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<p>Wasn’t last week’s big popular thread here about the poor girl who was bullied to death?</p>
<p>mimk6: yes, that happened. And how many gay men were beaten up in the '50s without it making the news? And how many black men were lynched before the Civil Rights Act? I stick by my contention that the overall kindness of Americans has improved, and that this generation is a shining example of that.</p>
<p>Bullying is not unique to this generation though - the one’s supposedly being handled with kid gloves according to barrons. I was bullied in from elementary through middle school years and I was certainly not the only one. This was in the 50s. Bullying is worse by degree because of the many outlets to accommodate it. When I was bullied, I was safe at home, but now the computer and cell phones brings it into the home.</p>
<p>The difference is those were recreational drugs used by most on a limited basis. Today there are permanent prescriptions for very strong psychotropic drugs from early childhood on. Getting away fronm the red herring of lynchings (???***) et al and it would be easy to make a case that the “public spirit” kids have today is a result on constant indoctrination by teachers whose education now requires support of a panolpy of liberal positions and beliefs. (See Uminn and other requirements). Of course some kids did not get the memo:</p>
<p>[Local</a> News | Teen beaten in transit tunnel; Metro reviews policies | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011027703_webbeating09m.html]Local”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011027703_webbeating09m.html)</p>
<p>Wait a minute, now you’re blaming liberal parenting for overmedicated kids? That’s interesting. I’m not a fan of the medicalization of childhood and I associate it (this is purely a prejudice, I admit) with conservative west-coast suburban culture.</p>
<p>And what exactly is the point of that Seattle Times video? Are you saying this is what happens when kids aren’t spanked? How do you know the girl who administered the beating wasn’t spanked?</p>
<p>I hope we aren’t falling into the trap of thinking that children who aren’t spanked are undisciplined, because that would be ridiculous.</p>
<p>sax- wasn’t any one commercial that bothered me, it seemed that most of the commercials involved some kind of violence, and half had people hitting other people.</p>
<p>“There are a few private schools in my area, mostly bible-based Christian, who use corporal punishment. This is clearly spelled out in their Parent Handbook. I can’t believe it is legal, but the parents know what they’re getting into when they sign the agreement.”</p>
<p>True at my kids school, and my kids are VERY different. My D was traumatized just knowing someone MIGHT get spanked. she would NEVER do anything that would elicit a spanking. By the time my son came along, we signed the paper and laughed. We were like “go for it!” We knew any reasonable spanking wouldn’t phase him. He’d probably think it was funny that be had provoked a dramatic response. They tried it once (one swat and a REALLY long prayer), then worked with us on behavioral interventions.</p>
<p>“Any punishment is meant to be avoided, the key is causing the child to avoid it by not committing the behavior in the first place. This is not specific to spanking.”</p>
<p>At the core of a behavioral intervention are incentives for increasing the desired behavior. Punishment is designed to be infrequent.</p>
<p>When I was a student, I was “whipped” by nuns, but not by my parents.</p>
<p>When I was in college, I had many friends who used to tell stories of being hit by nuns in Catholic school in the early to mid 1960’s. Including one who had a ruler broken over his head (for questioning a nun’s assertion that Jesus was the only man who was ever exactly 6 feet tall, by pointing out that anyone over 6 feet had to be exactly 6 feet at some point on the way). And none of them respected either nuns or the Church more because of it.</p>
<p>I’m assuming that this doesn’t happen in Catholic schools anymore, right?</p>
<p>I have heard the same stories and most have no such adverse memories and look back fondly on the excellent education they received. Much like a show I just saw on a top college basketball player. His parents sent him away to a midwestern military school to get him away from NYC and some bad influences they saw going on. He hated it at the time and now visits any chance he gets and credits what they made him do as a big reason for his success.</p>
<p>Getting back to the overindulgent parents whose children never do wrong, and connection to ADHD rx, I have seen that connection as well, on occasion. I do not criticize ADHD rx, but I have seen children who in the old days would have been called troublemakers, and require some type of limit setting who today get their fix of ritalin or whatever, and are never called out on bad behavior. I don’t mean that they should be hit, spanked, beaten or screamed at. I do mean that their unacceptable behavior should be pointed out and if necessary punished in some acceptable way. Some of these recipients of rx seem dazed and drugged after their dosage, which really seems wrong to me. If you had met the mothers, and heard them you would know what I am talking about. Even when junior is beating on and nearly breaks his brother’s finger in someone else’s car during car pool, he is a darling and there is no word to ever be said to him. ( Maybe in private she whacks him, who knows.) As for those who benefit from rx which helps the patient, I would not criticize that.</p>
<p>A proud fourth generation non-spanker here! I never spanked my kids. My Mom and Dad never spanked me or my brother. My maternal grandparents never spanked my Mom or her brothers. Her brothers and their wives never spanked my cousins. And my Grandma told me she had never been spanked by her parents. We all turned out just fine!</p>
<p>Why, in a thread about methods of discpline, is ADHD even coming up? Legitimate, true ADHD has nothing to do with discipline, and if we are on the correct medication and at the correct dosage it does not make us dazed or drugged. Any medication has side effects, I am not sure why the side affects of ADHD prescriptions are so much more fascinating than any other. I also don’t know why we don’t talk about one “getting their fix” of an antibiotic, or “getting their fix” of motrin, either, if that’s what taking a medication prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition is. You say you would not criticize people who do benefit from ADHD medications, but throughout your entire post you question the validity of ADHD and judge the use of medications, in a thread about what constitutes proper discipline and what doesn’t. Forgive me, maybe you’re trying not to sound judgmental of something you don’t thoroughly understand, but I don’t quite buy your act.</p>
<p>Some children with ADHD are not adequately disciplined, the same as many children without ADHD are not adequately disciplined. Maybe even more kids with ADHD lack the proper discipline, I haven’t done any broad research on the matter-- though I can imagine why a parent would struggle to find the "right’ way to discipline in that situation given that the introduction of a medical condition is a complete game changer and very little of the specifics you know about child rearing are applicable anymore. Some parents flounder with that. A lot of parents give up and give in when presented with an overwhelming challenge. Not all parents are good parents. None of you had to pass a test that proved you would know what to do if your child was born with a medical condition. Just because some parents don’t know what to do and the result is annoying to you doesn’t mean that the child is not suffering from a valid medical condition that needs treatment, and bad parenting and ADHD are not intrinsically linked any more than any other behavioral condition no matter what way you want to spin it. </p>
<p>Given that myself, my cousins, my nephews, and my mother were ALL spanked and ALL have ADHD, I fail to see how these two conversations are even remotely relevant. Lack of discipline is not ADHD. If someone is diagnosed with ADHD by the proper testing, you can rest assured that they are legitimately different from the typical child and the condition may result in the child needing a different style of parenting than some parents can pick up in a day. Like when raising any child, it is a process that changes depending on the child and depending on how much and what you learn along the way. Are some kids illegitimately diagnosed? Sure! But if we have a population of people who saw irresponsible doctors and were screened for cancer incorrectly, are we going to start questioning every cancer diagnosis there is regardless of if we know how they were tested? Would we doubt the validity of chemotherapy, and suggest that all cancer patients just needed to work a little harder at managing their condition? I don’t think so! That would be asinine and offensive. Kids with ADHD and their parents should not be getting that backlash, save that for the doctors who actually screwed up.</p>
<p>Excellent response, TwistedxKiss! Very well-reasoned - thank you.</p>
<p>'If someone is diagnosed with ADHD by the proper testing, you can rest assured that they are legitimately different from the typical child and the condition may result in the child needing a different style of parenting than some parents can pick up in a day"</p>
<p>For the record, there is no “test” (the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined) for ADHD, and the differences, in the child, and in parenting, lie on a continuum.</p>
<p>There isn’t a blood test or a genetic test, no, but a lot more than a conversation with a doctor happens when someone is legitimately screened for ADHD. There are numerous tests that are performed and the patient undergoes hours of scrutiny of their behaviors and abilities, complete with interviews with parents and, at least in my day, with teachers. I suppose if you think there’s no way to test for ADHD, there’s no way to test for dyslexia or aspergers either, right?</p>
<p>Catching up on this thread, and re-reading the Opening Post, I am thinking now about my FIL who broke the pattern of belt-whipping in time for raising his own 5 sons. I’m curious if anyone has stories about people who were belt-beaten, but did not repeat the practice themselves as parents.</p>
<p>And yes, I do mean belt-beaten. FIL’s powerfully strong Dad, a blacksmith who could halve a cast-iron stove with one well-placed skedgehammer blow, also belt-whipped the boys among his l0 children, Same man also face-punched his 4 ft. l0 inch wife (who gave him 13 kids, l0 lived). Wife divorced him after all l0 kids were grown and she in her 70’s. Times were different. He died a lonely man, with all the descendants paying him a dutiful annual visit, but hanging out always at the elderly matriarch’s apartment instead.</p>
<p>So there’s my FIL, growing up the youngest boy of the l0 kids in a factory town in the l930’s, seeing what happened as wrong. He vows never to belt his own kids. </p>
<p>My H reports, though, that when tempted he’d get a belt, fold it in half, crack it in the air above his own head. He never laid a belt to any of the 5 boys, although he had ample provocation! </p>
<p>I wonder if he wasn’t doing that belt-crackle move as a way to harness and redirect his own anger. If it helped him break the cycle, more power to him. </p>
<p>I admire my FIL for deprogramming himself from belt-whipping his own 5 rascal boys. I consider it a strength of FIL’s character to change that pattern. The 5 boys also understood the belt-crackle overhead meant nothing other than “emphasis” to show how far they had transgressed. It wasn’t a real threat to them in any way because they knew the whole context and it never landed on anyone, either.</p>
<p>"I suppose if you think there’s no way to test for ADHD, there’s no way to test for dyslexia or aspergers either, right? "</p>
<p>Aspergers no ( at this point it’s considered a psychiatric diagnosis, but stay tuned for DSM V, which might remove this diagnosis ( [<a href=“http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97#[/url]”>http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97#</a> ), dyslexia, yes ( not the official name, but considered a learning disability, and measured by psychological testing). </p>
<p>My point is that I think it’s a mistake to judge someones kids or parenting.Temperament and parenting are relevant to outcome whether kids have a diagnosis or not.</p>
<p>My cousins and I came from families that did not spank. My husband came from a family where spanking was frequent. His parents were very loving but his family was quite large and spanking was the behavior management tool. His parents did not have time for time-outs, discussions, or other non-violent means of discipline because there were so many kids.
But, my cousins and I so far have never divorced. We all completed college and have not suffered any sustained emotional problems. All our children have never been spanked and (so far!) our kids are doing well in high school and college.
Everyone of my hubbie’s siblings has been divorced at least once (including my H; I am his second wife.) Three of the siblings are alcoholics; two have died from this disease. My husband was the only sibling to complete college. Two siblings dropped out of high school. One sibling suffers from chronic depression. She has been in treatment for this condition for 15 years.
Is the difference in outcomes because of spanking? I don’t know. But I can’t understand why anyone would take the risk when there are tons of non-violent methods of disciplining your kids.</p>
<p>People have been adjudicated to be sex offenders and thus felons for such harmless behaviors as peeing on the side of the road and mooning. And then required to register as “sex offenders”. </p>
<p>The fact is we do not live in the same America we grew up in. The difference is the danger now comes from those that govern us. Most people I know, regardless of age, now fear contact with government, especially contact with law enforcement.</p>