His punishment could get him arrested here (Norway) as well. They have pretty strict limits on violence towards children: They put it as none, including but not limited to spanking.

I've never seen a child physically punished here in Norway, in fact it is very rare indeed to hear a raised voice. Usually when you do hear a raised voice and see a misbehaving child it is a visitor or, occasionally, a refugee.

I remember being shocked when on holiday in Sweden, Gothenburg, a couple of years ago I saw an American (speaking American accented English at least) man slap a misbehaving child in the street.

In thirty years of living in Norway I have never heard of any child known to my family being spanked.

I think that the reason for no corporal punishment here is simply because children are expected to behave themselves and that it is assumed that they are, to a degree at least, rational beings who can be persuaded to behave instead of compelled.

Your story reminds me of my spouse: He was visiting the US and somehow wound up in a Chuck E Cheese. Playing for the children was war scenes, with tanks and soldiers. He was pretty appalled it was acceptable for children due to violence.

And children were one of the things that does seem very different to me - shockingly so. I'm American, and most children are fairly quiet. But they are much more free to roam, within some reason and allowed to play quite often, even while at school. I'm going to guess all this helps out quite a bit along with your last points.

There was something else going on. Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease.

I have two kids, and as angry as they can make me, I always find that calming the situation down is way better than escalating it.

> Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease.

Since when somebody disagreeing with you is a disease?

bluejekyll really should have said disorder.

If you have a kid who is getting bad grades in school and has behavioral issues, and the underlying cause of it is ADHD, then no amount of physical discipline, even up to child abuse like closed fist punches, throwing metal chairs, screaming at the top of your lungs while doing it, etc, is going to fix that. All it will do is breed resentment. And if you want to have a relationship with your child after they turn 18, I'd strongly recommend minimizing that.

And I'm speaking from personal experience as a child who went through that. My grades were as bad my senior year as they were from elementary school. The fear wasn't enough to make my brain neurons fire the same way as the other children around me.

(I also object to the labeling of anything that doesn't perfectly mesh with our conformist modern day upbringing as a 'disorder', but that's another topic. Given the realities of our system not adapting to the needs of people, but requiring people to adapt to the needs of the system, I'd reluctantly support medication over physical abuse.)

> then no amount of physical discipline, even up to child abuse

All physical discipline is child abuse. That's why it's illegal in most of Europe.

The obvious exploitation vector is deliberately pissing you off to make you feel guilty and lose confidence. I think my father used to be like you for the first two years or so, then he grew up :)

> Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease.

Setting bones? Fixing dislocated shoulders?

These are activities meant to do something else but the pain is a side-effect. These are actions of treatment. It's a stretch to call it 'violence'. "Force" is a word which comes to mind instead.

> leather belt fixed him within a year

Lot of Indian parents (including mine) follow this approach.

It was very common everywhere until about 10-20 years ago.

My mum even keeps her collection of broken wooden spoons.

I am very interested in the progression of societal intervention in parenting. I, like many others I'm sure, was beaten occasionally as a child. It was not done maliciously or for pleasure, but as a learning aid. Strangely, I learnt pretty quick.

I get that people don't approve these days, and I know it's almost impossible to draw a legal line on when spanking is discipline and when it's abuse. I'm not sold that I agree on the party line that it's an inherently bad thing though. Just a tool that can be misused. I doubt I'll be having kids though - so it's a problem I won't need to deal with.

> It was very common everywhere until about 10-20 years ago.

I keep hearing this mentioned as why "kids these days" are so stupid/weak/emotional/etc, without any proof.

I'm curious if there is any (popular) research in these areas that I can show otherwise (or not!).

I don't know any research, but here (Australia) it's gone from perfectly acceptable to illegal in a generation. As I said, my mum has her broken wooden spoon collection (Dads belts were more durable) but my nephews aren't familiar with the concept of a spanking, let alone a belt or having your mouth washed with soap for swearing.

It was removed from government schools in the early to mid 90's and eventually made illegal in private schools too.

There is a lot(!) of research on spanking (some links below) but there is a quote I heard go around attributed to Cicero, born 106BC, that I think is a better answer to your question: "Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."

Similarly I remember in my college history of communication class, we were very interested in if the Internet would destroy relationships and power dynamics (I'm dating myself, Internet was new at the time) and we spent a lot of time looking at how upset people were with the rise of literacy, such as in Hunchback of Notre-Dame there is the sentiment that the book will destroy the church.

All this to say we have been complaining "kids these days" basically since they invented spoken language. Possibly we see kids differently today in western culture because we control more of their activities and time so we get more pushback ("I don't want to go to music class!") or simply we spend more time with our kids now than generations past and rather than allowing them to run outdoors with their friends, we see them running in restaurants and other non-ideal places.

Anyway, research on spanking/hitting as promised:

Gershoff's overview of past research - Spanking and Child Development: We Know Enough Now To Stop Hitting Our Children - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768154/

American Psychological Association 2012 overview - http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx

Pediatrics article linking spanking to increased child aggression - Mothers' Spanking of 3-Year-Old Children and Subsequent Risk of Children's Aggressive Behavior - http://m.pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/0...

Canadian Academic publication overview - Physical punishment of children: lessons from 20 years of research -http://m.cmaj.ca/content/early/2012/02/06/cmaj.101314.full.p...

Abstract of article correlating spanking and later abuse - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18779030

Thanks, I've heard that dubious quote before, but still have no doubt elders have always complained about "kids these days" for as long as there have been kids and a way to complain about them.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I'm aware of the link that physical punishment has on development, but what I wanted to know is if "kids these days", regardless of cause, are actually less capable/more entitled/etc. If there's even a way to measure such abstract claims.

In my own personal experience I would initially say yes, but I think this is where it is deceiving. For example, when I was in school I did my work and turned it in and didn't notice people who whined about their grades despite not doing any work. Now I am older and from talking with teacher friends, they constantly complain about students who act so entitled.

I think to myself, I don't remember anything like that. But those students could have existed, how would I have known at the time? Even if I didn't have my rose-tinted time-machine glasses on?

Anyway, this is all pretty obvious, just rambling.