Ahman Ah-rested

[hoosier]

She was punished for being disobedient, not just because he was an angry maniac lashing out blindly. We wouldn't expect him to fly off the handle and smack his kid if the Packers lost for instance. Discipline and losing control are not mutually exclusive although I agree that they definitely should be. I doubt much corporal punishment is administered by cool-headed parents.

An angry maniac thrashing around blindly is not quite what I had in mind. The hypothetical scenario I was envisioning is someone who has been seething quietly for a while and, when the kid finally says something insulting about his wife (I'm assuming they're married; she is not the daughter's biological mother), he gives her a hard backhand, breaking her glasses and bruising the side of her face. That isn't discipline.

[3irty1]

An angry maniac thrashing around blindly is not quite what I had in mind. The hypothetical scenario I was envisioning is someone who has been seething quietly for a while and, when the kid finally says something insulting about his wife (I'm assuming they're married; she is not the daughter's biological mother), he gives her a hard backhand, breaking her glasses and bruising the side of her face. That isn't discipline.

Why exactly? Is he not training her to obey a code of behavior? Again, its obviously bad practice... but I don't see how its not discipline. It seems exactly like discipline of the old school variety.

[hoosier]

Why exactly? Is he not training her to obey a code of behavior? Again, its obviously bad practice... but I don't see how its not discipline. It seems exactly like discipline of the old school variety.

Well, let's see, what exactly would that kind of reaction teach a child? To do the dishes when told? That her views and needs are unimportant in comparison to those of others? To fear her father because he's likely to hurt her if she makes him angry?

I say hitting a child in anger is not discipline because it sets a problematic example, and because the child is likely to be responding to anger and fear over anything else. Generally speaking humans don't learn well in those situations.

[3irty1]

Well, let's see, what exactly would that kind of reaction teach a child? To do the dishes when told? That her views and needs are unimportant in comparison to those of others? To fear her father because he's likely to hurt her if she makes him angry?

I say hitting a child in anger is not discipline because it sets a problematic example, and because the child is likely to be responding to anger and fear over anything else. Generally speaking humans don't learn well in those situations.

This is no mystery. It teaches a child that their behavior resulted in a negative outcome among other things. You're not going to get me to defend the practice of getting physical with children, as you say there are much better ways that set a better example, are much more instructive, and cultivate a better learning environment. But poorly executed discipline is still discipline. If this wasn't, very little of what has ever been called discipline actually was. There are probably people on this site that were hit by teachers in school. This type of stuff was a completely normal part of the human experience for thousands of years. I remember reading somewhere that in the medieval legal system kids would be beaten to act as a record for litigation; the idea being if you beat them they'll pretty much remember anything for later testimony. That's pretty much the same conventional wisdom that survived until a blink in history ago.

BTW, the only reason I push on the semantic of discipline or not is because it informs his intentions here. Its the difference between the alcoholic who beats his kids for his own sake vs the parent who does it as an uninformed disciplinarian.