I am not a big proponent of paddling, spanking, etc. Not because I think it is cruel and unusual punishment - but probably because my dad's spankings (beatings) I just ignored. Now my mother only had to give me "the look" and I knew to behave. So that's just a personal preference.

But I do agree with consequences. Big time consequences. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND on any level this idea that all children are just precious little snowflakes that must never ever ever suffer two seconds of unhappiness.

The biggest consequence that all children need to learn is that eventually they are responsible for how their life turns out. Not mommy, not daddy - not a SP.

A parent is responsible for providing guidance (in addition to basic shelter) as to what are good life choices. But as an older person (nearing 70) one thing I have learned is that not even the best parents in the world can stop a train wreck when the child is determined to have one.

But on the other hand sometimes people with the worst starts in life end up just fine because of hard work and responsibility. I have a friend who was pregnant at 15. She managed to get an MBA from Stanford and had a fabulous career and life (and produced an amazing son). Rags I know your lovely wife overcame a rocky start to go on and be very successful too.

I hate whiners who complain that "life is not fair". No it's not. Now just deal with it.

Good Topic Rags. I also had a very tough upbringing, poverty, father an alcoholic who had a 7th grade education. He ended up in prison for shooting a man while running away from him. He also burned our house down and left us homeless, 5 children, due to a divorce decree that allowed our mother to remain in a house, that had no equity, so that we could be housed.

Mother did not believe in education, we were never encouraged to go to school even at the elementary school level. She stopped talking to me because at the age of 19 I moved 50 miles away to go to college with my own money and student loans. I am female and I have worked as a construction worker, waitress, bartender, in a bank, eventually teaching in a major university until I got ill. When I was in graduate school I was a single parent, worked two jobs while keeping my grades at a B+ or higher because I was on a fellowship.

It is hard for me to accept how coddled some children can be, especially my ss47. In my case, my dh gave his ds, when he was employed a sum of $250,000 to put into his own retirement account, so as my dh put it, his ds could feel secure about his own financial future. His ds squandered it in two years when he was drinking heavily. His ds did not finish high school, has no children, has never been married, currently has not held a job in two years, except for one job he had for a couple of weeks washing dishes in a restaurant. He quit that job, with my dh's blessing, because they wanted him to take out the trash and he considered it too hard to do. My dh just redid his Will leaving him the majority of my dh's estate. My dh has millions in stocks and bonds.

Today my dh was so proud about what his ds said was one of his abilities. This is hilarious! SS told df that he is sensitive about sensing ghosts. You would have thought that his DS had just gotten a medical degree. Talk about lowering the standards of expectations. Mind you dh has a Ph.d. Dh also refers to ss's anger management problem as ds having "low emotional reserves". I am so sick of hearing that term.

Dh always tells me to put myself in his ds's place of "having having two very successful and educated persons as parents. Imagine the pressure he has been under." My, his life must have been very difficult with parents who have given everything he wants, a very nice home to live in, in a very nice neighborhood, and having to survive in a household where the income was above average. Puke, puke, puke!!!

One more thing, they should have given the one thing he needed the most, a swat on his backass. Hopefully, someone will teach him a lesson soon because with his negative, chip on the shoulder attitude I doubt that his last years in life will be good. I even saw ss try to barge between a man holding what seem to be his 5 year old son's hand in a movie theater because they were not walking fast enough. Dh grabbed his ds shirt just before did he walked between them. If anyone has need some accountability and discipline it is this man. Somehow he manages to continue with his attitude and my dh keeps on throwing money at him.

How is it that some jerks just rise up like cream, manage to live a life on their terms and no one demands any type behavioral change. We should all be so lucky!

I think this is black and white and media driven. We have new diagnoses but destructive, violent individuals are nothing new. Murder is actually at an all time low in the UK; you are 100 times less likely to be the victim of murder now than you were in the middle ages. Even in America the murder rate has fallen dramatically over the last 30 years. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/murder-rates-are-plummeting-uk-across-western-w...
But for some reason - I would wager, the media - we believe that society is dangerous and we should mistrust each other.
Every successive generation looks back on the previous generations as living in some sort of utopia where 'men were men' and 'children knew how to behave', but there have always been social outcasts, hate figures and folk devils. There has always been the fear that society is going to the dogs because of social change.
Actually, horrendous abuse was meted out on children in the past, in the guise of 'discipline'. What we actually did was raise people who believed that violence is the answer to getting someone else to do what you want. It's not acceptable to beat an adult because you don't like what they say or do, so why on earth do it to a child?
My husband was beaten severely by his stepdad; all that achieved was making him hate his stepdad and by extension all authority. This seems to be the case for most adults I know who were beaten as children.
Psychiatry is changing fast and new ways of looking at behaviour are constantly being developed - whether they are the 'right' or the 'wrong' way of looking at it is obviously a matter of debate. However the biggest changes I have ever seen in 'problem children' is when an adult comes into their life who is able to listen, actually hear what it is they are upset about and help the child to problem solve. This is what creates balanced adults who are able to nurture themselves, not smacking them and telling them to shut up.
Of course accountability is vital - otherwise people grow up unable to see that their behaviour has natural consequences. But accountability is different to punishment and retribution.
I am myself a victim of a BM who is very narcissistic because she was raised by a hippy mother who believed in never saying 'no' to her and basically also gave her very little love. She was neglected and has grown into not a very nice adult. So I do know how destructive bad and overly permissive parenting can be. However, there is a balance to be had between lazy, permissive parenting and physical abuse. Personally I think that balance is found in breaking old patterns we were all raised with and listening to our children, teaching them respect by showing them respect and modelling good behaviour ourselves.