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?

Lots of posters agree with me that it was increasingly rare in the seventies and eighties. If the EU banned it without parental approval in 1982, schools would not still be using it. I am a teacher, a lot of my friends are teachers and none of us caned or sent students to be caned. I was as horrified by the idea of caning as most people are today. One of the many reasons it was finally banned ( most LAs had banned it individually long before) was because Teaching Unions were so opposed to it. Unions would not support teachers who assaulted children. The great majority of teachers were completely opposed to it. It was sexist. Boys were caned, girls were not. No self respecting teacher wanted any part in such an old fashioned cruel practice.
It was widely recognised by educationalists as an out of date unhealthy, dangerous practice by the mid 1970s. You were not taught to cane on PGCEs. Teaching Unions denounced it. It lingered on in private schools but had disappeared in the majority of state schools by 1980. Can you imagine a Head Teacher in the last twenty years who had been involved in caning? They would live in fear of being exposed on social media.
Nicky Campbell ( in his 60s) has accused a teacher at Edinburgh Academy, a private school, of physically assaulting him fifty years ago.
I am sure it happened, particularly in private schools, but ordinary teachers wanted no part in it. Corporal punishment was frowned upon back then and the unions would not support a teacher who flaunted hitting students. By then it had disappeared from state schools. It was increasingly rare. I don't know a single teacher amongst my contemporaries who had any involvement in corporal punishment

Are you talking about caning or physical punishments

Physical punishments at school in the 70s were common.

You’re not over reacting. Child abuse is child abuse, and yes, they took part.

This. Bonkers

Oh and while I certainly don’t condone corporal punishment we could do with bringing some form of discipline and punishment back to society as it’s totally gone to pot now with the softly softly kids can do what they like shite

This ⬆️. You are being absolutely ridiculous. I’d have more of a problem with your behaviour now than something that happened and was pretty commonplace 30-50 years ago

It’s all the drama Mick, I just love it.

😁

If you were physically assaulted by a teacher back then, report it to the police. Caning, physical punishments had to be formally recorded. Hence Nicky Campbell's court prosecution of a teacher who hit him in the corridor. I am sure it happened illegally in schools but you should consider reporting it if those teachers are still alive.

I was at school in the 60s and early 70s. The cane and the slipper were very much used.

But what's important is what kind of parent the GPs were, and whether they would ever hit now.

I've changed SO many of my views since I was young. The world has changed and I have with it. I sometimes look back with horror on opinions I held back then, and things I said. I would hate to be judged now on views I held when I was in my teens and early twenties. I'm a different person now.

I'm guessing the the GPs are feeling defensive about actions they took which they know are now unacceptable.

I feel sorry for the teachers nowadays, they get no support or backup from the parents if they try to discipline the children. Behaviour is at an all time low. Children know they have rights and the upper hand. Not that I would want corporate punishment brought back in but you do wonder where it will all end up.

I think you’re being a bit melodramatic Op. it was years ago when times were different.

if they’ve never struck your children then I think you need to think seriously about your reaction.

My Auntie used to run after my cousins with a garden cane and a wooden spoon when they were younger. I used to hate it as things were different in my house, but my Auntie has obviously forgotten about that time in her life as she wants to report every Tom, Dick and Harry who hit their kids…

With respect, you’re being ridiculous.

Right so supporting child slavery (where beating is just one of the many delights on offer) is fine, so long as you don't know the individual children involved.

This is a new spin on the traditional MiL thread.

You've absolutely overreacted. Of course physical punishment is awful but it was acceptable back then both at school and at home.
They were - thankfully - different times and things evolve and change. Seatbelts in cars weren't mandatory when I was growing up and knew children who got squished into the boot if there wasn't any room for them ( a hatchback type with a window btw!) People used to leave babies in prams outside of shops but you wouldn't do either of these things now because it would be seen as neglect! My point is, you can't suddenly judge someone for doing what was the norm back in the day. It simply wouldn't happen today. Thankfully.

Breaking up a family and denying your children a relationship with good grandparents because of the way people and society thought decades ago is insane

That.
I grew up on a time when racism was all around me. And even though (literally!) my best friend at primary school was Jamaican, I still would have spouted things that would horrify people today. Because I was young and absorbed what I heard around me.

My adult kids would be horrified to know what I believed in my teens. The thought that they might treat me differently because of them, is terrifying. I couldn't be more distant from those beliefs now. In fact my retirement work is in a field that seeks to banish such prejudice as remains.

OP do you actually believe you would have been different if you had been born back then?

Can you give examples of how today you live outside of society's norms?

You sound utterly hysterical. 🙄 Do you cry at the Sistine Chapel too?!

I think you're absolutely bonkers. Crying? Get a fucking grip and try to understand that society held different values back then, that things change and evolve. It's quite likely your grandparents held all sorts of views then that you'd find upsetting. Did you know some people's grandparents actually shot people during the war!!!

If you have decided to shun them over this, then perhaps you should have a long think about who is really the nasty person here.

At my primary school it was being slippered (struck on the arse with a gym shoe) and having knuckles rapped with a ruler. Oh and the occasional whack on the back of the head from a hand bedecked with many religious rings for general being a pain in the arse in class. I transitioned to secondary as the rules changed, so then punishments were standing in a certain spot in the corridor for all your breaks for a week.

All schools had corporal punishment in the 70s,

Where do people get this nonsense from? It just isn't true. In fact we didn't have it at my secondary school in the 60s.

I went to primary school in the 70s. At my school you had the slipper across your hand if you were a girl and the cane across your backside if you were a boy. Neither me or my 2 younger brothers were ever punished. At secondary school it was the cane across the palm ( 6 strokes)for both sexes. You would see students standing outside the headmasters office waiting for their turn. I was always very good( massively anxious child) so I was never in danger of doing anything that would cause me to be caned. It was what was done at the time. Its nicer that it isn't done now. If you were a teacher in the 70s you would have sent children to the head knowing full well what would happen. Your in laws aren't serial killers. You are totally over reacting.

When I was a young teenager in the late 70s my grandmother ordered a new sofa from the Co Op furniture department in Ripley, Derbyshire. She was the white wife of a white coalminer. She described talking to the shop assistant and establishing the level of brown-ness she would like her sofa covers to have. Pale brown rather than n-word brown she said. In a shop, out loud, in front of other people. You would never use that word now. The 70s were a very different world.

This would bother me too.

I started school in 1974. No teacher used a cane. It was never even threatened. In junior school we had one teacher ( nearing retirement age so probably taught when corporal punishment was more widely used) who used to 'threaten' the slipper. I don't recall anyone ever receiving that punishment though and it was seen more as a joke threat by the kids.

So my take from my school days is that teachers would have been legally allowed to use these sorts of punishment but few did so it was
Down to personal choice.Anyone who made a personal choice to cane a child needs to take a long hard look at themselves.