@HoppingPavlova
And if you really believe the current working population are entitled soft wingers who get stressed at a little hard graft, I suggest you spend a shift or two in a busy A&E or ICU, especially one where there is a high incidence of Covid. You will find it full of people who have never been beaten who still manage to work bloody hard in incredibly stressful conditions for hours on end.
I spent more than a shift or two in one of those two areas. Try a couple of decades. I’m glad to hear people have stepped up without the whinging and claiming stress. Trust me, we spent years training people coming through who were progressively worse on arrival. Were not used to hard graft, got stressed at the drop of a hanky, zero resilience, limited coping skills. Most could be turned around but it was tiresome that we had to put the effort in as parents and schools had failed them. Not blaming parents as such though as ‘doing that makes me feel sad’ and ‘well, no PlayStation for 30mins for you’ does that. Schools are very limited also, little Johnny who has nothing wrong with him doesn’t want to run cross country, ‘that’s fine Johnny, can we get you to do your favourite activity instead’.
It’s perfectly possible to bring children up to understand boundaries and gain resilience without resorting to physical violence to get the message home.
A firm no, followed by consequences of continued misbehaviour gets the message across far more than a slap. I agree you can’t reason with a screaming toddler, but by either removing them, or the trigger of the tantrum, from the scenario doesn’t take long for the child to connect cause and effect. Where we all fall down as parents is inconsistency, we all send mixed messages because we get tired, can’t be bothered etc etc.
The lack of fortitude nowadays, I think you are referring to, is more to do with parents and schools not teaching children to accept failure or that someone will sometimes be better than you rather than not experiencing physical punishment. I think we give our kids unrealistic expectations now and would do them a greater favour by giving them sensible expectations.
“You can be anything you want”
No, sorry, you can’t. You might not be tall enough, fast enough, clever enough, not in the right place at the right time, know the right people.
I can’t see how beating a child into submission makes them a better adult. Clearly, by the snapshot of replies on here it’s done almost irreparable damage to many and hasn’t made them into stronger, more resilient grown ups at all. I’m speaking from experience here too. My punishments destroyed my confidence for years and I made many poor life choices because I was too frightened and anxious to stand up to those I believed were more powerful than me.