Oh yes your so right. as a child I never felt so loved as when I was being beaten.

No its not a slap side the ear its what it says, a paddling. Every school district in Mississippi with the exception of Oxford allows the beating of children public and private. Its a disgrace. Every problem solved with violence from school behaviour to popular culture and we wonder why 11,000 people a year get shot to death! I am no pacifist but what children dont need is a paddling maybe some of that misbehaviour is actually a cry for help from a distressed child and a bit of love and understanding is needed. But hey a slap up the ear is so much easier than doing some work trying to understand whats wrong isnt it?

Actually, there are some states that do allow corporal punishment in their schools, but they leave it up to the inidvidual school district to decide whether it will be enforced. There is a listing of each state at this link:

http://www.familyeducation.com/artic...1-3980,00.html

I looked into this when one of the local school districts in the Tampa Bay area near where I live agreed to bring paddling back to its school.

Remember as the writer after you said this is for private and religious school not public schools. Only last year in Austin there was a case of child endangerment when a boy was taken to hospital by his parents to Hospital after a whipping by his church teachers. 2 brothers, teachers at the school and in their early 20's, believed in taking in turns 'whipping" the badness out of the boy with sticks. He was so badly injured that he was in hospital for several days. Despite this, parents of other pupils of the school, fully supported the brothers. The brothers were jailed but the school is still open.

one of the best games ever.

Me and my best mate would have endless fits of laughter, when you could actually type in a different name so of course "Mr wacker, became Mr wanker".

What's that got to do with it?
If some other kid messes around in my child's class, disrupting the lesson (or worse), then what has 'loved' got to do with it?
Oh yes, much more important the the misbehaver 'learns' that bad behaviour=kind words and special attention rather than punishment!

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
Listen, I lived in a good middle class area of the UK (Dorset). Yet every damn night we were victimized by these little 'distressed children' that no-one, NO-ONE had ever instilled any discipline, respect for society etc. in!
Round here you do that kind of thing - you go to jail. Crime > Punishment, real simple really and it's instilled into kids from day 1 in kindergaten.
I say again, I have grown up to be a non-violent pretty non-confrontational kind of guy, pay my taxes, respect authority etc. At school I did plenty wrong and had the crap beaten out of me by the head. That cane hurt, really hurt! And, I don't personally give a crap if the head got some kind of sexual gratification for using the cane - that's his funeral, not mine!

Don't get me wrong, as a parent I think I've physically smacked each of my two kids once only in their entire lives. The tongue is generally MUCH worse than the hand if you apply it for the right reasons.

And, my kids ARE in a private church school, corporal punishment IS allowed, as is physical contact with the teachers (first thing I saw at the school was a male teacher put his arm around a 14 year old girl upset about some failed work assignment - I suddenly realized how far from common sense we had strayed in the UK!).

Andy.

Sorry, don't see the distinction between private and state schools that's being painted here.

Don't understand the point of your post either. 2 teachers at a school broke the law and were jailed. Yes, poor kid to be subjected to that (and I'd be the first to throw away the keys for the 2 brothers) but how does criminal action of this type in a school have relevance to the general corporal punishment in schools argument?

As far as I know corporal punishment isn't practised in public schools in Texas. As to the point of the 2 brothers, yes, they were rightly jailed but they would have got away with it if the parents hadn't of taken the child to hospital and from all accounts its was a regular feature of the school. Also, all the other parents supported the brothers because it was done in '"God's name".

Yes,
I'll grant you that religious extremism, rather like any kind of extremism, has no real place in the civilised world.
And, I'll also grant you that a lot of un-civilised behaviour hides behind a "God's name" shield.

But I think that point got slightly off-topic here.

The fact is that most good private schools in the South are church schools. Some are waayyy over the top in their religious zeal, others not so.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think there's any connection per se, between religion and corporal punishment in schools.

My point is simply that this "we musn't smack our kids" and "corporal punishment is barbarism" nonsense swallowed by the UK in the name of following the EU is plain wrong - wrong for the kids, for the parents and, most importantly, for the country.

Andy.

Personally, the only person I believe who has a right to smack my daughter is myself or her mother.

I remember being at school in England and the fear that they would call my parents if I did anything wrong was enough to keep me inline. My mother was heavy handed, but only when necessary. I soon learnt that lesson.

I have met so many people that complain about how bad their own kids are and say “hopefully the school will sort them out.� Why? Can’t do it yourself?

Removing corporal punishment from schools is not the reason for today’s youth. It’s the parents. We’re all so quick to blame other reasons for our child’s behavior, but what it boils down to is lack of interest at home. We’re too quick to shove them in front of a TV or games machine to keep them quiet instead of being a family.

Just my opinion.

Have to agree with you on this one. Personally i think sending children to a church based school counts as abuse anyway. The last thing any kid needs is a good brainwashing.

I misbehaved a lot at school myself and got caned on a regular basis for it. Maybe however if someone had bothered to take the time to find out why i behaved like that it wouldnt have taken an abortive suicide attempt and a psychotherapist to realise i was somewhat upset about being sexually abused by my neighbour. But hey all those beatings made me the man i am today i suppose.

Sometimes its a neccessary form of discipline but sometimes the effort needs to be made to find out whats wrong first?

So, where does that thought end then? If your daughter breaks the law, are you the only one allowed to deal with that? What's the difference between that and breaking the discipline code at school?

Agreed absolutely that the problem with kids today (some kids today, in fact a tiny minority of kids today) is lack of parental control. If my kids misbehaved badly enough at school to warrant corporal punishment then the school punishment would fad into insignificance compared to what they would get when they got home!
But the fact is that my kids go to school where there are other children whose parents don't have the same values.

And Duncs. - not sure if you have any children but, I was very happy for my kids to go to a church school BECAUSE I am an atheist - I considered MY lack of belief to be as much brainwashing to them as a christian education. Have you thought of that? Are you SO sure that YOUR beliefs are the right ones to follow that you have no room for other beliefs? Now THAT smacks of religious extremism in itself!

Andy.

I couldn't agree more... expecting schools to sort your kids out is just plain lazy.

ash

Misbehaving at school and committing criminal law are sort of different don't you think?

Talking in class is not the same as robbing someone’s home.

I would struggle with that. Being an atheist myself and seeing the damage religion can do, I would not want my daughter to have anything to do with it. She is in a non-religious school in England. She learns about religions from her mother and I in a non-biased format. Although my beliefs are somewhat extreme, I can teach her about the many religions of the world without that bias. She knows that daddy doesn't believe along with many other people, but knows about the various religions people choose to follow.

As an atheist, how can I decide what religious school is best for my child? How can I decide which version to have installed in her? How do I know that version is correct? I can't and won't do it. I would rather she was raised with that open mindedness to allow her to investigate all the possibilities herself and not be a recovering catholic like her father.

But then we are all different and there is no rule book for raising kids. Lucky too, as most parents would be getting paddlings themselves