The watchtower is making some dangerous enemies

by 20yearfader 53 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  talesin

  sbf, very true.

  I don't know about the UK, but here in Canada, my parents were encouraged from the platform to take their children out back and beat them if they were being fidgety during Meetings TM . I recall the exact words, as a small, terrified child: "And when you take them out to the bathroom, that's when we really want to hear them."

  Mom preferred the wooden spoon at the KH, it was easier to fit in her bag. At home, of course, there was always a razor strop or leather belt.

  Many had it much worse than me, though,,, much!

  t
• 

  frankiespeakin

  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57487619-10391704/parents-publicly-spank-their-kids-in-surprising-numbers-researchers/

  (CBS News) Nearly one in four parents or caregivers randomly observed by researchers publicly settled disputes with their child by hitting, spanking or some sort of physical contact, a new study shows.

  Researchers at Michigan State University in East Lansing covertly camped out at public areas to get a realistic idea of how children are disciplined outside of a laboratory setting.

  Sad dads spank more, study says
  Kids who were spanked may face mental health risks
  Psychological abuse as harmful as physical for kids

  Led by Dr. Kathy Stansbury, an associate professor of human development and family studies at Michigan State, researchers anonymously observed 106 instances of discipline in a public place between a caregiver and a young child who was between the ages 3 and 5 years old.

  After recording everything they saw and analyzing the date, the researchers determined that 23 percent of the youngsters received "negative touch" - including arm pulling, pinching, slapping and spanking - as discipline in public places such as restaurants or parks.

  ...."I do think that we are shifting as a society and fathers are becoming more involved in the daily mechanics of raising kids, and that's a good thing for the kids and also a good thing for the dads," she said.

  And the dads might be onto something - kids disciplined with positive touch were more likely to comply more often and more quickly with less fussing than those punished by negative touch. Even if a child complied after being slapped, they often pouted or sulked afterwards, the researchers observed.

  Stansbury said next time a child needs discipline, she recommends a gentle, positive touch because "negative touch didn't work" in her experiment.

  A recent study published July2 in Pediatrics found that kids who experience harsh physical punishment like spanking, slapping, hitting, grabbing or shoving as a regular means of discipline were significantly more likely to have a mood, anxiety or personality disorder or abuse drugs as adults.
• 

  20yearfader

  it's funny because the majority of my beatings had to do with the kingdom hall.I even mentioned this to my mother last week when she was saying my daughter was following my path,i stated to her minus all the beatings i got because of the hall,what does that leave like 3 beatings that i got for being a regular child.also as i stated my friend would regularly come to school with black eyes which at the time he blamed on skateboarding accidents but the select few of us witness children he would tell what really happened.
• 

  irondork

  
• 

  steve2

  For god sake - or some other being if it helps - this need to pathologize human behavior and tendencies is absolute madness.

  Talking about physical acts of retribution as if they are inevitable "consequences" to mistreatment is completely wrong-headed.

  The world is brim full of people of every conceivable belief system or another who feel hurt and bullied and mistreated and thus, perfectly justified in their crazed fantasies of retribution.

  Only in America could someone disclose violent fantasies and a listener, although urging restraint (oh, thank you), coo empathically in the fantasizer's ear and offer another cup of coffee.
• 

  steve2

  To the best of my knowledge the Watchtower has never endorsed a child being physically beaten to the degree reported by some; that the parental-delivered violence has happened in the presence of other witnesses is absolutely deplorable.

  Posters have observed that the level and type of punishment meted out to children at meetings is very dependent on the parents and not due to Watchtower policy.

  In my former congregation, I knew of parents who were warned by elders to refrain from hitting their children because it was clear to everyone that the parents had gone well beyond reasonable disciplining. In one instance a Witness mother was apprehended by two elders after she slapped her pre-teen daughter across the face in the carpark area of the kingdom hall. Talk about being publically reproved!

  The elders in my old congregation would never have stood by and watched a child being dragged by the arm from the kingdom hall and then hit.

  The types of beatings described by some adults who were raised in the religion go beyond anything the Watchtower has ever endorsed. I am not denying people's descriptions of other witnesses standing by doing nothing. I am saying however that it depends very much on the parents' own tolerance for parental violence and the composition of the local kingdom hall.

  To blame parents' behavior on the religion is one of the worst kinds of shirking of responsibility. Parents - and parents alone - are accountable for how they treat their children and should be held responsible for what they do to their children. I personally do not endorse any kind of physical violence towards children but I acknowledge that parents in some countries are given the "right" to use "reasonable physical discipline" on their children. Clearly, parents and child caregivers who over-step the mark should be accountable and even face having the secular authorities removing the children from their care.
• 

  return of parakeet

  The most horrible thing I ever saw done to a young child in the KH was -- when the child misbehaved (we're talking about 3-5 years old), his loving dub father would clap his hand over the kid's mouth and nose to keep him from screaming as he was carried to the back of the KH and downstairs to the bathrooms. For that minute or so, the child was not able to breathe, let alone scream. It still gives me the shivers just writing about it.
• 

  steve2

  I support SBF's comments that the way parents treat and/or mistreat their children in terms of "discipline" says more about them as parents than it does about their being in the organization. To cite clearly atrocious examples of abusive behavior by parents as examples of "Watchtower-approved" behaviors is to be mischievous and wilfully misleading. That said, "awareness" of abusive parenting in general in "secular" society has grown significantly in recent decades and I daresay we all can look back at some of the ways parents from all stations of life, religious or nonreligious, treated their children and think, Thank goodness there is greater preparedness to speak out against mistreatment of children. We are now more sensitive to the developmental needs of children compared to say earlier generations in which children were to be 'seen and not heard'. An honest "Hurrah" for human rights!
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  20yearfader

  steve2 this concept of revenge is not only an american thing,this friend of mine has the know how to make his fantasy a reality.You i take it weren't a born in that was subject to physical and mental abuse you need to get down off of your high horse and see the world through our eyes.I can add up the sum of my life and see the common denominator in my life and many of the born ins of my generation and clearly blame the wt and there policies that our parents took to the extreme.That is one of the reasons so many of my generation have rejected religion and carry so much emotional baggage in there lives.Also men don't coo maybe you have forgotten that.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  I beleive that the main problem of the Watchtower when it comes giving council to beleiving parents is their beleif that an old collection of writings called the bible is inspired by God and therefore everything it says is correct and benificial, even the parts that tell the parents to stone disobediant children, or Jehovah torturing his own Son so that he could forgive sins in the past.

  And so with this type of narrow mentality where everything in the bible is good and superior to human wisdom has got produce trouble for families when this council at proverbs is applied literally as superior conventional wisdom:

  Proverbs 13:24 Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

  Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.

  Of coarse back thousands of years ago this may have been concidered wisdom but as with so much of the bible's wise council it is being proved wrong because our understanding of the world and how things work is growing every day.