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Comment by nandhinianand | Hacker News Reader

Here's my take on it... A younger non-parent me understands the western take on "not beating your children" very well. But the current parent me can also see why parents sometimes would beat their kids.(not that it is right.). Honestly, negative feedback/reinforcement is also needed to discipline(and I agree physical assault is the wrong way to do it.). The point I'm trying to make here is the stance against hitting your children stems from a "ideal well-adjusted parent" (not different from the "rational actor" in economics). And Yes, I'm contrasting the "ideal vs the actual". For context: I grew up in India in the 80-90s in a rural area. Personally, in my parenting I'm starting to use the "sama-dhana-beda-dhanda" ordering to some extent and customization for family settings of course.

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I grew up in Australia in the 80s/90s

I was hit as a kid. I have no distinct memory of being hit really, but I have distinct memories of being scared of it if I misbehaved and parents getting angry.

As a parent now, I see two reasons a parent might hit their kid, and neither is acceptable to me.

(A) you lose your temper because the child misbehaves. This isn’t acceptable because you’re reacting emotionally. The outcome could be extreme, either mentally or physically.

(B) you don’t lose your temper and make a reasoned decision to hit the child. This is even worse because you’ve justified hurting a child, to yourself.

Its not news that how a child is raised will impact their outlook on life. I wasn’t hit a lot, and I’m generally able to not make a physical reaction (such as hitting) when I am upset with my son.

I’ve seen first hand that others who had more violence in their childhood (eg hit with a wire coat hanger by a parent) will themselves be much more likely to react with physical violence if they get upset.

It's worth noting, there is a pretty big difference between something like a simple spanking and being beaten with a wire clothes hanger. There's a trend to treat the two extremes both as "beating your child" and something a parent should be locked up for doing. I'm not a fan of that grouping.

There are times when a parent needs to do something that will make it very clear that the child's behavior is completely inappropriate. Things for which, if they do not teach the child this, it will cause problems later. For some people, that act may be a spanking or similar. For others, it might be making the child eat soap.

Personally, I'm a bellower. I almost never raise my voice. But when I do, I am heard... period; everyone in the house stops in their tracks to find out what has pushed me over the edge. I don't like yelling, but if my child is doing something that could cause them physical injury (or similar) and I cannot seem to get them to stop by telling them to... I raise my voice, a lot.

I’m like you, I’ll yell at him, and usually it’s to go “look at the wall” (aka naughty corner when you don’t have a corner that’s actually usable).

But the comment I replied to gives the impression of a pretty harsh implementation:

> such disrespect would result in a hiding, such that by the time a child is 3 they know not to disrespect their parents...

What happens if they don't look at the wall?

Louder voice, followed by moving him to the wall - as in, take his hand/wrist and move him to the wall.

That's a pretty rare event.

Where I grew up, corporal punishment was the norm. If I misbehaved at home, I'd have to fetch "the whopper" which was a thick leather dog collar.

If I misbehaved at school, I'd get a caning (bamboo) or hiding (short length of hose pipe).

I was never abused. Boundaries were always known, and the punishment for crossing them also known. If you got in trouble.

I mean... you do something cheeky, and the punishment is a bit of pain for 10 seconds. That was always much much better than being told how badly you'd disappointed your parents or teacher.

I'd take a hiding over a telling off any day.

FYI, my partner was also beaten as a child, but she'd vehemently against corporal punishment now. Our children are being raised without the cane.

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