Lack of respect.......

[joeluke]

.......shown by children/youngsters to adults these days is appalling

The way they talk to their parents and other adults is really bad (TV has a lot to answer for because it happens on a lot of programmes, especially soaps)

I would never have dared to talk to my father like they do, otherwise I'd have felt the back of his hand and spent the rest of the day in my room

Lack of discipline is the reason, a smack when we were naughty/cheeky never did us any harm and taught us not to do it again

My 8 yr old son is cheeky at times but I can't discipline him because his mother is dead against it (I'm not talking beating him black and blue, just a smack on the leg!) - and then she wonders why he's cheeky, it's because they are allowed to get away with it

When I was at school there were teachers we were scared of and wouldn't dare get on the wrong side of, but these days kids disrespect/swear at teachers and get away with it

Lack of respect in younger life leads to the same in adult life

[joeluke]

Vibrasphere, your kid may be an angel but if she wasn't you'd have a different view

[annie0000]

All kids are cheeky from time to time, my kids lose privilidge for chat back and rudeness. They get one warning and if they carry on then they lose something important to them. All adults react to some extent when they are angry or upset, children to some degree need to let of steam as well, we as parents need to guide them in the best ways to do this. I try to be strict on what is unacceptable, but to teach them that there are other ways to react to things that are more socially acceptable. Hopefully we will get there. Much as it seems like ot at the time, hitting is rarely the answer.

[ummmm]

I can't recall ever being hit by my Dad and I remember only a few slaps on the legs from my Mum. I have rarely smacked mine. Most people smack their children to relieve their own anger and it's easier than having to sit down and explain what they have done wrong and following through with a punishment. If I feel the urge to hit them, and I do a lot, I send them out of the room. It's not their fault that I'm impatient and quick tempered...

My sister use to hit her kids constantly....big crimes or little crimes it didn't matter. They got a good slapping. Her kids were much naughtier than mine.

[jackthehat]

When my boy was small, I only ever tapped the back of his hand (and this was *always* a last resort).
When he was old enough to understand, I'd talk to/at him.........it often took quite some time to sink in but the effort paid off.
We moved house when he was 9 and the day before I was utterly fraught and my patience with him snapped........I held him by one arm whilst I skelped him.
It is to my eternal shame that it happened and it is the last time I ever laid a hand on him in anger.........it happened because of ME not because of him.
He has gone through his life as a pleasant, well-disciplined individual, with a healthy respect for those who deserve his respect and I am proud that he has done that without having it 'beaten' into him.

[woofgang]

Socrates said
"Children today are tyrants," he has said. "They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."

[Old_Geezer]

These child discipline discussions always seem to degrade into claims that physical discipline is the same as abuse, and citing bad examples. This, of course, is not the issue. Physical discipline is not the first port of call, but it has a role; and in my opinion the outcry against it is at least partially responsible for the slipping of standards. Parents who think whatever their little darlings do is ok because it is the sort of thing children will do (if you let them). The rest of society will just have to put up with it. Negotiate and explain why something isn't acceptable first, but if that fails you need a fall back.

Yes I'd bet the children are against it. So would I have been at that age when I wanted to do whatever I liked. What does hitting a child teach them ? It teaches them that authority is to be respected, that they can not expect to play up to get their own way since undesirable things happen if you deliberately act badly. I do not see why some claim it teaches that it is ok to hit others when you are not the authority, I can only assume those who hold that opinion must be basing that on their own thought processes.

[joeluke]

Well said OG