Robin Bentley

Alex wrote, as part of what she read from the book Nutureshock:

"In cultures in which spanking is seen as totally normal for kids,
kids who are spanked are much less likely to exhibit more violent
behavior than their peers."

Does he mean that in this culture (where spanking is considered normal
in a large part of the population), that kids who are not spanked were
at least as violent as their spanked peers? Really?

That's research I've not heard before.

Robin B.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Marina DeLuca-Howard

Regardless of whether spanked kids are more violent or not, we know that
adults who are spanking children are practising violence. I don't like
violence--real violence because I don't like it when people get hurt,
especially children.

I don't think studying children t o see whether they are more or less
violent is as interesting as trying to understand why adults are so violent
towards the most vulnerable members of society--small children! Hiting
anyone nonchalantly to "correct" behaviour is ridiculous--try substituting
the word women with the word children and see how it sounds: women in
cultures where men smack their wives or hit them with sticks no wider than
their thumbs are much" less likely to exibit more violent behaviour than
their peers" whose spouses speak to them respectfully and see where that
conversation goes:-)

Alternately, try it with various minority group/ethnic groups and see how
that sounds. It sounds horrific, barbaric and not conducisve to building
trust or working together to meet everyone's needs.

Marina


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob Collier

--- In [email protected], Robin Bentley <robin.bentley@...> wrote:
>
> Alex wrote, as part of what she read from the book Nutureshock:
>
> "In cultures in which spanking is seen as totally normal for kids,
> kids who are spanked are much less likely to exhibit more violent
> behavior than their peers."
>
> Does he mean that in this culture (where spanking is considered normal
> in a large part of the population), that kids who are not spanked were
> at least as violent as their spanked peers? Really?
>
> That's research I've not heard before.
>
> Robin B.
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>


It may not be saying what it first appears to be saying. "Exhibit" is a key word here (what can be observed and counted). In a culture where spanking is used to force compliance by breaking a child's spirit, the child most likely, in my experience, wouldn't exhibit any violent behaviour at all for fear of another spanking. Measuring that against even only very occasional violence from a child who isn't spanked, I could easily suggest that my research shows (nurtureshock horror!) a spanked child is actually less violent than an unspanked child (and child managers masquerading as parents would perhaps be happily nodding their heads) but it would be an interpretation of what's actually happening not the whole story. The whole story upon investigation might turn out to be very different.

Bob

AlexS

--- In [email protected], Robin Bentley <robin.bentley@...> wrote:
>
> Alex wrote, as part of what she read from the book Nutureshock:
>
> "In cultures in which spanking is seen as totally normal for kids,
> kids who are spanked are much less likely to exhibit more violent
> behavior than their peers."
>
> Does he mean that in this culture (where spanking is considered normal
> in a large part of the population), that kids who are not spanked were
> at least as violent as their spanked peers? Really?
>

My notes on that were a little cryptic. I said I was sure I goofed up something, and I think that was it. :) I guess at best that was unclear. Sorry! I *think* what it said was, in African-American families, spanking is more common. Whether the kids are spanked or not is not really an indicator or whether they will exhibit violent behavior elsewhere like it is in American culture as a whole. Because the punishment is not seen as taboo, it is less emotionally traumatic to the kids. In a culture where spanking is seen as horrible, kids are likely to feel like there is something really wrong with them if mom snaps and spanks them.

Hopefully someone else read this too. Honestly it might have said African-American kids who are spanked more are less likely to get in trouble. Having worked in a very depressed, predominantly African-American neighborhood, I can believe it. Not to conflate African-American culture with poverty across the board, but when there is a lot of crime literally right outside your door, having parents who are highly involved and let you know what kind of behavior they think is right, even if they spank, can be a big factor in keeping out of trouble. All us liberal white suburban Americorps volunteers working there had the luxury of being sympathetic to the plight of the prostitutes, but the moms of little girls in the neighborhood had to tell the kids straight up that that behavior was not acceptible under any circumstances.

I don't spank, and I wish other people were given better parenting skills than that. I do respect that some people are doing the best with what they know, as opposed to just being shitty child abusers.

Alex

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

 AlexS said:
"All us liberal white suburban Americorps volunteers working there had the
luxury of being sympathetic to the plight of the prostitutes, but the moms of
little girls in the neighborhood had to tell the kids straight up that that
behavior was not acceptible under any circumstances. "

I am not suburban Americorps volunteer!
Spanking kids or telling them straigh up that  a behavior is not acceptable in
any circumstance  does not garantee the child will comply.
Do you think only black girls from poor neighbourhood that don';t get spanked or
told straigh up not to, are the ones that go into prostitution?
Really?

 
Alex Polikowsky


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

Alex, that was the first thing I thought too. Violence, alcohol and
heavy drug abuse, low self-esteem, poverty... all of those influence
girls getting into prostitution.

~Katherine




On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:06 AM, BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
<polykowholsteins@...> wrote:
> AlexS said:
> "All us liberal white suburban Americorps volunteers working there had the
> luxury of being sympathetic to the plight of the prostitutes, but the moms of
> little girls in the neighborhood had to tell the kids straight up that that
> behavior was not acceptible under any circumstances. "
>
> I am not suburban Americorps volunteer!
> Spanking kids or telling them straigh up that a behavior is not acceptable in
> any circumstance does not garantee the child will comply.
> Do you think only black girls from poor neighbourhood that don';t get spanked or
> told straigh up not to, are the ones that go into prostitution?
> Really?
>
>
> Alex Polikowsky
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

" I am not suburban Americorps volunteer!"

I meant to write :
I am not *white* suburban Americorps volunteer.

 
Alex Polikowsky

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

AlexS

-- In [email protected], k <katherand@...> wrote:
>
> Alex, that was the first thing I thought too. Violence, alcohol and
> heavy drug abuse, low self-esteem, poverty... all of those influence
> girls getting into prostitution.
>
> ~Katherine
>

Thank you.

Honestly, I posted that, went to put my daughter to bed, and while I was nursing her, I felt crappy. I felt like I started an argument I was totally uninteresting in having. I was totally going to come back and delete that post, because I feel like I'm spreading misinformation, and I'm uncomfortable with people debating a book without having read it. Plus I'm moving to our barely inhabitable fixer-upper in 3 days and feeling a little emotionally fragile.

I'm going to leave it clarify as best I can, but if you have issue with anything and think all spanking is abominable, please go help some spanking parents learn better parenting skills instead of responding in a harsh or argumentative way to my post. I'm going to try to go offline for a while to finish packing.

I really do encourage folks to check the book out from the library if you're curious about what it says. It shouldn't take long to find or read the part about a specific topic. What Should I Do With My Life, Po Bronson's (the author's) book about people trying different ways to make their paid work something that makes them happy, is very sweet. It was really helpful to me when I was trying to figure that out, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with my kids some day. I definitely felt like these are good people who just come from a more conventional background but mean well.


Alex

k

Don't feel you've started an argument. I really appreciate threads
like this one where issues are brought into the light of unschooling
and discussed on a level I wouldn't ordinarily be able to.

We used to sometimes have book discussions in one of the unschooling
lists... don't remember which one.

Good luck on the move, AlexS. :)

~Katherine




On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:28 AM, AlexS <missalexmissalex@...> wrote:
>
> -- In [email protected], k <katherand@...> wrote:
>>
>> Alex, that was the first thing I thought too. Violence, alcohol and
>> heavy drug abuse, low self-esteem, poverty... all of those influence
>> girls getting into prostitution.
>>
>> ~Katherine
>>
>
> Thank you.
>
> Honestly, I posted that, went to put my daughter to bed, and while I was nursing her, I felt crappy. I felt like I started an argument I was totally uninteresting in having. I was totally going to come back and delete that post, because I feel like I'm spreading misinformation, and I'm uncomfortable with people debating a book without having read it. Plus I'm moving to our barely inhabitable fixer-upper in 3 days and feeling a little emotionally fragile.
>
> I'm going to leave it clarify as best I can, but if you have issue with anything and think all spanking is abominable, please go help some spanking parents learn better parenting skills instead of responding in a harsh or argumentative way to my post. I'm going to try to go offline for a while to finish packing.
>
> I really do encourage folks to check the book out from the library if you're curious about what it says. It shouldn't take long to find or read the part about a specific topic. What Should I Do With My Life, Po Bronson's (the author's) book about people trying different ways to make their paid work something that makes them happy, is very sweet. It was really helpful to me when I was trying to figure that out, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with my kids some day. I definitely felt like these are good people who just come from a more conventional background but mean well.
>
>
> Alex
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Marina DeLuca-Howard

There are countries in the world that don't share our bias against
prostitution, where parents are proud to have a daughter who can offer
support to a family. We maybe horrified but that too is a luxury.
Marina


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

True. U.S. prostitution is frequently involved in a cycle of
violence... not always but often. Lots of places in the world don't
share these same views on sexuality.

Being horrified as a luxury... never thought of it that way. :)

~Katherine




On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 12:36 AM, Marina DeLuca-Howard
<delucahoward@...> wrote:
> There are countries in the world that don't share our bias against
> prostitution, where parents are proud to have a daughter who can offer
> support to a family. We maybe horrified but that too is a luxury.
> Marina
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Pam Sorooshian

On 7/12/2010 8:44 PM, AlexS wrote:
> African-American kids who are spanked more are less likely to get in
> trouble.

Another way to interpret it is that in societies with a high correlation
between "involved" parenting and spanking, then spanking will be
positively correlated with "less likely to get in trouble" even though
it is really the parental involvement that is responsible.

-pam

Joyce Fetteroll

On Jul 13, 2010, at 12:06 AM, BRIAN POLIKOWSKY wrote:

> Do you think only black girls from poor neighbourhood that don';t
> get spanked or
> told straigh up not to, are the ones that go into prostitution?

I think what the study indicated is that kids with more involved
parents were less likely to be violent.

In that environment the non-spanking group probably had a higher
proportion of drug abusers and absent parents. And of the other non-
spankers, what parenting were they replacing spanking with? It's not
safe to assume it was mindful parenting! The spanking group probably
had a higher proportion of parents who were aware of what their kids
were doing and who drew the line about acceptable and not-acceptable
behavior.

So it's the same thing unschoolers have found: if you pay attention to
your kids they turn out better than if you let them raise themselves!

Joyce




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=- I feel like I'm spreading misinformation, and I'm uncomfortable
with people debating a book without having read it. -=-

We weren't debating the book, though, just playing around with an idea.
And it's not the book anyway, it's his summary of studies he's read
(and sometimes talked to the researchers).

-=-I really do encourage folks to check the book out from the library
if you're curious about what it says. It shouldn't take long to find
or read the part about a specific topic. What Should I Do With My
Life, Po Bronson's (the author's) book about people trying different
ways to make their paid work something that makes them happy, is very
sweet. It was really helpful to me when I was trying to figure that
out, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with my kids some day. I
definitely felt like these are good people who just come from a more
conventional background but mean well. -=

Sure. It's not a mean book at all. He's just a little too
worshipful of studies for my tastes. But that's the intent of the
book, to report on studies that might be surprising. Unfortunately,
he and the researchers have the same-old over-reaction, it seems to
me... that everything should be changed totally and immediately
because of a study.

As to the spanking thing, one bad thing about audio books is the
inability to look at the table of contents and stick a bookmark in a
different place!! <g> I really can't just listen full out to that
book. I need recovery time. BUT to the spanking situation, I keep
thinking about it, and without hearing the setup of the study, I'm
wondering whether it's a correlation of parents who are present and
paying attention. Did they compare stable families with and without
spanking, and the outcome? Or are they comparing stable families
trying to keep urban kids out of trouble to broken, inattentive
families? That would be a different deal.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-Being horrified as a luxury... never thought of it that way. :)-=-

I think of that quite a bit, and sometimes say "Because we're not in a
war zone..." Many of the unschooling practices are pure luxury.
Staying up late wasn't an option before electric lights, and isn't
possible in places with blackout policies during wars. When my mom
was a kid there were mandatory black-out drills, and air-raid alarms
which meant home, inside, blackout. That wasn't optional.

Letting kids try different foods is only possible when and where there
ARE different foods.
Letting kids say "no thanks" to food is only feasible when the parents
know there will be more food later.

Being picky about how animals are raised or how food is grown is a
huge luxury.
It's a side benefit of peace and plenty.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

Although I do love the artwork on my web page (the trees) and the
randomizer elevator door, all by Bo King, I didn't love this, posted
on another unschoolers facebook by the same artist. It was in
response to something sensible, about internet comments and discussions.

"I feel the inherent anonymity of the internet is one of its most
crucial aspects. It's one of the only places we as a society can come
and measure the pulse of our people with no filters. I think too many
people get caught up in the intentions of the comments rather than
what's being said. If we treat it neutrally as a resource to gather
information and opinions off of, we can use it and change accordingly."

It followed something about rude comments about Holly on youtube where
one of the videos Lee Stranahan did are. It wasn't my facebook post;
it's no one Bo knows, but he jumped in anyway.

Just because it's grammatical doesn't mean it makes sense. He's a
good artist, but not a linear thinker. His mom's a teacher (special
ed--wears a helmet an has an aide with a helmet, to take care of one
single boy all day, same boy for four years or more, if he's still her
student). Bo didn't do really well at school, but is glad he
graduated. He said recently that Holly was "four years behind"
because she hadn't gone to high school.

He wouldn't have access to Marilyn's facebook page except through
me. I feel a little guilty for him posting nonsense defending
nonsense there.

But here's what he does do really well:

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/TreesFIN.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/randomBO.jpg

Those were for my site and live mostly here:
http://sandradodd.com (he did the anchoress, too, to look like Lucy in
her "Doctor is In" booth)
http://sandradodd.com/random

Here's the guy he doodles while he's talking or playing games:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/BoGuyRunning.jpg

and here's a doodle I lifted from his page because it's just wonderful:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/l_99ab2dbc4eeb2cca70f35578b4099059.jpg

Still... I'm sorry he's writing things other people might take pains
to try to understand.

Sandra

k

I wondered who Bo was when I read your last comment in that thread,
thinking that it couldn't be Bo King. It looks like he may have
deleted his words before I read them. (Now I'm curious what he said
but any hey...) Holly's 4 years behind having to listen to most of
what passes for high school instruction droning on and on and on
endlessly. ;) So glad she gets to breathe the free air instead. Karl
too. And so many other kids. They probably don't know what it means to
be relieved to be out of school for the summer. Gosh they're missing
so much .. ;) (just joshing).

~Katherine



On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 9:29 AM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> Although I do love the artwork on my web page (the trees) and the
> randomizer elevator door, all by Bo King,  I didn't love this, posted
> on another unschoolers facebook by the same artist.  It was in
> response to something sensible, about internet comments and discussions.
>
> "I feel the inherent anonymity of the internet is one of its most
> crucial aspects. It's one of the only places we as a society can come
> and measure the pulse of our people with no filters. I think too many
> people get caught up in the intentions of the comments rather than
> what's being said. If we treat it neutrally as a resource to gather
> information and opinions off of, we can use it and change accordingly."
>
> It followed something about rude comments about Holly on youtube where
> one of the videos Lee Stranahan did are.  It wasn't my facebook post;
> it's no one Bo knows, but he jumped in anyway.
>
> Just because it's grammatical doesn't mean it makes sense.  He's a
> good artist, but not a linear thinker.  His mom's a teacher (special
> ed--wears a helmet an has an aide with a helmet, to take care of one
> single boy all day, same boy for four years or more, if he's still her
> student).  Bo didn't do really well at school, but is glad he
> graduated.  He said recently that Holly was "four years behind"
> because she hadn't gone to high school.
>
> He wouldn't have access to Marilyn's facebook page except through
> me.   I feel a little guilty for him posting nonsense defending
> nonsense there.
>
> But here's what he does do really well:
>
> http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/TreesFIN.jpg
> http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/randomBO.jpg
>
> Those were for my site and live mostly here:
> http://sandradodd.com (he did the anchoress, too, to look like Lucy in
> her "Doctor is In" booth)
> http://sandradodd.com/random
>
> Here's the guy he doodles while he's talking or playing games:
> http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/BoGuyRunning.jpg
>
> and here's a doodle I lifted from his page because it's just wonderful:
> http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Bo/l_99ab2dbc4eeb2cca70f35578b4099059.jpg
>
> Still... I'm sorry he's writing things other people might take pains
> to try to understand.
>
> Sandra
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Sandra Dodd

I quoted the full thing. I didn't know he had deleted it.

k

I think the reason the study doesn't make sense is because spanking is
the one obviously wild card in an otherwise stable situation/setup.
The one thing that muddied the waters of what otherwise could have
been clearly understood as a parent's love.

"BUT to the spanking situation, I keep
thinking about it, and without hearing the setup of the study, I'm
wondering whether it's a correlation of parents who are present and
paying attention. Did they compare stable families with and without
spanking, and the outcome?"

Not a study, but an anecdote from my life... spanking didn't keep me
out of trouble. I got into plenty of that, hence the spankings. The
thing that kept me from getting into drugs, for instance, was not only
the fear of spankings --which had dwindled almost to nothing by the
time drugs were a consideration-- but also the fear of more parental
disapproval and the potential presented to us kids in continued
threats of parental rejection. I wouldn't call it parental involvement
but a supreme form of Skinnerism put in terms of Strong Willed
children via the likes of James Dobson, whose advice really was
listened to and followed. The term "tough love" describes the way it
was talked about pretty well. It was meant to be a way for parents to
put their kids on automatic: set 'em and forget 'em. That wasn't
usually said but the phrase "seen and not heard" was said. And it was
intentional. There were four girls in my family of origin and both my
parents worked full-time and then came home to a huge garden and the
animals to care for on our mini-farm, church and choir duties, and so
on. They didn't have time for much involvement, certainly very little
that was one-to-one. Spanking and thinly veiled threats of
abandonment were there to control the factors that weren't as easily
controllable. It was because we kids depended on our parents love,
involvement and approval that spanking even worked.

It was stable alright.

~Katherine





On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 8:38 AM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> -=- I feel like I'm spreading misinformation, and I'm uncomfortable
> with people debating a book without having read it. -=-
>
> We weren't debating the book, though, just playing around with an idea.
> And it's not the book anyway, it's his summary of studies he's read
> (and sometimes talked to the researchers).
>
> -=-I really do encourage folks to check the book out from the library
> if you're curious about what it says. It shouldn't take long to find
> or read the part about a specific topic. What Should I Do With My
> Life, Po Bronson's (the author's) book about people trying different
> ways to make their paid work something that makes them happy, is very
> sweet. It was really helpful to me when I was trying to figure that
> out, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with my kids some day. I
> definitely felt like these are good people who just come from a more
> conventional background but mean well. -=
>
> Sure.  It's not a mean book at all.   He's just a little too
> worshipful of studies for my tastes.  But that's the intent of the
> book, to report on studies that might be surprising.  Unfortunately,
> he and the researchers have the same-old over-reaction, it seems to
> me... that everything should be changed totally and immediately
> because of a study.
>
> As to the spanking thing, one bad thing about audio books is the
> inability to look at the table of contents and stick a bookmark in a
> different place!! <g>  I really can't just listen full out to that
> book.  I need recovery time.    BUT to the spanking situation, I keep
> thinking about it, and without hearing the setup of the study, I'm
> wondering whether it's a correlation of parents who are present and
> paying attention.   Did they compare stable families with and without
> spanking, and the outcome?  Or are they comparing stable families
> trying to keep urban kids out of trouble to broken, inattentive
> families?  That would be a different deal.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

k

I was wrong. I didn't realize Galen was Bo's name. (:P) So sorry for
the confusion. I thought Bo and Galen were two different people, and
that you were addressing both in one comment. Bo/Galen are the same
person. (duh me)

~Katherine



On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> I quoted the full thing.  I didn't know he had deleted it.
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Pam Sorooshian

On 7/13/2010 5:38 AM, Sandra Dodd wrote:
> As to the spanking thing, one bad thing about audio books is the
> inability to look at the table of contents and stick a bookmark in a
> different place!! <g>

My first mp3 player was made for audible books (an Otis) and it could
put digital bookmarks all over the book with just one quick click of the
bookmark button. I used the bookmarking ability a lot. When my Otis
died, I spent months trying to find another mp3 player that would do
multiple bookmarks, to no avail, and finally settled for an iPod. If
anybody knows of an mp3 player that sets multiple bookmarks, I'd love to
know about it. I'd have thought audible.com would recommend one, but
they don't list one. I finally figured that nobody making a product
meeting my needs must mean I'm the only person in the world who loved
the bookmarking.

-pam

plaidpanties666

BRIAN POLIKOWSKY <polykowholsteins@...> wrote:
>> Spanking kids or telling them straigh up that a behavior is not acceptable in
> any circumstance does not garantee the child will comply.

This is getting far afield from unschooling, but there are many cultures and subcultures where what "good parenting" looks like, the vast majority of the time, involves spanking. When that's the case, people who don't spank are more likely to be the uninvolved, even negligent parents. That's true in the part of the world where I live - the rural, mostly white, South. Its not a statement about the benefits of spanking, rather its a picture of results given one bad option, and one worse option.

---Meredith

Jenny Cyphers

***Did they compare stable families with and without
spanking, and the outcome? Or are they comparing stable families
trying to keep urban kids out of trouble to broken, inattentive
families? That would be a different deal.***


I can say that my sister spanks her kids. Her kids are really great kids. She
has been married to the same man for as long as I've been married about 18 yrs.
They have 4 kids. I take issue with many of her parenting choices, yet their
family interactions and dynamics are mostly healthy and focused on togetherness
and getting along.

My neighbor is a single mom who spanks her kids and has three kids from three
different abusive men. Her kids are controlling and manipulative, who have
issues getting along and being kind. There is a BIG difference. It's not all
about spanking, even though spanking effects all of those kids!





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bernadette Lynn

On 13 July 2010 13:38, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:

> ------- BUT to the spanking situation, I keep
> thinking about it, and without hearing the setup of the study, I'm
> wondering whether it's a correlation of parents who are present and
> paying attention. Did they compare stable families with and without
> spanking, and the outcome? Or are they comparing stable families
> trying to keep urban kids out of trouble to broken, inattentive
> families? That would be a different deal.
> -----------------




It also makes a difference what timescales they used. In a group of
six-year-olds, the children who are spanked might be less 'violent' than
those who aren't because they are more fearful of showing their natural
emotions and reactions, but in the same group at twenty the children who
weren't spanked may have learned over time to control their reactions
peacefully and the other children have grown up to be angry and violent; the
researchers would really need to follow up on the children a year or two
after they had left home, to see what the real effect of their upbringing
was.


Bernadette.
--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/U15459


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Marina DeLuca-Howard

I think violence doesn't work with unschooling. Emotional or physical
violence either between spouses or between children or between adult and
child. In unschooling trust is important and punishment is not about trust
or learning. Violence is a shortcut to an end. It doesn't build respectful
relationships.
Marina


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

selazane

Sorry for jumping in here, it may be that I'm exhausted and sleep deprived and just mis reading the point of your words. But I am in the rural South. Tuscaloosa Alabama and was raised in Oak Grove very back woods and predominantly white. But I don't agree that it looks like good parenting (spanking). It makes me crazy to see parents hit and the threats that are made of spanking and yes I was spanked as a child. But I think especially as Southern people who are pigeon wholed and steroe typed we need to educate our selves on alternatives to dealing with behaviors and just generally our anger. Or at least in my experience it's because I'm at the end of my rope that I think to myself "this would be easier if I was like my Mother and just pulled out a belt". But it's not an answer to the behavior.

--- In [email protected], "plaidpanties666"
> This is getting far afield from unschooling, but there are many cultures and subcultures where what "good parenting" looks like, the vast majority of the time, involves spanking. When that's the case, people who don't spank are more likely to be the uninvolved, even negligent parents. That's true in the part of the world where I live - the rural, mostly white, South. Its not a statement about the benefits of spanking, rather its a picture of results given one bad option, and one worse option.
>
> ---Meredith
>

Sandra Dodd

-=-But I don't agree that it looks like good parenting (spanking). It
makes me crazy to see parents hit and the threats that are made of
spanking and yes I was spanked as a child. But I think especially as
Southern people who are pigeon wholed and steroe typed we need to
educate our selves on alternatives to dealing with behaviors and just
generally our anger. -=-

But that's what it looks like from the outside, not from the inside.
If people are so church-bound that their social question at the
grocery store is "Where do you go to church," they won't see it as
anger, but as doing God's will. It IS a problem (from the outside,
and for those who want to separate themselves from it).

And those people (my relatives in West Texas plunk in the middle of
that soci0-religious Baptist gene pool) see not spanking as bad
parenting. They see not going to church as abuse and neglect. They
see reading books other than the Bible, when making decisions, to be
succumbing to satanic influences.

That reminds me today's my dad's birthday. He's been dead over half
my life, but I should probably go and write something on my blog. <g>
One of his cousins sent me some new photos of him. Then she sent me
some anti-Obama bullshit and I wrote and told her to take Kirby, Holly
and Keith of her family mailing list, that she could leave me because
I grew up hearing that but they didn't.

When I was a kid, we were harangued by that side of the family (half
of them Baptist preacher families, the rest deacons or masons or both)
if we were "anti-American." "Anti American" was mostly questioning
the president or U.S. wars. Now this same batch of people are calling
the President of the U.S. anti-American. The belittlement of younger
people and of different people, is to the bone with them, to the core
to the soul. I'm very glad I didn't grow up there. I was safely in
northern New Mexico and only visited there once a year or so. I could
see from the time I was little that there were nicer, smarter people
and some of them were Catholic and lots of them were "Mexicans" (in
Texas parlance; Hispanic in norther New Mexican language) and some of
them were Pueblo Indians, and I didn't have to depend on my own
relatives for advice or support. I was lucky. Some people live
surrounded by thousands or millions of families who are still into
"Bible=spanking, non-Bible=devil" mode.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

organicmom111

'That's true in the part of
the world where I live - the rural, mostly white, South.'

???? I live in the fairly rural south as well, and I cringe when I see parents verbally or physically abusing their kids. I hate going to Walmart for that reason. I even had a verbal altercation with a man who was beating his 3 yold girl in the parking lot whie the mom and 16ish yold sister watched. They all got an earful, and I called security. When I see people verbally bossing or spanking their kids, I think 'REDNECK', thats what they are around here.

--- In [email protected], "selazane" <selazane@...> wrote:
>
> Sorry for jumping in here, it may be that I'm exhausted and sleep deprived and just mis reading the point of your words. But I am in the rural South. Tuscaloosa Alabama and was raised in Oak Grove very back woods and predominantly white. But I don't agree that it looks like good parenting (spanking). It makes me crazy to see parents hit and the threats that are made of spanking and yes I was spanked as a child. But I think especially as Southern people who are pigeon wholed and steroe typed we need to educate our selves on alternatives to dealing with behaviors and just generally our anger. Or at least in my experience it's because I'm at the end of my rope that I think to myself "this would be easier if I was like my Mother and just pulled out a belt". But it's not an answer to the behavior.
>
> --- In [email protected], "plaidpanties666"
> > This is getting far afield from unschooling, but there are many cultures and subcultures where what "good parenting" looks like, the vast majority of the time, involves spanking. When that's the case, people who don't spank are more likely to be the uninvolved, even negligent parents. That's true in the part of the world where I live - the rural, mostly white, South. Its not a statement about the benefits of spanking, rather its a picture of results given one bad option, and one worse option.
> >
> > ---Meredith
> >
>

Jenny Cyphers

***But I don't agree that it looks like good parenting (spanking). It makes me
crazy to see parents hit and the threats that are made of spanking and yes I was
spanked as a child. But I think especially as Southern people who are pigeon
wholed and steroe typed we need to educate our selves on alternatives to dealing
with behaviors and just generally our anger. Or at least in my experience it's
because I'm at the end of my rope that I think to myself "this would be easier
if I was like my Mother and just pulled out a belt". But it's not an answer to
the behavior.***

You might not agree, but you are the exception right? Lots and lots of people
really do believe that spanking IS the answer to behavior. Might makes right.
I've never lived in the south. One of my friends grew up partly in the south
and partly in the NW, as an adult ended up in the south for a while and hated
it. Her experience is that if you don't go to church, you won't find many
friends. If you don't go to the "right" church people will talk behind your
back. If you don't discipline your child the "right" way, you may be shunned.
That's her experience. She's lived in many parts of the US and this is
something that happens in the south, in a way that doesn't happen in other
places.

Southern hospitality, she says is superficial, it's all for show and as long as
you fit all the other criteria of social norms, people will continue to be
hospitable, otherwise not. In that kind of environment, I can see how NOT
spanking would be really hard. It would be easier to pull out a belt, since
that IS what is expected of parents.

Yesterday a mom spanked a little kid for not getting off the swing fast enough
for her liking. She did it in anger and it was violent. Margaux was very upset
by it. I'm glad it upset her, I'd hate for her to see it as normal.

The police were at my neighbors house for a long time yesterday, the little boy
didn't think anything of it. The police have been over there a lot. Margaux
was afraid for him, he spent most of the day at my house to avoid all the drama
at his house. That is his experience of life in the small time he's been alive,
that drama that sometimes involves violence is normal, that police showing up is
normal, that adults in uniforms can ask you to take off your clothing to inspect
you is normal, and he goes about his life by riding his bike and going to the
neighbor's house. That was probably normal for his mother growing up too, so
she repeats it because it's normal.

Those things are so far from normal for my kids that they cause fear.





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-That is his experience of life in the small time he's been alive,
that drama that sometimes involves violence is normal...

-=-Those things are so far from normal for my kids that they cause
fear.-=-

True of my children compared to my sister's children. They didn't
even look up one night--the three of her young children sitting on a
couch watching cartoons, when there were three drunks all yelling at
me in turn ("just playing," they would have said; friends and
relatives of many years, too drunk to be nice). Kirby, though, who
was two and didn't have any idea of such things, went out, woke my mom
up who was sleeping in our van, and unable to articulate what might be
up said "Granny, there's a monster in there."


My mom was in her first or second year of sobriety (of nine, I think
it was, before she decided to go back to beer as food and recreation)
came in and asked if I wanted to go back to Albuquerque instead of
staying over in Chamita. I sure did. While he was out, they told
Kirby was "a titty baby," and the only reason he was afraid was I was
still nursing him. And still my niece and nephews didn't look over
into the room, though we could see each other fully through the door.

That was heavy evidence that the drinking and yelling were normal.

I wrote a long letter when I got home, still full of adrenaline after
a two-hour drive in the dark, and explained my theory. They quit
drinking for many years after and because of that incident (or of the
letter, or the combination). They both started again, eventually,
ended up divorced and their youngest kid does heroin, drinks and has
been in a couple of car accidents, and some rehab, and some more rehab.

Those weren't the southern Southern Baptist relatives, though one of
the guys there that night was from a missionary family he had bailed on.

Drama and violence are easy to stay with. There's a kind of
fulfilling fun and self-congratulatory air to them. Some people
become addicted to that energy, or it's the only way they know to
interact. Keeping that away from unschoolers and unschooling away
from that is a good idea, when possible.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]