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Originally Posted by Jerrek
Excellent, real excellent post. I completely agree with you. Discipline needs to be taught, and the only way to teach discipline is negative reinforcement and punishment.
You do not see the military handing out candy when the soldiers are obedient. No. They get punished. Hard. Thats why it works in the military.
All evidence shows that positive reinforcement doesn't work for discipline. Look at today's society, and look at the military and yesterday's society. Easy to prove my point.
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I have to agree here (about time I came off the fence and posted...)..
I went to a military boarding school, where the can was used (our parents had to sign a form agreeing to it when we started) as a form of punishment. Not the only form, but a form none the less.
You will always get some teacher (I hasten to point out that these are in the minority - a very small number indeed) who gets some form of pleasure out of it, but that can be avoided by setting very strict rules about why/how hard/how many etc.
I was caned on occasions, and it re-inforced the message of how to treat others - don't kick a person when they are down, show respect to your teachers and others in authority etc.
The military now has severe limitations on what it can and cannot give as a punishment (thank you very much the european court of human rights...) but the fact still remains that you know if you are fair and even to others, and do the you will be treated fairly and evenly... (you may not be able to smack the guy, but you can sure make him very tired from running around and doing the crappy jobs).
We had bullies at school - I was bullied, but when it was my turn to be the bigger lad, myself and others were so set against bullies that we managed to all but stamp it out (not literally) amoungst our year group.
In summary :
Bullies do not necessarily beget bullies, violence does not necessarily beget violence...
I went to a school where I was taught to shoot at age 11, how to set traps etc at 12., that has not made me a gun toting killer, but it has taught me self discipline and respect for others.
Corporal punishment works, but only if used sparingly and not as a standard.
Would I smack my kids (as and when we have them) ?
YES, but only if they had failed to respond to other forms of punishment.
It is all about moderation.
If all you do is hit someone, they will see it as normal, and feel that no matter what they do they will get hit, so they might as well do whatever they please.
A balance of positive and negative must be achieved, but IMO (note: this is MY OPINION) there is a place for corporal punishment in the modern society.
<now gets ready for the backlash>