Pope Francis: parents can smack their children for bad behaviour

[pete_29]

lol. God “got angry” most often when He was addressing the goody two-shoes that showed anger and contempt for sinners. Except the one time in the temple. Was there a single documented instance where he became angry at somebody’s sin? Somebody other than the Church leaders and their sins of pride? Pride does underlie anger as to root of all the other sins, so it’s understandable.

:

Actually, I think you’ll find that God gets angry most often at people that disobey Him.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

The problem is that there were and will probably always be parents who use corporal punishment on their children to vent their own frustration. Or the alcoholic parent who becomes physically abusive when drunk, and then justifies it by saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” or “I did it to teach them a lesson,” or some other lame excuse. The Holy Father is certainly not referring to these kinds of parents, but anyone who lived through this kind of abuse as a child will likely be hurt by what the Pope said.

 

[GEddie]

I don’t agree with spanking… I was spanked by both my parents and although I might have deserved correction it wasn’t the fear of getting spanked that prevented me from doing wrong things.

I have read several studies that demonstrate that spanking does not reduce the problematic behavior and I wish people would learn that violence against ignorance is not a solution.

If my wife did something wrong because she didn’t know about it (or even if she did it on purpose) I wouldn’t spank her, God doesn’t use violence against me when I Sin, He loves me and shows me what I did wrong through the ministry of the Church. As a (hopefully) future father I want to follow that kind of Ministry.

Here are just a few links to studies that show what I mean:
-http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...sCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
-http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=518458
-http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/584804?sid=21105276957541&uid=3739832&uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4
-http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=2540224&fileId=S0954579400006040
-http://www.cmaj.ca/content/161/7/805.short
-http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02712591?LI=true#page-2

God bless,
D.

I agree that one should never hit a spouse. But we do not have corrective authority to do so.
Children are a different matter. Scripture itself teaches that “beating with the rod” will save children’s “soul from Hell.”

I wouldn’t presume to disagree with the word of God.

If I had children, and if it remained legal in this country (it might not), they would get paddled.

BTW, it is possible to hurt a child deeply without physical force of any kind, and it is likewise very possible to spank wisely without inflicting harm.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Sophie_Lawrence]

I feel for the translators and PR types for this Pope. strike children lightly? LOL. The Italian translation was “beat”

Do you speak Italian?

He used the phrase, "picchiare un po’ " in the original Italian.

Picchiare can translate to strike. The “un po’” part means “a bit”. The Italian version doesn’t come across as a strong beating.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Actually, I think you’ll find that God gets angry most often at people that disobey Him.

Oh.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Do you speak Italian?

He used the phrase, "picchiare un po’ " in the original Italian.

Picchiare can translate to strike. The “un po’” part means “a bit”. The Italian version doesn’t come across as a strong beating.

I think it is odd to try to split this hair. I don’t remember my spankings as strike, a bit. I don’t think he is talking about the “love tap” The translations have been changed in the past two days regardless.

Google translate has picchiare Translating to beat up a little and picchiare equaling beat"

And Word Reference has an even worse translation.
wordreference.com/iten/picchiare%20un%20po%E2%80%99%20i%20figli

Principal Translations/Traduzioni principali
picchiare⇒ vtr (prendere a botte) beat up, clobber, trounce, hit, punch vtr
picchiare vtr (battere, urtare contro qc) slam, hit vtr
picchiare vi aeronautica (scendere velocemente) (aviation) dive vi
nosedive n
picchiare vi figurato (sole: essere cocente) scorch, sear, beat down vi

With the subsequent words lessening the beating.

And of course translating to the spanish is “batir” Which is to “beat”…

It is all splitting hairs. He is talking about striking a child.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

I cant respond in full to your post right now. My dear daughter is taking me to see Jupiter Ascending this afternoon, and I have to shower and clean the kitchen.

I hadn’t heard of it, so I just watched a trailer. It looks pretty exciting; I might just have to take my wife and/or kids to see it too.

And I’ve liked Mila Kunis ever since That 70’s Show, but I don’t think I’ve seen her in a role like this one. Let me know on the thread or by PM if you liked it please.

1. I show anger but I don’t ACT on the basis of the anger. I stated what the punishment would be and why and I carried it out. I did not fly off the handle and attack my kids or make them eat their vomit and that sort of thing, which is just vindictive and cruel. We had an established process and I carried it through and the child knew exactly why they were getting punished. But yes, they saw the anger in my face and had no doubt I was mad.

This brings me to the one strongest point I wish to make to anybody who will hear it, about “punishing” a child. A couple years ago I proposed my theory to my psychiatrist and he could not disagree with it.

So here’s my thing: IF a child is to be punished, three conditions MUST be met, or it is simply abuse.

1. 
   *]The child must clearly have known that it was a wrong act, or I guess “willfully ignorant” like acting stupid doesn’t count. But if they didn’t know it was wrong, then they need to be taught IMO, not punished.
   *]The child must have known that in the given situation there were alternatives to the behavior that were not wrong. So if they honestly “didn’t think they had a choice” then again I say how can they be punished when they thought they were trapped?
   *]They have to know how, if a similar or analogous situation (depending on what zoom level you’re at) happens in the future, how they should proceed.
   
   It sounds to me like your explanation covers all three. As far as “show” but don’t “act out of” anger, I think I’ll concede that one to you. I would like to tell people that one can be anger-free, but that’s unrealistic for almost every parent in almost all situations, so yes. And if you’re angry – don’t hide it, but don’t act out of it because the intent there would not be constructive.
   

   1. Anger is one of those hot button buzz words today like the word ‘discrimination’ and people are so negative toward it that one cannot make any affirmative statement about either without a lengthy discussion. But we all discriminate and for good reason, we don’t want to waste time with going through trial and failure with each specific case. So we use inductive reason to make general observations about something and then avoid it or seek it out. The problem with discrimination is that we shouldn’t do it to people as every person is different and there is no human behavior that is 100% based on race or ethnicity all the time. Ethnicity can have generalities about values held, but none of those mean that the specific individual one is relating to at any specific time holds to any of those generalities.

   Anger is a tool God gave us to steady our hand in times of peril, risk and stress. If you use it the way it was intended then you are fine. If you act from anger, there is a good chance that you are doing the wrong thing, but sometimes that anger allows us to do things we couldn’t do otherwise that we know we SHOULD do.

   Everything has its place and season.

   I would like to get into this more, but now I need to talk to my wife about some stuff. But I’d say I agree with your point #2 almost completely as well. I think we agree much more than we disagree. Maybe I’m talking ideals but it has to be coupled with realism or it can’t be effectively used.
   
   Thank you for the post.
   
   MS

 

[christofirst]

Now you’ve got me thinking (as usual), and I have to ask myself, is hitting our children ever the*** best ***way to alter their behavior? We may tell ourselves it is the only way that works in our particular circumstance (“You don’t know my little Johnny! He’s a holy terror!”), but is it ever the best way? How many of us actually decide to hit our children after weighing out all other options and concluding that striking them is the very best option? Isn’t it more often the case that we hit our kids when we reach the end of our own rope and feel we’ve run out of options?

And if hitting does become our calculated, go-to discipline decision, what does that teach our kids about peace and violence? That violence is good when its administered with love? (whatever that means) That it is to be expected when someone is physically stronger than you are? (If true, is this a lesson they need to learn at home?) That there are simply some cases when reasoning can not work, and we must resort to violence? (I don’t buy that)

I haven’t walked in any other parents’ shoes, and I only have one son, and he was (and is) a good son, but this whole “hitting our kids is a good thing” bothers me. God bless my mom, who regularly ran interference for my brother and me when my dad came home from work in a bad mood, ever ready to teach us a violent lesson. Or maybe my liberal slip is just showing again when it comes to condoning violence.

I understand that the Holy Father was encouraging dads to act like fathers to their children and not just friends, but in this case I wish he had used some more discretion. I can only imagine the “whuppin’s” that might be inflicted by those parents the Pope was not referring to, and them saying, “Pope Francis says this is A-OK - loving in fact!”

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Now you’ve got me thinking (as usual), and I have to ask myself, is hitting our children ever the*** best ***way to alter their behavior? We may tell ourselves it is the only way that works in our particular circumstance (“You don’t know my little Johnny! He’s a holy terror!”), but is it ever the best way? How many of us actually decide to hit our children after weighing out all other options and concluding that striking them is the very best option? Isn’t it more often the case that we hit our kids when we reach the end of our own rope and feel we’ve run out of options?

And if hitting does become our calculated, go-to discipline decision, what does that teach our kids about peace and violence? That violence is good when its administered with love? (whatever that means) That’s it is to be expected when someone is physically stronger than you are? (If true, is this a lesson they need to learn at home?) That there are simply some cases when reasoning can not work, and we must resort to violence? (I don’t buy that)

I haven’t walked in any other parents’ shoes, and I only have one son, and he was (and is) a good son, but this whole “hitting our kids is a good thing” bothers me. God bless my mom, who regularly ran interference for my brother and me when my dad came home from work in a bad mood, ever ready to teach us a violent lesson. Or maybe my liberal slip is just showing again when it comes to condoning violence.

I understand that the Holy Father was encouraging dads to act like fathers to their children and not just friends, but in this case I wish he had used some more discretion. I can only imagine the “whuppin’s” that might be inflicted by those parents the Pope was not referring to, and them saying, “Pope Francis says this is A-OK - loving in fact!”

I like the way you’re laying out these issues, and the arguments. These are tough issues, and you are showing me what I consider critical thinking on the matter in a constructive way – one that defies ego and even challenges our own previous thoughts. To me, it’s easy to choose a conclusion and then construct an argument to justify it. It’s harder I think for a lot of people, to first clarify the questions so we know what we’re talking about, second examine the evidence and the ideas presented – those we “like” and “don’t like” both, even if they are presented in a way we find distasteful or disrespectful. Look at all the ideas, and see where they lead.

 

[LongingSoul]

And if hitting does become our calculated, go-to discipline decision, what does that teach our kids about peace and violence? That violence is good when its administered with love? (whatever that means) That it is to be expected when someone is physically stronger than you are? (If true, is this a lesson they need to learn at home?) That there are simply some cases when reasoning can not work, and we must resort to violence? (I don’t buy that)

One of the things that gives me confidence in Pope Francis is that I feel familiar with his style of speech and the power of the ‘subliminal’ meaning he is capable of conveying. When God chose Moses to confront Pharaoh and lead the Israelite s out of Egypt, we might ask ourselves why He chose an inarticulate peasant raised scrap of a person rather than his educated prophet articulate older brother, Aaron who spoke for him anyway?

I think from the start Pope Francis has had subversive idealogues and idealogies in his sights rather than the obvious sinners and sins that plague the culture.

When I read this statement about fathers and striking a child as discipline, I didn’t read it as coaxing or mandating smacking but speaking to mistaken idealogy that has crept into our culture (within the legitimate arguments against child abuse) that corporal punishment is intrinsically evil and promotes violence.

It isn’t intrinsically evil and could be said to serve a natural value in small offspring as seen in many of the animal species as part of their parenting also. Touch is very meaningful to infants and toddlers especially in conveying parental love. For example, it is known that if babies are not cuddled along with being physically cared for, they can die or suffer lifelong effects. (Romanian orphan tragedy records this phenomenon) Prior to a child being able to value peoples words as meaningful, a physical expression is of value in both love and discipline.

Pope Francis would be well aware of the horrors that have served as ‘corporal punishment’ now and in the past, but it isn’t going to serve the next generations need for discipline to regard smacking as intrinsically evil.

That’s my take on this latest storm in a teacup.

 

[simple_soul]

I read the text from the link on post # 34 by Joe 5859 and after reading a lot of the posts in this thread I am wondering if we are missing the real message of what he was trying to tell us. To me he seemed to be more focused on respecting the dignity of the child even though one is having to punishing the child and then when the punishment is done to let it go and move on. Kind of like what we are supposed to do when we go to confession?
I really do not really believe he was trying to say “corporal punishment is ok” after reading the text. It was more like “ok so the child needs to be punished. Administer it to the child in a dignified way and then let it go. Don’t keep bringing it up. Move on.”

P.S. Joe, thank you for posting the link.

 

[FollowChrist34]

I read the text from the link on post # 34 by Joe 5859 and after reading a lot of the posts in this thread I am wondering if we are missing the real message of what he was trying to tell us. To me he seemed to be more focused on respecting the dignity of the child even though one is having to punishing the child and then when the punishment is done to let it go and move on. Kind of like what we are supposed to do when we go to confession?
I really do not really believe he was trying to say “corporal punishment is ok” after reading the text. It was more like “ok so the child needs to be punished. Administer it to the child in a dignified way and then let it go. Don’t keep bringing it up. Move on.”

P.S. Joe, thank you for posting the link.

Let’s hope so, for all of our sakes. Just sounds like another off the cuff comment to me…I guess we should remember he is answering specific questions posed to him, not just opining spontaneously on these subjects. I like your reading of it - though I have kind of a hard time picturing a dignified spanking, as far as either party is concerned.

 

[christofirst]

One of the things that gives me confidence in Pope Francis is that I feel familiar with his style of speech and the power of the ‘subliminal’ meaning he is capable of conveying. When God chose Moses to confront Pharaoh and lead the Israelite s out of Egypt, we might ask ourselves why He chose an inarticulate peasant raised scrap of a person rather than his educated prophet articulate older brother, Aaron who spoke for him anyway?

I think from the start Pope Francis has had subversive idealogues and idealogies in his sights rather than the obvious sinners and sins that plague the culture.

When I read this statement about fathers and striking a child as discipline, I didn’t read it as coaxing or mandating smacking but speaking to mistaken idealogy that has crept into our culture (within the legitimate arguments against child abuse) that corporal punishment is intrinsically evil and promotes violence.

It isn’t intrinsically evil and could be said to serve a natural value in small offspring as seen in many of the animal species as part of their parenting also. Touch is very meaningful to infants and toddlers especially in conveying parental love. For example, it is known that if babies are not cuddled along with being physically cared for, they can die or suffer lifelong effects. (Romanian orphan tragedy records this phenomenon) Prior to a child being able to value peoples words as meaningful, a physical expression is of value in both love and discipline.

Pope Francis would be well aware of the horrors that have served as ‘corporal punishment’ now and in the past, but it isn’t going to serve the next generations need for discipline to regard smacking as intrinsically evil.

That’s my take on this latest storm in a teacup.

I agree about this being a tempest in a teacup. The storm will soon blow over like all the rest. I just had a little time for a little rant, so I did.

Regarding one point you made: A loving touch is vital for a child, no denying that! A child that is not hit, however, will not die. I know that’s not what you meant, but that potential line of reasoning - that hugging and hitting are all just a part of good child-rearing - I could not agree with that. The hitting happens of course, just like animals swat their rambunctious young, but I hope we can be better than animals in that regard.

Maybe I’ve got my head in the clouds again, and it is just our undeniable nature to hit each other.

 

[FollowChrist34]

It is just our undeniable nature to hit each other.

No, I can’t accept that either and I am glad of it, right or wrong.

 

[simple_soul]

Let’s hope so, for all of our sakes. Just sounds like another off the cuff comment to me…I guess we should remember he is answering specific questions posed to him, not just opining spontaneously on these subjects. I like your reading of it - though I have kind of a hard time picturing a dignified spanking, as far as either party is concerned.

I pictured a toddler getting a quick swat on the bottom when I read that part. I will have to say that I never did swat my children when they were toddlers. I had vowed to never spank my children. It was not until they were older and learned to push my buttons and patience to the max that I did resort to spanking them with my hand. I honestly did not know what else to do at the time. Having resorted to swatting my children with my hand I can honestly say I found nothing dignifying about it and I can really understand what Christofirst is saying. In reflecting on my son’s behavior I realized he had never been a hitter until I started resorting to spanking him.
We, my son and I, have since been seeing a family therapist and I have found much better ways of disciplining my children but most of all have found other ways to punish than spanking and I am very thankful to God for it and I believe a lot of it boils down to respecting the dignity of my children and teaching them to respect themselves and others. I have also found, and I believe Mysticalseeker is hinting at this, that when I focus on the discipline, punishment is almost never needed.

 

[RGCheek]

When God chose Moses to confront Pharaoh and lead the Israelite s out of Egypt, we might ask ourselves why He chose an inarticulate peasant raised scrap of a person rather than his educated prophet articulate older brother, Aaron who spoke for him anyway?

Moses was not raised as a peasant, for the record. He was raised by the royal family of Egypt.

 

[RGCheek]

I agree about this being a tempest in a teacup. The storm will soon blow over like all the rest. I just had a little time for a little rant, so I did.

Regarding one point you made: A loving touch is vital for a child, no denying that! A child that is not hit, however, will not die. I know that’s not what you meant, but that potential line of reasoning - that hugging and hitting are all just a part of good child-rearing - I could not agree with that. The hitting happens of course, just like animals swat their rambunctious young, but I hope we can be better than animals in that regard.

So now people who spank their children are like animals?

Pardon me if I think you are making a deeply uninformed and ridiculous statement with that.

Animals don’t have a concept of disciplining their children. They don’t analyze what options that they have available and then implement it as need arises.

You seem to have this uninformed idea that parents that spank their kids are just reacting like some baboon or something and that is categorically wrong for most of us.

Just thought you should know before you let out an y more condescending and insulting comparisons, bro.

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

Animals don’t have a concept of disciplining their children. They don’t analyze what options that they have available and then implement it as need arises.

I just saw that mother Panda selects which of her cubs is her favorite, and leaves the other ones to die. “Be the best kid or die” seems kind of harsh by most “human” standards I’d submit. Seems to me she knows her options and picks one.

 

[christofirst]

So now people who spank their children are like animals?

Pardon me if I think you are making a deeply uninformed and ridiculous statement with that.

Animals don’t have a concept of disciplining their children. They don’t analyze what options that they have available and then implement it as need arises.

You seem to have this uninformed idea that parents that spank their kids are just reacting like some baboon or something and that is categorically wrong for most of us.

Just thought you should know before you let out an y more condescending and insulting comparisons, bro.

Please go back and read the post from LongingSoul, who brought up the animal reference, to which I was only responding. I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise, and did not intend to insult you, whom I do not know.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I pictured a toddler getting a quick swat on the bottom when I read that part.

LOL because you read it in English. And an american view. The pope is not american, or even European. If you pictured it like an Argentinian, you would have a different view…