I read with amusement the news of Australian mother Claire Davidson being reported to police by a school support worker for disciplining her child with a wooden spoon. Ms Davidson said she grew up with a wooden spoon in the house and admitted she and her partner, Joe Oravec, used it – sparingly – on their daughter Anna. She was warned by the Australian police that hitting her daughter with a wooden spoon on the bum is considered assault with a weapon.

Well, I have no idea how big the wooden spoon is and I hope it isn’t as big as an oar *laugh*. I’ll admit, while we are expected to keep a lookout and report cases of suspected child abuse, this is not the case of a poor child turning up in school with unexplainable injury regularly. It was only revealed when Anna told her classmates in school her mum had hit her with a wooden spoon.

When I shared this news with my friends, all of them were incredulous. Regardless whether we are parents or not, we felt that some spanking is always necessary when a child is out of hand. As kids, most of us have been spanked with bare hands, or thin rattan canes and the handle of feather dusters when we are naughty. In certain more extreme cases, some of us have been whipped with belts. I certainly remember the days I get laughed at during my lower primary school days when I go to school with ‘char mee’ [fried noodles] – i.e. cane marks – on my legs. (Talking about rattan canes, has anyone seen one these days? I used to be able to find one in a neighbourhood provision shop but not anymore.)

While I certainly resent being caned, there is no doubt some of it was justified. As a result, my cousins and I generally are well behaved at the dining table and we are all less choosy about our food. Running around during meal times and refusing to consume our meals is a definite no-no. That explains my disdain with this case here because as far as I am concerned, it will never happened to any of us.

Spare the rod and spoil the child is our common understanding. All of us felt that getting spanked for our mischief or bad behavior has taught us to be better people. A lack of spanking does nothing to make children better people. If you do not do your job in spanking your kids to correct them when they misbehave, then somewhere down the road someone else will do that job for you. Is a wonder why some parents suddenly found their kids dead or arrested? My friend one told me that his dad once said this when he was getting spanked: “Better I beat you than an outsider beat you.”

It is high time some parents be a little more discerning over some of the “modern parenting myths and advice” being propagated. Here’s a site you might want to look at regarding those myths. You can always take the risk and experiment on your own kids and see whether those methods are better. I’ll rather not believe in that bollocks, and trust in the one and only proven method that worked – the one my parents used to raise me where I certainly turned out pretty alright. It is also my considered opinion that a happy family works like an army unit – the officers (parents) make the rules and the privates (children) follow those rules.

That being said, I do object to spanking under these two conditions: public and / or excessive spanking. Good army officers never abuse or ill-treat their soldiers. I noticed that many parents felt a loss of face when they are told their child is misbehaving. Many often take it out on the poor child right there and then. Parents ought to learn that people are not informing them to humiliate them. After all, would they prefer that the general public bypass them and take upon the role of disciplining the child on their own? Furthermore, public spanking does do harm a child’s self esteem. If you don’t believe, I’ll beat openly beat the crap out of you in public and see whether you feel humiliated.

As for excessive spanking, remember this: when someone beat a dog or cat half dead it is considered abuse and even that could end you with a fine or jail term. So you know the seriousness of abusing a child. Excessive spanking may teach a child that violence is a solution to everything. In my opinion, this is the kind of abuse that the school worker should be reporting.

Surprisingly for a Western country, the majority of Aussie parents agree that some spanking is necessary. Take a look at the result on the surveys conducted by major Australian papers.

Well done, Aussies. The majority of them certainly are not as ‘fxxked in the head’ as some of the losers out there who are letting their kids turn into brats and causing the world to be turned on its head!

I just wonder where Singapore will stand on the discipline debate.