Thread: Spare the strop, Spoil the Child?

I was at a hardware store last night trying to find some rivets and washers to fix a pair of scales and the salesperson was an elderly gentleman probably in his 70s.

When he saw the straight razor I was working on, he lit up and told about how his dad used a straight. He also said that when he and his brothers got out of line, his dad would whip them with his strop.

Never heard of that one. I've heard of a kid being disciplined with Dad's belt, so why not a strop?

Yea, why not. The principle at my public school used a short length of 2 inch wide flat drive belt to give us deserving it the strap. Good way to learn cause and effect.

Bob

I think strops were used very often for discipline "back in the day". My guess is "back in the day" there were fewer instances of children, even young children telling their parents to shut up, etc to their face and in public as I have seen. Me thinks the lack of discipline today is directly proportional to the rapid degradation of society and lack of respect fellow man has for each other.

Chris L

Originally Posted by ChrisL

Snip..
My guess is "back in the day" there were fewer instances of children, even young children telling their parents to shut up, etc to their face and in public as I have seen. Me thinks the lack of discipline today is directly proportional to the rapid degradation of society and lack of respect fellow man has for each other.

Chris L

While I agree to some extent with your thinking that there is some degredation and lack of respect for the fellow man nowadays, I do not think it is because of lack of physical dicipline.
The degredation, if that exists, is because of the lack of parents being present in their childrens life and taking an active part in bringing up respectful and confident kids.
Using corporal punishment on kids, is imho, a defeat.
My two kids will never experience that, nor would they even think of telling me to shut up.

My Dad often recounted tales of razor strop whoopins as a child. Mostly after he had gained my undivided attention with a belt or ping-pong paddle. Bad decisions = negative consequences, it's a useful concept that has almost completely disappeared from our culture.

yes, there was an old saying "being taken to the strop". When you heard that stand by!

Originally Posted by 1OldGI

My Dad often recounted tales of razor strop whoopins as a child. Mostly after he had gained my undivided attention with a belt or ping-pong paddle. Bad decisions = negative consequences, it's a useful concept that has almost completely disappeared from our culture.

Yea, that is what I meant by learning cause and effect. I have nothing against corporal punishment per se having grown up in the era where it was a common practice. You can ignore a good tongue lashing in sullen silence but it is pretty hard to ignore what your stinging hands or behind are telling you.

Bob

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

yes, there was an old saying "being taken to the strop". When you heard that stand by!

Or you could run like hell. But as mom used to say"He'll be back when he gets hungry.".

Originally Posted by Birnando

While I agree to some extent with your thinking that there is some degredation and lack of respect for the fellow man nowadays, I do not think it is because of lack of physical dicipline.
The degredation, if that exists, is because of the lack of parents being present in their childrens life and taking an active part in bringing up respectful and confident kids.
Using corporal punishment on kids, is imho, a defeat.
My two kids will never experience that, nor would they even think of telling me to shut up.

And to go further, I see a lot of parents say really snide and disrespectful things to their kids...we need to remember that we are teaching our kids (by example, which is the most powerful method of teaching) how to interact.

It only follows that they will whip it back at you someday if you dish it out enough.

Kids are amazing learners...it's our job to choose wisely what we teach them

I'm a sarcastic jokester, and my kids are following suit. I hated it at first, but eventually realized I was basically hating myself...think about it...

While I agree with the sentiment, my daughters are proof enough that you can raise kids and punish them without having to beat the snot out of them. While I don't think spanking is wrong, I do think it is something that should be the endpoint of options, and not the first and preferred option.

Even today, my 8 year old daughter still stays in the time-out corner as long as I don't say she can come out. she hates it, and as a punishment it works. So why would I need to teach her to physically fear me? But this only works because we used this consistently from as soon as they can understand that actions have consequences. If anything, consistency and structure are what makes kids behave. Not physical violence.

My sensei did research about career criminals as part of his thesis as a behavioral anthropologist. One of the things that came out of his interviews, is that violent people almost always come from a childhood where they learned that violence was the accepted method of getting people to do what you want.