[quote]Davinci.v2 wrote:
[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
i was whipped as a child and all i learned was to not get caught when doing something wrong and that when i was big enough and strong enough i would put an end to it. the first person i ever knocked out was my father. i was 13 years old and he broke out the belt and started in on me and i finished it by knocking him out cold. luckily this was a turning point in our relationship and he soon learned that physical abuse only made me mean and full of rage. we now have more of a brotherly relationship.
I’m now a parent and have been an elementary school teacher for 12 years. I work in a school with a large population of low income and single family children. I’ve known many children that are beaten by their parents. I’m always amazed when i talk to a parent about a child’s behavior and they tell me “don’t worry… they will get a good ass whipp’n when they get home” It’s like they are bragging about their beating of some little kid. I often tell them that I’m not impressed. I can say from my experience that beating a kid NEVER improves behavior. Consistency improves behavior. As a teacher obviously i’ve never layed my hands on a student but often i get comments from parents that their kids listen to me but they won’t listen to them. the reason… I’m consistent. The kids respect me and they know they are safe with me. There’s also mutual respect.
As it pertains to my daughter. i knew the moment she was born that i would NEVER lay my hands on her other than to show her love and affection. Raising a child requires one to actually be involved in your child’s life. You have to be there every moment to lead them, protect them and love them. It’s all about love and being there through it all. [/quote]
My father is a great man who loves his family but has a horrible temper with very little control over it, especially when I was younger. He never consistently beat or abused me, but there were a few incidents that still stand out in my mind and negatively effected my view of the world.
One incident involved me losing my temper (which I learned from my father) when I was around 14 years old. I was always a wise ass and said something hurtful to my Mom and she was crying in the family room. I didn’t mean what I said, but my Dad attempted to get me to appologize. At the time, I was unloading the dishwasher and he continued on and on until I got frustrated/angry and threw a glass into the dishwasher, shattering pretty much everything all over the kitchen floor.
My Dad proceeds to lose his mind. He flew accross the room, kneed me in the stomach, grabbed and picked me up by my throat choking me and smashed my head against the fridge and screamed at the top of his lungs, “If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll rip your fucking head off.” He then made me pick up all of the glass with bare feet and hands against my Mom’s protests because he “wanted me to bleed”. It was the last part that disturbed me the worst and still does…
I didn’t learn anything from the incident, except that you really can’t trust anyone and that no one is reliable all of the time, even those who are supposed to protect you and keep you safe. I honestly never felt the same way about him after that and it didn’t improve my attitude, it just made me hate him for a few weeks.
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I would say its effects are lasting way more than a few weeks.
I personally think a lot of guys in that generation were just flat out abused as kids.
I also think if you can’t control your anger issues, you don’t need to be disciplining kids.
I would say I think many people simply have kids when they are not fully matured themselves…but who knows what can of worms that might open.