Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"jitney" wrote in message
om...
The very title of this thread indicates a the kind of egghead
academianistic theorizing that is so full of **** that such people
need colostomy bags hooked up to their ears. If you raise a child
without punishing bad behavior, you are inflicting a criminal on
society and should yourself be held accountable. People that advocate
mindless theories like this would be far more useful to society if
they removed the grafitti that their hellion brats put up on the walls
in the first place.-Jitney

The most important things that parents do to teach their children the
difference between right and wrong are to teach them and to set a good
example. If children understand how bad behavior would harm others, and if
they choose to empathize with others rather than focusing entirely on
themselves, their own consciences will provide a certain amount of
punishment for bad behavior independent of whether they are punished by
adults. For children who love their parents and who want their parents to
think well of them, parental disapproval can also serve as a certain amount
of punishment. And if a child's needs are met, and if parents do a good job
of teaching the child how to find happiness without feeling a need to take
things that don't belong to him or do things that harm others, the child has
lot less reason to want to do things that are wrong.

Imagine two children. One has a strong understanding of how wrong behaviors
will harm others, backed by a parental example of generosity and caring
about others, and his parents actively help him get at least most of what he
wants without having to harm others, but he has no fear of punishment beyond
that of his own conscience and his parents' disapproval unless he commits a
crime. The other child understands how wrong actions harm others far less
well and has parents who set a clearly selfish (and perhaps sometimes
hypocritical) example and care relatively little about the child's needs and
desires, but the child is likely to get spanked hard if he misbehaves - *IF*
he is caught. Which child is more likely to behave well? And, especially,
which child is more likely to behave well in situations where the risk of
being caught is minimal or essentially nonexistent?

I have very little idea of how reliably purely non-punitive parenting
techniques really work, and while people like Chris, Steve, and the
article's author would LIKE to believe that such techniques would always
work, they do not seem to be able to provide any solid evidence.
-------------------
Just because we're WHOLLY UN-interested in the idiotic "cite-wars"
that happen, when neurotic religiously-tortured morally-offended
Right-wingnuts try to deluge this thread with their phony X-spurt
website cut-n-pasties in response to our voluminous peer-reviewed
journals that anyone CAN read if they want to, does NOT support
YOUR moronic accusation that "they do not seem to be able to provide
any solid evidence." In fact the reverse is true, by factors of ten
to one or MORE!! Go ask all the child development authorities you
want, and write down their opinions, and then let those stand as
a vote for which is the Truth, if you're stupid enough to need that!


But the
idea that such techniques CAN work for at least SOME families, especially
where the parents are exceptionally dedicated and where the children are
inclined to be relatively reasonable, is not nearly as implausible as it
might appear at first glance.
-------------
Sure it is. All you're doing is trying to find an exception for your
vicious abusive little perversion, anything to excuse abuse when YOU
want to abuse!!

The evidence shows that it does harm, period, full stop, it does NOT
rate a doubt that you're trying to insist upon! It is like lighting
your children afire, it is VERY likely to burn them horribly, even if
it magically misses every thousandth one when the lighter fails, and
it is therefore ALWAYS STUPID AND ALWAYS TO BE FORBIDDEN!!!!!!


After all, if we adults are capable of
choosing to do what is right because we want to respect the rights and
feelings of others rather than because of fear that someone will punish us,
why would it be impossible for children to do so?
---------------------------------------
Because beatings can beat your victims into lying for twisted neurotic
psychological motives of terror and misplaced cognitive dissonance,
THAT'S why YOU DON'T GET to beat on your victims BEFORE they testify
against you!!!


My own view is that parents should try to make non-punitive techniques work
as much as they reasonably can, because to whatever extent they do work,
they help children think like adults who do what is right because it is
right instead of like children who do what is right only because they are
afraid of getting in trouble if they don't. At worst, the number of
situations where the parents will feel a need to punish is likely to be a
lot smaller than if they relied primarily on punishment to correct their
children's behavior. And at best, they might always be able to get their
children to behave well enough that the parents can live with their
children's occasional imperfections without feeling a need to resort to
punishment.
--------------
Smarmy mealy-mouthed excuses for abuses. I gotte hand it to you,
you almost bent double talking your way all around THAT one, but
anyone can see that you tried to excuse some amount of punishment:

"At worst, the number of
situations where the parents will feel a need to punish is likely to be a
lot smaller than if they relied primarily on punishment to correct their
children's behavior."

Truly SMARMY!


After all, how many of us adults would want others to expect us
always to behave perfectly and punish us any time we don't?
Nathan
--------------------------
All of us when it comes to the laws against felonies!!
Which is why child abusive terror must be BANNED LEGALLY!
Steve