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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CBS) -- A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation.

"You don't spank children today," said Judge Jose Longoria. "In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don't spank children."


Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a "pretty simple, straightforward spanking case." They noted she didn't use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks...

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I hope the citizens in Corpus Christi are paying attention. Judge Jose Longoria needs a one way ticket to Nuevo Laredo after he is not elected again next term.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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I hope the citizens in Corpus Christi are paying attention. Judge Jose Longoria needs a one way ticket to Nuevo Laredo after he is not elected again next term.

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Why do you assume that the judge isn't an American citizen? Or are you just in favor of deporting ALL those with whom you disagree?

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Now why doesn't that surprise me in the least? :biggin: Did you catch his Down Under shows? I got a kick out of those in contrast to the ones in the UK and US. Didn't see a single episode with some dumb woman who'd made her dog into her "baby", dressed it up, let it run the entire household, etc. Many of the same mistakes I've seen elsewhere, but from what I SAW anyway, you guys have a more realistic approach to your dogs than some of us do! Some of the stuff I've seen people do--did you catch the PINK poodle...or whatever small dog it was? Or the one where the woman GOT a small dog TO BE an accessory and dressed it accordingly? Hard not to vomit sometimes...


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Originally posted by WORLDSPRAYER:

This is a case I believe that demonstrates the fundamental flaw of the belief that physical punishment never needs to be used. Children, applying more to the younger they are, are increasingly unable to recognize a non-physical reaction to their actions. That is a matter of both physical and social development. Ultimately there is the natural physical understanding: Pleasure is good, pain is bad. It is the natural, very animalistic instinct that children have and (hopefully) grow out of.The concern I would pose to not implementing some form of physical response is that if a child does not learn immediately at an intuitive level that there are consequences to it's actions, then it will be either more difficult to instill such knowledge or impossible altogether.

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Originally posted by WORLDSPRAYER:
I confess you just threw a curve-ball on that one. You just used a completely different form of situation. We're not talking about controlling/shaping a child's physical needs/requirements. We're talking about social change and instruction. Do you begin instructing and expecting social norms and desires to be met by a 6 week old? No you don't. A parents desire at that point is that the child simply live and be healthy. If that means waking up at all hours, feeding and cleaning then so be it. That's called the first steps of being a parent. How about a 6 year old? Hopefully IMHO Yes you do. As I stated above: but more clearly now I hope: Situation Specific. I most certainly did NOT..repeating here..did NOT state that physical punishment was to be used in response to everything, I'll even go so far to say that it shouldn't be used in MOST situations especially as the child ages into later childhood. All I am saying is that to rule out physical punishment as a tool entirely is foolishness in my opinion. To point back to my earlier example, in some situations, such as destruction of property, a punishment must be one that will embed itself into not only the child's immediate memory, but it's instinctual memory, so that the next time they feel the urge to destroy something not only do they have to think about it, but there is a natural, reflexive reaction against it. You cannot say that pain is not a form of instruction. I doubt there is a person alive who has not touched something hot as a child despite being told otherwise and learned that yes...it was hot. There is a reason the military smokes a soldier who misbehaves. Physical suffering creates a fast and lasting impression that resonates deeper than words. When experienced in balance, it can be perfectly healthy.

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As a person serving in the military, I will say that I have witnessed first hand a shockingly large number of people, primarily in entry phases, demonstrate a true mis-understanding of consequence. They truly did not understand the difference between right and wrong. I have wondered for years as to how many of those "failures to adapt" (as the military calls it) had simply never been spanked as a child.

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“As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice, but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educator’s threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies.”

Boris Sidis, from “A lecture on the abuse of the fear instinct in early education” in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1919.

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"Every Smack is a Humiliation"
A Manifesto

By Alice Miller

Many researchers have already proved that corporal punishment can indeed produce obedient children in the short term but, in the long term, it will have serious negative consequences on the child's character and behavior. This disastrous development toward later crimes can be prevented if there is at least one single person who loves and understands the child. During their whole childhood, dictators like Hitler, Stalin or Mao never came across such a helping witness. They learned early on to glorify cruelty and hypocrisy and to justify these actions while committing crimes against millions of people. Millions of others, also exposed to physical maltreatment in childhood, helped them to do so without the slightest remorse.

Children should not be the scapegoats for the painful experiences of adults. The claim that mild punishments (slaps or smacks) have no detrimental effects is still widespread because we learned this message at a very early age from our parents, who had taken it over from their own parents. This conviction helped the child to minimize his suffering and to endure it. Unfortunately, the main damage it causes is precisely our numbness, as well as the lack of sensitivity for our children's pain. The result of the broad dissemination of this damage is that each successive generation is subjected to the tragic effects of seemingly harmless physical "correction." Many parents still think: What didn't hurt me can't hurt my child. They don't realize that their conclusion is wrong because they never challenged their assumption.

When legislation laws prohibiting corporal punishment were launched in Sweden in 1977, 70% of the citizens asked for their opinion were against it. In 1998, the figure has dropped to 10%. These statistics show that the mentality of the Swedish population has radically changed in the course of a mere twenty years. A destructive tradition of millennia has been done away with thanks to this legislation.

It is imperative to launch such legislation—prohibiting corporal punishment—all over the world. It does not set out to incriminate anyone but is designed to have a protective and informative function for parents. Sanctions could simply take the form of the obligation for parents to internalize information available today on the consequences of corporal punishment. Information on the "well-meant smack" should therefore be broadcasted to all, since unconscious education to violence takes root very early and inflicts disastrous imprints. The vital interests of society as a whole are at stake.

This text can be distributed and published by everybody to disseminate the information as widely as possible. —Alice Miller

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Quite simply, children learn their best lesson I think via pain

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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I hope the citizens in Corpus Christi are paying attention. Judge Jose Longoria needs a one way ticket to Nuevo Laredo after he is not elected again next term.

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Why do you assume that the judge isn't an American citizen? Or are you just in favor of deporting ALL those with whom you disagree?

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My interest was that you joined at the same time as you put up your first post, and it was that post, which I always find curious. That someone would find a Firefly site and their first post is in RWED--and usually that's where their only post is. Given people here use sockpuppets to back themselves up, I'm leery of people who only come here to post in RWED. That's all. New voices are always welcome, so I'll say "welcome" and let it go at that.

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Spanking... As usual, I see both sides here. As someone who has been spanked, whipped, and slapped by both parents, it's hard for me to see it as a big deal.

On the other hand, I wouldn't allow any of my other friends or relatives to touch me that way, and my parents were outraged on a few times when it did happen. So why is it okay if my parents do it? Why is it okay if anyone touches my ass in any way? It's a little messed up.

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Originally posted by piratenews:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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I hope the citizens in Corpus Christi are paying attention. Judge Jose Longoria needs a one way ticket to Nuevo Laredo after he is not elected again next term.

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Why do you assume that the judge isn't an American citizen? Or are you just in favor of deporting ALL those with whom you disagree?

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Some of the courts in TAXas NEVER allow English to be spoken in court, and only allow Mexican flags, because they have secceeded to Jewish Nazi Mexico.

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Constrained Curiosity

For too many children, curiosity fades. Curiosity dimmed is a future denied. Our potential — emotional, social, and cognitive — is expressed through the quantity and quality of our experiences. And the less-curious child will make fewer new friends, join fewer social groups, read fewer books, and take fewer hikes. The less-curious child is harder to teach because he is harder to inspire, enthuse, and motivate.

There are three common ways adults constrain or even crush the enthusiastic exploration of the curious child:

fear
disapproval
absence

Fear: Fear kills curiosity. When the child's world is chaotic or when he is afraid, he will not like novelty. He will seek the familiar, staying in his comfort zone, unwilling to leave and explore new things. Children impacted by war, natural disasters, family distress, or violence all have their curiosity crushed.

Disapproval: "Don’t touch. Don’t climb. Don’t yell. Don’t take that apart. Don’t get dirty. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t." Children sense and respond to our fears, biases, and attitudes. If we convey a sense of disgust at the mud on their shoes and the slime on their hands, their discovery of tadpoles will be diminished.

Absence: The presence of a caring, invested adult provides two things essential for optimal exploration:

sense of safety from which to set out to discover new things and
the capacity to share the discovery and, thereby, get the pleasure and reinforcement from that discovery.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Re: Chessboard.

Why on earth did you let a 4yr old mess with an expensive, fragile chess set to begin with ?

Seriously, that's like leaving an open can of tuna on the counter and getting the mail, while expecting the cat not to have stuck their face in it - on what planet would you have to be for that expectation to make sense ?

I see your example as someone pawning their own negligence off on a child, and then using violence as a response - children act like children, expecting otherwise is inhumane.

Case in point, expecting said child NOT to jump in puddles and using violence to enforce it, or investing in detergent and rainboots.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
The one good thing about not responding to punishment is that whenever I was punished for swimming in the duck pond for snail shells or stomping in puddles or tearing my clothes, I completely forgot the lesson about a minute after the punishment ended. Which was usually soon, because I could guilt trip like no one's business. They eventually just kinda gave up on me, and I raised myself to have the standards and value systems that I read about in books.

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Originally posted by TheHappyTrader:
Just curious, is your experiences from raising your own year olds or did you work at a school or something. I don't mean to be insulting, just saying that if your experiences are based on your own children who were raised well enough not to engage in that kind of behavior, you expectations might be a little off.

My experiences working with children come from working in lower income school districts, working with community groups for children such as boys and girls clubs, and more recently working with children who have developmental delays or behavior issues. It's possible my expectations of typical 4 year old behavior are slanted more in the other direction.

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Happy, I'm not sure what your point of disagreement is? If a child is rebelling against his environment, then that behaviour is a clear statement of how he feels. He feels angry and frustrated. Therefore the behaviour means something.

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