If they are, there’s a psychological problem which does need to be addressed certainly, but we can’t allow the existence of psychological abnormalites to be a major guide as to what we do with neurotypical children. Doing so harms the vast majority of neurotypical students, just as surely as completely ignoring the problem where it […]

corporal punishment does rely on fear to an extent. Speaking as a psychologist, all punishment relies on fear. Personally I have no problem with the idea that a child who has misbehaved, or who is contemplating misbehaving, should be afraid of the consequences of that actual or potential misbehaviour. I hope they are. But what […]

there is no denying that this fear of getting paddled exists. No one has denied that it is perpetuated by the school officials to keep that fear fresh in their inmates minds. It keeps everybody in line. They even make up stupid little rules to follow so they have more opportunities to paddle. A fascinating […]

The idea that corporal punishment is effective is not the only valid point those of us who support corporal punishment have. have written thousands of words on this forum outlining numerous reasons why I support the availability of corporal punishment in schools. The fact it is effective is only one of those reasons. You are […]

Not according to my students it isn’t. They are confident they will get a fair hearing if they want one – they have three separate rights of appeal. Only one of those people needs to veto a caning and it’s vetoed. That’s it. Done. And two of those people explicitly have the child’s welfare as […]

The child has no advocate or attorney to speak for him, and he probably lacks the verbal skills to defend himself adequately. Even though he is supposed to have due process, his reality is that he is at the mercy of adults who have the power to hurt him. An older child may be more […]

In some schools, perhaps many schools, that is true. But it doesn’t have to be – that’s my point. My own school here in Australia has developed detailed procedures over the years to ensure children are protected from unfair punishment. No, they’re not the same as the procedures used in criminal justice and I don’t […]

But the bottom line is this – every child is important, and every child should, in an ideal world, get what they need. Kids who can benefit from corporal punishment have as much right for it to be available, and kids who could be harmed by it have to be protected from its use. And […]

Those of us who take this issue seriously read the studies and sometimes do the studies to try and work out, free of bias, free of ideology, free of rose coloured glasses, or dragging through the mud, trying to work out what the evidence tells us. And when it comes to corporal punishment, there is […]

Not every positive experience is dramatic, and not every positive effect of corporal punishment is dramatic either. Many keep quite about positive experiences because of social pressures. Where corporal punishment is widely portrayed as being a form of child abuse, nobody wanst the label of supporting such a thing. I expect that many of the […]