Acceptable Levels Of Mild Child Abuse

Acceptable Levels Of Mild Child Abuse With the comment facility still not enabled here, Donald Maclean and Andrew Gaines have each written from the Blue Mountains of NSW. Until I’ve turned on comments, I’ll keep taking ’em by email.

Donald Maclean

Well, SJT, your measured comments are what one might expect from a once beaten boy. Doubtless you were more orderly in classrooms thereafter. Barbarity is a fact however, and institutionalised abuse, though the subject of much anguish these days has not gone away. As the most beaten boy at both prep and public schools during my time there, I have a strong aversion to arguments rationalising the beating of children. I was a troubled soul on entering school, and certainly a handful, but years of beatings did nothing to help me understand life. And what, we might wonder, did it do to those who took such relish in wielding the canes and tawses?

The subject still gets me warm

12 October 2004

Andrew Gaines

Well-written, I would say, but not up to your usual thoughtful standard. Does corporal punishment really help people mature? What is your evidence? Given that many kids are obstreperous or even violent in schools, a more thoughtful inquiry would wonder about the roots of this, and a more creative response would be to look for a range of alternatives to deal with this. This would take a bit of work — not that you should necessarily do it — but it appears to me that your response was off-the-cuff.

As for barbarism, while the label may be a moral judgment, there are some neurophysiological facts that relate. A prime one is that fear releases cortisol which inhibits brain development.

One translation of what you’re saying is that you are advocating acceptable levels of mild child abuse. Attached are several articles that go into different aspects of the effects of child abuse.

I do not deny that there is a real problem with emotionally immature people coming out of high school. It is a whole system problem; I suspect that returning to corporal punishment would be counterproductive for solving it.

» Body Pleasure And The Origins Of Violence (.doc 109Kb)
» Child Abuse Has Never Been An Acceptable Practice In The Heart Of Any Humane Person (.doc 38Kb)
» Quelling Children’s Violence Without Spanking (.doc 39Kb)
» School Violence With Kids (.doc 35Kb)
» Why Love Matters — How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain (.doc 32Kb)

28 October 2004

SJT

I find nothing to disagree with in the material you’ve sent me. You both challenge me with a ‘slippery slope’ argument. Is there any useful distinction between ‘discipline’ and licensed child abuse?

It seems to me there is, though Andrew would make me work hard to show it. “Discipline” is all too often a cover for violent expression of the problems of parents and teachers. But that does not mean that discipline neither exists nor has value.

Andrew questions the effectiveness of punishment. I recall from reading psychology that punishment is ineffective at promoting any kind of behaviour, but effective at extinguishing it. We are not talking about the loftier realms of the psyche here. But, animals that we also are, we are also evolved to learn effectively from pain.

Most of my life I’ve believed discipline has no value that could justify the risk of abuse. Now I see the costs of indiscipline, I question that. The cost is heavy. I can’t see how to weigh it against a physical pain. But that doesn’t mean the weighing can’t or shouldn’t be done.

Andrew Gaines

My dear friend — the issue is not necessarily appropriately framed as being whether corporal discipline works or not. It often works by extinguishing the spirit, and with it any possible interest in learning, at least to some degree, and in my observation often to a great extent. The observation that in medicine there are no side effects, but only effects, applies here. But, as philosophers and innovative people we can question how the issue is framed. At the moment the discussion is focused on one ‘solution’. Not good enough.

29 October 2004