[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Any parent who has to resort to physical discipline is weak, unintelligent and unimaginative. Most of them are also aiming to raise children who are "obedient" instead of free-thinking, but moral, individuals. The aim is to raise a child who does the right thing because they know it is right, and because they want to do the right thing. Not a child who does the "right thing" because they are scared of getting a smack.

I can tell you exactly what that leads to. It leads to a child who gets sneaky, because they will carry on doing as they please when they are out of sight and sure that they can get away with it. And, because children are like little sponges with their parents behaviour, it leads to a child who thinks they can impose their will on other children by throwing their weight around and threatening to hit.

Every single genuine "brat" I've ever encountered does not come from a family with just, fair, non-violent parenting. They come from chav families with parents who have no idea how to communicate with them. And most of them do "get smacked", right there and then in the middle of the supermarket, because their parents are too thick and embarrassed to know what else to do. It is completely ineffective.