown over their
back. I have a very light touch with animals and children. I just kind
of walk them where they need to be and oddly my gentle approach seems
to work every time...with abused horses or abused children.

And they shortly walk alone where I want them to go, no lead rope at
all.

The "trainer" thought he had one even I couldn't train...and though he
had watched me do it many times...he took a chance this little mare
was so bad I couldn't work with her.

He didn't know that he had trained her for me of course.

I took his whip, mounted up, rode the mare to the ramp, she balked, I
reined her in a quick spin so she was facing away from the truck and
just touched her rump with the polo whip...not hitting.....where he
had been whipping her, and she of course did as trained...she ran
backwards....right up into the truck. I dismounted, tossed him his
whip, pulled off the saddle and bridle and walked down the ramp.

All one has to do to NOT use pain is the think. Is that so very hard?


yet there is a vast
difference between 'abuse' and 'spanking'.

Kane wrote:
A claim frequently made and rarely defended with any rigor at all.
There is a very fine and tenuous line between the two. Many

variables
are involved. The child, the parent, the events, the time of day,

the
reasons for the abuse or spanking, even the health of the child,

and
much more.


But it is YOU who seem to equate both equally.


Yes I do. It's you folks that want to claim that I'm talking about
comparing a punch in the face with a spanking. I'm not. But I am
saying that there is a degree of abuse to spanking, in fact using
punishment when a child is trying desperately to learn her environment
and needs a willing coach and protector. One to help, the other to
keep her alive and relatively undamaged as she explores.

There is a hell of a
difference between a swat on the butt with one's open hand and

beating them
unconscious with one's fist.


You make is sound as though I am suggesting that abuse is only beating
a child unconscious with one's fist. No, there are abusive elements in
even the mildest punishments. The abuse is to the child's development.

Instead of protecting the child from harm but supporting their
exploration the punishing parent simply tries to stop behavior. I
presume some know to at least present some alternatives to enrich the
child's exploratory attempt, but I don't see anyone claiming they do
that at all when we discuss spanking here. It's always about an
unwanted action being stopped. As though that was all there is to it.

Apparently, you cannot defferentiate between
the two in your conclusions that all spanking equals abuse.


Certainly a punch in the face is abuse. Who would argue that.

It is not the only abuse.

I believe that it is abusive not to support a child's learning about
the world and their environment and not protecting them from
harm....simultaneously.

It's not rocket science....honest. It is so easy and fun that when I
teach people how to do it they are delighted to come back later and
tell me how it replaced their punishing ways.....and the payoff was
huge. The child does BETTER at finding alternative ways, safe ways, to
explore, and trusts the parent ... so are not afraid to ask for help.

I wrote:
To try to qualify the link by
using the state of the world and it's societies, you are ignoring

the
ever
growing psychobabble that we have been spoon fed for the past

twenty
years
about the evils of spanking.


Kane wrote:
I'm not ignoring it at all. I tend to view it, as I have written,

as
weak compared to my observations for over 40 years, in both
professional mileu and private life.


Most of the rest of us have had 'observations' for just as long or

longer
Kane.


Over 40 years? That would be a surprize. How old are you?

I've observed both spanked and non spanked kids, AND in fact reported
abusive situations to cps myself.


I do hope you were very careful to differentiate.

One of the things about personal
observation is the ability to distinguish between useful spanking and
outright abuse. We are given minds to make that distinction with.


Some children are very hardy and can easily survive a good deal of
"useful spanking" while others are more sensitive and can be damaged
by too harsh a word.

Now who is, as you accused me of doing, treating all chidlren the
same?


Perhaps the absence of spanking is the greatest link to the state

of
the
world today?


Doubtful given the prevalence.

Since more and more begin to follow that advice almost daily.


Kane wrote:
All you must do is come up with a lot of children who weren't

spanked
or punished in our prisons and mental wards. Should be easy. Give

it a
shot.


Another straw man here Kane?


A straw man argument is one that directs an the argument against a
claim everyone agrees upon or that is weak.

That isn't what I was doing. I am asking you to find children that
weren't spanked or punished in prisons and mental wards. The claim
frequently is that children not disciplined (and we know that means
punished to the spanking set) are at high risk of misbehaving and some
have made a claim that they are more likely to become criminals.

I'm simply asking if you agree and if so please point out the
punishment free inmates. Others have tried and failed for a very good
reason. Punishment is abusive and moreso in the child that needs
support and protection. They sometimes do not have the luck to turn
out well, and the inmates are rich with this population.

It was YOU who made the claim that spanking
leads to all these conditions, not I, nor any of the other debaters

in here.

Yes, I know. I also cited a Dr. Fischer who was or is with University
of Chicago School of Social Science that tried to find some unspanked
and I presume unpunished folks in jail and failed....not one. He
couldn't find even one.

Had to give up the study. No population to observe.

Thus far, you've failed to show credibility in providing that proof.


I have to prove the unpunished children don't go to jail or mental
wards at the rate that the spanked and otherwise punished do?

One can't prove a negative.

On the other hand do YOU think that it's difficult to find unspanked
folks in prison.

I don't need to put my finger in a lightsocket to know what will
happen if I'm grounded, or hit ground and hotside in the socket. I
know the same thing about prisons. I really do trust the folks that
work with that population not to lie to me.


Caveat: Note that other researches have gone bust trying to find

them.
I never had and I've looked.

Or is that beyond your comprehension.


Not in the least. I began at age 19 to consider this issue. Very
shortly it became apparent to me that when the unspanked child

still
behaved badly it was more likely a product of other more severe
emotional or psychological punishments.


You still haven't considered but the tip of the subject.


What a silly thing to say. Not only have I "considered" it, but I've
gone far beyond it doing work to help children recover from it.

emotional abuse
can be much worse than physical abuse in many cases. I would much

prefer a
spanking than being abused emotionally, just as I would prefer a

spanking
over physical abuse. Again, you fail to look beyond a simple glance

at the
surface.


That is an assumption of yours. Not the truth.

I have to ask you: Why would you assume that an alternative to
spanking I would use to parent with is emotionally abusive?

I have never posted, and I've posted a lot, to these newsgroups, that
children should not be spanked but must be punished. I've never found
a single behavior of children that I couldn't, either by my superior
control of the environment (like put up a fence around the yard)
redirect into a richer experience.

The child reaching for the counter where the big kitchen knife is
needs two things. The knife needs to be put away....AND...THIS IS
IMPORTANT SO YOU'LL EXCUSE MY YELLING PLEASE....something else to do.

Do you know why Tupperware parties are so wonderfully profitable? R R
R R R R .... ask a mommy what the second most imporant use is for
Tupperware and she'll likely tell you: "To store things in."

They all know what the most imporant use is for the little guys.

I suppose you use 'reason' to a small child of one or two to keep

him
from
running into the street. Well it doesn't work.


There we go again. I do not "'reason'" with small children. I set

up
systems, as humans have had to do since the times when small

children
were the favorite prey of pack and predatory animals that preyed on
the edges of the human pack.


I can tell you have had absolutely no, or very limited contact with

small
children.


Your ignorance is exceeded only by your hubris.

I have had, unless you have been in the same work as I, contact with
thousands of children, both in and out of treatment settings. And from
toddler on up to teen.

Guess what, many of the grand 'systems' of conduct just don't
work with some children.


The reason they "don't work" is often that they are misapplied, or not
well enough understood. One of the best for the normal child and
parent is quite hard to learn unless one participates in a training
where one experiences the changes in self and others using the
skillset.

To darn bad too as it is so powerful it should be banned from common
use. More than one psychologist was less than happy with the tools
being released to the public domain. But Tom Gordon knew what he was
doing. Now the tools have become not only common place in parenting
but in human interpersonal relations at many levels. Management uses
them a lot.

Check out Tom Gordon's page at:

http://www.thomasgordon.com/


Tom died earlier this year, but his contribution to better relations
between people and especially his PET for parents and children is a
very real contribution to us all.

And the parent who truly understands this, knows
which children need reinforcement and which of their children don't.

Any
parent who approached teaching all of their children in exactly the

same way
is surely doomed to fail in their teachings of at least one of them.


Did you mention "straw man" earlier? I think you did. R R R R

I think you are rambling a bit. But then it's the use of a poorly
defined term I guess. What do you mean by "need reinforcement?"

I use a great deal of "reinforcement" with children, just as I did
with animals I trained, though the scope is somewhat different. I
simply didn't find I ever needed pain as a reinforcer.

The strongest reinforcement was proven in research to be intermitant
positive reinforcement...meaning you don't even have to do (like you
do with aversive pain) to use it every time to get the most compliant
response...just doing it from time to time works wonderfully...sounds
like it was made for busy parents, doesn't it? I think nature intended
it and made us responsive to it because that's what was used before
the morality police get ahold of us all.

My onw reinforcement consists of making it clear I am the protector,
and the coach, and the most trustworth and biggest supporter.

Now I presume some of this applies to parents who punish. I know they
don't punish all the time...I just contend they never have to punish
at all and they'll raise more psychologically healthy, eager, and
trusting learners, and in time, adults.


Jerry Alborn answered this question most eloquently some time back.
I'll point you to his comment:

http://tinyurl.com/rfzq

or

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%2...igy.com&rnum=1

Not only have I proven to my own satisfaction and written many

times
about the method I used to teach children not to run into traffic,

I
do know that punishment does not work to keep children from

attempting
to make street entries. I've posted this study before, and I'll

post
it again just for you, since you appear far more dedicated to
discrediting me than to searching for facts that might confound

your
locked in belief....three of which you've already shared with us.


No, Im discrediting your beliefs.


You may do that. I am discrediting yours after all.

I can wager that you never lived in the
inner city, on a heavily populated street whereby small children run

into
traffic all the time.


You'd be wrong then. I have lived in just such environments. And I saw
them spanked, jerked around, slapped, yelled at, and they still ran
toward the street. Mamma had to get a harness to keep them safe...what
should have been the solution in the beginning.

As a child I watched a friend of mine get his head
crushed by a truck's tire.


You have my sympathy. I lost my best childhood buddy, at 16, under the
weight of a old tricycle steering John Deere tractor on his dad's
contract with an oil or gas lease doing earth moving and road
building.

Was your friend not spanked sufficiently to save his life?

These things happen. He would not have survived no matter how much
spanking he had. Though I don't recall his dad or mom being spankers
or very punishing. Do you suppose he would have known not to get on
the tractor to earn some money had he been spanked properly?

Of course I suppose it's easy to simply lock the
small child up all day,


Why would you assume I mean that? Which of us accused the other,
erroneously of using a strawman argument? This is a classic.

but anyone who has had to chase one around for a few
hours surely knows that simply telling them something is bad just

simply
doesn't work.


Again, you assume that not spanking or punishing requires only the
actions you post in the paragraph above. I only need one or two things
that work for me, and neither (though I do tend to include verbal
instruction to lay down the memory track in the child's brain for
later use when they can understand what I meant) would require the
least bit of pain or fear.

And I rarely use the word 'bad' with either children or adults. I may
not like something someone does, but I will say so, not label them bad
or, in fact good. I hate it when I hear someone say to a human child,
"that's a good boy."

Trust me, if I ever say it to you, it's an insult. I have no right to
judge someone else's behavior as morally good or bad, only to judge if
I do not like it, or I like it. I'll tell you when I like what you
say.


Let's start with the bonifides of one of those you believe is

spoon-
feeding you psychobabble, shall we? Then I'll provide you with a
little note about what his observations showed on the very question
you bring up:

http://www.paxis.org/people/DR.%20Em...aphy-1999.html


And here is what he had to say about his study:

In the Summer 1987 issue of _Children_ magazine, Dr. Dennis Embry
writes:
"Since 1977 I have been heading up the only long-term project
designed to counteract pedestrian accidents to preschool-aged
children.
(Surprisingly, getting struck by a car is about the third leading
cause
of death to young children in the United States.)
"Actual observation of parents and children shows that spanking,
scolding, reprimanding and nagging INCREASES the rate of street
entries
by children. Children use going into the street as a near-perfect

way
to gain parents' attention.
"Now there is a promising new educational intervention program,
called Safe Playing. The underlying principles of the program are
simple:

1. Define safe boundaries in a POSITIVE way. "Safe
players play on the grass or sidewalk."
2. Give stickers for safe play. That makes it more fun
than playing dangerously.
3. Praise your child for safe play.

"These three principles have an almost instant effect on
increasing safe play. We have observed children who had been

spanked
many times a day for going into the street, yet they continued to

do
it.
The moment the family began giving stickers and praise for safe

play,
the
children stopped going into the street.

Dennis D. Embry, Ph.D.
University of Kansas
Lawrence Kansas"


Is that supposed to 'impress' someone who has lived in this

situation?

It's been my experience that many people stop learning anything new
after the age of 15 or so. They just extrapolate from what they
learned up to that point.

I don't care if you are impressed or not. I only care if you can
learn.

I
say it's total bull****, from another psychologist who simply wants

to get
his 'finding's published as some caveat.


Apparently he isn't just about being published. These folks paid for
his work:

"Dr. Embry has an international reputation in the area of designing,
testing and disseminating effective large-scale educational campaigns
to increase school and community safety, child safety, family
well-being and health. Those research projects have been contracted
and/or funded by such organizations as the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, U.S. Office of Education, the AAA Foundation
for Traffic Safety, The Moerk Company Foundation, the W.T. Grant
Foundation, DuPont, IBM and grants from a number of other companies,
non-profit foundations, and foreign governments—particularly as a
National Research Advisory Council Senior Fellow in New Zealand."

I suppose you know better. To what do you attribute your knowledge
being superior to his?

First of all, giving a swat on the butt for approaching the street is

not
'NAGGING'.. lol.


I don't recall anyone saying that it was. Hey! He's even a Sunday
School teacher.

Once you've taught the small child that nearing the street
is painful, it stops, no need for 'nagging'. Sounds more like the

'talk to
your child approach' which has caused more children to run into the

streets.

It may sound like it but it is not. Can you support your claim that
"talk to your child" has caused more children to run into the streets?

Give them a 'positive' way, play on the grass etc? Again, you ASS U

ME that
the child is old enough to understand.


No, I assume that they can follow directions, and it feels good to a
child to follow directions given by an adult they trust to protect
them. When they are old enough to understand they don't need me to
tell them anything. They can figure out that a large metal body
impacting a small soft human body is painful and or deadly.

Where I lived, we had a small mound
of dirt between apartments, surrounded by concrete. Or in the back,
railroad tracks. Tell me HOW you find a positive play place in that
situation.


So the only way left to keep them from being run over was to spank
them into submission? I thought you said your friend got run over, his
skull crushed? Are you willing to claim he wasn't spanked
sufficiently?

LOL.. I can imagine a parent walking up to a child every few minutes

and
hand them stickers, or say, 'great job playing'.


Why would you imagine that? The conversation is much more specific.
And it only takes a time or two, unlike spanking that seems to go on
for quite some time before it takes, for the child to get it.

Get real. That scenario
only assumes that the child already has the ability to comprehend and

is
already avoiding dangerous situations.


No it doesn't. It assumes the child trusts the adult to instruct them
in safety concerns. Do you think Dr. Embry lied about the results he
said he observed?

Write and tell him. Me, I know he is correct as I've used the same
methods for other safety issues, and with my own children, I simply
kept them safe by where and how I took them around traffic, and when
they were of the right age I gave them The Flat Possum lesson.

You've only reinforced the nonsense of the pyschobabble just as I

suspected.

Psychobabble is when folks make claims not based on good evidence. I
consider Dr. Embry's evidence quite conclusive, but I still tested it
out myself. I was surprized at how well it worked teaching my children
not to touch the hot wood stove. Though I kept a pretty good barrier
around it my youngest was a very eager explorer of everything.

Yet, when I simply told him and showed him, by using a piece of beef,
what happens when a baby touches his hand to the stove he got it just
fine...what was more important...he trust me completely...as I had
prove to him again and again I could be trusted. I never hit him, nor
punished him.


So you see it's not about reasoning with the child as in cause and
effect or other abstractions (and they are to the toddler), but to
simple management of what abilities they do have...though this does
NOT in any way endorse the idea that the child can be left

unattended
by a busy street.

LOL.. now you've done what I predicted you would, portray that the

parent
simply leaves their child unattended on a busy street.


I just said one does NOT leave a child unattended. Why would you
assume that I claim the parent does?

For an 'expert' with
much observation, you apparently have not chased a child down who

decides
it's fun to 'play' ..


Sure I have, and I enrich their experience immediately with things
that divert them. If they are older my strategy changes.

example.. I took my sister and her kids camping. My
two year old nephew decided he needed to go to the restroom and

started
running towards it. Only problem was, we were behind it and there

was a six
foot drop off at the retaining wall.


Two year olds should not be running loose. I think you are now making
things up to support an argumentment you know you have lost. Unless
you are disabled a two year old can't outrun you.

I nearly dropped from exhaustion as I chased him.. calling him only

made him
laugh and run faster.. I managed to catch him JUST as his one foot

went
over the edge as he was looking back at me. By applying YOUR

tactics, I
would have wound up with a dead nephew instead of a near heart

attack.

No, if you had applied my tactics the child would have trusted you at
the first command to stop. Children that are punished tend to do the
kind of things you mentioned.

Are you going to try and tell us now that this child is an unspanked
child?

Even before one can learn to reason, they learn what behavior is

harmful. A
child will not touch a hot stove again once burned because of his

curiosity,

They assumption they won't try again is disproven, and waiting for
them to find out when they are too young to be taught with
non-punishing methods my and has resulted in serious lifelong scars
for the child. I'll pass thank you and supervise my child until she

is
old enough to teach and even then I'll supervise.


BULL****.. the fact IS proven, time and time again. Just ask ANYONE

who
has touched a hot stove, or hot iron and ask if they ever did it

again?

That is a direct natural consequence. Of course we learn not to touch
something that gave us pain.

Spanked or not spanked.


Who is giving the pain, the stove or the parent? A child too young to
differentiate, and they are at two, your example, is just shown that
the adult is untrustworthy. They still don't know the stove can hurt
them.

They learn it better when it is taught to them by someone they can
trust. I have seen well "disciplined" children (that is taught with
pain) still touch the stove.

Your assumption that it is not proven shows a disdain for human
intelligence, even at the most primitive level.


I made NO such assumption or claim. Please point out where I did.
Immediate pain from an action or object will cause and aversive
reaction the next time similar circumstances are encountered.

The probem is that you and other spankers and punishers assume the
child is reacting to the object or action...when they are in fact
reacting to the source of the pain...the parent.

They learn to trust the parent to hurt them.

Isn't that an interesting way to learn about the world?

I believe that much of the criminal and careless and neglegent
behavior in the world is a result of just such betrayal of children by
their parents. The child grows up somewhat compliant, but not to
nature, not to something they have truly learned, and can later reason
out, but only the memory of pain drives them.

Very sad.


and a swat on the behind which may wind up saving it's life is

well
worthwhile in the long run.


The stove is a direct logical consequence and may serve to teach

the
desired behavior (at the risk of a severe burn of course) one

cannot
allow the logical teaching consequence of letting a child be hit by

a
care to learn not to go into traffic.

Before the age of reason it is quite confusing to the child to be
running and playing, unaware of any impending danger, and have a

giant
swoop one up and lay on with vigor the child's behind.



The words "car," "traffic," "street," and "don't," are very likely

not
going to be processed accurately, and we don't usually when we have
sudden pain and fear layed on by someone.

Nonsense again. The swat on the butt is clearly associated with the

action
itself.


If they are too young to understand, and that IS the argument for the
use of spanking, then no such association can be argued. A child of
two is just barely into the differentiation of self from environment.
They are unaware of their actions. They do not experience an action as
theirs, only as happening to them. They cannot sort out what you
claim.

Again, you assume that a child has less intelligence than an animal
who learns by association the consequences surrounding the event.


Up to a point they do have less intelligence. A child of two is not
the match of a Border Collie that is mature. And they are mature at
about 1.5 years. I've seen Border Collies hide things from children of
two and the child couldn't find it.

A chimpanzee that is an adult is far more intelligent, operationally,
than a child. The child could not feed themselves if food were not
made available. A mature chimp finds it's own food.

In fact most mothers that pay attention, and most have to, know

that
saying "don't" or "no" to a toddler will very likely result in them
doing exactly what they were asked not to do, spank or no spank.

Most spankers, especially those that kid themselves, wind up
supervising just like we non punishers, and finally getting the

child
to the age they get it.....but we don't kid ourselves that it was
punishment that did it. As we know it's the passage of time and the
developing brain that much more likely turned the trick.


Right.. that's why so many are self indulgent, spoiled little brats

who
generally wind up bribing their way through life because they had so

much
success at upsetting the parents and getting exactly what they wanted

in
order to follow prescribed behavior.


You have described the psychologically punished child (which includes
spanking) very nicely. The fact is you haven't seen what you claim.
Unpunished children do NOT behave in this way. They tend to be
empathetic, helpful, industrious, and out of the news. It's is the
punished child you describe.


I pity those who feel they can use 'reason' and 'logic' on a one

or
two year
old,


Me to, right along with those that think the child will understand

the
logic of being whacked a good'un and had words babbled at him or

her.

and just hope they don't realize how flawed and deadly their

handling
of a situation can truly be.


On the contrary. The flaw much more likely arrises in the parent

that
believes, because the child froze a few times out of fear with the
adult present, that they will do so when danger threatens. The

child
under six is going to have a very difficult time connecting the

danger
to the freezing because they will not have absorbed with any

meaning
what the defined danger actually is.


Your talking in circles again Kane, showing you've truly lost the

logic of
your debate.


I am not and have not.

Children are much more intelligent and much more manipulative
than you can even comprehend.


Nature drives them to explore and experiment. They are not thinking
about manipulating, nor are they "intelligent" in the sense of
abstract thought or cause and effect reasoning. They know things
happen in sequence, but they do not know why, in the sense an adult
knows, until they begin at 6 or 7, applying all those years of data
collecting.

A child that has been punished through their early years is somewhat
crippled at 7 when they try to figure things out, and they have a lot
of pain involved thinking and are well on their way to criminal
thinking.

They KNOW what they are being spanked for,
it's not 'freezing'.. and they associate that pain with the action.


The associate pain with YOU, not with their action. How many times
have you seen a child begin to act out a prior behavior they got
spanked for and look at YOU not the object they are approaching. In
fact note that they start looking at YOU for more and more of their
cues.

It makes parents feel powerful and good to see that in a child and
they are sure they are doing right by punishing, but as time passes
they don't see the speed of learning and improvement in wanted
behaviors that the protecting and supportive teaching parent gets,
easily.


They will merrily ride their tricycle behind the car backing out of
the driveway and be terrified of going toward the street...not

really
knowing why.


Truly stretching there huh Kane?


Not in the least. Do you think that the child that walks or rides
their bike behind a backing car did so because they weren't spanked?
In most major cities you get two or three of those a year, sometimes
more. Are you prepared to argue that if they had been spanked to teach
them to stay away from moving cars they would have not walked behind
them?

And I haven't come up with a fraction of
the basic logic that some of the others in this debate have thrown

towards
you.


The "basic logic" is the kind I'm accustomed to from those that
stopped learning anything new at about 15. We are a nation of arrested
adolescence. You only have to look at our favorite entertainments to
notice it.

Explain your nonsense then... How the hell do you teach a child to

avoid
traffic .. cars backing out of a driveway???


You teach the child to not go into the driveway without you. You do
that by teaching the all the OTHER places to play that are safe. But
you don't really even have to discuss safety. I do so because I am
laying down the memory tracks for later use when they understand
better.

I DON'T count on my teaching to keep them safe. I also close gates. I
do NOT allow 2 year olds out by themselves.

If you are too insensitive to teach them to stay out of the street?

Geez..

I am far more sensitive than you. I noticed when I was a young man
that people spanked their chilren and the children still did dangerous
things and got hurt and killed. I determined to find a better way. I
did.

You appear determined to keep repeating what you learned early in life
over and over again.

Oh yeah, you'll 'talk' to them.


Talking is an adjunctive thing I do to prepare them for later use of
the knowledge. I talk to little children far more than I do to older
ones. Older ones I listen to more, and ask a little question here and
there to encourage them to tap the knowledge they collected from the
supporting protective parent when they were younger.

Sorry dude, your methods only wind up
getting more kids killed than most other methods of child rearing.


Sorry dude, you are wrong. You don't know my methods. You haven't
tried to learn them. They are easy once you commit to them and
actually do them. But I think you'd have a very hard time switching
from warden to coach.


The fact of the matter is, lessons learned without fear and pain

are
far more powerful than those with.


Where's your proof?


I've posted some. You just call them psychobabble.

Most of your studies have been flawed and result only
from your personal observations.


When I see the same thing over and over again, year after year, that I
saw in the studies, I start to think maybe the studies have something
to teach me.

I didn't just stand around. I applied what I learned and I saw results
far more effective than punishment.

And for someone who has done so much
extensive observing of children, one wonders how you had much time

for
anything else.


What an odd thing to say. I didn't say I spent all my time observing
children.

Your credibility is truly lacking here.


Not among those that know what I know. Those that have done
non-punitive parenting are quite aware of the same things I'm
discussing and sharing. They just don't want to be bothered with
trying to educate the uneducable.

They probably think you were spanked, and they know how that cuts off
the desire to learn.


But I still, in either case, would not leave my child
unsupervised...would you?

No one has ever said they should, that's another straw man and you

know it.

No, you are wrong yet again. The argument, and you made it here, is
that the child who is spanked to teach them is far safer than the
child that is taught my way. Between the two, if I wanted to argue
which could be left alone with less risk, which do you think would be
the safer and why?

My child doesn't look to me for control after he has learned safe
behavior. Your's still has to.

The typical mantra of a non spanker, keep your children under lock

and key
24 hours a day from birth til adulthood else you are a bad parent

should you
resort to spanking.


I don't recall saying either. I don't consider people bad or good. I
consider them mistaken though, and you are.

I do not believe in locking children up. I do wonder at those that
can't be bothered to pay attention to their children when in hazardous
circumstances and decide to rely on pain to keep the child safer.

Think you can spank them enough, creatively, to trust them to not

go
into traffic without you?


Aren't you going to call this a strawman? It was a classic and I
confess to it. Mostly because you are beyond rediculous into inanity.



You may not LIKE it, my examining and questioning, but there is
nothing dishonest about it.

If you think so I'm sure you can point out what is dishonest on

my
part by showing us the truth you think I am not showing.

No?

Kane

It's doubtful the use of brain scans can provide much insight as

to
lessons
learned by experience, even painful experience.


Why? The point of the studies is to do just that.

All they can do is measure
the response of the brain to a situation, not the logical

analytical
thought
involved pertaining to one's perceptions of the event.


On dear, one of the poor souls that do not know of the extensive
mapping of the brain going on for years now that identifies exactly
such thing. They know precisely, for instance, where conscience
derives in the brain, down to a small area. It can be tested with

pics
and other testing while the subject is having their brain scanned.

Even the lowest of creatures react to pain, learn to avoid certain
situations once they've experienced a bad consequence of their

actions.

It often takes a number of lessons in animal and human. Even a
flatworm, famous in psych 202 college classes, will try a couple of
more times to get to food and light at the expense of some pain.
Eventually they will learn, but while MY child is learning she may
well get to die from the lesson.

Are
you saying that humans are less than animals in their ability to

deal
with
pain?


Actually there isn't much difference in pain responses.

Our human superiority is that we can, once we pass out of the

animal
linear thinking stage of toddler hood, make reasoned choices based

on
an analysis of the situation with all kinds of variables (as well
learn by experimentation and later by study of other's work).

Animals never get to our ability of abstraction and cause and

effect
reasoning. Some of the apes just skirt it but can be confounded by
things that a grown human would laugh at if we presented them as a
problem.


Of course they don't.. that's why your 'logic' is flawed in believing

that
you can set limits on a child before the age of reason, and expect

them to
follow them without reinforcement, both negative and positive.


How does that differ from your belief that pain will teach them?

And what makes you think I don't use reinforcement? I use a more
elegant and successful form than you do. The description of the little
two year old nephew strongly suggests a child that doesn't trust.

A completely
positive approach does absolutely nothing, just as a completely

negative
approach.


You are babbling. A completely positive approach is impossible. The
child lives in a real world where things will sting, burn, bite,
scratch, and even at my best I'm not going to be able to protect her
from some of those lessions.

My job is to protect her from the truly harmful ones, and I will do
that by observing her age and setting things up so she isn't exposed.
It is also my job to create the highest possible level of trust in me
that I an manage.

I cannot do that with pain. I can with protection and age appropriate
teaching.

You are hung up on only a single aspect on the topic,


I am? How so? Spanking? No, it's not a single topic. I have repeatedly
mentioned punishment, pain and humiliation. So you might assume I am
not limiting myself just to spanking?

Or was that not what you meant? What single aspect then?

and ignore
the rest.


What is "the rest" you refer to?

Which shows your failure to comprehend and apply that
abstraction.


Please clarify.


We know the source and transport of water. Animals cannot figure

that
out.


What does that have to do with this subject Kane?


We were discussing how humans operate. You brought up the animal human
difference. I was resonding.

Animals DO know
instinctively that they must drink the water, they don't have to know

where
it's coming from.


But if the faucet isn't turned on they do not know, usually unless
trained, or they are of higher order, like primates, how to get the
water.

And animals DO learn from painful experience to avoid
certain things, only proving that short term pain can be a learning
experience.


Children learn to avoid certain things when adults are present. It
takes a little time, but eventually they get it. Some of the side
effects are, sneakiness, big people get to hit little people and I'll
be a big people one day.

In other words, some of the founation of later criminal thinking.

Once we reach the age of reason it is easy, quite, to figure out

how
one stays alive by staying out of traffic...I call it "The Flat

Possum
Lesson," though all I could ever find for my kids was a flat Racoon

on
that particular day.

One was old enough for reason, the other old enough to believe his
elder when she reactied to the lesson.


Not true at all. Once a child has been spoiled, it becomes difficult

to
change the pattern of behavior developed very young.


"Spoiled" is one of those throwaway "I learned it at 15 so it is true
for the rest of my life" kind of words. I consider the developmentally
crippled child (from fear of parents) a "spoiled" child.

A child used to
getting his/her way for throwing tantrums is not going to simply

'believe'
his/her elder .. they expect something in return, because this is the

system
you've already established in them.


What makes you assume that the unpunished child is a tantrum thrower
or that other means than spanking can be used to curtail tantrums?

The one thing a tantruming child gets if they are spanked is exactly
what will reinforce more tantrums. They got attention. If they child
isn't in any pain or risk of harm I can patiently just watch a child
tantrum until they are wrung out. It doesn't happen often after that.

You are assuming that people that don't punish run around giving the
child everything they ask for, including attention when it isn't
warranted.

You are wrong. I've seen many a spanker give attention to a child at
exactly the wrong time. I've seen many a nonpunisher simply not give
the child the candy bar, or toy, or even attention, and low and behold
the tantrumming or fussy behavior goes away on its own.

Or the child has something organically malfunctioning and needs that
taken care of.

I assume you know now to research a little, so why not do so next

time
out?


I have researched Kane.. much more than you and it appears much less
believing in psychobabble which has been shown to be nothing more

than
nonesense.


No you haven't. You are running off at the mouth. Common to those that
stopped learning anything new at 15 or so.

So tell me. What research have you done? Observations? Books? Studies?
Teaching spanked children that they are safe now and won't be hit or
hurt again?

I come from a large family, and being the oldest, have 'observed'

many more
issues among young children than you seem to be portraying in your

vast
'experiences'.


I have seen do about everything you can imagine. I've seen toddlers
smear their feces on the wall, poke a cats eye out with a pencil, put
the waterhose in a car's gas tank, light a house on fire, and I've
helped them all get over the punishment parenting that helped produce
such behaviors.


The Embry Street Entry study is just one of those that give us more
than a little hint that thousands of years of thumpin' butt may

just
not have been entirely in the best interests of our race.

Check out Tom Edison....not only not spanked but pulled by his

mother
from school because of the hitting done to him by a teacher. I do

not
think Albert Einstein was spanked. At least the info about him from
his teen years showed a remarkably indulgent family that pulled him
from Gymnasium (HS) were he was failing mathematics, and sent him

off
to Italy to family friends to wander the sunny roads there and have
what later was identified as his epiphany of E=MC2.

All of our children who are spanked and punished, I estimate, has

some
portion, sometimes significant portions, of their development
displaced into survival reactivity.

It's a fascinating study. I hope you'll join in.

The very first thing you need to do though is admit that there

might
be the slightest possibility that the spankers have erred. I don't
think you can even entertain it as speculation, but I tried.


No Kane, your nonsense is complete and utter bull****, and you want

to
believe it so badly, that you tend to put down everyone else.


I am not putting anyone down. I am telling you you are ignorant and
married to it. That's not a putdown. It's a cold observation if you
are telling the truth here.

It is YOU who
want to try to discredit others, simply because you've run out of

logic, and
been shown to be a complete fraud time and time again on this

newsgroup.

Self defensive babble by someone that has lost and knows it and can't
live with it.

You've offered no logic, and you are a fraud if ever I've seen one.


Step two is easier if you have managed step one. Get a book on the
stages of childhood development and project all the behaviors of
children you know into that list.


Kane, guess what? There were NO books on childhood development in

the
earlier stages of our history, and people fared quite well.


I recall some not faring so well. Did you not have history books in
your school?

You want a list
of names to try to 'impress" people with, well, just open a history

book and

I have. Most of the people that are lauded in history books won, and
got to write the history books. Even some of our current heroes have
turned out to be not such nice folks after all.

Im quite sure that you will find that 90 percent or better of our

greatest
leaders had been spanked as children.


So, name a few of our greatest, and I'll see if I can find out if they
were spanked or not.

Understand something before it's too late, or with you, it probably

is.

No, I'm always open to learning. Teach me.

There are NO manuals on being a parent, and anyone who thinks they

can read
bull**** from psychologists who most likely never had children are

kidding
themselves.


I have used books myself and passed them on to people trying to parent
children that were abused. They were relying on what they had learned
as children and it wasn't working. I've had cards, letters,
phonecalls, emails from those people thanking me as now they were more
successful after having read and learned and applied what the books
had to say.

And in the 70's I taught classes to people that were just ordinary
folks that were not satisified with their parenting...they didn't like
what they were seeing in the punishment model, and they too thanked me
for helping them learn to support and protect their children.


In other words, instead of thinking of children in terms of adult
understandings of right and wrong, good and bad, evil, willful,

etc.
try thinking in terms of all behavior, before the age of 6, as

being
driven by nature...forced compulsive exploration of the

environment,
which you are just a part of to the child, once she does that 1.5

to 2
year old definition of self separate from the environment and YOU.

Best of luck..

Kane


LOL.. Kane, you truly amuse me. It is YOU who tend to treat children

as
adults with reasoning power.. I think you've completely lost it

here.

On the contrary. I find those that declare themselves the winners are
usually whistling past the graveyard.

And I do not treat children as having more reasoning power than they
actually do have. I recognize they have different mentation at
different ages. I've said so.

It's you that clearly expect something from children they cannot give,
an understanding of the source of pain being other than yourself when
you hit and hurt them.

And unlike you, I am not driven to LOL. I am not amused by you. I am
worried for humankind now and in the future if you your cohorts should
accidently prevail.

I am heartened to know that efforts to stop the pain, the punishing
parenting, is healthy and growing and succeeding around the plantet
and most especially in our schools. Tom Gordon has sold millions and
millions of copies of PET worldwide and in many languages, and
everywhere people are glad to learn how to grow healthier human
beings.

Thanks for the post.

Kane