GP's who are teachers not being remorseful for corporal punishment

[maratara]

I have recently found out that my MIL and FIL who were both primary school teachers ( so up to 12yo max) have both caned children who were badly behaved when they were teaching in the 70's and 80's. It has blown my mind. I burst into tears - I have left all my 4 children with them alone at various times . I had no idea. They think it was just the times, and I am overreacting and I don't understand how things were. This is not that long ago though really! And nobody had a gun to their head to hit a child.

I think they were bullies who used a power imbalance to hit a child with a stick.
Needless to say our relationship has taken a bad turn. I really liked them until now - been with their son for close to 20 years but only found out about this 2 days ago.
What would you do?
My youngest is 11 so it's easy to say he just doesn't want to stay at Grandma's anymore in the holidays for a night. Other children are adults so would never stay the night - just come to family gatherings and things.

What do other people think?

What does that mean?

I taught in a public school in the 70s and 80s. Corporal punishment was legal. Teachers did not administer the punishment but the child was sent to the Vice Principal's office and was whacked on the (covered with clothing) buttocks 3 - 5 times with a wooden ruler. No clothing was removed. The child was not pinned down or held in any way. A witness (usually the secretary) was in the room during the punishment.
If the child refused to stand still for punishment they were suspended and the parents were called.
Parents were allowed to send in a note refusing corporal punishment or requesting to be called in to witness. Very few parents (3 out of 500) sent a note.
In fact most parents would give the child a second punishment if they got into trouble at school.

I was at primary school in the early 80s and I witnessed corporal punishment a couple of times. The one I remember most was a boy being hit on the hand with a ruler because he’d stolen something. It wasn’t traumatic, the boy wasn’t injured and lots of parents at those times, mine included, would give you a very occasional slap across the legs or the back of the hand if you were being cheeky or naughty. Times have changed and the fact is, it in now unacceptable for anyone to hit a child, but it wasn’t then! I do think you are over reacting, this is not a safeguarding issue.

One of my parents was at school in the 80's and it was normal in his school. That you didn't experience it was probably more to do with your particular area or schools than anything else. In some places, it was still the norm.

OP, previous posters are right, it was the times and people had a very different outlook then. You are being unreasonable to lose all respect for them. You don't know what it was like then and people think differently according to their cultural surroundings. It's absolutely not fair of you to hold this against them when it was so long ago and you do not know what influences they were surrounded by.

You need to judge them on the way you know them now. Do you think they would cane your children? If they have never done anything untoward, then it's fine.

You are sooooo over reacting.

That's what the system was like. Yes, it's not long ago. I'm sure they are as pleased as anyone it's different now. Worry only about how they treat your children.

We used to have to sit in our seats and not move when it was break time but raining badly. One day one of us ran around the room for a laugh and the teacher came back and caught him. She tied him to his chair! Then when she left he ran around the room with the chair tied to him. Hilarious. Oh, and he's absolutely fine!

I'm also pleased this stuff stopped but you are massively over reacting to not understand history, how we learn from.it and change for the better

I started school in 1971. Corporal punishment was a constant threat at primary and I saw it dished out a handful of times. It's use was lessening by the time I went to secondary but was still used at that school by the head "in his office " for major offenders.

I was at primary school 70s/80s - either plimsoll (from teachers) or cane (headteacher) was used; the teachers who did it weren't bad/untrustworthy because they used it - they were just following the norms/rules of the day. Things change. What were they like as parents?

What a massive over reaction.
There are people today who think a lot of out of control children could do with set boundaries and a wallop tbh .
The 70's was a long while ago and as long they aren't smacking your children now some 50 yrs later I dang see the issue .

My dad caned secondary school boys in the 50s and 60s. Or gave them a thump which was quicker.
Same boys every day.

Just wondering if it is the silly season? Some of these threads are unbelievable!

I was at school in the 60's/70's and corporal punishment was used. I only ever remember it being boys, not girls. They were canned or a slipper used, though we did have one teacher at secondary school who had great pleasure in throwing a wooden board rubber at pupils heads!

This was very normal for the time. I am not saying I agreed with it, but it was a very different time and you can't compare life then to what it is now. You are really over reacting!

Kids were better behaved back then….

Yabu and irrational

Hitting children is appalling. It’s appalling now and it was back then. So in that way I do agree with you and I ‘think’ I would have the same thoughts if I was teaching back then…but I can’t be sure.

Regarding GP screaming - as people age they do lose dopamine, and it’s more marked in men, which is where the ‘grumpy old man’ stereotype comes from. So it may be his brain is changing as he ages.

So, I don’t really think the two things are connected.

Corporal punishment was very much on its way out by the 70s and 80s. It never happened in girls schools anyway. Read all the Enid Blyton school girl books and caning is not used as a punishment. I taught in ILEA in the seventies and I don't remember corporal punishment. It certainly did not exist in the girls comp that I taught in.
When I moved to teach in a Secondary Modern transforming into a Comprehensive it was in use but only for boys. I I never reported a student to senior management for fear of the cane being used. As far as I remember it went altogether in the early eighties. Private schools hung on to it as long as possible. One of the reasons I would never consider independent schools.
I don't know any female teachers from my generation who caned children. I think the cane had disappeared from primary schools in the seventies and had not been used for girls in decades then. I did my PGCE in the early seventies and caning was never mentioned as a punishment.
Did your FIL and MIL teach in private schools?
Public schools like Eton saw caning as their trademark punishment long after it disappeared from state schools.

I thought you meant GPs as in doctors!

Yeah, that was completely normal in the 70s and 80s. In my school teachers had a weapon of choice - wooden spoons, strap, two rulers sellotaped together, etc. Oncw my teacher slapped everyone in the class b cause we became rowdy while she was out of the classroom and she couldn’t get the truth from us about the main culprits. In truth, a quick slap was way better than a detention or having to stay in over lunch and it never hurt much or for long.

Hitting children was much more common at home too, and I imagine that was often much worse than a quick slap at school.

It used to be one of the reasons reactionary parents chose private schools for their kids. They wanted them caned and saw state schools as being soft and modern.
Corporal punishment existed until very recently in private religious schools. Qur'anic and Hasidic Jewish schools used caning long after it was banned elsewhere. It is illegal everywhere now.

My parents started primary school in the late 70s. They told me that the slipper was a very common punishment for misbehaving students. My mum was never hit by a teacher but my dad was at primary school. I started school in 2000 and teachers had stopped hitting students by then.

You're the same age as my parents so I'm surprised you didn't know the slipper was a common punishment back then. If your in laws are doting grandparents then I wouldn't go no contact over this. When did they retire?

@CapEBarra .
Name and shame your school where slapping was allowed. Most local authorities banned Corporal Punishment well before it became illegal nationally in 1986. It didn't just disappear over night but was gradually banned by local authorities from the mid seventies on. It wasn't in use in Girls Schools for a very long time before that.

It went altogether in the UK in 1986 ( Google it) but it had largely disappeared from most LAs before then.

Massive overreaction, obviously. What does your dh think - they are his parents? PS why was your dc taking biscuits when he’d been told not to?

Ok so do you drive a petrol or diesel car? Do you eat meat? Do you feed your dc any ultra high processed foods?

Can you conceive of a time when any of these would be looked at aghast? You would surely think 'but if course I did, it was normal back then. There was a time when smoking a drinking in pregnancy was considered not only normal but healthy. Sounds bonkers now. No one held a gun to those women's heads. Should they be hung out to dry now because they did what was not only normal but recommended. By experts ? Things like adhd and dyslexia were unknown. People thought the dc were misbehaving and required corporal discipline. Horrific yes but with the limited knowledge, this was the accepted treatment. Highly educated doctors and educators believed and recommended this. Yabvu and sanctimonious. I hope for you that your dc and dgc don't treat you this way fir things you are presently doing in ignorance or in the belief you are doing the right thing.

I find people who believe they are morally superior to others very tedious.