Re: Father faces child cruelty charges for teen's punishment..
Child cruelty or just some good old fashioned discipline?? If you think the former, what 'punishment' do you approve of?
Father faces child cruelty charges for teen's punishment
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I haven't done anything like this to my boys... because I didn't have to. My father beat the **** out of me. Put me in the hospital numerous times and there were a lot of times my mother couldn't take to the ER when I should have gone because he wouldn't let her.
I know what child abuse is, and I know what child cruelty is. THIS AIN'T IT.
My father also made me use a mortar hammer to clean thousands of bricks that were taken from the foundation of our house so they could be used again on the addition he was building. It was done to teach me a lesson in hard work, personal responsibility and taking pride in your work, no matter what it is or how menial it may be - and it worked - finally. Before I learned my lesson, I kept breaking the wooden handle so I could stop. He finally welded a metal handle on the thing so I couldn't break it. That wasn't child cruelty or abuse like the other actions he took against me... It was parenting.
I know that I would not have gone quite as far as this guy did, but I can understand why he did, and it doesn't seem the kid was injured in any way, except for his poor little feelings and some tired and sore muscles.
I don't understand how we as a society can complain about the young people not being responsible citizens or caring about much of anything when their parents are the ones that let them get away with anything and everything, yet we criminalize an act taken by a guy to try and teach his kid that there are consequences for not doing what you should do as a member of society and a responsible person that takes pride in your own accomplishments. This guy used military reinforcement, but not in the way that the term military makes it sound.
I'm sure that he was tough on the kid - that was his choice and only he can decide what was needed for his child. I'm sure there are a lot of people that think he went overboard (I'm one of them in a way). But, there are also people that think that this type of parental discipline should be criminalized when there is no harm done to the child other than making him tired and those people are the ones that are doing harm to society as a whole for the sake of political correctness.
That he did it over a three day period, to me, is like my father welding a metal handle to the mortar hammer - it took that to get me, and probably this kid to get the message.
Get mad at me if you want, but I think that if more parents cared enough about their kids to do whatever it takes short of harming them to help them grow into responsible adults with tough but fair discipline and reinforcing that, we wouldn't have the problems we see in our schools or in the streets or young people that cannot qualify for a job or even want a job because they feel it's below them... or most of all... kids killing kids over tennis shoes, for example.
Now - you can jump on me and tell me how stupid I am. I can take it.
