8 - Questions for the reader

As someone involved in research on corporal punishment, the author will be most grateful to readers willing to send him their answers, albeit anonymously, to any of the following questions that inspire them:   

• Were you yourself hit? From what age and until what age? By whom? (father, mother, grandparents, brother, uncle, another person in your family or its circle of friends, teacher . . . ).
• Had corporal punishment been inflicted on the person who hit you?
• Were you living in a society where children are currently hit?  
• Was this method of making you obey beneficial to you?
• Do you feel as if you're still suffering from the effects?
• Was this something you went through alone, or did you have somebody's support?
• Do you see a connection between how you were raised and your opinion now of corporal punishment?
• Do you object to the ideas developed in this book? Which ones?
• Has this book changed or reinforced your views regarding corporal punishment?
• For those who have traveled abroad, have you been able to observe customary practices of corporal punishment for children? Can you offer some precise description: what did the punishments consist of? Inflicted by whom? Upon whom (in terms of sex, age, relationship)? In what circumstance? For what reasons? In private? In public?
• Have you been able to observe a relationship between the use of corporal punishment or the absence of it with local views concerning violence?
• If you were never hit, how were you raised?
• Were you punished?
• In what way?
• What do you think about your upbringing?

If you choose to respond, please indicate your sex, age, and background.

Contact:

Olivier Maurel
1013C Chemin de la Cibonne
83220 Le Pradet
France
omaurel@wanadoo.fr

Proceed/return to:

FOREWORD/PREFACE/INTRODUCTION

PART ONE
1 – A Brief History of Disciplinary Violence
2 – The Nature of Disciplinary Violence and Opinions on the Matter
3 – Why we must stop using corporal punishment
4 – How can we raise children without hitting?
5 – Why is it necessary to ban disciplinary violence?
6 – What to do?
7 – Question for the author
8 – Questions for the reader

PART TWO
World geography of disciplinary violence by continent and country

APPENDICES
I – Introduction for the EMIDA Family Education Program
II – Why the Church must denounce ordinary disciplinary violence
III – Resistance every advocate of a spanking ban can expect to face
IV – Declaration against "disciplinary" violence

ABOUT THE AUTHOR