I wasn't going to get into this topic, but some of you brought up some very good points. I used to get my ass WHOOPED as a kid by my stepdad. Belts, extension cords, you name it. To a point when my junior summer when I was finally able to defend myself, I did. zFull out brawl with him involving the poker from the fireplace........and guess what, it never happened again. So fast forward 14 years to the day found out I was going to be a father. I cried. I was absolutely TERRIFIED. How could somebody like me, whose Dad and Stepdad were both alcoholics and would handled any type of conflict or tough situation with violence..... how could somebody like ME be in charge of another human being? Trying to instill discipline on another person when the only way I was taught was to hit. I believe my time in the army after HS really helped. Being an MP and going through conflict resolution training helped for sure. My wife came from a family where nobody even ever raised their voice, let alone hit anyone. So when the kids started getting older and the tempers would raise, I came close a few times with my son, where I honestly almost went there, went TOO far. She would reel me in and I owe her for that. Both my kids are pretty dialed. Normal teen drama, but they are fantastic human beings. I know all parents will say that about their kids, but when you hear it from other parents and coaches and teachers, it validates it. When other dads say how well mannered your son is and he's the most polite kid around......when they ask if I would take there kid out for lunch and try to help set them straight..... that's validation. I do agree that kids and young adults today just don't have that respect for others that they should, but would getting their ass whooped been the answer? I took my experience and did everything my dads DIDN'T do and it seems to be working. Sad to say, but hitting your kid might be the easiest way to get your message across, but it won't stick. They will only remember the bruises more than the lesson.
Best to you, HCP! When my sister and I were very small our father would hit us with a belt. We were little children, what awful things did we do? Mischief? Making a mess? It got to the point when we would hide when he came home, even if he wasn't angry and we'd done nothing wrong. Our mother finally made it stop, she told him his children were growing up terrified of him. I guess I was so young it made less impression on me but my sister had issues for years and years. Of course, I never had children and feel guilty on the extremely rare occasions I even snap at my cats. As for Ariza, agree, none of us know what happened, yes, sometimes false accusations are made during custody battles, but sometimes they are true. It's like, what are the choices? Either he is falsely branded a child abuser or a child was abused. Crap.
Yeah, it's a tough one. Teaching children or anyone for that matter that there are negative consequences for certain actions is important but study after study in behavioral science has shown that punishers or punishment is one of the least effective ways to condition behavior and to teach consequence, even if our default as human beings is to follow disobedience from someone subordinate with violence. Positive reinforcement of desired actions and non-response to undesirable actions has proven to be the most effective strategy in cultivating any desired behavior including respect. Punishment has actually been proven by many studies to have a sabotaging effect on behavioral conditioning. Violent punishment at any level no matter how minute can be traumatic to a sizable portion of the human population while others can weather it quite well and studies have shown that it has more to do with what is prevalent genetically far more than environmentally and the genetics have proven to be no more prevalent in any race or region. All of that being said everyone of my five siblings except my youngest were spanked... never hit anywhere but on the butt and all of us are more mentally healthy and have a much easier time with authority than my youngest sibling. The problem with that is that it's anecdotal along with the vast majority of the things said in here in defense of corporal punishment. However, I personally think that parents should be able to determine how they raise their children. Obviously there has to be a line drawn but what that line is and where it is has to be very hard to determine. It's easy to draw the line at something that would permanently injure or kill someone's child but when it comes to what is going to damage them psychologically and what makes them more or less likely to be a drain on or a benefit to society is really hard to figure out and the consensus on it is ever evolving. From everything I've read about Ariza the accusations of physical abuse sound like roughhousing and the accusations of corporal punishment seem to be separate. I mean very few parents punish their children with a choke hold or a punch in the shoulder, he had however been court ordered not to engage in any corporal punishment and I'm pretty sure he's denying that he did so and the accusations haven't explicitly said that he did engage in any corporal punishment. It's also very strange that court papers included a declaration from his son that he was afraid of Ariza instead of the more generally and more reliable video deposition. Having an actual account from the kid would be a lot more convincing but could still very easily be coerced. I don't know for sure but from everything I've read this seems more like a very ugly custody battle than a case of Ariza assaulting his son.
Somebody has to pose for the "before" part of those weight loss before and after comparisons ...thought I recognized you.
When you're in a divorce with a man who makes $12 million per year, your lawyer looks the other way when you embellish your stories. Don't forget the huge monetary motive here.
Doesn't appear they are married and this is a custody battle. So, maybe there is no legal decree outlining visitation or support? If this is the case its not unusual for either side to accuse the other of something that it looks in their favor while in front of a judge. Hopefully if its not proven there was abuse the Judge writes the decree outliner rights of both parents, and even then there mat have to be other trips to court. You hope over time that things will settle down. To many dads just give up w/o a fight because but they do have equal rights.
Okay, custody, not divorce. But the fight is still over amount of child support. To get a percentage of that $12 million, lawyers and clients will write into their stories some stretched whoppers.