The first time I had ever learned about 'corporal punishment' was in junior high school.
Of course, it had been practiced on me years prior, but I didn't know it had a formal name...other than a good old fashioned butt-whoopin'.
All I could really focus on was the name. All I thought of was the military. Was it used in the military? After seeing the movie "Full Metal Jacket" for the first time, I'm sure Vincent D'Onofrio's character would have wished for it compared with what he got that night in his bunk.
There's a running gag on the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", where phrases uttered unwittingly by the first person like 'general idea', 'major problem', 'private matter', are followed by the second person repeating the phrase accompanied by a salute. Yes, 'corporal punishment' would apply here.
My thoughts return to the 1982-83 Kiski Area School District handbook, and the quote contained therein...
"It is important at this time for parents to be aware of the rules and regulations pertaining to corporal punishment. First, what is corporal punishment? Corporal punishment is paddling a student. Hopefully, it is used only when all other types of discipline have failed."
Sometimes it was, and other times, it wasn't. More often than not, it was a motivational threat uttered by some teachers, and that was enough to keep students in line. Self included.
Corporal punishment has all but disappeared not just from schools, but from society in general.
Child advocates call it a counter-productive form of abuse, stating that it has no bearing whatsoever on a child's behavior. I strongly disagree.
Corporal punishment can be effective if it is truly treated as a last resort, and never as a first line of defense. Confined to the backside only with no more force other than your bare hand. And certainly never tempered with anger.
Punishment must be on an even keel that maintains the child's respect towards the parent. Remember, respect is something that is earned, not demanded.
Those that don't spank often resort to yelling. This too accomplishes nothing.
I get a kick out of seeing parents yell and scream until they're blue in the face, knowing they're doing nothing other than fostering feelings of fear, hate, resentment and bitterness in their children.
As my golf-happy father-in-law would say "it's all in the follow-through".
When a child does wrong, it must be explained WHY their behavior is wrong and why they're being corrected. If a child is struck without explanation, it will ultimately lead to defiance.
Respect is a two-way street. Never lose sight of this. Does it mean you have to bow down and kiss your child's backside to make them fall in line? Of course not. But your child must be told in a calm and rational tone that there are consequences for errant and defiant behavior, and those consequences will be enforced. And it's up to you to see that they're enforced.
My 21-month-old daughter has had to learn the hard way about time-outs twice. She was given ample warning to improve her behavior prior to the time-out. The time-outs were effective, and she has never had to be spanked.
But that day may come where there is no alternative.
I sure won't look forward to it. But I won't hesitate to do it.
I got my hindquarters swatted plenty of times in my youth. Yet I'm successful, I'm not a part of the criminal justice system, and I'm a productive member of society. Not part of this generation raised on entitlement that we've seemed to have perpetuated.
You can read all the parenting books you want. But taking time to think things through and drawing from your own past experiences can make all the difference.
NEXT WEEK: Liar, Liar
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The Truth About Boys and Girls
They grow up fast, don't they?
And these days, they grow up faster than you would ever imagine.
Especially among my family and my best friend, whom I lump in as part of my family.
During a family gathering, when no children were present, my sister-in-law shared a story about how my seven-and-a-half-year-old niece (her daughter) asked her mother "how big is my uterus?"
After I sucked my eyeballs back into my head and blotted the green tea that made its way through my nasal passages, I collected myself and asked her how she handled the inquiry.
My sister-in-law explained to her what her uterus was, where it was, and what its purpose was. Of course, this snowballed into a blizzard of subsequent questions.
All of which were answered truthfully, notwithstanding.
However, my niece was reminded that other parents may not be ready to expose this information to their own children. And that it was best to keep this knowledge to herself. If someone asked her a question, it was OK to answer truthfully, but not volunteer the information.
This wasn't a problem. My niece was so bewildered at what she just learned that it was best to keep it under wraps. For a long time.
And that can't be a bad thing.
My best friend and his wife handled the situation with their own daughters in similar fashion. And the reaction wasn't different that that of my niece, but definitely very quotable:
"Ewwwwwww!!!!!"
Whether your kid can "handle the truth" or not is immaterial. Someday they will simply have to.
Hold off on volunteering it, but don't withhold information or lie about it.
Personally, I got a book. Which I highly recommend.
"Love and Sex in Plain Language" by Eric W. Johnson, a schoolteacher. He wrote the book in the early 1980s and added an update on AIDS in another run of the book by the decade's end. You can find it at Amazon.com.
It's written in an easy to read format for adolescents, without downtalk but without overly technical medical information that can leave young people confused.
So talk to your kids about the facts of life. Not talking about it won't avoid the situation. Even if all you can muster is the book, so be it.
NEXT WEEK: Corporal Punishment? Sir, yes sir!
And these days, they grow up faster than you would ever imagine.
Especially among my family and my best friend, whom I lump in as part of my family.
During a family gathering, when no children were present, my sister-in-law shared a story about how my seven-and-a-half-year-old niece (her daughter) asked her mother "how big is my uterus?"
After I sucked my eyeballs back into my head and blotted the green tea that made its way through my nasal passages, I collected myself and asked her how she handled the inquiry.
My sister-in-law explained to her what her uterus was, where it was, and what its purpose was. Of course, this snowballed into a blizzard of subsequent questions.
All of which were answered truthfully, notwithstanding.
However, my niece was reminded that other parents may not be ready to expose this information to their own children. And that it was best to keep this knowledge to herself. If someone asked her a question, it was OK to answer truthfully, but not volunteer the information.
This wasn't a problem. My niece was so bewildered at what she just learned that it was best to keep it under wraps. For a long time.
And that can't be a bad thing.
My best friend and his wife handled the situation with their own daughters in similar fashion. And the reaction wasn't different that that of my niece, but definitely very quotable:
"Ewwwwwww!!!!!"
Whether your kid can "handle the truth" or not is immaterial. Someday they will simply have to.
Hold off on volunteering it, but don't withhold information or lie about it.
Personally, I got a book. Which I highly recommend.
"Love and Sex in Plain Language" by Eric W. Johnson, a schoolteacher. He wrote the book in the early 1980s and added an update on AIDS in another run of the book by the decade's end. You can find it at Amazon.com.
It's written in an easy to read format for adolescents, without downtalk but without overly technical medical information that can leave young people confused.
So talk to your kids about the facts of life. Not talking about it won't avoid the situation. Even if all you can muster is the book, so be it.
NEXT WEEK: Corporal Punishment? Sir, yes sir!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Teach Your Children...Part III
There's two ways parents can choose to raise their children...Lead by Example and Do as I Say, Not as I Do.
More often than not, I see the latter in place...and yet these same parents get upset when their offspring imitates their thoughts and actions.
How you conduct yourself affects the way your children to grow up, whether you intend it to be that way or not.
Your child is a constant presence in your life. Yet how many times have you come home complaining about your job, your boss, or your life in general? How many times have you said something unkind to your spouse? Or a parent? A neighbor, perhaps? How many times have you stated bold-faced lies to another in the presence of your own children?
Negative behaviors affect your child's upbringing in more ways than you ever could imagine. And when we call them on it, we don't often stop and think that we might be the source of the problem.
A father that berates his wife in front of his young son will experience his son believing it's OK to berate women, and will likely have problems with the boy talking back to his mother. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
My mind flashes back to a televised public service announcement I once saw years ago from the 1980s, sponsored by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. You can still find it on YouTube.
A father walks into his son's bedroom while the kid's listening to music on headphones connected to his stereo. The father walks in and shuts the music off, confronting his son with a cigar box containing the kid's dope stash.
"Who taught you how to do this?" the father asks testily.
The kid, ashamed at first, takes a beat, and then looks his father in the eyes and blurts out the line in anguish:
"You, all right? I learned it by watching you!"
"Do as I Say, Not as I Do", huh?
Your responsibility as a parent is to raise a productive member of society into successful adulthood. How do you use drugs yet tell your child it's wrong?
There's no more fundamental teaching than right and wrong. Period. Without evil, there can be no good. And vice-versa. The fine line. Black and White.
Now that line between the black and white is bleeding into gray...we manage to reconcile behaviors that are wrong to our offspring, and the cycle then perpetuates.
Everyone has vices. Self included. My wife and I enjoy a bottle of wine about once or twice a week. Most often, we enjoy it after our daughter goes to bed for the night.
But we also enjoy it responsibly. I pointed this out to my young nephew, raised in a home with strong Christian values. He pointed out to his Uncle Ken that drinking was a sin.
Is it, I said?
I patiently took out my Bible and pointed out several passages that involved the consumption of wine in a positive manner. Then I pointed out the negative. The difference was the effect produced by overconsumption.
He got the message.
I don't have to get on a soapbox and preach the difference between right and wrong. The difference is whether we choose to embrace it or turn our backs to it in favor of living our lives 'our way'.
You know what to do.
Do it.
NEXT WEEK: Truth or Consequences
More often than not, I see the latter in place...and yet these same parents get upset when their offspring imitates their thoughts and actions.
How you conduct yourself affects the way your children to grow up, whether you intend it to be that way or not.
Your child is a constant presence in your life. Yet how many times have you come home complaining about your job, your boss, or your life in general? How many times have you said something unkind to your spouse? Or a parent? A neighbor, perhaps? How many times have you stated bold-faced lies to another in the presence of your own children?
Negative behaviors affect your child's upbringing in more ways than you ever could imagine. And when we call them on it, we don't often stop and think that we might be the source of the problem.
A father that berates his wife in front of his young son will experience his son believing it's OK to berate women, and will likely have problems with the boy talking back to his mother. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
My mind flashes back to a televised public service announcement I once saw years ago from the 1980s, sponsored by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. You can still find it on YouTube.
A father walks into his son's bedroom while the kid's listening to music on headphones connected to his stereo. The father walks in and shuts the music off, confronting his son with a cigar box containing the kid's dope stash.
"Who taught you how to do this?" the father asks testily.
The kid, ashamed at first, takes a beat, and then looks his father in the eyes and blurts out the line in anguish:
"You, all right? I learned it by watching you!"
"Do as I Say, Not as I Do", huh?
Your responsibility as a parent is to raise a productive member of society into successful adulthood. How do you use drugs yet tell your child it's wrong?
There's no more fundamental teaching than right and wrong. Period. Without evil, there can be no good. And vice-versa. The fine line. Black and White.
Now that line between the black and white is bleeding into gray...we manage to reconcile behaviors that are wrong to our offspring, and the cycle then perpetuates.
Everyone has vices. Self included. My wife and I enjoy a bottle of wine about once or twice a week. Most often, we enjoy it after our daughter goes to bed for the night.
But we also enjoy it responsibly. I pointed this out to my young nephew, raised in a home with strong Christian values. He pointed out to his Uncle Ken that drinking was a sin.
Is it, I said?
I patiently took out my Bible and pointed out several passages that involved the consumption of wine in a positive manner. Then I pointed out the negative. The difference was the effect produced by overconsumption.
He got the message.
I don't have to get on a soapbox and preach the difference between right and wrong. The difference is whether we choose to embrace it or turn our backs to it in favor of living our lives 'our way'.
You know what to do.
Do it.
NEXT WEEK: Truth or Consequences
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Teach Your Children...Part II
Yep, there's a 'Part II'. And next week will be the final installment of this little series.
As much as you've heard me complain about teachers represented by unions that still have the right to strike, I still respect those entrusted with the burdensome task of educating our youth. Because they care about the education of our children...not about the benefit package or paycheck.
So much so, that these words by a student to a teacher can cut like a knife:
"I'm thinking of quitting".
School.
My mind flashes back to eighth grade in junior high school. I remember a young man named Jon. I call him a young man because he looked like he had repeated at least couple years.
Our teacher, Mrs. Lyle, had asked around the room at the start of the school year what we wanted to do with our lives after school. Apparently Jon wanted to get a head start on the rest of us with that very statement.
Mrs. Lyle gasped. She said pleadingly 'no, don't say that, Jon'. She had hoped that she would change his mind and maybe get his progress to improve.
She didn't. On his last day, she pleaded with him again to reconsider, imploring him that dropping out would come back to haunt him in time, and that he would have it hard for the rest of his life. It didn't seem to faze him.
No one but Jon and his family and closest friends know the reason of why he didn't finish school. I still think about him every now and again and wonder how his life turned out. He's not the only one.
No parent worth his or her salt should ever allow their child to quit school. "What can I do?" a frustrated father exclaimed to me one day. "I can't make him go after he turns 18!"
I asked if the lad still lived at home. He did.
If the kid felt he had learned everything he could from school, then he learned enough to set off and live life on his own. That meant packing his bags and moving out.
The father, whom I'll call Don (not his real name), was appalled. How heartless could I be?
Not heartless. The toughest form of tough love there was. Try it, I said.
With some reluctance, Don did just that.
The kid reconsidered his game plan. He did graduate...and just a few GPA points short of the honor roll. He enlisted in the military after that.
Results not typical, by the way.
Others still drop out and move out. They struggle for awhile, but then get their GED, and either continue to struggle or go to college or trade school afterwards and change their lives for the better.
Most people don't realize they've screwed up until they're 40 or 50. If ever.
The lessons school teaches you aren't just academic in nature. They give you a crash course in the school of hard knocks too.
If you're studying to be an architect, do you REALLY need Gen-Ed classes like philosophy, world cultures, or psychology?
Probably not. But that's not the point.
Adversity is one of those things that can't be directly taught in school. Thus, it's learned indirectly through jumping over hurdles to get to the ultimate goal...that little piece of paper. Ever so more important than ever in a rapidly tightening job market.
The point is, nothing truly earned is ever easy. Life is not meant to be easy. That's for your retirement years, if you're fortunate enough to live that long. And the quality of life in those years will depend on how well you planned for them earlier in life.
As I alluded to last week, you too are a teacher.
Teach your children the value of education.
They not only need it, but it's your responsibility.
And it's their right.
NEXT WEEK: Teach by Example
As much as you've heard me complain about teachers represented by unions that still have the right to strike, I still respect those entrusted with the burdensome task of educating our youth. Because they care about the education of our children...not about the benefit package or paycheck.
So much so, that these words by a student to a teacher can cut like a knife:
"I'm thinking of quitting".
School.
My mind flashes back to eighth grade in junior high school. I remember a young man named Jon. I call him a young man because he looked like he had repeated at least couple years.
Our teacher, Mrs. Lyle, had asked around the room at the start of the school year what we wanted to do with our lives after school. Apparently Jon wanted to get a head start on the rest of us with that very statement.
Mrs. Lyle gasped. She said pleadingly 'no, don't say that, Jon'. She had hoped that she would change his mind and maybe get his progress to improve.
She didn't. On his last day, she pleaded with him again to reconsider, imploring him that dropping out would come back to haunt him in time, and that he would have it hard for the rest of his life. It didn't seem to faze him.
No one but Jon and his family and closest friends know the reason of why he didn't finish school. I still think about him every now and again and wonder how his life turned out. He's not the only one.
No parent worth his or her salt should ever allow their child to quit school. "What can I do?" a frustrated father exclaimed to me one day. "I can't make him go after he turns 18!"
I asked if the lad still lived at home. He did.
If the kid felt he had learned everything he could from school, then he learned enough to set off and live life on his own. That meant packing his bags and moving out.
The father, whom I'll call Don (not his real name), was appalled. How heartless could I be?
Not heartless. The toughest form of tough love there was. Try it, I said.
With some reluctance, Don did just that.
The kid reconsidered his game plan. He did graduate...and just a few GPA points short of the honor roll. He enlisted in the military after that.
Results not typical, by the way.
Others still drop out and move out. They struggle for awhile, but then get their GED, and either continue to struggle or go to college or trade school afterwards and change their lives for the better.
Most people don't realize they've screwed up until they're 40 or 50. If ever.
The lessons school teaches you aren't just academic in nature. They give you a crash course in the school of hard knocks too.
If you're studying to be an architect, do you REALLY need Gen-Ed classes like philosophy, world cultures, or psychology?
Probably not. But that's not the point.
Adversity is one of those things that can't be directly taught in school. Thus, it's learned indirectly through jumping over hurdles to get to the ultimate goal...that little piece of paper. Ever so more important than ever in a rapidly tightening job market.
The point is, nothing truly earned is ever easy. Life is not meant to be easy. That's for your retirement years, if you're fortunate enough to live that long. And the quality of life in those years will depend on how well you planned for them earlier in life.
As I alluded to last week, you too are a teacher.
Teach your children the value of education.
They not only need it, but it's your responsibility.
And it's their right.
NEXT WEEK: Teach by Example
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