Misdemeanor torture

Jungle Japes wins the discussion.

Darkfool, you can lock this thread now.

 

Kids are like animals. You can teach them through punishment when they are wrong or love when they do right. Or both. And you can still fail at fuckall.

 

Kids aren't animals.

Nor are they soldiers.

I'd prefer to have kids who are able to think critically and help themselves than kids who will blindly follow authority. The level of discipline Japes learns in the army is for a specific purpose - to ensure that a massive fighting unit is able to be efficient in war. Most of our children aren't going to fight wars, so if they question something you tell them to do, that's the perfect opportunity to explain to them why you want them to do it. If, after you're done teaching them how your value system works, they don't comply, go ahead and punish them.

I agree with some of what Japes says, though. Counting down a number is something I've had to do because the kids aren't mine and they vastly outnumber me (meaning if I try to play drill sergeant with them, they will quickly revolt and become out of control, as any large group of people without authority are wont to do), but I wouldn't plan to do it with my own children. I've found that children respond well to you always doing exactly what you tell them you're going to do. So if you say "I will take that walking stick from you and throw it in the lake if you keep hitting Todd with it", you better be prepared to take his stick and throw it in the lake.

I have thrown many things into many lakes, but I've only very rarely done it to the same child twice.

 

Kids are animals in the exact same way that humans are animals. We just like to pretend that we aren't animals. But we are. And especially when we are small and have yet to learn how things works. Then we are mostly instincts, like animals.

If we do something and gets something nice out of it, we learn to do it more.

If we do something and it becomes unpleasant, we learn to stop doing it.

This works with adults as well, since we are all animals.

 

I think the woman only got done for child abuse because there was some physical trauma or psychological trauma on the child during this example of punishment. For example, the hot sauce might have actually burnt ulcers in his mouth. Or, the child has become catatonic as a result.

I highly doubt it's the latter.

Davis: is it "wrongness" that you feel, or "unpleasantness?" We could start a whole new thread about that sort of definition, but the court rules in favour of "wrongness".

I agree with both Grakelin AND Wobbler; children must learn about consequences when breaking boundaries, and the best way to do that is to teach via reinforcement, both positive and negative. From what I've learned in my Ed degree, we all have certain levels of need; it's the need of achievement love and beyond that tends to separate us from animals (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs).

I suspect that the court used this hierarchy to determine of the child was stripped of his rights/needs for a safe home.

Edit: A simplification of this heirarchy:

 

You had me at jubblies.

 

I'm inclined to liken the sentiment to conscience. Far be it from me to make this a religious discussion but it seems that "guilt" was pitched as God's tool to make us aware of "sin." People cannot detect sin directly, but indirectly through our feelings of guilt, we can make ourselves aware of sin and learn to avoid sin.
More on the animal side of things, in absence of an absolute right or wrong, I might believe that the "unpleasantness," "sympathy," or "horror," I may feel at witnessing this treatment helps me to detect the "absolute wrongness" of the act. I would explain this act as wrong because it creates an unhealthy progenitor for future descendants of my species. Without knowing why I'm witnessing is bad, I know that it does not improve the situation of the hive to which I belong, so I am made uncomfortable by it.

In any case, the plot thickens.
Apparently this was a stunt to get on television. The occasion for discipline was legitimate and the punishment would have occurred anyway; it was just filmed for the specific purpose of getting on television.
As it happens, that may have been a poor decision. This woman is being prosecuted for misdemeanor child abuse for “unreasonable discipline." I don't feel her method is "unreasonable," but it is unconventional. I doubt that the fact that her son is adopted from Russia will go unscrutinized.

 

Look, Davis, if the mother thought her own disciplinary methods were enough to get herself on TV, the disciplinary method was inherently abusive. If I exploit my child for personal gain at his expense, I'm an abusive parent. If I exploit my child for personal gain by causing him pain, I am an especially abusive parent.

You literally just sourced direct evidence indicating that this is child abuse.

 

My immediate response to the video was "yes, this is child abuse," but I cannot explain why. I cannot identify how this is any worse than any discipline I experienced as a child and I don't consider myself to have been abused.

Jazintha Piper's contributions to the topic suggest that she doesn't consider this form of discipline to be abusive, and she could be right.

I'm not trying to play Devil's advocate here, I am literally trying to resolve me reaction to my beliefs. It's slow going.

 

You beat me to it, Davis!

Perhaps the woman was charged for abuse because she attempted to profit from the publicity of her discipline methods?

Davis: Unfortunately my studies into my Ed degree has skewed my views about what abuse is - as pre-service teachers we actually have been given guidelines to see how abuse is demonstrated through the child's behaviour. The only way I can be sure if it is abuse or not is to actually interview the child.

Abuse is only classified after the fact - i.e. the child has been abused as a result of an act. The act itself may not be violent - it may not even be wrong. Please don't misunderstand that I believe that such acts don't exist - it's the reality of the matter.

A simple incident such as a child being restricted from going over to a certain child's house because of the parents' belief system MAY or MAY NOT result as psychological abuse - you'll have to interview the child for that. On the other hand, violent acts such as belting a child MAY or MAY result as psychological abuse, but it will DEFINITELY result as physiological abuse (bruising etc).

Again, the court of law has to determine if the physiological abuse actually affected the PSYCHOLOGICAL abuse.