Posted By: Kendrick Chrisite On: 3/7/2010

Title: Liberalism

Corporal punishment is an option and should be used in specific cases and under rigid guidelines. We need to be very careful about the liberalism and taking of a USA approach to our culture which has it's nuances and uniqueness. Everyone knows teachers are battling in these schools, with students who have no home training, are sexually active, distracted by cellphones and facebook, are violent and threatening. ( I am generalizing of course). After all of this, this gentleman and I do respect his views, is out there weeping and crying for relief from corporal punishment. Please. He should be focusing on other ways we can help these teachers and these students. Most students dont experience the corporal punishment.
In his own words, he says corporal punishment has a positive impact. Folks, it is a real world out there, frankly I believe in the "lean on me" movie approach, keep the good students in school, the ones who want to learn and those students who are consistently bad and always fighting etc. , release them and have them enroll in technical schools or in other institutions, so they dont hinder other students from learning. My dad was a principal and he has folks walking up to him all the time saying" I am glad you beat me", sometimes, this is the only option that gets their attention. If they old enough to get beat at home, they could get beaten at school.

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Posted By: Inquiring Mind On: 2/22/2010

Title: Corporal Punishment

There is nothing wrong with corporal punishment in my opinion. As a child I understood when my grandmother spoke and growing up she used the rod of correction without fail after speaking. While it may have hurt for a brief period of time, she instilled in me the very fabric of what a civilized society requires from each law abiding citizen. Her words were both understandable and fair. She used beating as a last resort but did not pull back that beating when required. In my opinion corporal punishment is both warranted and needed within the school system. However, teachers must use this method with discretion and not spank children when angry or have not used alternative methods to correct misbehaviour. I have told my son that any adult who during the course of day observes him acting inappropriately or rudely towards another person or another person’s property, has the authority to spank him, and he is to tell me the moment he sees me of the spanking. At the moment he tells me, I then decide whether the punishment was warranted in my opinion (after talking to him is excess, to see if his story ‘holds water’), then its either another beating for acting in that manner (as my grandmother did to me when an adult told her of any infraction I committed) or I would have to tell talk to the offending adult about the issue.

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Posted By: Sean On: 2/13/2010

Title: Ultimate Sense

"God" and "The Bible" are significantly valid "documents" in a Bahamian forum. They represent the foundation of most, if not all Bahamian thought and culture. What is extremely rare in the Bahamas is a lack of appreciation for the latter. Consequently, since this website is an electronic extension of Bahamian news media, "God" and "The Bible" have its rightful place.

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Posted By: Common On: 2/11/2010

Title: Sense

a) The idea of 'god' and 'the bible' all being used as justification is ridiculous, there is an unbelievably large amount of evidence proving the falsification of both documents, and the existence of god. So to make this argument valid, any religious beliefs will be ignored.
b)Low IQs are linked to CP because people with low IQs are the ones who tend to be in those positions. Genetics have been linked to more aggressive behavior, and tendencies to cause more trouble is a side affect. (for more explanation, just research genetics)
c)I have been on the receiving end of CP, and in retrospect, i have found it works, and should be continued for the foreseeable future, as i'm now currently in boarding school in england, I can notice the difference in both behavior and respect towards teachers, never mind strangers. Inevitably there are exceptions, however the issue of behavior is far worse without CP.
d) I do agree though, that it should be regulated, and that whomever is receiving the CP should understand why beforehand.

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Posted By: Kish On: 2/6/2010

Title: Corporal Punishment

Train up a child in the way he should grow," is self explanatory. A child should not grow up thinking that it is okay to whip another human. If we as adults should not beat each other, what message do we send our children (regarding "the way he should grow") when we beat them? There are other alternatives.
Further, when an adult beats another adult someone goes to jail, so why would we want to teach our children that a beating is the only resolution to a problem? You might as well teach them that stealing is also an acceptable form of punishment as neither violence or theft is an acceptable form of behavior in a civilized adult society.
The other part of the scripture i quoted states "that when he is old, he should not depart." It makes perfect sense to me then that some people now justify beating a child, or adult (as evidenced by the present rise in violent crime) because they never "departed" from what happened to them when they were children.
I think the ideology that corporal punishment is necessary comes from a slave/master mentality and not the word of God. Additionally, if beatings worked, slavery would still exist because we would have "listened" when we felt.
I urge the readers of this blog to be objective rather than just "go with the flow" with everything our parents did. We must know that our parents, who may have meant well, were human beings who may have erred.
Again, we must train our children on how to be responsible and law abiding adults. We must do this by example.

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Posted By: B. Turnquest On: 1/24/2010

Title: Corporal Punishment

There is a saying that I often heard when either myself or one of my cousins were about to catch a cut hip, "If you don't listen, you ga feel". This statement is very relevant to corporal punishment in our schools as it encompasses an important fact. Beating (or spanking) should be a last measure when all other avenues of communication have failed. The fact of the matter is some people, young and old, while they might hear what you are saying are unable to comprehend it because they are not LISTENING. In situations such as that, which often occur within the school environment, a more tactile approach is often far more effective. As with all things, moderation as well as caution is necessary but I believe that the administration of CP is necessary in our schools. As for the comment about the study linking CP to lower IQs: I suspect the low IQs led to the CP, not the other way around.

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Posted By: Glenn On: 1/6/2010

Title: Corporal Punishment

Mr. Barrington Brennen is a out of touch excuse for a Psychologist. He needs to spend a day in a public senior high school and I can assure him he would be confronted with reality and could see for himself why it cant be abolished.

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Posted By: Max Davis On: 12/23/2009

Title: Corporal punishment

We must be very careful when we decide to copy other people's method and inject them into our life style. The neighbour to the west of us is having all sorts of problem with its young people because it has spare the rod. I am for corporal punishment in the schools and in the home. Corporal punishment does not equal child abuse. Before corporal punishment is administered the child must have been forewarned that such will be the consequence for such action if he or she commits such act. The children today have no fear because there is no consequence for their negative behaviour, I am not talking about Time out or taking away Privileges. Are we to wait until our children commit a serios crime and sent to jail before we realize that we have failed our child/children by spating the rod.
Think about these things.

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Posted By: Raphael Thompson On: 12/20/2009

Title: Corporal Punishment

What psychological component in days gone by? Not in my family. You got licked up side your head and that was that. Yes violence in schools escalated due to the fact that students and parents now realise that classroom teachers are helpless to their rudeness and some parents never wanted their precious child to receive corporal punishment. Corporal punishment must be a part of our school system as it is a part of our home system but must be done consistently and fairly. There are some actions for which students must realise that there are serious consequences:biting, fighting, carrying or using weapons, sexual molestation, etc.There was a child who just walked up to another child and slapped their teeth out because his friend told him to do it. Did I cut his hip and the child who told him to do it? The big problem with corporal punishment is its use for petty infractions in schools, which I disagree with totally. While I was principal at Palmdale Primary I punished students for coming late until one morning a magistrate brought a student to school who he had struck down while driving to work. I asked the boy why he just ran across the street and he said that he did it so that he did not get beating for coming late. I discontinued that practice.
Our Government is not to blame, our whole system of justice in our homes, communities and country is to blame. Badness is still glorified and rewarded at times. If you want to use the Bible look at when Jesus himself got fed up and drove the sellers out of the house of the Lord. Corporal punishment is justified.

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Posted By: Kish On: 12/20/2009

Title: Good Work

Thank you Mr Brennen for expounding on what is child abuse in the schools. Some of the comments that followed this article appear to have been submitted by a few seriously ignorant people with a computer. Their demise perhaps the result of being child abuse victims or perpetrators themselves. How dare anyone dismiss a little civil dialogue and instead favor of a vicious beating for not doing homework? I think it insults God when people suggest that His word somehow condones child abuse. Was it not Jesus who said "suffer the little children to come unto me"

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Posted By: renaldo On: 11/25/2009

Title: too smart! Rom 1:22

i find it amazing that the society where mr Brennen recieved his training is graphling with much more severe problems than we are and yet he holds them up as if we are supposed to emulate their failures and GODless character. whenever you begin to believe that you know more than GOD's word teaches, you are already doomed to fail. Our problems began with disobedience and pride and every quick fix we try continues to leave us wanting, it is time to get back to basics and what we know worked, i vote for GOD everytime, HE has never and will never fail!

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Posted By: Angelo On: 10/25/2009

Title: Brennen

I do not wish this but I wonder what Brennen would say if one of these darlings who do not get beat grows up and rape his wife in front of him? Or if they raped him instead. Brennen is an educated j^^&((

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Posted By: Angelo On: 10/25/2009

Title: Brennen

I guess Brennen is saying that he is right and God is wrong. Let us go a step further. End capiatal punishment and sto locking people up in those smelly and small prison cells. Why punsih wrong doing as it is barbaric?

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Posted By: Stanley Jackson Sr. On: 10/24/2009

Title: God Was Wrong?

Proverbs 13 verse 24 says "The one holding back the rod is hating his son". Barrington Brennen, a minister and nationally certified psychologist in the United States says God was wrong. Other ministers say the death penalty for murder as dictated by God is also wrong and homosexuals or lesbians in the pulpit is yet another area where God is wrong. No wonder the Bahamas and the world is in such a mess. Wisdom and teaching of men has surpassed that of GOD!

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Posted By: Nadine Block On: 10/6/2009

Title: End Physical Punishment of Children

Thank you for bringing attention to the barbaric practice of hitting children in schools. The practice can lead to physical injury as well as alienation from school and psychological trauma. A recent study in the U.S. (Berlin @ et al) linked corporal punishment to lower IQ's and more aggressiveness. Research overwhelmingly shows that corporal punishment is harmful. Talking with children works better. When they grow up, we want our children to have learned to use words, not hitting, to solve problems.

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