Early Childhood

» crunchymom76 - Children learn what they live..

I try to stay away from these issues because I have such strong opinions--especially since I'm an experience teacher who would never hit a student. Why would my own child deserve any less? I think it's sad that we live in a world where we teach children that "hitting is wrong" yet adults continue to hit them. Spank. Hit. Whatever you call it. It's the same thing.

I'm concerned that even in 2007 *any* parent would choose to hit their child. I have 15 years experience in daycare and school settings in addition to almost 5 years experience as a mom. I would never strike a child. Just like I would never strike an adult. I highly recommend http://www.nospank.net or http://neverhitachild.org for those who are skeptical. Also check out http://stoptherod.net/ for info about books that are out currently that advocate the whipping and hitting of infants when they cry. Yes, there are books that recommend this practice. Most people gasp at this but find that hitting a toddler is perfectly acceptable.

I hope there comes a day when people will finally decide that children are people too. I find it shocking that people get riled up about husbands hitting wives or vice versa but shrug their shoulders about children being hit.
I won't get into all the research against corporal punishment because it's self-explanatory. It simply isn't supported by research. Period. I'll end with this and hope you'll take a moment to read it:

Never Violence

a story told by Astrid Lindgren

[Author of Pippi Longstocking]

"Above all, I believe that there should never be any violence." In 1978, Astrid Lindgren received the German Book Trade Peace Prize for her literary contributions. In acceptance, she told the following story.

"When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking - the first of his life. And she told him that he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, "Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me."

All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because violence begins in the nursery - one can raise children into violence."

I think that too often we fail to feel situations "from the child's point of view," and that failure leads us to teach our children other than what we think we're teaching them.

-- posted by crunchymom76