Massachusetts could pass "No Spanking" bill

I think this may be going a bit overboard! Parents will be told how they can raise their own kids? Don't get me wrong- I have been in public places & seen some parenting that could be considered suspect & cruel, but they should be handled individually. I think in most instances getting physical is not the way to go, but every parent should have the right to choose how the conduct themselves, ( within reason of course ).

If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.

I guess this means you can beat the crap outta them once they get into college???

Mom: If you touch that cookie jar again I'm gonna spank your bottom!

7 yr old: Better think twice mommy. . . I'll have you arrested. Now give me another cookie!

you can read about the story here.

If this gets signed what's next? You won't be able to raise your voice?

I'm in my forties now, and I bet most of you my age would agree that our parents would be in jail, and we would be in DSS custody if they brought us up today.

Thoughts?

2PacSade-

Unfortunately, some parents don't know where "spanking" ends and abuse begins. There are plenty of abused and dead children to back that up. On the other hand, I can see this as being step 1 in a series of laws that could eventually lead to people requiring a parenting license in order to have kids. That may not be a bad thing either. I just don't trust the lawmakers. There's always something sinister in the decisions they make because none of them are ever for our own good even if they appear to be.

reply to post by annestacey


I agree there are good & bad parents, but you go after the bad ones! If the bad one's are sly enough then this legislation is not gonna catch them anyway! We shouldn't treat everyone as such by passing laws that tell everyone how to parent. Plus- I can forsee abuse of this legislation. . .

"Hello 911- I just saw my neighbor, ( whom I hate - Oh did I say that out loud ), hit his kid numerous times in their backyard. The kid was screaming."

When in reality the kid fell off his bike & got bumped up. They will now be put on "potential child abused" list, even though the kids tells authorities that he did indeed fall off his bike.

I have a friend who's 9 year old son was getting into mischief at home & school. My friend did his best to keep him in line. At one point he even told his son that he would send him to a "boot-camp" rather than see him turn into some teenage hoodlum. The son was in the guidance councelor's office on one occasion & thought he would get back at his dad. When asked whether or not he was hit by his parents, he stated that he was beaten regularly by his father. My friend was called into the guidance councelor's office & confronted with this claim. He told him he did not beat his son, and that the son was fabricating the whole thing because he was mad at him. The son was asked by the councelor if this was true & he stated that yes indeed, he had made the whole thing up. Unfortunately in the interim the guidance councelor had my friend's name put on a list of potential child abusers.

It then took my friend 3 years of letters, e-mails, and interviews, to get his name removed from the list. . .

We need to stop micromanaging EVERYONE, and deal with just the BAD parents IMHO.

2PacSade-

This is stupid, because who the heck thinks that an abuse law is going to stop people with impulse and anger control issues from beating their kids to death?

It's just going to get normal parents in trouble for nothing and break up families.

The way to break this penchant for corporal punishment is education and alternate methods of disciplining.

They use various systems such as 'tokens' in mental institutions which works pretty well even on stubborn cases.

For kids who really have behavior problems, physically beating them isn't going to make that any better either.

They need to enforce the laws they already have.

Do we know if the laws requiring an arrest for either the man or the woman if there's a call of domestic abuse really are working? ISTM that when they get out of jail the abuse only goes up, but I'm not sure.

Edit: Agree with 2Pac above. My parents beat me until I wet my pants a couple times, but I would not have wanted them to go to jail.


[edit on 27-11-2007 by Badge01]

I have no problem with this.
As long as the goverment no longer holds the parents responsible for what their children do.
Nowadays, a parent is held responsible if their kids get into any kind of trouble.
Yet now the goverment in all their great and wonderful wisdom has decided that the parents can no longer discipline the kids.
I hate to see what the next generation of kids / adults are going to be like!

Spanking really does not need to be done in order to punish a child for misdeeds. Taking away the video games,computer, or other goodies tends to work much more effectively. Some kids would rather be whipped then give up their fun time.

My main question would be, How will they enforce this law?

Eh.

Im a parent and 100% anti-spanking. No spanking in this house and it works well for us. I was spanked as a kid up until my teen years. I have VERY strong opinions on this topic.

With that said. Abuse is against the law and people still do it. I don't think this law will mean anything but more issues w/in families. I wish parents would find better means of disciplining....but that isn't really my call.

This anti-spanker is against it....because its MORE govt interference and its just pointless. And there is no way of enforcing it....unless they are handing out goody bags to kids who turn their parents in


All JMO

[edit on 27-11-2007 by greeneyedleo]

Originally posted by kenshiro2012
I have no problem with this.
As long as the goverment no longer holds the parents responsible for what their children do.
Nowadays, a parent is held responsible if their kids get into any kind of trouble.
Yet now the goverment in all their great and wonderful wisdom has decided that the parents can no longer discipline the kids.
I hate to see what the next generation of kids / adults are going to be like!

I hate to see what they're gonna be like also because they will be taking care of us in our old age. We're screwed!

2PacSade-

Originally posted by cloakndagger
Spanking really does not need to be done in order to punish a child for misdeeds. Taking away the video games,computer, or other goodies tends to work much more effectively. Some kids would rather be whipped then give up their fun time.

My main question would be, How will they enforce this law?

Like I said before, I agree that there is currency to take away vs getting physical. People should still have some say in how they raise their kids. Again, what's next? You can't raise your voice? Where will the micromanaging stop?

2PacSade-

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Eh.

Im a parent and 100% anti-spanking. No spanking in this house and it works well for us. I was spanked as a kid up until my teen years. I have VERY strong opinions on this topic.

With that said. Abuse is against the law and people still do it. I don't think this law will mean anything but more issues w/in families. I wish parents would find better means of disciplining....but that isn't really my call.

This anti-spanker is against it....because its MORE govt interference and its just pointless. And there is no way of enforcing it....unless they are handing out goody bags to kids who turn their parents in

All JMO

[edit on 27-11-2007 by greeneyedleo]

We don't hit in our house either, but the way this sounds, people will be getting in trouble for grabing their kids chin and saying "Look at me when I talk to you!". Is that abuse? Again, I think people should still be able to decide how they want to bring their kids up. Sorry bout the hitting in the past GEL. . . Thanx for the input

2PacSade-

Well my fellow guys, fathers, and husbands... they've liberated your women and empowered your children, what's next? Spend half an hour watching the television that is marketed to children lately and you'll see the trend. Parents and adults, especially males, are portrayed as imbeciles. Just as an example, the film "Raise Your Voice", the daughter and her mother both lie to the father and the girl subsequently has all her dreams come true... or Fairy Odd Parents where the kid has imaginary fairy parents so he doesn't have to listen to his parents.
My wife and I actually had a social worker come to our house once and tried to tell us to simply ignore bad behavior and reward good... I'm sick of the endless attacks on the institutions of family and privacy in this country.
Please, for the love of god, and for the sake of decent society, spank your children and tell anybody that says different to get stuffed. They aren't the ones that are held legally responsible for the actions of your newly empowered children. I've seen kids who never got a spanking in their life, No Thanks.

reply to post by twitchy

Please, for the love of god, and for the sake of decent society, spank your children and tell anybody that says different to get stuffed.

You telling others to "please spank your kids" is no different then telling me that you should not spank your kids.

What works for my child might not work for yours and vice versa.

My daughter is not spanked - never has been, never will be. But she is the most respectful well behaved child. We have found other means to deal w/ her acting up. And they work.

So, nope, not going to spank my kids. If you want to spank yours, go for it. But it isnt necessary for all kids.

I've seen kids who never got a spanking in their life, No Thanks.

And I have seen kids who are spanked....they were horrible horrible children. And tended to hit others when they were upset. So, no thanks.

I think there are a couple types of abuse. One is where the adult uses their larger size to threaten the child and if they grab them forcefully or hit them.

So, yeah for me grabbing their chin and saying listen would be similar to spanking.

We never had to spank our child - I'm thankful I didn't continue the cycle of abuse. To clarify, I had a strong policy about no corporal punishment, but our kid was just so well behaved it never came up.

The other type of abuse is mental and verbal. In fact there are a couple different types of those. If the child grows up in a house where the parents are abusive to each other and there's lots of yelling and arguing it can negatively affect the child.

Simply put, if you're not equipped to raise kids, including the patience of a saint, don't have kids.

2 cents.

[edit on 27-11-2007 by Badge01]

The Bible says spare the rod and spoil the child for a reason. I have a very rebellious child who would not do as she were told even after all her computers toys presents money were taken away and timeouts grounding etc. were applied. That was a worthwhile loss to her to maintain her position.

Once however a small amount of corporal punishment was applied she straightened up quickly. Sometimes there is no other way. For the state to come in and usurp authority over the parent like this is pure big brother tactics.

Originally posted by twitchy
I've seen kids who never got a spanking in their life, No Thanks.

I've seen plenty of kids who never got a spanking in their life and grew up to be the most well-adjusted people. The secret to having well-behaved children is to start in infancy when the child is learning how to trust. When that stage is handled correctly, the rest is a breeze.

Originally posted by annestacey

Originally posted by twitchy
I've seen kids who never got a spanking in their life, No Thanks.

I've seen plenty of kids who never got a spanking in their life and grew up to be the most well-adjusted people. The secret to having well-behaved children is to start in infancy when the child is learning how to trust. When that stage is handled correctly, the rest is a breeze.

I've seen more kids who've never got a spanking in their lives who are hell on earth and get involved with all kinds of unsavory things like drugs and gangs. Usually it happens in single parent homes where the parent doesn't have time to monitor or discipline the child anyway.

Also there is a huge genetic factor. I know one ADD kid who is an angel when their parents are around (because he receives and needs a lot of discipline). However at all other times when away from his parents he'll be out of control. He's pretty smart and even explained his reasoning. It's worth it to do bad things because it's so fun and the punishment does not outweigh the fun of being bad.

children are different....even with my three boys, they each had their own unique reaction to discipline....if you spanked one, hey it might work, but if you spanked a different one, well, you would be in for the ride of your life, because well, all you would do would make him angrier and angrier...

the most positive response I got from them was just to take them one by one and sit down and talk to them, explain what the rules are, why they were there, and well, try to describe what life would be like for all of us without them.....and well...ya, listen to their point too, because sometimes, they had some really good reasons to be acting in ways that we didn't appreciate...
what can I say, we adults are not perfect either..

sometimes, I get the impression that we want our kids (as well as everyone elses) to be much more perfect than we are ourselves.... if the kids have crappy role models, well, what do you expect.

I agree with those on here that say that if the gov't wants to interfer with our parenting rights to this extreme, well, they can be held responsible when the kids get into trouble. sometimes, a good slap on the behind might be just what is needed to convince a kid not to play in the busy highway and well, we all know who will be blamed if the kids happens to get run over.

I know what we need... more pony pictures to color. And make sure that we have those big FAT crayons to use. And only pink.

In a more serious tone... *clears throat* Are we missing the fact that they are trying to legislate this!?! As far as I know, every state in the Union has somekind of law against child abuse. So now what? Take alittle more of our freedoms away? I agree with whoever said this could be a stepping stone to a parent license. But more importantly, it is just one more step to a totalilarian (I can't spell by the way) government.

I believe that a good spank is what some kids need. Others don't. Every kid is different and every parent knows this. I think that child abusers are some of the most EVIL people on this planet. Abuse to a child in anyform is totally unexceptable.

As someone has already said... we have laws, enforce them. We don't need more freedoms taken away. If more are taken away, before you know it, sending a child to stand in the corner will be banned as torture.

I come from a family of 6 kids and we were all spanked and we all turned out just fine. Besides if you don't like spanking then don't do it and keep your nose out of other peoples business. There are already laws on the books for child abuse and this is just going to be a waste of tax payer time and money.

All children are different.

All parents are different.

Spank - don't spank.

Nature - Nurture.

As a parent all you can do is the thing that you think is best at the time.

I think it's wrong for a gov to be telling you how you can and can't raise your child. Also IMO there is a big difference between "spanking" a child and disciplining a child.

I'm a teacher and the children who are not disciplined are the worst, they have no respect for their peers or their parents and that is awful.

Spanking is not such a bad thing - if - and it's a big if - if - you take the time to explain to the your child why they have been spanked and how they can avoid it happening in the future.

All children are different and all children learn in different ways. I could go all deep and meaningful with the teaching methodology, but I'm sure you get the point.

Some need it, some don't. The best of luck with yours! Mine is a complete pain in the arse, wouldn't have him any other way!

MonKey