http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_Punishment, the intentional use of spankings or other physical infliction of pain as punishment for actions.

How do you feel about corporal punishment? Is it an effective system? Should it be more widely enforced in homes, schools and judicial punishments in lieu of crowding prisons and fines?

Personally, I feel corporal punishment is effective and the lack of instilling discipline and replacing it with time outs or just going 'no no, that's naughty!' and we need to bring back the use of spankings at home or in school (with parental permission) as punishment for unruly kids. When I was in elementary school, the fear of the paddle in the Principal's office scared us and we behaved, as the punishments got lax, our behaviour got worse. Anyway, how do you feel CD? Corporal Punishment: Effective or Archaic?

My dad hit me a couple of times when I was younger, I think it helped me become a disciplined person and I feel I'm better for it. I don't have kids but I don't think I'd have the heart to hit them if I did.

However his dad beat him real bad when he was a kid for something he didn't do, so he only ever used corporal punishment for something he saw firsthand, and I think that's the only way to go about it. And I wouldn't, nor do I think should anyone entrust the power to beat their child to anyone else, teacher/principal or otherwise. Lot of sicko's get into teaching, I sure as hell don't have faith in the education system to handle corporal punishment properly when they can't even filter out perverts becoming teachers.

Teachers and parents ought to be able to use it. Humans are animals. And like any other animal, they show complacency when an alpha is established. Animals survive just fine. We did too. It's called not being a baby. Yeah people go overboard, but that'll always happen, and it's not like the opposite of CP is any good. It makes them feel invincible.

I think Corporal Punishment is BAD!

Children are such frail, fragile little creatures, and we need to treat them as such! If we were to expose them to a world where their actions have consequences, can you imagine how much damage that could do to their emotion bones? For crying out loud, they already have enough problems developing self-confidence! Don't give them more reasons to be emotional!

This question is a bit to controversial for the forums. I understand that you want to promote intellectual discussion in a community, as opposed to creating silly sequels to topics about how to shower consistently, but I'm worried you just might hurt someone's EMOTION BONES with this.

It's backwards and sickening.

Corporal punishment is great. Being able to inflict pain on others without the law holding me back? Sign me up!

Michael Bay manages that just fine without corporal punishment.

Depends. Aversion therapy is effective. If the punishment is too far removed from the offense it is really just an exercise in violence.

I think it's needed. People ask me why am i so polite and level headed, and the answer is because when I was little my mom would beat my little white posterior if I was wild or rude.

It really paid off when I became an advlt. I did the same to my daughter. She's working full time, is not pregnant, doing drugs, or other stupid stuff.

Now when I say I support corporal punishment, Im talking about stuff like spankings or a smack on the head. My mom never gave me things like black eyes or broken bones and such. Same with me and my daughter.

When I was in my elementary school, this kid acted out in the auditorium. So one of the teachers (big ass guy mind you, easily 7ft and 300 pounds) picked his ass up with one hand, and spanked his ass with the biggest ass paddle you've ever seen. The screams the kid gave was enough to shut everyone up.

Speaking beyond the school level: as with many things, it depends on the type and severity. Some nations of the world still practice punishments like chopping off hands in the case of stealing, or public displays of torture, which are barbaric practices which shouldn't even be considered as a civilized or ethical form of punishment.

However, I tend to take the opinion that corporal punishment, when used in moderation and with a healthy does of "does the punishment fit the crime?" could be an effective tool for ensuring a reduction in crime rates and just a better method of punishment in general.

Consider for instance, someone doing a few months/years prison sentence versus taking a quick, but moderately painful and public punishment for a crime. Personally I'd rather take the light whipping or whatever and then get on with my life. Lesson learned etc. And neither time nor money is wasted on a prison sentence.

In the U.S. at least, the prison system is hardly focused on rehabilitation anymore anyway, and keeping people locked up for years at a time usually just leads to them returning to crime once they get out. Just because we don't have the infrastructure nor societal mindset to allow them to readjust. Corporal punishment might actually be more effective than what we have now.

Edit: Note I'm speaking mostly about rather minor crimes and infractions. Not, for instance, murder, where the individual obviously needs to be separated from society.

That was like me getting spankings by the school principal when I would not stop talking in class lol. I remember him having a paddle with holes in it. I didn't tell my mom because she would tell me it's my fault for talking in class.

I think all punishment should be handled by at least sergeants, preferably by officers.

I remember when it was banned in schools in the UK, the standards of behaviour became visibly worse pretty much overnight, and stayed there. Although I'm not a fan, I have to wonder if it is the "least worst" solution in certain circumstances.

Something I think a lot of people didn't take into account back in the day was that you shouldn't be hitting your son with any more force than you'd feel comfortable using on your daughter.

The whole smack for the girl, belting for the boy stuff is pretty bad.

My dad spanked me and I plan to spank my kids if I deem it necessary.

It works, I ain't a little hyper-dumb-poop bastard anymore.

Corporal punishment by parents? Yes, Yes, and Yes some more. I was spanked/paddled by my dad when I was a kid, and out of all the things in my life that have left emotional scars, that is one thing I can safely say did NOT leave any. Kids need to know you mean business, and telling them "NO", a million times does not work. It's not until I threaten to spank my daughters that they finally listen to me when I tell them to do something/not to do something, otherwise its a "Yuh huh daddy, I'll get right on that", and it never happens.

As far as teachers go? Hell no. I don't want some strange person that I barely know touching my child in any sort of way. I'd rather them call me to school to administer the spanking myself.

I was spanked a couple times as a kid. Much more powerful motivator than a time-out, and never really bothered me much more than ten minutes afterwards. Pain and guilt, that's how you punish someone effectively.

That is to say, I support spanking-type-of-thing. Nothing that's actually physically harmful, or seriously traumatizing. Enough to remind people that this isn't an anarchistic society. Nothing more. And only by parents.

time-outs taught me how to keep track of time

spankings just taught me to not own up to things if I thought I could get away with it.

I think it depends on the child, since every child learns differently.

~Edit~

Technically, everyone since we keep on learning even pass teen years.

I do believe Corporal Punishment and Sargent Spank but you have to know when to spank and when not to. If a child accidentally breaks something and acknowledges it was only an accident and apologizes for it then no, if a child is throwing a massive tantrum and needs to be corrected then yes. There is a fine line between abuse=control and spanking=discipline. Also when a parent spanks use your hand only never use a belt or paddle (not even for a threat) those are weapons and I'm totally against the use of them.

Is that not the same with any punishment, save guilt? No one wants to be punished, in any way, unless they feel guilty. The hide-it vs don't-do-it merely depends on the person; I'm quite moral by nature, so I went with don't-do-it.

All of the above.

Punishment only works if you have enough respect for the person punishing you to feel worse about dissapointing them than the punishment. If you have a really strong relationship with your kids you won't need to even spank them, a simple lecture can be effective if they respect you enough. If your only interaction with a kid is to punish them, you can beat a kid black and blue and it won't do anything.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so any kind of punishment needs to have an equal and opposite reward for equivelant good behaviour to be effective (plus a respectful parent child relationship, if you don't care what a person thinks of you, any reward/punishment won't be effective.)

And I think this is the problem with corporal punishment, if the fear of the punishment is the only thing changing the behaviour, and not not wanting to let down an authority figure, then avoiding the punishment is the motivation, not obedience or respect for the authority figure.

Maybe I am missing something here but...Arcane? Do you mean archaic?