Disciplining Children

After a recent US Court ruling which basically said that a parent can
hit a child, blawgosphere's been replete with posts about the legality
of using corporal punishment to discipline a child. The debate is for
all practical purposes irrelevant in India.

If push came to shove, one might somehow be able to have charges of
assault or causing simple / grievous hurt filed against a parent but
it'd be very unlikely to happen unless the child at the very least
wound up in hospital as a result of the parent's actions.

Which is why I'm not even going to begin to get into the legal aspects
of the question since, in all likelihood, that'd turn into an entirely
pointless academic discussion (as opposed to this which I suspect is
going to turn into an equally pointless rant).

Theoretically, I somehow completely fail to understand why any parent
would hit a child for any reason. And I can't help but think that if
that is the best the parent can come up with, they're daft. Of course,
that's not taking into account all the times when, in practice, I've
developed a fervent desire to slap [other people's] children when I've
been forced to watch them throw superbly loud and entirely idiotic
tantrums whether or be in restaurants or in department stores.

I don't enjoy being around loud people. And I truly hate being around
loud people with shrill voices which is precisely what many children
(and some adults) seem to be.

That being said, when it comes to children, apart from the fact that
I'm nowhere near convinced that parents have the 'right' to hit their
children, I'm even more unconvinced that hitting children is
particularly productive in terms of its inducing the sort of behaviour
parents probably intend to induce in their children by hitting them.

From what little I have seen – and I'm no expert on the subject – it
doesn't take anyone whether or not they are children very long to
become immune to violence in the sense that they find ways to deal
with its effects such as pain without letting the violence itself
affect them.

And once they find a way to circumvent the effects of violence and
detach themselves from pain, there's precious little point in
inflicting it (assuming that there was any point in doing so before
that).

A friend of mine who told me that his mother had hit him and his
brother as children said that it made them respect her more although
it didn't seem to have got either one of them to do anything in
particular which she wanted them to do. He also told me that when he
had children, he would hit them. "Not for breakfast, lunch and
dinner," and not till they bled but if they deserved it, he said.

The idea struck me as being entirely abhorrent. I cannot accept that
there is no more rational way to keep a child from turning into a
complete brat or to deal with a child who is a bratty.

It is obvious though that many of those who believe in corporal
punishment are seeking the best for their children and that isn't
something I question (in most cases). What I do question is why
children are not deemed to have a right to have their bodies free from
assault at the entirely unregulated whim of an adult.

That is a right which everyone, absolutely everyone else enjoys. Even
those who belong to such groups as convicts and who can only be
punished in accordance with law if at all corporal punishment can be
inflicted on them. Surely, those who belong to one of the most
vulnerable groups, who are usually incapable of protecting themselves
are entitled to the same degree of protection.