I am sure we are all horrified by the life and death of Daniel Pelka who was dreadfully treated by his Mother and her boyfriend. But while this is an extreme case there are daily examples of really incompetent parenting.
3 days ago a girl of 12 was attacked by three men and raped by two of them, in an area of lock-up garages, at half past midnight. She was 12 1/2 years old! Where did her parents think she was one has to wonder?
|
I was horrified by the picture of a baby falling into a sewer from its gin sodden mothers arms in the famous Hogarth Print.
Bad parenting is not modern.
|
Likewise the recent event of the 4 week old baby who had to be treated for severe sunburn.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23354093
As for Meldrew's question "Where did her parents think she was one has to wonder?"
If it's anything like a well known estate in Oxford, probably out looking for her parents, or just keeping out of their way. I knew a bus driver who used to drive through this well known estate as well as through a couple of other equally run down council estates. He saw no end of youngsters "playing" at all hours of the night, right through to the early hours of the morning.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 12:49
|
|
Indeed it isn't. We have not made progress in this area!
|
It is difficult to be a good parent in UK nowadays. If your child misbehaves and you smack him/her and s/he tells in school next day, you will be quizzed by social workers!
|
>> you will be quizzed by social workers!
Just tell them your child is a compulsive liar owing to a rare genetic disorder, and that his cuts, bruises and broken arm result from his unfortunate self-harming habit.
Or that he was attacked by little green men from outer space who also committed unspeakable sex acts on you.
Almost any cock and bull story will do. Many of those people, along with teachers and the old bill, will believe anything, however outlandish, that gives them an excuse to do nothing at all. For proof, look at the story behind the OP.
|
I have no moral objection to smacking children, but it is rarely effective and mostly pointless.
There's better ways.
|
>> I have no moral objection to smacking children, but it is rarely effective and mostly
>> pointless.
>>
>> There's better ways.
Research seems to show that it is not only ineffective, but can easily be very detrimental.
Of course, many people are dismissive of any research that doesn't fit with what they believe, especially if it inherently criticizes actions they have taken.
After all, surely the general impression of a single person, with experience of disciplining a couple of children, must know better than systematic research carried out across years with many different families and children.
If you do things wrong for years, and then research come along showing that you were wrong and that there was a much better way, you'll fight tooth and nail to find a way to discredit that research ("pah, what do researchers/scientists know"). Human nature.
|
I've always wondered about the parental logic of smacking a child because they just hit a smaller kid.
|
|
Take your kid to A&E a few times and you'll also get a knock on the door. They only need to fall off a bike or out of a tree!
|
Hang on, tom, hang on. I'm getting confused. Is the country full of zealous social workers, persecuting the parents of clumsy children, or is it full of lazy, incompetent social workers who routinely ignore obvious cases of abuse leading to the deaths of innocent children?
Which is it? What does the Daily Mail say? They must have the answer.
|
My eldest went through a phase when she was about 5yrs old such that for 6 months she looked like she was being beaten daily. Including the dreadful "gappy" appearance as various teeth feel out.
4 or 5 trips to A&E and a few to the local GP.
One conversation about it ever, which was with the Health Visitor (or whatever they're called) at the local surgery, and that was only a few minutes with me and the child as we were leaving one time and she called us over.
So, certainly not interfering and over zealous. I'm not quite sure it was attentive enough but at least the child wasn't ignored.
|
>> Take your kid to A&E a few times and you'll also get a knock on
>> the door. They only need to fall off a bike or out of a tree!
NOt the case at all.
|
>> Take your kid to A&E a few times and you'll also get a knock on
>> the door. They only need to fall off a bike or out of a tree!
>>
Not always the case. I have a friend who works in childrens A&E. They have a duty of care to report anything suspicious, but tells me that they often see the same children come in as repeat customers in very suspicious circumstances with no follow up taking place. Stories of little billy falling down the stairs for the 3rd time in as many moths are not uncommon.
My own experience of this interference is at the opposite end when our youngest failed to gain any weight after birth. She was under consultant care to get to the bottom of the problem when the health visitor accused Mrs B of not feeding her. Subsequent test revealed she had a heart condition requiring open heart surgery.
|
>>Research seems to show that it is not only ineffective, but can easily be very detrimental.
The teacher training course I did was for teaching adults - well, most of them were that technically, although 18-year olds are not yet that. About 20% were mature and one was 64. None of these students could be smacked. However, corporal punishment somehow crept briefly into our course syllabus and the small amount I can recall held that it can work with young children but is counter-productive after puberty, with rebellion and resentment as the outcomes.
|
Children have a strong, instinctive sense of justice or 'fairness'. They know when they are being punished for being naughty and when they are being abused.
They find the existence of rules reassuring too, although they enjoy breaking some of them. There was a fashion a decade or so back for never 'telling' nippers to do anything or not to do anything. Poor little brutes didn't really know where they were half the time, and must have dreaded those 'serious talks about you, darling' with their half-witted, fashion-victim, inarticulate but jargonizing parents.
Anyone can lose their temper and treat a child unfairly. Children are often very provoking. But a parent or carer can acknowledge a mistake and apologise for it, make amends in some way. The inability to do that is disastrous, unless your behaviour is 100% impeccable (which it never is). You are effectively instructing the nipper to behave nastily and refuse to admit it.
|
>> their
>> half-witted, fashion-victim, inarticulate but jargonizing parents.
>>
Exactly. Children are instinctively much cleverer and more perceptive than their parents, but education soon beats that out of them and they become as devious and moronic as their elders and betters.
|
>> Research seems to show that it is not only ineffective, but can easily be very detrimental.
Research on these topics is always inconclusive and contradicting.
There are 4 ways of getting work done (from small tasks to ruling a country)
1. through peaceful negotiation
2. through money or allurement
3. through punishment or fear
4. divide and rule
1 & 4 don't work well with very young children.
Balance of 2 & 3 are what one needs.
As they grow older you can apply rule 1 but some will just be nasty enough to apply rule 3. Social workers don't recognize rule 3 and the problem starts from there.
Modern parents are much busier than our parents' generations. Because of that they are impatient. Everyone tries with rule 2 (throwing toys, ipads etc.) first. Sometimes it doesn't work then rule 3 is applied.
A big problem with social service is that they consider children aged 10-15 as adults. Wrong - they are still kids. That's where the problem starts.
PS: I'm talking parenting in general. OP's example is an extreme case.
|
There should not be a special reward for doing the right thing. The right thing should be done,and be expected to be done, because it is the right thing.
There should be consequences for doing the wrong thing.
I would *NEVER* pay a child to do the right thing.
I would not use fear to scare them into doing the right thing.
1. By explaining what/why it is the right thing to do.
2. By asking that the right thing be done
3. By making them do the right thing.
I explained, then I asked, then I told.
If you use fear, what will you do when they stop being scared of you?
If you use money, then what will you do when they find another way of getting money?
|
|
But you have to visibly follow the same standards of behaviour that you ask of them.
|
>> you have to visibly follow the same standards of behaviour that you ask of them.
Not always.
'That language is unladylike, darling. Do as I say, not as I do. I'm a very badly behaved person, but you mustn't be.'
Naturally they think it's unfair, but they get it all right. Age has its privileges.
|
I disagree AC.
I do restrict my language in front of the children although unfortunately I let the occasional word slip.
When I do, I apologise to them.
I expect them to keep their language decent in front of me, and when they slip, to apologise to me.
|
|
That's what I do too, although the words may have been less occasional in my case than yours... but I don't want to exaggerate.
|
So that would seem to be following the same behaviour yourself that you expect of them - which is pretty much my standard, albeit I follow it imperfectly.
Brutalising them for using a bad word, when you use them yourself would be wrong.
(NOT that I am suggesting you would do so, but some people do).
|
No, I don't.
The idea really is that no one should fear any aspect of language, but become adept with it, understand the structural, social, moral and philosophic rules.
|
>> 1. By explaining what/why it is the right thing to do.
>> 2. By asking that the right thing be done
>> 3. By making them do the right thing.
Good stuff. How do you do 3?
"Do your homework."
"No."
"It's the right thing to do because all the usual stuff about education."
"Oh. Still not doing it."
"Please do it because it's the right thing."
"No."
"I'll make you do it."
"Go on then."
"Errmmm..........."
And how do you reconcile:
>> I would not use fear to scare them into doing the right thing.
with:
>> There should be consequences for doing the wrong thing. ?
Surely they need to fear the consequences, or they aren't worth worrying about.
|
>>Good stuff. How do you do 3?
I very rarely get there, in fact I can't think of an occurrence offhand, although I'm sure its happened.
This happens though, (although not often);
"Do your homework please"
"I don't want to"
"Here's the usual and good reasons...."
"Still don't want to."
"Well I want you to...."
"Still don't want to."
"Ok, how sure are you that you're not going to want me to do something I don't want to this week?"
"Mmmm...?"
Examples given..... lifts, payment, inviting friends, trips, money, etc.
"Ok, I'll do it but I'm going to sulk, be miserable and a general pain for hours."
"I don't care, tell your mother, I'm going out."
Now, we are so heavily involved in facilitating the children's lives that withdrawal of support would an an issue for them.
If we did sweet F.A. then we'd have nothing to withdraw, if you see what I mean.
No, I don't think you need to fear consequences, you just have to not want them. I do not fear my wife in a mood, but I don't want it and do everything I can to avoid it including stuff I don't want to do.
I don't fear my credit cards, but I don;t want to pay the interest fees and so sometimes avoid them.
|
Also, I never say, and have never said,...
"or I'll make you"
"or I'll leave you here then"
"or I'll go home without you"
and other similar statements for exactly that point. If they say "go on then" you're screwed.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 16:53
|
"because I said so"
Was always a nonsensical statement to me when I was a child.
I was aghast when the same statement slipped from my gob during a fraught time with junior.
|
|
I've never said it, but I have come horrifyingly close.
|
|
A good clip round the ear from my dad, or the local policeman, always made me see the error of my ways. Similarly, having my knuckles rapped with the edge of a wooden rule at school brought me quickly into line. And three whacks from the headmaster's cane on my backside was enough to convince me that it wasn't something I wanted to earn again.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 16:57
|
I typed a long reply L'es, but its not worth it.
Stuff and nonsense.
|
>> Stuff and nonsense.
Sheltered life FMR? My parents weren't floggers or physically violent, but three of the eight schools I went to used corporal punishment, and another - a convent - had a horrible ancient nun who lashed out at your knuckles with a ruler edge. The only reason she ever gave was that you were being 'bold'. Cuffs across the head and flung blackboard rubbers - dangerous missiles actually - were commonplace in British schools in the forties and fifties. It was a more robust age.
I wasn't especially bad but got my share of the cane, brush and evil Jesuit rubber cosh. I suspect some schools and teachers found me sprauncy and thought I needed to be kept down, the dumb envious carphounds. Of course quite often I was out of order in some way and 'deserved' it.
At my first boarding school got a cluster of beatings right at the end of term, thirteen strokes in all from the deputy head's cane and the head's big black hairbrush. My mother spotted the welts when I was in the bath and wanted to complain to the school. I was horrified and managed to prevail on them not to. I was only nine or so and would have hated a fuss of that sort.
Don't know they're born do they Gastropod?
:o}
|
>> >> Stuff and nonsense.
>>
>> Sheltered life FMR?
Hardly AC, perhaps a lot rougher than you'd think.
Caned on two occasions by my Headmaster. Eventually took the cane from him. Got cautioned and expelled.
The games teacher was an out and out sadist and used to delight in disciplined with a rugby boot. He was eventually permanently crippled by an ex pupil, but that was after I had been expelled.
Edge of ruler across the knuckles several times from the history teacher until he got cornered one evening by a gang of unknown pupils having done it to a girl sufficient for her hand to bleed.
My Father was/is not violent, however my Grandfather was. Extremely. As the copper he beat into hospital for giving my cousin a "clip around the ear" could have testified.
But its violence, bullying, sadistic and worst of all, ineffectual. More than that, it simply encourages the "disciplined" to pass it on.
My "stuff and nonsense" refers to all this tosh about how it kept people honest, how it taught children how to behave, how it never did anybody any harm and all the rest of that's codswallop.
You need discipline, especially in schools. I wish they had more than they do now in the State schools. But you don't need violence dished out by sadists.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 17:42
|
>> you don't need violence dished out by sadists.
They weren't usually sadists, although you met the odd one. It's just that it was a much more sadistic age. After all the two halves of the world had just stopped trying to kill each other. A spanking seemed quite small beer compared to Hiroshima in the background.
Corporal punishment was just the pedagogic convention, and a time-honoured one at that. I could have been kept in order quite easily without it. What I needed was to be kept interested in the pedagogy, which was quite easy for decent teachers. But others, more phobic and resistant to academic carp, did seem sometimes to need a short sharp shock.
It is certainly the case that the flogging schools I attended were academically better than the others.
|
I can only speak of the three secondary schools I went to.
The Sports Teacher in one; Mr. Williams, the History Teacher in another, Huw Jones, and the Art Teacher in another, Mr. Brooks - just as an example from each of the schools I went to.
Now I was a oft expelled trouble maker, but these people by and large picked on me a lot less than they did some of my more peaceful peers.
Without doubt they got a kick out of causing pain to kids. And they indulged themselves
As a child who suffered no violence from his immediate family, it took me a while to sort myself, my resentment and my bitterness out after the violence I did receive at schools.
Those times are well gone, and thank goodness for that.
Anyway, s'nuff.
|
>> Anyway, s'nuff.
Yeah, getting a bit boring.
I don't know when or where you were at school FMR, but it all sounds a bit sixties to me. Things were changing by then.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 19:20
|
>> flung blackboard rubbers - dangerous missiles actually - were commonplace in British schools in the
>> forties and fifties.
And on in to the 80s. A particularly nasty maths teacher of mine (it was always maths and history teachers in my experience) once flung the wooden blackboard duster at me. I ducked, it flew out of an open wind, and hit Gordon Jackson on the back of the head. Yes, that Gordon Jackson. An episode of The Professionals was being filmed in my school's grounds that week. Bodie and Doyle were suitably amused. The teacher blamed me and got his revenge by dishing out a sound thrashing the next time I transgressed (he was my housemaster also, and was happy to take the responsibility of the beating when the opportunity arose).
|
:)
That's a fantastic anecdote and I'm amazed Kenneth Williams didn't co-opt it.
|
|
Getting a clout off my dad for smoking always lives with me, mainly because he had a cigarette in the other hand while he did it.
|
>> Did it stop you smoking?
>>
No.
Funnily enough my uncle used to give me the odd cigarette when I was about fifteen while sternly warning my cousin what would happen to him if he smoked. And in later years I found out my old man shared a ciggy with the same cousin.
Families eh, who'd have 'em?
|
I got caned on the hands by my first head teacher for "taking advantage". I didn't understood what this meant. I got expelled once. I suppose there was a reason but no-one ever said why. I was very happy in my next school. The headmaster was a thrasher but it was only noise and ritual. The carpentry teacher used to get upset and throw chisels at us but his aim was rotten and he never hit anyone. I liked him: he let me abandon my tenon joints and drill out the chambers on my American naval pistol to take cartridges. (it didn't work, a waste of the sixpence I had paid for the gun). The final school was headed by a pacifist who was however a tiger when roused. He once thrashed an entire form and broke the cane on a mate of mine.
Here's the secret to securing good behaviour. Positive reinforcement: smile and praise the child - even over-praise it - whenever it does something right and indicate what the act is and why it is good. Extinction: when it does something wrong ignore it and assume an expressionless face while observing common-sense safety precautions.
|
I went to a Kent prep school and was beaten, occasionally, with a very small cricket bat thingy, we called it the tip and run bat, I think there was a game in which it was used.
I went to a public school in Norfolk, in the 50s, where the headmaster was relieved of his duties for, not only beating boys excessively, but also enjoying it too much! When I recall the state of some of our buttocks I realise that, nowadays at least, the man would have been arrested for aggravated assault or something, if the matter was raised with the police. As it was, we accepted it was part of our education.
|
We used to get whacked with a cricket bat in school by a masochistic PT teacher. He was truly a bully, died of the effects of drink eventually. Never did me any harm other than an enduring hatred of any sports (apart from motor sports of course). Lots of my fellow pupils made it big in the real world, one actually ended up playing lower league football and later a football commentator.
The bullying teacher had a lovely little Sunbeam Alpine convertible. Makes me sound like that Grimley kid off the telly.
|
I was regularly caned at Grammar school ( late 50's and early 60's) and it was not unknown for entire classes to be caned ......
I was once beaten with a chair leg..... I would like to get my hands on that teacher now.... the chair leg would be going where the sun don't shine......now I am not a skinny ten year old any more..
Last edited by: helicopter on Fri 2 Aug 13 at 11:18
|
Modern Parenting - Zero
