[Russ]

Originally Posted by towny

When you send your child to school, you devolve a certain amount of your authority to the school in order to enable it to look after him (or her). That authority allows the school to act in the interests of the child, both in terms of their education and safety, and the education and safety of other children.

Parents who start banging the drum for their children's 'rights' and threatening court action just help to make the discipline problem in our schools worse. The kids now know that the teachers can't lay a finger on them. Without fear and respect for authority, authority crumbles. Clearly there needs to be a line drawn between what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable measures when a school is disciplining a child, but I certainly don't agree that discipline is the exclusive preserve of parents.

When parents devolve their responsibility to educate their children to a school, they must accept that they devolve powers to discipline as well, or else the whole system breaks down.

But there are other ways to enforce discipline which don't envolve physical punishment. I'm all for teacher's rights and protection but as a parent I take my responsibilites very seriously. Taking away privileges, detention etc are all options.