UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations has told the Canadian government to ban all forms of corporal punishment of youngsters -- including even a light slap.


http://www.canada.com/toronto/news/s...9-9B92F014DCEB

"When a child is young and cannot understand, a tap on the hand is essential for training. We have a wood-burning stove that gets very hot. It's ridiculous that I can't save my child from burning himself by tapping his hand away from it."

In an interview from Geneva yesterday, the committee member responsible for communicating with Canada said such a child would learn quickly enough not to touch a hot stove.

"If he puts his hand on a hot oven, he will be burnt and he will not do it again," said Moushira Khattab of Egypt. Ms. Khattab admitted to having lightly disciplined her own two children, now adults. But she added she now knows better.

"There are other means," she said. "Children are very smart, and even when they are as young as two or three months old, they will understand if you have a tough look, or change the tone of your voice, or turn away from them.

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Hmm, tapping hand away versus letting them burn themselves to learn the stove is hot. Gee Alex, I think I'll take tapping for $1000.</font>

[ 10-09-2003, 05:26 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

Geez, I thought the UN had more important things to deal with. Sorry but I'll deal with my children how I want, short of breaking the law. Sometimes a slap on the hand is necessary.

Sometimes a switch to the rear is necessary. Spare the rod, spoil the child.

yep... and there are some out there who think that the above saying means "don't use corporal punishment".

IMO - spanking can and should be used when deemed necessary by competent parents... in fact I would submit that current non-discuplinary (sp?) fashion in child rearing has caused a LOT more problems than it's cured. When a child KNOWS what he/she is supposed to be doing and chooses not to do it, negative reinforcement is called for, and the last thing parents need are liberal busybodies jamming thier twisted parenting opinions down our throats.

For my wife and I, spanking is reserved for activity that is dangerous... but when it's happened it wasn't a "pat on the behind", it was a "pat" that was firm enough to get their undivided attention.

[ 10-09-2003, 07:59 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

That's the whole point here. If this ban takes place you WILL be breaking the law for any form of physical punishment. Since you live in a democracy you'll have see to it that you get your voice on this heard.

[ 10-10-2003, 02:37 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Tap on the hand (along with time outs) is what a friend of mine did with her three kids and they learned quickly enough and never needed 'spankings' later on.

I'm not an advocate of spanking, but I'd sure rather say sharply "NO" and tap a child on the hand than take him or her to the emergency room with a serious burn! Geez!

Well, this obviously is a "politicians don't know what they are talking about" case. Tapping your child on the hand to prevent him/her from severe burning is not illegal in any country because (and I just assume for the love of logic that all lawbooks are similar in that context): It is not illegal to commit an illegal act which is necessary to DIRECTLY AVOID a more severe damage/harm. So for example it is of course legal to cross a red light in order to save a child from an approaching car. It's also legal if you injure the kid in the process (of falling down) because you have avoided his/her death.

My guess is:

The Canadian guy wanted to derail the debate from actual spanking to a topic where slapping a child was okay (emergency).
The Egyptian guy wanted to disagree but instead of: "This is a completely different situation and was not the topic of our discussion" he resorted to negating a commonly accepted fact. Not very thougtful.

Just wanted to point out again that spanking is NOT negative reinforcement. Here's a reply I made in another spanking thread where the same comment was made:

Reinforcement is something you do to encourage a certain behaviour. Punishment is something you do to discourage certain behaviour. Positive means to add something to the situation, negative means to take something away from the situation. So then, positive reinforcement is adding something to encourage behaviour - giving treats if your child does some chore. Negative reinforcement is taking something away to encourage behaviour - saying your child doesn't have to do their chores if they do all their homework. Positive punishment is adding something to discourage behaviour - smacking your child if they do something you want them not to do. Negative punishment is taking something away to discourage behaviour - not letting them watch TV if they've been naughty. An easy way to remember what is reinforcing and what is punishing, is that after being reinforced you feel good. After being punished you feel bad [img]smile.gif[/img]

The reason it's important to understand the difference, is that there is a lot of evidence that behaviour change is most effective by reinforcing and punishing is not as useful. Now that's not to say that the research is right, or applicable in this case, but if you don't understand reinforcement and punishment, and think that spanking is negative reinforcement, then you could use that evidence to support your case. Which would be wrong, and in fact the exact opposite of what the research is actually trying to show.

I agree with those that have said that this law is wrong. While I don't agree that spanking is necessary or even as effective as some means of punishment, I think that it's a parents' perogative how they choose to discipline their child within reason, and I would imagine those discipline methods that wouldn't fall into 'within reason' would already have laws against them (physical abuse etc).

"In nine countries there are now explicit bans on physical punishment. These are Austria (1989), Croatia (1999), Cyprus (1994), Denmark (1997), Finland (1983), Germany (2000), Latvia (1998), Norway (1987) and Sweden (1979). In Israel and Italy Supreme Court decisions essentially deem all corporal punishment illegal. Research and informal reports from some of these countries indicate that there are no increases in prosecutions for minor assaults, that parent support services have increased, and that low child abuse death rates exist.
http://epochnz.virtualave.net/paper_..._briefing.html


This is an entirely different thing. If you injure a child in the process of falling down you will not be held guilty of assault as you neither had the intention of assaulting the child nor were able to prevent yourself from injuring the child.
In the case of 'crossing a red light' in order to save a child - it remains an illegal action: however, given the mitigating circumstances, it is unlikley that a public prosecuter would wish to bring the case to court as the judge would be minded to release you without punishment.

The point is that you do not punish the child in this case. You do hurt him/her to avoid getting him/her hurt even more.
Crossing the red light in itself of course remains illegal. But the complete facts of the case (i.e. crossing the red light to save the child) makes it legal. No prosecutor would ever try to take up such a case (at least not in Austria) because the defendant clearly will be found "not guilty" (and not only by a jury in the US but also by written law like in Austria).