Kneeling punishments for children?

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Shin said:
Doesn’t sound bad at all to me.

More comfortable than kneeling on marble I would think.

A child that is unable to bear some level of pain and mortification will not have the necessary virtue of fortitude. That would be a great evil.
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Doesn’t sound bad at all to you? :eek:

How does it look to you?
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11037584&postcount=16

It may be peas and not rice or corn, but the effect is still the same. I find your comment affirming such “punishment” beyond disturbing! :mad:
 
EasterJoy said:
The only thing I can think of is if the child was in the habit of leaving a similar mess around that other children would accidentally kneel on as they played on the floor–if you don’t believe me that it hurts the other kids when you leave that mess, then you kneel on that, now do you believe me? and now get up, clean it up, and keep it cleaned up.

If it is not a natural consequence of what they’re doing to someone else, I can’t imagine it.
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I completely agree with you, EasterJoy. Children learn best by facing natural consequences for their actions. The punishment described in the op just sounds like it is meant to give the child physical pain and humiliation.
 
Shin said:
Hmm? The picture and the opening question are two quite different things. Please don’t confuse my statement about the one to be about the other.
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Well, could you please clarify? You stated in your post that having a child kneel on corn or rice as a punishment doesn’t sound bad at all to you. Then, in the very next post is a picture showing a child’s knees who had kneeled on peas (which, as I stated in my post, would have the same effect as the suggested rice or corn). So, please answer this question: Do you think it’s appropriate to have a child kneel on rice, corn, or peas as a form of punishment? Please don’t skirt the question- in all charity, just answer if you think it is bad or not?
 
This whole thread has made me want to run home and hug my little girl. Although, thankfully only one or two people have spoken up in favor of this. I take heart in knowing the majority of us here find it abhorrent.
 
I’m not skirting the question. The pictures I certainly too have problems with, who would not?

It diverts from the actual question with an extreme example.

The question the opening person asked was
What do you think of kneeling on rice or corn as punishment?
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This is a not uncommon punishment in some cultures.

It doesn’t sound too bad to me, within reason, like any other corporal punishment. 🤷

I certainly will not judge and condemn parents who use it responsibly.
 
Shin said:
I’m not skirting the question. The pictures I certainly too have problems with, who would not?

It diverts from the actual question with an extreme example.

The question the opening person asked was

This is a not uncommon punishment in some cultures.

It doesn’t sound too bad to me, within reason, like any other corporal punishment. 🤷

I certainly will not judge and condemn parents who use it responsibly.
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Well, I can say with certainty that I do not agree with your opinions on it, but I thank you for answering my question.
 
Pardon me, I should have said, ‘One certainly should not…’ I think.

It’s rather like this, someone asks, ‘What do you think of corporal punishment?’ or ‘What do you think of spanking?’

And some folks post pictures of some people with the skin flayed off or some such thing and so everyone says, 'Oh how horrible…" well of course.

Well of course the pictures are no good. But the question considered in and of itself?

Well for a Catholic, one can’t condemn corporal punishment in and of itself. It has always been considered positively necessary at times. But who wishes to punish in any case, and as a parent? it’s a matter of necessity. One has to have fortitude to even do it, but one can’t love one’s self more than the child’s need to grow up with fortitude and discipline too.

Forgive me for going on a bit. I perhaps shouldnt’ve interrupted the chain of condemning the pictures, they came up so suddenly when I was answering the opening question. 🙂

There’s quite a difference between reasonable punishment and something that does lasting harm.
 
joshvanrad said:
This legitimately sounds like a form of torture to me.
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Then it sounds worse than it is.

Your comment inspired me to test the pain levels of this form of punishment with an experiment. First, I found a hardwood floor and rested all of my weight on roughly the same area of the knees as the small child in the picture upthread. It didn’t hurt at all, which is useful for reference. I can kneel on a flat surface without pain.

I didn’t have any hard food items on hand and didn’t want to be wasteful, so I went outside and kneeled on the rough, sand-like sidewalks outside my house. This stung a little. I waited for three minutes. The boredom was worse than the pain throughout.

Then I went over to a nearby playground and procured some little rocks. I kneeled on the little rocks for three minutes, still resting on only my knees. It was kind of hard to balance on them. They hurt enough that I ended up shifting my weight a couple times, but the pain didn’t get any better or worse with time. I held that for three minutes, and the pain was worse than the boredom throughout (I have a low tolerance for boredom). I was able to get up and walk back to my hpuse with little more than a small stinging sensation on my knees. I checked the imprints the rocks left, and while they’re not as deep as the picture upthread, they’re red and left very clear, rock-shaped imprints. I doubt that spending a similar amount of time kneeling on rice would hurt much worse, although frozen peas would be worse because they’re bigger and not as flat as rice. It does leave behind a stinging sensation, which can continue for more than twenty minutes (my knees are still stinging as I write this post, and I think it’s been almost half an hour). It’s not too bad, though.

So. In conclusion, kneeling on small rocks for about the same length of time as a standard time-out is not a viable form of torture. If I knew any military secrets, I’m pretty sure I would not have shared them to escape. I do not think that the punishment is inherently abusive.

I want to make clear here that I’m still against it, because I think it’s unnecessarily humiliating. However, we’re not talking stepped-on-a-lego-brick levels of pain. I’m not sure how it would affect a child on a long-term basis, but it is definitely not useful as a form of torture. Not in small doses, anyway.
 
Shin said:
Pardon me, I should have said, ‘One certainly should not…’ I think.

It’s rather like this, someone asks, ‘What do you think of corporal punishment?’ or ‘What do you think of spanking?’

And some folks post pictures of some people with the skin flayed off or some such thing and so everyone says, 'Oh how horrible…" well of course.

Well of course the pictures are no good. But the question considered in and of itself?

Well for a Catholic, one can’t condemn corporal punishment in and of itself. It has always been considered positively necessary at times. But who wishes to punish in any case, and as a parent? it’s a matter of necessity. One has to have fortitude to even do it, but one can’t love one’s self more than the child’s need to grow up with fortitude and discipline too.

Forgive me for going on a bit. I perhaps shouldnt’ve interrupted the chain of condemning the pictures, they came up so suddenly when I was answering the opening question. 🙂

There’s quite a difference between reasonable punishment and something that does lasting harm.
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You don’t speak for ALL Catholics. Speak for yourself on the matter.
 
Sorry but corporal punishment in and of itself – it’s one of those accepted as moral activities by the Church throughout history, and so because of this…

I was once told it’s a matter of heresy to condemn it and say it should not ever be used, or that in and of itself as intrinsically evil to use corporal punishment.

That being the evidence of the matter and so too…

Holy Scripture for example too, as well as the history of Christian civilization and moral law:

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.”

Prov 23:13

It’s even part of the ‘Rule of St. Benedict’.

‘How Young Boys Are to Be Corrected: Every age and understanding should have its proper discipline. Whenever, therefore, boys or immature youths or such as can not understand how grave a penalty excommunication is, are guilty of a serious fault, let them undergo severe fasting or be disciplined with corporal punishment, that they may be corrected.’

So you can’t condemn it without condemning the judgement of the Church throughout history, Holy Scripture, and the Rule of St. Benedict to begin with, no?
 
Shin said:
Pardon me, I should have said, ‘One certainly should not…’ I think.

It’s rather like this, someone asks, ‘What do you think of corporal punishment?’ or ‘What do you think of spanking?’

And some folks post pictures of some people with the skin flayed off or some such thing and so everyone says, 'Oh how horrible…" well of course.

Well of course the pictures are no good. But the question considered in and of itself?

Well for a Catholic, one can’t condemn corporal punishment in and of itself. It has always been considered positively necessary at times. But who wishes to punish in any case, and as a parent?
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Sociopaths, for one thing. Those who were themselves abused in childhood as well.
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Shin:
So you can’t condemn it without condemning the judgement of the Church throughout history, Holy Scripture, and the Rule of St. Benedict to begin with, no?
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How about our slaves? Is it still OK to beat them? 🤷

It’s “TRADITION”! 👍
 
Forgive me I pray again, however I have nothing more to say on the subject, unless truly necessary, I shall let this conversation continue without further statement. 🙂

I hope folks will do me Christian courtesy and charity in conversation regarding this wish.
 
Shin said:
Forgive me I pray again, however I have nothing more to say on the subject, unless truly necessary, I shall let this conversation continue without further statement. 🙂

I hope folks will do me Christian courtesy and charity in conversation regarding this wish.
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Sorry that you feel that way. 😦

God bless. 🙂
 
Soooo… I guess the thread’s conclusion is to not torture your children, go to mass, regular confession, and pray for the Pope.
 
Rete said:
Soooo… I guess the thread’s conclusion is to not torture your children, go to mass, regular confession, and pray for the Pope.
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I don’t think it’s equivalent to torture.

But yes, torturing children is bad. I don’t think anybody has disputed that.
 
I found this, and here is an excerpt

salesians.org/pastoral.html#punish
What follows are the words of St. John Bosco to his Salesians as found in his writings. They refer to the treatment of the boys and young men who visited the Oratory every day. This same advice can be applied to the boys and girls in our Clubs today.
How a Saint corrected children. The words of St. John Bosco as found in his writings.* Condensed by James Hurley, reprinted from *The Salesian Bulletin, (New Rochelle, NY) Jan/Feb 1988, page 12.
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To strike a child in any way, to make him kneel in a painful position, to pull his ears, and other similar punishments must be absolutely avoided. The law forbids them, and they greatly irritate the child and degrade the educator.
Never stoop to humiliating expressions; on the contrary, make it clear that you entertain high hopes for your children and assure them that you are ready to forget their faults as soon as they take a turn for the better.
The pupils should know the disciplinary measures, including rules and punishments, so that no one can make the excuse that he did not know what was commanded or forbidden
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