It's still legal here. You can sign something saying you do not want your child to be paddled. And you can specify who can and can't do it. I signed one for a few years that stated only the principal could paddle my kids as I did not want to allow a certain teacher to have that right. They never received one anyway so it wasn't necessary.
I think this is really interesting! Inspired a spinoff.
Do you think maybe the poster meant “better off” in that your life would have been better & easier at least in childhood? I didn’t post it so I don’t know what he/she meant. Although it sounds like you overcame things & you said it shaped who you are, I’m sure you would agree that other children should not have endure that even though you were able to overcome it. Maybe that’s what’s meant by better? And I think that’s where I have a problem with it all. What you endured sounds extreme so it’s more obviously abuse, but the severity of corporal punishment can be subjective. So what someone thinks is extreme other ppl think are ok & necessary. We saw that just in this thread. I have seen many parents justify some pretty harsh things in my experience. Things that don’t quite meet the level of the abuse you endured but that were reportable to child protection. In most cases, these parents really thought what they were doing was ok & many made remarks like “nothing else works with him” and/or “it’s my child...it’s no one else’s business”. Most of them were not accidents b/c they lost their temper. For most, it was their form of discipline. I’m not talking about a swat on the butt. Child protection’s bench mark for the most part is did it leave evident marks. Some of the things I’ve heard on this thread could leave marks & would be reportable to child protection & considered child abuse no matter what anyone’s personal opinion is of it.
I can only speak from my own experiences, and fortunately, really nobody I know was ever severely physically abused (that I know of, or can think of right at this moment). But in reading these types of responses, I do think of this. My mother is 92 years old, and she, to this day, is still traumatized by some of the experiences she had in childhood. She doesn't always talk about them, necessarily, but living with her and interacting with her all the time, I see it in the way she is, and the way she sometimes acts, her responses to things, etc. So I find it hard to understand that someone who was physically abused in childhood would not have
any sequelae at all from those experiences. I suppose personality type plays a big part, i.e. Some people are more sensitive or stoic than others, but still, traumatizing events often stick with people throughout their lives, and it's also not to say that they can't overcome them to some degree. Just, at our core, there can still be some lingering hurts there. And just to clarify, I am not talking about an occasional swat on the butt here, I am talking about severe physical abuse.
There is a big difference between physical experts and psychological experts. A lot of the science for mental health is still theoretical and new opinions come out yearly, hence the continuing education requirements. What is considered the right way to discipline a child today is only valid until a new study comes out to contradict it.
I can't really agree with this. Although opinions can be revised from time to time, on many recommendations it doesn't happen yearly, especially on pretty mainstream issues. It's also not WHY professionals are mandated to take continuing education requirements - those are because professionals are lifelong learners in their fields, and continuing study is required on a broad range of subjects, not necessarily on yearly changes on one subject.
