It's a crazy world etc

JUDGEMENT...sqoose peasss and quessss.....KABUKI or KATUNKA....duz it matter!

Teachers do have training, but they cannot touch a child. I work(ed) with children with serious behaviour problems, and I have been called into the school to deal with one of "my" kids, because I can physically restrain them (I actually pick them up under the armpits and dangle them, it calms them right down) if they're violent or hurting themselves. I had one little guy stab his table mate with paper scissors, for no reason. The same kid bit my daughter because she was standing there, and she had a mark for about 2 years on her arm from the bite. This boy was 5 or 6 and weighed about 50 pounds. Dangerous little bugger. Teachers could not even hold his arms down when he was punching them or pick him up to carry him from the room - the entire class has to be removed, and the child remains.

I'm surprised that the police didn't do what they normally do and beat the shit out of it with their batons. I think psychological torture might have been more appropriate in this situation.

There's a difference between discipline and child abuse, Jaspie, and it's really too bad you got the latter instead of the former. That's one of the problems: too many things become 'abuse' in the wrong hands. I was certainly 'disciplined' when I was a kid: I was spanked, once with a belt, but only for rather serious infractions or wilful disobedience. I don't think instilling discipline and a sense of respect for one's elders is a bad thing. I suppose if the teacher of the little girl in question had been 'allowed' to pick her up and remove her to an empty room, a corner, or the principal's office and left in isolation for awhile until she calmed down, that would have been the solution to choose. As it is, teachers' hands are tied. You can't blame only the parents for misbehaving children. You can't blame teachers, either. Or the police. It's a society rotting from the inside that's to blame, one where we're barely held responsible for ourselves, and certainly not held responsible for the upbringing of other people's children. If I did something my neighbour didn't like, in their front garden, say, they had the right to shout at me or take me back to my mum for chewing out. People are afraid to even do that, nowdays. You'd be infringing on their 'right' to raise their kids how they want, in a society with eroding values.

I thought I'd heard it all. For once I'm speechless. I can't imagine what the poor girl was going through, yes she shouldn't be throwing things around the classroom but don't teachers get training for this. I'd like to watch their training video it must include calling Vin Diesel or Robocop to deal with this dangerous criminal. The police are more to blame because they shouldn't attend call outs like this. My son would be doing life by these standards.

remarkable isnt it?

This is wrong. But I am not sympathetic. In the world of my youth you did not refuse to take part in lessons/ tear things off walls. People so obviously completely lacking in parenting skills that they raise such an awfully behaved child should be fined and sent to parenting lessons.

My thoughts exactly, jude. There has to be a line drawn, somewhere. Arresting a child isn't the answer, certainly. Parenting classes are a very good idea, but who is 'qualified' to decide what 'good' parenting is?

Archergirl, I do see your point that it may be a symptom of a sick society but there are lots of kids out there who have fair and firm parents who have instilled a sense of responsibility into them with appropriate discipline. And these kids from the same inherently flawed society do not behave in this way.

It would be nice if people were helped with parenting skills - some people who have never experienced good parenting in their life ever have no chance of being good parents unless someone helps them.

Oh, don't think this was an isolated event. The same thing happened a few months ago in another school. We had an event in Denver last year, a cop shot and killed a mentally ill little boy who had a butter knife in his hand in his own kitchen. There's an interesting thing to all of this though...if you look at what is happening, it's usually young blacks that are the recipient of this "legal aid". The US is turning into a police state. I'm doing everything within my politically active ability to bring it to light and oppose it. I think I'm probably on the "secret list" somewhere in some "secret" file in the local police departments. They keep tabs on us rabble-rousers ya know, asking governors and presidents to resign and such and supporting free speech and things like that.

So long as the rest of us don't have to pay for it with our taxes fine! Maybe people should watch that super nanny program and read books and then take a test a bit like the driveing theory test. Then when they pass they can have a parents lisence and be allowed to have children. Having children without a licence should carry heavy penalties.

But, does that mean that if someone has had the bad luck to been born of bad parents (who also came from bad parents etc etc) that they should not only suffer an unhappy childhood, but also no help to get their life and the life of their children to be different?

I think there is a limit to what the taxpayer should fork out for. Basic education and healthcare are one thing - parenting classes, aromatherapy and massages for drug addicts and Fen sui for peodaphiles are things that most people are not happy to pay for.

hmmm. Well we deserve all we get then, don't we.

I would say that parenting classes should fall under the taxpayers' auspices along with healthcare and education, jude, if only because they would nip in the bud many of the ensuing social problems, which we also wind up paying for (telly and hot cooked meals in prisons, etc.). I do draw the line at Feng Shui, though. Not from my paycheque, ya don't! Society _is_ rotting from the inside, but that doesn't mean that everyone is rotten. It just means the 'unrotten' ones need to work harder to heal the rot.

Ah, but treatment for drug addicts and treatment for paedophiles has a pretty decent record at amending behaviour - not perfect, but treatment for those conditions/situations/deviances is correspondingly more successful than for alcoholism/rapists. So assuming you're not going to execute them all, doesn't spending money on helping them to control their socially unacceptable behaviour make economic sense?

We're all pretty rotten somewhere.

Hmm. My worst offense is probably not indicating when going round a roundabout. Rehabilitate if you can, by all means. It's a lot of money for very little success. First you have to address the social miasma that causes people to self-medicate in the first place. Success rate is terribly small. As for paedophiles, shoot 'em all. A bullet is cheap and easy. Like that 19 year old in Scotland who first tried to rape a 91 year old woman,and then abducted a 2 year old and attempted to rape _her_...? Can you rehabilitate someone _that_ fucked up? Do you want to spend 100,000 pounds a year on him to keep him in gaol where he gets free meals, a comfortable room, and can watch Teletubbies to his heart's content? I'm sorry. I have small children. I was molested as a child. Paedophiles are surplus to requirement in my ideal society. They get no sympathy from me. Everyone has some rot; some of us have enough sense to never act on our more terrible impulses. I'll pay my karma in the next lifetime. Call me harsh if you will.

Hey Harsh, I tend to agree with you, some people are beyond redemption.

*cough* I realise I sometimes contradict myself, Missi, in terms of who oughtta be shot, and who oughtn't. Flexible value system, I calls it...

Oh hell, let's shoot 'em all and argue about it afterwards.

I used to agree with you on this Archergirl and part of me still does. But I have a friend whom I love very much. He's always been there for me is gentle and kind and . We've known each other for about 12 years and in 2003 he told me that he was a paedophile. was absolutely shattered. Because when you love someone you can't just switch off that love. It was aterrible three months but I realised that I couldn't stop loving him. And seeing as he was voluntarily in treatment and therapy I managed to continue our friendship. He hadn't actually commited any offenses and managed to get help before he did...but I was obviously very upset by the whole thing.

Judge not lest ye be judged. One of the only good bits in the bible.

I suppose I would yield re: your friend, jude; as he hadn't done anything (yet) and was voluntarily seeking help. Clearly he has some self-awareness and deserves all the help he can get. As I said, some of us never act on our uglier impulses. It's the ones who actually _do_ act on those impulses, repeatedly, that I have no sympathy for. The world is better (and my kids safer) without them. Fergality, with due respect, perhaps you don't have children, and perhaps you weren't sexually molested as a 4 year old girl, as I was. Perhaps you shouldn't judge in such matters. But I can. And I do.

Actually archergirl I don't have children, but, (and this isn't particularly the place for me to put stuff out here, but what the fuck) I *was *abused for a long period when I was still very young (6-7). So perhaps you shouldn't think that you speak for all people who have been sexually abused. I speak for myself, and I try hard not to judge because there but for the grace of god go I and all that. I am sorry you have had a terrible experience - I am sorry that everyone who has ever had a terrible experience has ever had a terrible experience. I really am. I appreciate that if I had kids and anything happened to them I would feel beyond terror (I have a 3 year old neice). But I feel violece begets violence and anger begets anger, and until we all try to be more empathetic (and it is very hard to be empathetic with people who cause terrible pain) the world will continue to see injustice and pain. But that's just my opinon, and I certainly didn't mean to offend you at all.

Archergirl what do you think about this - I don't know what to think My friend was sexually abused between the ages of 5 and 7 - by another woman. Well a teenaged girl actually. Abuse perpetrated by women is now widely recognised and it seems in almost all if not all cases the perpetrator was a victim themselves. So would the world be better off without the 16 year old abuser ? Also and this is another issue - the abuser grows up and to my friend's knowledge has never re-offended. She now works as a teacher in a school for kids with special needs. Do you think it is my friends responsibility to say something?

I think that nobody can generalise about anything, because every case of everything is unique - although often follows certain patterns. I am also gracefully bowing out of this thread before I offend anyone or get worked up. ta ra.

There, see? I'm not the only one who thinks parents should teach their children good manners. I'm not against the occasional spank of a child if they're being especially stroppy; I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but WW is right. Children left untended become monsters to deal with. I see 'em in Tesco all the time.

No offence taken, fergality! Although I seemed to be a target for paedophiles from age 2 to age 12 (a whole range of stuff I need not go into; let's just say there are a bunch of them out there) I don't consider myself too 'effed' up by it; I'm able to sustain relationships, etc, and am fairly well-adjusted. But not everyone is so lucky, and it's in defence of those who were truly damaged by molestation that I feel the most, I guess, vengeful. I too feel violence begets violence, and mostly abhor the mere suggestion of 'frontier justice', but there really are people who are beyond redemption. The problem with the judicial system is that it neither really punishes nor really rehabilitates. So what to do with the sexually violent who like to rape children? I grew up at a time when I was still allowed to have a very 'free' childhood; I left home in the morning, cycled to my friend's house across town, and spent whole summers mostly away from home, coming home at dusk. Even when I was eight or nine, I had inordinate amounts of freedom to wander. I wouldn't _dare_ let my own kids do this; although sexual predators have always existed, there just seem to be -so many- of them now, and I live in fear that my son or daughter, if I let them out of my sight, will become easy prey, wind up dead under a bush, or worse. It really pisses me off, and no-one seems to have a solution. Hence the rather extreme measures. So, I'm not in opposition to your views, necessarily, nor am I offended at your disagreement. It's just that there seems to be so much wrong with the world, and so little we're really able to do to fix it. That's all. :-)

Don't you think that sexual abuse used to happen just as much except it was never talked about? My dad was abused all the way through Scouts and he never told anyone about it. People didn't talk about lots of things then, but now there are more forums to do so. When he grew up his brother told him the same had happened to him, and then all his mates were like, 'me too'. It is terrible, but to imagine it is worse I think is unfair. Once upon a time people who had respectable jobs were given respect no matter what they secretly did in their private life.... now we are on the look out for it more maybe. I dunno (I really am leaving this thread now!)

Then I reiterate: they should be shot. Period.

Ah, we are diamonds with many facets, Jaspie; some of the facets gleam, but darkly.

So what would you suggest the solution to childfuckers is, Jaspie? Hmm? Reward them for good behaviour?

Actually, don't bother replying! I'm just being provocative now; my own lack of liberal-ness sometimes frightens me...

I seem to remember that Bertrand Russell started out of the opinion that children were 'noble savages' with an intrinsic morality that would naturally develop without interferrence from adults. He was wrong :o) After his experiences with Beacon Hill he noted that he had overestimated the amount of time children need to be in the company of other children. There is an opportunity cost. When you are in the company of peers of equal immaturity, this often reinforces your lack of wisdom, experience and reflection. Meanwhile, you cannot be in the company of others who might help you grow. Russell declared that there can little common ground between those who see education as devoted to belief and those who see it as devoted to independent thought: "There can be no agreement between those who regard education as a means of instilling certain definite beliefs, and those who think that it should produce the power of independent judgement." Those devoted to the idea of belief as the purpose of education must extinguish imagination: "The first thing … to kill in the young is imagination. Imagination is lawless, undisciplined, individual, and neither correct nor incorrect; in all these respects it is inconvenient to the teacher, especially when competition requires a rigid order of merit."

That's a problem with harsh sanctions for child molesters, Archer (which incidentally, I'm not wholly against, it is this middle ground of locking them up but not addressing the problem which is fucking hopeless. Kill them or cure them, don't just postpone them) - anyhow, the problem is, how do you sift between the monsters and the people who were abused themselves and can't deal with it? Abuse is a dreadful, horrific, monstrous thing and society is rightly apalled by it, but I've worked with many people who were victims of dreadful abuse and went on to act out abuse - are they monsters, or victims or just people who need help that they can't get due to lack of funding? Waiting list in my part of the world for therapy for child sex abuse victims is currently three years - too long to wait.

I do agree with you, auntie. Sometimes I get quite reactionary, but when I calm down I usually opt for the treatment side of things, as you're absolutely right. It is difficult to judge who is a monster and who is a victim perpetuating their victimhood. No doubt my ability to forgive would be sorely tested if something were to happen to my children; I only pray that I never have to be tested in such a way.

Frankly, I think they should just bring back the paddle in the principal's office to deal with unruly children. Well, maybe five is a bit too young, but I'm fairly hacked off that schools no longer have the ability to discipline children, leaving it to the parents, who seem to be failing, across the board, to instill discipline or respect in their children. Whilst I was never an unruly student (I was a butt-kissing teacher's pet: far more powerful!), several of my friends got the paddle with the holes in it on their obnoxious butts. They've all turned out to be fairly normal, upstanding good citizens. Wonder if that little girl will turn out so well... *ducks missiles thrown by bleeding heart liberals* ;-)

My remark about 'shoot 'em all' WAS meant to be humourous. I hope you all realised that. I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones in that I was never abused by anyone, but I DO have a very dear friend who was abused by a close relative for a long time and I never knew about it until a few years ago. I felt awful as I knew her during the period of abuse and if I'd known about it at the time I would have stopped it.

Yes I realised George. It made me laugh (I may be overtly sincere, genuine and reasonable about most things but I am also shallow, cruel and sarcastic in others, I like to think). I do think your comment was interesting - that had you known about your friend then you would have done something about it... part of the problem is that there is so much shame attached to this stuff that often the ones it is happening to don't dare tell anyone lest they have a scarlett letter stitched to their chest and everyone knows they are 'different'.

There is quite a lot going on here in the US...I must've gotten at least seven emails of seven different stories of children under the age of 10 arrested. One seven year old boy was thrown in a detention center for seven days for taking a coin jar out of his neighbors backyard. There was a cop killing in Rhode Island officer shot by suspect with cops gun this will be a mess because they bought the guy into court looking like hannibal lecter his face was so beaten up. his family of course yelling police brutality and the police basically saying what did you expect he shot a cop Four police officers were beaten by several youths with the cops billy clubs I'm not a huge cop fan BUT the lines of respect for authority from youth is getting very vague...

I'm not sure there -is- an inherent conflict between toeing the line and imagination. School does, in general, squelch some independent thought, as much from peer pressure as anything else, but if the school is good and the teachers decently trained (and the parents involved), there should still be room for creativity. My kids are both fantastically creative; it's something I've encouraged. We like to invent 'contraptions' out of toilet paper rolls and bits of string, draw up blueprints of how they work, etc. , and they have a hoot. But I've also insisted that, if they take one thing away from their childhood, it's good manners, speaking politely and openly to adults, and good behaviour in public. This doesn't mean they arent' allowed to be boisterous or have their own opinions or shout happily when they're having fun. But cutting up in the supermarket (my particular bugaboo, you may have noticed...) is strictly forbidden. There -can- be a balance between letting a child be a child, but also learning how to behave to such a degree to keep the society in general from becoming too anarchic... does this make sense?

Yes it makes sense - but discipline doesn't have to be a spanking... I've never spanked my children, and they've never *ever* misbehaved in the supermarket. Learning manners and sociableness (i know it's not a word) has got to be put down to kindness, willingness to listen and negotiate, and respect. The kids I see acting up in the supermarket are the ones that get a regular spanking, and are the nasty ones, imo.

I agree with Liana.

I think labelling 'children who are spanked' as the ones who misbehave in public is a fallacy perpetuated by the media, Liana, and a gross oversimplification. I could just as easily say the opposite and have it hold true. I _do_ spank mine, rarely, and I've seen the effects of 'negotiation' with children; the children generally wind up on the end of a bribe (if you're good in the shop you'll get an ice-cream) which leads to a sense of self-entitlement and needing to have a 'reward' every time they do something 'right'. This will ultimately lead them to a sense of disappointment if they need to be validated every time they do something right or behave in a certain way. This is just my opinion, and it really does depend on the children's personalities. Some children are as much trouble as a baked potato, and require little but guidance. Some are born a little more feisty and rebellious; I feel they require a firmer hand, although never an unjust or cruel one. Parents who continually yield to strong-willed children wind up with disrespectful little shits. I've seen it in my own friends.

Have you ever watched Supernanny or whatever it is called? It is really good. It has changed my sister's life in terms of her duaghter. It shows that - in general - if children get attention for bad things and are smacked they'd rather go for that than no attention at all. I think it's hard to 'discipline' children by hitting, becuase it's very often done in anger, rather than as punishment to make clear what is wrong. Hitting adults in anger rarely helps anything, so I don't see how hitting children - who have even more trouble understanding all the rules in the world - helps either. Punishment is one thing... but hitting... I can't see the good. (also if you operate a punishment system you have to operate a reward system.) (also, the opposite of hitting your children doesn't have to be 'negotiation'.. .if you have certain rules that they know they will be punished for when they break them, then you just carry out the punishment when they do it, until they sorry. Like a naughty-step or whatever)

Nope, dont bribe mine either. And actually I DO see kids that are slapped in the supermarket, and they are generally kids with pierced ears. Hows that for a gross overgeneralisation?

and how does a slap in the supermarket do anything to improve the kid's behaviour anyway?

No paddle at my school but something far, far worse - the slipper! Back in the mid 70's, young Bob was the recipient of this foul punishment for having a crafty nip of scotch on the school grounds. I'd heard all kinds of stories about the dreaded slipper and was shaking as I entered the head's study. Was it re-enforced with steel ? Were four inch nails protruding so as to tear the maximum flesh from my lillywhite cheeks ? I was told to bend over and then - ah! the agony! - given a polite tap on my rear. The offending impliment was, in fact, a right-footed and rather smelly tartan slipper, so old that flecks of rubber fell away upon impact. "And let that be a lesson to you, Roberts" said old S. Fartworth, our red-nosed headmaster. He then confiscated my quart bottle of scotch and hid it in his desk draw. Hearty, healthy punishment for kids! I'm all for it! Never did me any harm! Chin up! *downs second abcmugful of Famous Grouse*