Opinions wrote:
Doan wrote:
It is better to yell at your kid - just call it "verbal conflict
resolution"! ;-)

Better children through yelling. That is quite a national slogan born
of frostbite on the brain.

So who recommends yelling?

It really is going to be interesting to see how Sweden disengages
itself from yet another venture into eugenics.

How is not hitting children an eugenics program?

Only a few decades ago,
in its efforts to produce its own version of the master race, Sweden
was a hotbed of forced sterilization.

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9901/26/sweden.sterilization/

That's 20 year old news, Opinions. You remind me a bit of "Observer."
Any relation?

Yes, it was a shocking revelation that a nation would resort to such
things. It was not the first, and likely not the last in a world where
beating children is considered a form of teaching.

And of course the official end of such a practice as forced
sterilization a great relief and indication of the real spirit of
Sweden's government and people that they ended this in the 70's with
full admission of their guilt and error, and made what redress they
could.

Interestingly though, in the late 90's, as you'll see if you read the
article linked above, 80% remained happy with THEIR OWN DECISION. In
other words only a tiny minority were coerced. The rest willingly
signed agreements to be sterilized.

" ... The commission noted that 5 to 10 years after their operations,
nearly 80 percent of those sterilized said they were happy with their
condition and did not regret it. ... "

How long do you wish to hold a people to blame when they have
rehabilitated? And how does their turnaround on eugenics sterilization
in fact relate to the spanking issue? (The US had exactly the same
thing from time to time in various states.)

In fact outlawing CP in Sweden represented a turnaround from one of the
most harsh and punitive of parenting methods in Europe...possibly the
world. They beat their children as thoroughly as Germans once did.
Harshly, and sometimes to death. We turned around OUR eugenics
practices. Possibly the next step is an end to CP, by legal sanctions
against it. Some states are already moving firmly in that direction.

Now, it is better children
through the grand social experiment of psychological smashmouth.

Well, I'd venture you do not understand the statement made. It didn't
say yelling was as GOOD as, or suggest it over NON-punitive methods,
just that it was better than BEATING ONE'S CHILDREN.

I read in it a clear message that it wasn't much better.

You failed to see that I take it?

Let me parse the statement for you, and see if in fact it said what you
appear to insinuate...that yelling is a good choice, and now
universally the parenting method of Swedish parents:

" Swedish parents now discipline their children; and in doing so, they
rely
on a variety of alternatives to physical punishment. ...

[[[ Oh, "a variety." Do you surmise it to all be "yelling" based? ]]]

.... The method most
commonly used is _verbal_conflict_resolution_, which invites parents as
well as children to express their anger in words. ...

[[[ Note, this is ONLY on the subject of "anger." Parents, we presume,
in Sweden as here and elsewhere in the world do a lot of interacting
with their children to teach them that contain no anger at all. Fancy
that. ]]]

.... Parents insist that
discussions involve constant eye contact, even if this means taking
firm
hold of young children to engage their attention. ...

[[[ Personally I don't care for such things, but occasionally a child
has been so previously poorly parented that this may well be
non-punitivly done. ]]]

.... Parents and professionals agree that discussions may escalate into
yelling, or that yelling may be a necessary trigger for discussion. ...

[[[ Notice that it's "may" "escalate," inviting you, the reader to
consider that it may also not so escalate. More often than not it does
no. And yelling was very likely a part of CP style parenting as well.
]]]

.... Still, many point out that while yelling may be humiliating, it is
better than ignoring the problem or containing the anger, and it is
usually less humiliating than physical punishment."

The question there would be who is saying what. Do the people that
'point out' the humiliation factor, also point out that it is less
humiliating than physical punishment, or as I read the comma placement,
do the AUTHORS make that statement to make clear that it's less
humiliating?

All in all, it's clear to me this is no pean to screaming dancing
monkey parenting methods.

I have been particularly amused by the claim that child abuse in fact
when UP in Sweden immediately after the law came into effect. No, what
happened was that what was previously acceptable child discipline ...
including leaving injuries now was seen as abuse. As of course it is.
The risks to the child's health and life are considerable.

So of course, as in all OTHER new laws criminalizing a previously
acceptable behavior, like raping one's wife, or working children for
exploitation, the cases seen in court are going to increase. People
don't stop a behavior the instant a law is passed.

The claim, of course, by the advocates and apologists for spanking is
that Swedish parents were being prosecuted for "spanking." Examination
of the cases shows they were prosecuted for doing what they used to
with immunity....beating and injuring. Child abuse laws, though they
existed were NOT being enforced because of a national culture of
violence against children.

The law worked.

Currently THIS is the kind of garbage that passes for "righteous"
discipline. An insistence on doing injury to the child otherwise the
discipline might not be effective:

http://www.geocities.com/eingedi.geo/the-belt.html

And consider, if parents, as I've cited in another post, up to 45% or
so, and grandparents up to 60% do NOT understand normal developmental
limitations of children, how the people at the site above will NOT use
spanking even according to their OWN standards.

I love that piece, "deliberately disobey." Good old "willful
disobedience" and applied to children under 6, who cannot possibly
grasp cause and effect reasoning.

Kane