Coppers ain't so bad...

In junior high, I used to get hit by teachers at school. Not often, but when it happened... it was because I scored below 80% on a math* quiz. Some of my classmates got beaten a lot more than me because they actually misbehaved. They hated our teacher at the time, but now, every single one of them is grateful to her for having kept them in check.

I think it's fine to 'pull someone up' about their behaviour as you did with the junior groper. He needs to know it's an infringement on one's person, and be encouraged to empathize in order to get some perspective.

However, I think this corporal punishment thing is utter bullshit. Was your math* teacher prepared to get hit by his students if he let them down by scoring less than 80% on a staff appraisal?

Ultimately it just models a destructive behaviour. What is being perpetuated is the situation where someone lashes out when their frustration passes a certain threshold (and this threshold is something that shifts based on not just the act being punished, but a whole load of unconnected external pressures effecting mood).

I was routinely physically discliplined, and it makes me laugh when people come out with the 'never did me any harm' rhetoric. It fucking did do me some harm, both physically and emotionally in the short-term, and psychologically in the longterm (and I've read enough research on the subject to know that I'm not alone in that). It also tore my family apart, and contributed to a protracted period of me whacking other students at school when they 'frustrated me with behaviour inappropriate to my beliefs'.

Hitting children (or anyone for that matter) is lazy, ineffective, and sets a dangerous precedent.

*s