To spank or not to spank?

In respond to the news on Newpaper on the 8th Noverber 08. .A step father who caned his son for more about 100 strokes using two rattan canes tied together. The boy's injuries were so serious that he had to be warded in hospital for eight days. On Wednesday, the 39-year-old stepfather was jailed nine months for child abuse. The judge also ordered him to undergo counselling in prison.

Times are changing folks, that for sure. No longer is a parent allowed to spank his or her own child for doing something bad. Instead, we send him or her to “timeout” to think about what they did and how they have wronged.

After reading Pastor Barry W. Barnett case, i think
in these politically correct times, the question is, "To spank or not to spank"? When child discipline has moved increasingly out of the home and into courtrooms and legislative assemblies. Take for instance The Pastor Case.

One local newspaper pointed out that spanking has never really gone away, despite studies showing that it might do more harm than good. Researcher also found that spanking was linked to a wide range of negative outcomes in children, such as aggression, mental-health problems and criminal behavior later in life.

Spanking to me is effective only in the short term, and parents who did that often inadvertently abuse their own children. Those who support the use of physical force on tykes often cite their own childhood experience of beating. They argue that it toughened them and served to build character.

Still, government intervention is sometime hit-and-miss, and can backfire down the line. A more sensible option, rather than an across-the board ban, is to try to educate parent well. I suggest free, mandatory-parenting classes for pregnant couples, for example. I don't believe in using physical force when it comes to discipline my own kids. My mum used the cane often when I was growing up, and it only made me resentful and more rebellious.

I will make it a point to reason with my daughter when she grows up, and to explain the consequences of specific action. But when there is an immediate danger, or she is tired or hysterical(because my wife says i can be very speechy on philosophy sometime), a tiny slap on the wrist or on her well-padded diapered bottom is as far as I will go.

Lucky Gracia.