Kingdom Hall Spankings

JH

Most meetings I went to, children were brought to the washrooms in the back to be disciplined. Often I could hear a child yell or cry due to the spanking given by the parent.

People in the hall would have that look on their face meaning that it was alright to discipline a child by spanking him.

Even the newbies at the hall who were tender hearted had to get tough with their children in order to fit in the group and be approved by the elders.

Maybe some here done the same thing, by spanking their children at the KH and now regret it.

Does discipline mean you have to hit a child? Is this still done at KH's or did they get new light on this?

This looked more like an assault on the child than discipline.

How do you react when you see an adult spanking a child?

this was one of the most disturbing things to me. I witnessed often growing up kids getting spanked in the bathroom. I remembered on family in particular who had several young kids, they sometimes didn't even bother going to the bathroom, the mom or dad would grab a bible or songbook or whatever was handy and smack their child in the head. This went on openly and no one ever tried to stop it. As the children grew I saw one by one as they were taken away by the state from their abusive parents. Why didn't any elder protect these children? I remember being at a district convention in the bathroom and seeing a child, probably not even 2 years old literally beaten. A girl next to me actually had the nerve to speak up, she said, "thats the most dispicable thing I've ever seen", yet obviously the mother felt comfortable doing this in front of all of us because as far as i can tell this type of discipline is not only condoned, it seems to be encouraged. It sickens me still.

Reborn2002

Yet another reason why I HATE Jehovah's Witnesses.

Little children have no capacity to understand why they are being forced to sit still for several hours at a time and listen to some man on a platform spew off rhetoric that a child cannot even understand. Then because they ive in to their natural inclination to want to play, they are beaten. In the interest of appearing righteous Dub parents literally beat the living hell out of their kids and it is child abuse.

I saw it with my own two eyes on far too many occasions.

I have not set foot in a Kingdumb Hall in over two years but those memories of seeing children beaten will live with me forever. Hearing a child in the woman's bathroom in the back of the Hall getting beaten so badly he was screaming and you could hear his agonizing cry OVER the Watchtower conductor with a microphone, and for what? Because the child made a few little laughs or noises while sitting in his chair after being forced to be a good little robot for several hours?

Jason - of the Nauseated and Disgusted Class

SheilaM

Little children have no capacity to understand why they are being forced to sit still for several hours at a time and listen to some man on a platform spew off rhetoric that a child cannot even understand. Then because they ive in to their natural inclination to want to play, they are beaten. In the interest of appearing righteous Dub parents literally beat the living hell out of their kids and it is child abuse.

Jason:

This is another reason I hated the meetings I knew that my daughter and son were bored stiff and I wouldn't beat them. I would get in so much trouble for letting them sleep or play quietly on the floor. During assemblies Thunder and I would take turns walking them around and around (the hall was a circle in RI) brothers would frown at me and I would think screw you they are kids and hell I'm bored.

I also let my babies coo and jabber and people would look at me and I would look back and smile. I mean where did they get the idea that any child can sit for that long. They are INSANE

gitasatsangha

In the socialization of Jehovah's Witnesses, the young are beaten into silence and submision as the first priority of their life.

freedom96

When I was a young child, only a couple of years old, I already didn't like the meetings. From what my mother told me, I was acting up, and she took me outside. She was trying to calm me down, and another lady from inside the hall came out. She was well known as a know it all, been around forever, and she insisted on showing my mom the proper way to dicipline me, which included a good solid ~~beating~~ spanking. Fortunately for me, my mom didn't let this lady do that.

If someone had the balls to come to me and suggest something similar, we would have some serious problems.

This is another example of how uncaring the WTS is. They make no provisions for the kids. At least other churches have various forms of Sunday school, for the kids, where they make going to church fun and interesting for the kids. But no, the kids are expected to sit through the crap from day one.

JH

Young in life the Watchtower encourages physical abuse on children who don't obey to the letter, then spiritual abuse with all the crap they shove down people's throats.

No wonder why so many leave when they reach 18.

Then it takes the rest of thier lives to get over it.

InquiryMan

I guess this is a culural thing also. I asked a sister who was living in the US for a while if they still spanked children there. Yes they did, and they were astonished why she did not. It is not accepted here, nor is it allowed by law. All references to corporal punishment is absent from watchtower literature as well. I have, however, heard children being beaten in other countries. That was horrifying.

caligirl

My parents rarely spanked us, and if we did anything that they felt warranted a swat, it was done when we got home, in private. My mother later told me that others had tried to tell her that she should do it publicly, but she refused - they never felt that discipline should involve humiliation. But I know that we were the fortunate ones as well. There was a family in the hall I grew up in that always sat up front & the mother brought this big paddle with her to all the meetings, about 5" wide and 10" long, about an inch thick. ( looked like a small cutting board) and if her child earned the chance to be dragged out of the hall, she would brandish the paddle in her hand and march down the aisle dragging this little child kicking & crying as if wanting to draw attention to the fact that we were all about to hear her child be whalloped and that she was setting some kind of example.

rocketman

I did not like seeing it happen at all. And we had some weird instances of "discipline" being administered, like one brotehr who once made his son stand during the meeting, right at his seat, because he fell asleep during the Public Talk (can ya blame the kid?)/. We also had one sister who, after a book study at her home, made all the kids who did not comment stand with their arms outstretched.

Both these folks were counseled by elders, and righfully so.