http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2009/10/16/20091016gan-soap-ON.html

http://www.wftv.com/countybycounty/21273709/detail.html

The girl did not have her mouth washed with soap, but was told to break the entire bar of soap into small pieces and swallow it. After swallowing half of it, she began foaming at the mouth and vomiting profusely. The fathers response to this was to laugh, and force her to continue, until finally the girls throat became so swollen that she could not breathe and had to be taken to the emergency room.

The wisdom of putting any non-food item in a kids mouth is debatable, but when a parent deliberately causes a child to swallow poison there is absolutely nothing to debate. If you think this is about changing attitudes about parenting then please find me some octogenarians who recall forcing children to swallow more and more soap in between violent bouts with vomiting. You won't find them, because this behavior was unheard of in any generation. The only change in attitude is that forty or fifty years ago you wouldn't have had to call the cops, because any man who encountered this behavior towards a child could have been counted on to beat the living daylights out of the parent right on the spot.

My own mother routinely had me and my brothers brush our teeth with Ajax scouring powder with bleach. This was not done as punishment, but to whiten our teeth. As far as I can tell it did no harm, but she didn't force us to eat a whole can of floor cleaner. She used a very small amount, and after brushing we spit it out and rinsed with water to remove the residue. That is 'washing'. What the parents of this little girl did was 'eating'.

Mike

I've got to remember this 'footnote' for future essays I write. "Everything I said is documented to be true; but rather than give you the actual reference, I'm just going to point you toward the 'Internet' and tell you it's there — just the way I wrote it. Really it is. Really."

How clever to go out and find two or three cases that are full of emotional angst in an effort to establish them as the rule rather than the exception.

I can do that, too. I have a neighbor who carefully followed the no spank rule, who did everything possible to avoid damaging her kids' fragile self-esteem, and always explained consequences and reasoned with the children. On child is now in prison, another is a drug addict, and the third is a politician (omg!).

SO there you go. All I have to do is find one or two more cases, and I can "prove" that corporal punishment is needed to raise up healthy, productive children. Right?

And let's not forget that how badly we need to turn our child-rearing over to the experts, because we are so incapable of raising them correctly.

It is a mandate of the Surgeon General of the United States and of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that patients be kept comfortable and free of pain. An institution’s license to provide medical care can be in jeopardy if these mandates are ignored.

The United States Department of Education, the United States Supreme Court and United States Congress must not continue to ignore research indicating that Physical/Corporal Punishment of Children in Schools is detrimental to the health and safety of our nation’s children and counterproductive to the learning environment, lowering children’s IQ’s. Corporal Punishment of Children in Schools is an outmoded, ineffective and dangerous practice that has been banned in more than l00 countries. It puts school districts at risk for lawsuits for paddling injuries, which is the main reason many districts already have abandoned it.
Research indicates that spanking lowers children’s IQ’s. Research on toddlers and other studies following children into adolescence found Physical Punishment was BAD FOR CHILDREN and made them more likely to show anti-social behavior. Children who were exposed to physical discipline most frequently were two to three times more likely to show anti-social behavior as an adolescent, including things like getting into fights, being disobedient at home or at school, general delinquency and being in trouble with teachers. Violence begets violence is a lesson from history not just child psychology."

Several national children’s health and education organizations have official positions statements OPPOSING School Corporal Punishment of Children including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Bar Association, the National PTA (Parent Teacher Association) and the National Education Association, among others

Educators powerfully model physical assault/violence as the acceptable way to solve problems to our children when they punish them by hitting them with wooden paddles. Paddling is a lawsuit waiting to happen. In a day when some schools limit kids from playing tag on the playground for fear of a lawsuit-inducing injury, school boards are asking for trouble to sanction a practice that is intended to inflict pain. How will schools in the 20 remaining states where the outmoded, ineffective, dangerous practice of Physical/Corporal punishment of children remains legal possibly maintain order without the paddle? For ideas, they could start by asking any of the 30 states that do it every day and that do not use Corporal Punishment on school children.

Teacher Education Colleges must teach that classroom management must NEVER involve school employees hitting children with wooden paddles to deliberately inflict physical pain and suffering as punishment and stress to children from fear, humiliation, and anxiety, which also adversely affects the learning/working environment of all witnessing classmates and staff.

In a recent news article it was reported that a state legal adviser, who told Bristol, Tennessee Director of Schools Gary Lilly that while school principals who paddled students were legally protected from allegations of assault, they were not immune from accusations of inappropriate or improper touching.

Another recent news headlines reads, “Nearly 60,000 spankings in Miss. schools last year”, and yet another news headline reads, “Discipline in the classroom has been the key to DeSoto County’s success.”

The Jackson Clarion Ledger recently reported that DeSoto County leads the state in the number of corporal punishment incidents during the 2008-2009 school year.

Considering DeSoto is the largest district, that’s to be expected. The second-largest district, Jackson Public Schools, does not use corporal punishment.

The classic textbook way to bring a suit to the Supreme Court is to have two different cases decided in different ways. Then the high court has to settle the dispute.

Rights granted by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stipulates that no state may deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws. Physical/Corporal Punishment of Children in Schools is already ILLEGAL in 30 states! For this reason, Physical/Corporal Punishment of Children in Schools is not equally applied in schools and any law allowing it is unconstitutional!

Also, another recent news headline reads “Ouch! For the second time in a month, a school district in Leflore County has been hit with a lawsuit from a student alleging injuries from a paddling.”

An 11-year-old is seeking $500,000 from the Greenwood Public School District in a suit filed Monday in Leflore County Circuit Court.

Court documents state a coach caused “severe and painful injuries” to the student while paddling him in November 2008.

The child’s attorney, James Littleton, said photographs show deep bruising on the then-10-year- old’s buttocks and that he also suffered possible kidney damage.

“It was just unreal the abuse that this child took at the hands of a teacher,” Littleton said.

The spanking happened at Davis Elementary, which was where the child went to school, according to Littleton.

Greenwood Superintendent Margie Pulley was not in her office Wednesday, and her secretary referred calls to the schools’ attorney, Richard Oakes. Oakes could not be reached for comment.

According to the lawsuit, Pulley was sent a certified letter informing her of the claims in April and May.

Paddling has been a hot-button issue of late in Leflore County. Just last month, the guardian of a 6-year-old kindergartner filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the Leflore County School District for alleged paddlings.

All of the information contained in this post is verifiable by searching it on the internet.