But reading an article about corporal punishment committed against children makes my blood boil.

For now I'll leave aside the blinding point that fundamentalists and evangelical christians cherry-pick whatsoever they desire from a book shoved through Babel Fish from Aramaic to at least Hebrew, Arabic, French/German, Middle English, and then modern English. Even if The Bible had been the word of God directly manifested through different male scribes cherry-picked by a church founded on treason, lies, pagan idolatry and chauvinism...The Bible has still been translated imperfectly through several languages.

To put it more succinctly: it's like hearing T.S. Elliot through the old New York subway PA system, then repeating it back.

We'll also leave aside the point that committing assault and aggravated assault against a child doesn't qualify on the "What would Jesus do?" scale. Duh.

What I will focus on is the brazen, useless, and completely out-dated effectiveness of physically beating your child. My professional career and specialization specifically focuses on stress and trauma. It is my livelihood.

Now I'd imagine you're expecting me to rail against corporal punishment for all of the reasons you've heard before. And pro-corporal punishment advocates will (I admit rightly) cite that I have not had children, and I do not know what it is like.

That isn't my argument. If you want to increase the likelihood of your daughter having sex at an earlier age and more sexual partners, or your son to have an increased incidence of physically abusing other children and his own children...be my guest.

My argument is that corporal punishment is not the most effective method available for disciplining a child. Beating someone does work at a very fundamental level: you rob them of physical comfort, introduce the element of constant fear as a control mechanism and, as a compensatory defense mechanism, that person will eventually rationalize why they deserve that abuse. They will come to depend on it. I've dated enough grown up daughters of this trend to become quite familiar with the mindset.

As an aside, I'll interject a "FUCK YOU" here for obvious reasons to parents (whose past contributions) make getting any kind of regular sex or intimacy a near superhuman feat.

Ahem.

So while corporal punishment works on the most visceral level of all, I think parents can use a delightfully broad and clever set of devices to discipline kids on the mental and emotional level.

I'll lay it out bluntly: kids get attached to shit, and taking that shit away to discipline them works.

I'll use myself as a case study. I was occasionally a pretty defiant child. I instinctually sensed an adult--usually my mother--was full of shit when it came to certain things. I would break rules that had no good reason to them.

As a consequence, mom would take away my video game privileges. This may not sound especially impacting to you, but from about 3 until the middle of high school, video games were hands-down the most important thing in my life for maintaining my sanity. Being different ain't exactly well liked among other kids.

When Ma made sure I couldn't play, I would go nuts. It hurt like fuck. I would scream and whine and wail at her (only when I was a wee youngin', mind you). Oh the shit I called that woman. But it eventually occured to me that to get what I wanted, I had to change my behavior to suit her. And I did.

What's the point of that story? Simple: take away something your child adores and don't give it back until they stop being a dick. Cruel? Most likely. Effective? Was for me.

Personally I think it's more humane to manipulate them via an interest of theirs than to just beat them. Beating is simple. Beating is quick. Beating is too damned easy. Taking the high road and having to listen to a kid whine and wail and say they hate you about a thousand times--that takes guts.

But y'know, I love my mom today--and back then, I learned to behave.

And maybe, just maybe, parents in the past will have heeded such advice and raised kids with a more healthy mindset. Hey, I certainly wouldn't mind getting laid on a regular basis.

And maybe, just maybe, parents nowadays can turn the tide of cutting in their daughters and rage problems in their sons by hitting their heart, not their ass.

T.S. Eliot I ain't, but hopefully we're not in a subway.

[/diatribe]

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