Missouri School District Brings Spanking Back--and Says Some Parents Are Grateful

[demmiblue]

A school district in Missouri has decided that things were much better back in the day when kids were allowed to be spanked at school. The school board in Barry County approved the new corporal punishment policy back in June, notifying parents Tuesday that the decision would be put to a vote this week. Parents are being asked if they would like to opt their child in or out of the program, which the county allegedly plans to administer on a case-by-case basis. Reprimanding kids by “swatting the buttocks with a paddle” is constitutional and legal in the state. “We’ve had people actually thank us for it,” Superintendent Merlyn Johnson told the Springfield News-Leader. The board has planned for the paddling to only be administered by a principal at the school, with a witness and never in front of children. “Surprisingly, those on social media would probably be appalled to hear us say these things but the majority of people that I've run into have been supportive,” Johnson was quoted saying. It is currently unclear how many parents will opt in, but the county should have a final vote by the end of the week.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/missouri-superintendent-merlyn-johnson-brings-spanking-back-to-barry-county-school-district

[alphafemale]

1. Allow the parents to be physically assaulted at work?

Drop trousers in front of co-workers and bend over.

"Thank you Sir! May I have another!"

[WENSTJDON]

2. In my opinion this is legalized child abuse

What are they thinking? Any parent who opts into this program should be investigated, imo.

[jimfields33]

10. I wonder if kids who mass murdered would have been disciplined

Would not have ended up killing. Afterall, no mass shooting in the 60’s. Something changed.

[Mad_Machine76]

13. Wonder how Trump was disciplined

I bet nobody even bothered to tell him "no" his entire childhood.

[Phoenix61]

16. Seriously? What's changed is the massive proliferation of guns.

[jimfields33]

29. I'm not so sure about that

A lot of guys took their guns to school in the back of their pickups to go hunting after school. Today that’d never be allowed. Something changed.

[Phoenix61]

31. Your anecdotal data is duly noted but the fact is

there are many, many more guns. The more guns there are the more likely one will end up in the hands of someone who absolutely shouldn’t have one. Whatever you think has changed in the US has changed in every other country too. They, unlike the US, don’t have the massive numbers of guns.

[jimfields33]

32. True. Our population tripled as well.

Lots of difference in numbers.

[ShazzieB]

35. No, it didn't.

It didn't even double.

1960 population: 179,323,175
2020 population: 331,449,281

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_census
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_census

I haven't been able to find a source for how many guns there were in the U.S. from the 60s to the 2020s. Perhaps someone else will know.

Be that as it may, the idea that people shoot up schools because they didn't get spanked enough is patently absurd.

[Fullduplexxx]

24. And after all those murderers on the s crying about how as a child mommy and daddy used to hit them

[leftyladyfrommo]

26. Kids didn't cause much trouble in the '50s aand'60s.

We just didn't. Parents didn't put up with it. And we had big classes. Kids that caused trouble got suspended ir expelled.

I think paddling was allowed in our little gradeschool but I don't think anyone ever did it.

When we went to the big junior high there was some bad stuff going on. If your skirt was too short the school counselor would rip the hem out. I'm pretty sure those vice pricipals got ugly sometimes but that was our normal.

Did it do damage? I don't know. The boys all just laughed at it.

[Mad_Machine76]

12. Nope

Investigations are only for parents who affirm their kids' gender

[MagickMuffin]

3. Parents that are supportive are the ones who want to give disciplining their children to someone els

else (ran out of characters in subject line)


They don't want to deal with their brats so get the school to do the dirty work.

[Grins]

5. Disagree.

They are in favor of beating other parent’s kids; you know - “those” people….

[MagickMuffin]

8. However, the article states parents have to agree THEIR kids get whacked, not anyone else's

Hopefully that is the case and no one else can whack your child unless the parent signs off on it

[fishwax]

30. I doubt it -- certainly not exclusively, anyway

I've known plenty of authoritarian parents who also advocated corporal punishment in the schools.

[Karma13612]

4. Well, it's official

One more way we are regressing.

It’s already been proven that physical punishment just breeds hate, fear, resentment, and later, retaliation. The cycle of violence continues.

Wait until they “apply” the punishment on a kid who is NOT on the approved list.

Oh, sorry Mrs. Parent, we thought Johnny was on the approved list. Oh well, he WAS being a brat so what’s a little beating between friends.

Yea, this is gonna go over real big when it gets underway.

This is such a trigger for me, best if I just not read any more about this. And I’ll keep further comments to myself.

[Ocelot II]

6. My kid would be yanked out of that school so fast -

I wouldn't want my child even going to school in a district that would consider, let alone approve, corporal punishment; God only knows what other medieval attitudes they have toward education in general.

[LakeArenal]

7. Well, if a teacher wants to give my kid a swat on the butt, that's one thing.

Eventually, I believe, a little swat becomes banging my kids head into a locker.

Or, worse an exercise in base humiliation.

[magicarpet]

9. Will a firing squad with long rifles be next,...

.... out in the back of the school for real naughty children ?

[cbabe]

11. Not to mention, all the children watching adults beat their friends. Might doesn't make right.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

15. It says it would take place in principals office never other kids present

Just another adult witness.

Not saying it's a good idea to spank the kids, but that factoid is in the OP.

[cbabe]

19. Sure. As if the kids wouldn't know.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

34. I think they'll survive the trauma of knowing a classmate got a spanking in the principals office

My entire generation grew up with the knowledge of that happening and we seem to be okay generally.

[BradAllison]

14. Missouri is the new Missisippi. n/m

[lindysalsagal]

18. The lawyers will be running all over each other to get the rights to the first victim's case.

No way is that legal. Government using violence on innocent children. These morons really think they want to return to the stone age.

I say, then move to a cabin in the woods, and surrender your electronics, and learn to fish. If you're gonna claim that the 18th century is better, effing prove it!

[artemisia1]

20. I'm afraid that school districts almost universally win such lawsuits even in the face of egregious

conduct, extreme bruising and even severe injury.

[lindysalsagal]

28. I looked up Missouri, and they do have an exemption for spanking. Holy crap!

The legislatures should get on that.

But it won't stop a parent from claiming the kid didn't deserve it, and the teacher is at fault.

https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/laws-policies/state/?CWIGFunctionsaction=statestatutes:main.getResults

[artemisia1]

33. True, but judges and juries so rarely side with the student no matter how bad the abuse was

and when they do, it is overturned by a higher court. I used to follow the research on the issue and, believe me, it is a very sad truth that courts simply do not want to set a precedent -- even one of decency and protection of the young. The kid always loses -- twice.

[Stinky The Clown]

21. I'll bet the grateful parents also go to churches where snakes are handled a tongues are babbled

[hamsterjill]

22. I started grade school in 1967.

My mom died when I was very young and my dad raised me.

He went to school with me on the first day every year so that he could visit the teacher and tell them that I was NEVER to be spanked. It was a small, rural town and spanking was rampant.

My dad grew up in a family with seven children and he always said that his mother spanked them just for the hell of it. He totally opposed it for any of his children.

And we all turned out just fine.

[artemisia1]

23. I remember how common this was as a student in the South during the mid-1970's. Not

only was it never fairly applied, it was a bully's (and racist's) dream come true. I also, as an adult looking back at it with an enhanced perspective, see there were cases where it was very likely administered for the sexual gratification of the administrator.

Fundies are absolutely obsessed with spanking. They ignore Biblical commands to be just and treat others as they would wish to be treated and gravitate towards passages of Scripture they can weaponize.

For those that grew up under that system and lived through the Moral Majority/Reagan era know that there is a sexual gratification component to this along with the demeaning, shaming and dominating ones. One man in my parent's Sunday school group 40 years ago bragged how he spanked his teenage daughters on the underpants and "they knew they had been spanked". Do I need to add that he was also dishonest, alcoholic and creepy?

[Bettie]

27. When we had our first child

someone gave us a book that recommended spanking infants with a length of plastic pipe, because it would hurt, but not leave marks.

The book was awful. We quietly cut the people who gave it to us out of our lives. Not a way we wanted to raise our kids.

My kids have never been spanked and they are all kind, decent, empathetic humans who try to help others when they can.

I still remember my father coming toward us with his belt in hand, snapping it while singing his "spanking song". It still gives me flashes of terror, even though I'm over 50. He was abusive in multiple ways, but the regular belt beatings were the one abuse shared between my brothers and me. They were spared the worst of it.

[Celerity]

25. Since 1979, ALL corporal punishment of children has been forbidden in Sweden. This means that

corporal punishment is viewed as criminal assault, with the type of charges depending on the severity of the actions. There is no exception for parental discipline.

Spanking, beating, etc is fucking barbaric.