Unfettered Letters

‘Abuse’ vs. ‘discipline’

The article “Abuse more likely by parents who spank kids with objects” (8/19, A-4) should have been titled “Abusive people are more likely to abuse their children.” Shame on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for insinuating that spanking is the culprit. Spanking is not the culprit and is still a very effective measure of discipline.

Abusive people punish their children and don’t utilize discipline. Non-abusive people discipline their children and don’t utilize punishment. Spanking has been a form of discipline for generations because it works when properly administered.

Nowhere in the study was the admission that abusive people abuse their children regardless of the method (i.e. spanking, hitting, shaking, burning). And stress, marital unrest, financial instability and the general lack of attention many parents give their children other than spanking, hitting, shaking, beating and burning also were not discussed in this study.

Every child’s bad behavior needs assessment before discipline is administered. Spanking, time-outs, taking away phone and computer privileges, talking, redirecting — all are forms of discipline when properly administered to the appropriate scenario. The key words are “properly administered.” It is every parent’s duty to know the difference and to seek help if they don’t.

Kristy Hobbs
Trimble, Mo.

Protect students from bullies

Recently my cousin got in trouble for saying something inappropriate to some of his classmates, who were teasing him. Although I realize he shouldn’t have said what he said, I want to know why he was the only one who got punished, when he was just trying to defend himself.

Shouldn’t the bullies have been reprimanded? Where was the teacher when all of this teasing was going on, and why didn’t he or she do anything about it? Isn’t it the job of the teacher to maintain order and discipline in the classroom?

Schools need to create better discipline programs so that students are safe, because a child should not have to feel threatened while attending school.

Julia Morrow
Grain Valley

Corporal punishment

I read about Kansas Sen. Phil Journey’s proposed bill to provide legal immunity for school officials who adopt spanking as a disciplinary option. I was just telling my friend that corporal punishment is still alive and well in the South when I spotted the article. My friends don’t believe this happens to kids any more.
Please tell us what schools, in Kansas and Missouri, still practice corporal punishment as a form of discipline. I would like to know what standard Journey will propose as a guideline to allow our administrators to hit our children.
Are these schools actively participating in a “no-tolerance” policy that prohibits children from hitting anyone else? Only a bully resorts to physical violence to maintain his or her position of authority and power.
Perhaps this bill should require educators who currently resort to corporal punishment to learn how to incorporate nonviolent discipline or find another job. Better yet — let’s require some creative discipline classes for our teachers.
Society will reap the long-term benefits of our nation’s most valuable young resource being treated with physical respect and a nonviolent guidance policy. No tolerance should apply to everyone at school.
Neke Kullman
Olathe

Spanking and other issues

I wonder what Mike Hendricks thinks about the California legislator who proposed a law making it a misdemeanor to spank any child younger than 4. In his Jan. 22 column, he blasts the Wichita legislator who proposed a bill to give state teachers immunity from lawsuits if they spanked their pupils.

Arguing that state legislators have proposed some ridiculously frivolous and unnecessary laws, he goes on to list as another example laws requiring that state driver’s license tests only be given in English. Quoting Mr. Hendricks, “I’d like to think they have driver’s licenses if they’re out on the road, even if they haven’t mastered the local lingo.”

Granted, one’s political persuasion colors which laws one perceives as reasonable and necessary. However, I don’t remember seeing any Kansas highway signs printed in any other language than English. How sensible is it to allow someone to drive without understanding traffic signs and directions?

Michael Kalny
Shawnee

It is illegal for adults to hit one another with boards but, according to one Kansas senator, if the board is called a paddle, educators should be able to hit children with it, so long as the parents (already hitting their children at home?) give permission. How quaint.

Children are still the only people who can be hit in the home, in too many schools and with the approval of far too many churches. The only proviso? Be sure to call these hittings “spanking” or “discipline” or “not sparing the rod,” and try not to cross the hazy line between such hitting and legally defined child abuse

Sadly, corporal punishment is the preferred practice of not only slave masters, wife beaters and child abusers. It is also the preferred practice of far too many parents, teachers and preachers. Shouldn’t Kansas legislators know better?

John E. Valusek
Wichita

Don’t rely on government

Regarding “Making do and moving on: Hurricane evacuees find their immediate needs have been met, and for that they are grateful, but their day-to-day lives are still filled with uncertainty” (8/24, A-1): This is front-page news? Ridiculous. If I were in the same position as Nancy Cooper, I would have my son in the wheelchair feel useful and babysit (if it were possible) while I went off to work and tried to better things for myself and family. I would take in laundry, scrub floors, babysit or sell from a catalog from my home.

Living off of the government has become a way of life for many, and Katrina is just one more excuse to not find a job. I feel sorry for this woman in your article because of her situation. If I were in her shoes, I would be embarrassed to find myself front-page news in a large city newspaper. What kind of example is that setting for her family?

I have been a single working mother of two small children. (No alimony or college degree, and I am doing fine.)

Carol Young
Lake Winnebago

Fraternity suspended

My fraternity recently was suspended by Central Missouri State University and the national fraternity of Alpha Kappa Lambda for holding a “racially insensitive” party in conjunction with Martin Luther King Jr. Day (3/7 editorial, “No room for insensitivity”).

These are kids living on their own for the first time, but youth and inexperience do not excuse their behavior. Such racial statements are unacceptable at any time of life. Our nation cannot provide equality if our hearts are segregated.

There must be acceptance of responsibility for such attitudes to exist, including by us alumni. There must be acceptance of responsibility from all races of all Americans who have not done enough to improve race relations in our country.

I will work with my national fraternity and alma mater to ensure the chapter’s activities were isolated. Meanwhile, the fraternity that provided me and my brothers a support group through our college years, and friendships throughout our lives, is no more.

If this suspension results in acceptance and tolerance of others by focusing on our similarities rather than our differences, then the sacrifice will prove worthwhile — painful, but worthwhile.

Denny Banister
Jefferson City

Schools and paddles

On occasion the news brings an interesting juxtaposition of stories.

On Nov. 30 there was a front-page Star article concerning a school where, when necessary, officials dared use a paddle on recalcitrant students. “We have no serious disciplinary problems,” the principal said.

On an inside page that same day, a story told of some teachers who had staged a walkout. Why? Because there was little discipline in their Kansas City school. They said they were afraid of the students.

Shortly thereafter, Richard Adams (12/9, Voices) excoriated James Dobson for daring to suggest that spanking, done properly, might be an excellent deterrent in some cases of indiscipline. Adams’ response: “Children should never be spanked.”

On that same day, on Page A-2 of The Star, there was a story about four teens who I can only imagine were never spanked. They beat a man to death and then gleefully took their friends to see his body. They will get a taste of real discipline while serving life sentences in a penitentiary.

Dobson’s spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child advice could have been a wonderful blessing to those boys and those four families. But no. Don’t spank children. It might show that you really love them.

Victor Sutch
Parkville