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| Here’s another case where parents, this time in a Christian school complete with all kinds of religious overtones, signed permission forms—probably believing the common false teaching that paddling was “taught in the Bible somewhere.” They were surprised, however, when their kindergarten daughter was paddled and sustained bruises and injuries … for not participating in a game. | | The article is called, “Loudoun Case Tests Faith in Corporal Punishment—After Arrest of Principal for Spanking, Christian Schools Defend old-fashioned Discipline.” The principal paddled a kindergarten girl at Faith Christian School for refusing to play a game. Paddling children at the Sterling religious school was extremely common. The principal was arrested after parents filed charges. The Sheriff investigated and saw a large bruise on the girl’s buttocks that he felt “far exceeded” discipline. The article notes that this case highlights “the murky line” between abuse and some form of “good hitting” for discipline. It goes on to examine the issue from several angles. | | School officials said “strict discipline” is “supported by the Bible” and “communicates love.” This sounds a lot like Orwell’s “Ministry of Love” where that love was communicated by torture. I wonder how they would like to have some of that “love” communicated back to them if it is found they violated the law. Slavery and the severe flogging of all adults were permitted and common in biblical times too. Using the Old Testament as a guide, these adults might have been severely flogged themselves for their misdeeds. Why single out kids for abuse when you are writing policies using pre-Christian Israel as a guide? Why not “go all the way” and beat adults too? When we get to an “eye for an eye” and a “bruise for a bruise” Old testament mindset, where everyone is beaten, not just children, then the parents should be able to paddle the hitting teacher black and blue just as the teacher did to the child. I suspect if hitting principals knew they would be subjected to a paddling that left the very same injuries they do to children if they leave any marks the practice of paddling would suddenly end, or at least become extremely gentle. | | The school also allowed parents to forbid corporal punishment—so we have to wonder why these parents didn’t do that. It could be that the school would have had very severe alternates that are specifically designed to coerce parents and kids to “choose” paddling, as is often the case in schools that like to paddle. It could be that the parents “believed in paddling” too but imagined it done rarely for only severe cases, as in perhaps once a year to only one “bad” child who pulls a fire alarm or something. They must have believed the rhetoric about it being used “only as a last resort, only when necessary,” etc. | | Then the really nebulous, hand waving rhetoric picked up. When logic fails, and a case is clearly abusive, professional child hitters still don’t relent. They throw in an endless array of high sounding but unrealistic and unrelated phrases to fully confuse the casual reader. The administrator of Leesburg Christian School, commenting on the case, said [spanking] “should never be done in anger. It has to be followed by lots of hugs and kisses and you have to explain why it happened." Of course this idiotic “reasoning” that “sounds good” does not address the severe bruising, or the flimsy excuse to beat the girl, at all. | | The “child beating should be done in love, with a lot of hugging and kissing afterwards” subterfuge further refers only to something that might be appropriate with parents and their own young children. It has nothing to do with school paddling. How many parents at this Christian school, or any other, really want “a lot of hugging and kissing” from school staff to their children after the child’s buttocks is beaten and bruised? What if the “children” are sexually mature teens? Would it be a “loving spanking” if a man paddled a teen woman and then “hugged her and kissed her for awhile afterwards?” You wonder why this nonsense is brought up in the context of Christian school paddling. | | What about paddling “not being done in anger?” We hear this from paddle and spanking proponents all of the time too. What a red herring that is—especially in a school paddling discussion. Paddling is never done in anger in schools where men paddle pretty teen women but it is still physical and sexual violence that leaves bruising and lasting mental harm. This article, as is typical, fails to address those real concerns in any way. The paddlings of women are often done with a great deal of sexual joking and big smiles on the part of the men—or else a somber “prayer time” afterwards in some Christian schools after a girl had to “flip her skirt” or strip to panties for a brutal paddling. |
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