Parents guilty of 'spanking' daughter granted conditional discharge

I have no problem with a spanking but, I do have a problem with a beating which is what this was.

The kid deserved to be punished for her stupidity but using a hockey stick and skipping rope goes far beyond the description of good parenting.

I am ok with the outcome of the case. I am not against corporal punishment. As a kid,I was always getting my ass beat for something. I am not saying that I did not deserve it because I usually did. Nowadays everyone is against corporal punishment. If you touch your kid, you go to jail for domestic/ child abuse. Nowadays we have to defer to the government for everything. They decide what who gets punished, and what punishment is warranted. Had that way of thinking prevailed when I was a kid, I would have been a convicted felon at age 13. I would have never been allowed to join the military, work in jobs that needed a top secret security clearance, hell I would have been sentenced to a life of work in fast food establishments, or a life of crime. My parents handling the situation by beating my ass was the best outcome for me. They saved me from having a criminal record, possibly a long one. Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating child abuse here. I am just stating that todays society is conditioned to let the government handle everything. I can't count how many episodes of COPS that I have watched where a family member with emotional/ special needs have not taken their meds. The family (instead of acting like parents, and handling the situation in-house ) calls the cops. The cops arrive on the scene and start shouting commands to someone who is irrational. They than begin to taze, beat, choke, possibly kill the emotionally disturbed person. Than the family members are standing around screaming and weeping. Sometimes they interfere in the beatdown, only to find themselves victims of a police beatdown. They find themselves criminally charged as well as their children. The police are not social workers. They lack the training to deal with special needs individuals. Everyone needs to instantly recognize their authority and obey their commands at once. Failure to do so results in a beatdown, criminal charges, possibly death. Robert Dziekanski comes to mind.

I do not condone how these parents beat their daughter (they crossed a line), but I do understand it. They care about their daughter. If they didn't , they would have done nothing. A few weeks ago there was a video making the rounds about three female minors in Fla. who stole a car, ran from the cops, and drowned in a pond. Their pathetic excuses for parents/ guardians did not even know they were out at 4 am in the morning. A ll of the girls had extensive arrest records. They had tattoos (which are ilegal under the age of 18), they had booze in the car. At the press conference these sorry ass excuses for parents (as well as human beings) were all lawyered up trying to blame the police. They are looking for a big payday trying to blame the cops as well as society for their own shortcomings. In reality, all of these" so called guardians " should be in prison breaking big rocks into small rocks for being absolute failures in raising their kids. Thats the real child abuse and neglect when someone cannot be bothered enough to give a shit when their own kid is out at 4am on a school night, associating with known felons, stealing cars, and drinking underage. This couple in B.C. actually gives a shit about their kid. They care that she may be fucking up her life. Nude pics can get her to have to register as a sex offender the rest of her life. People can store those pics, and they can come back to haunt her later in life when she is trying to gain employment. There is no telling when and where an adolescent mistake can surface and derail her adult life. Her parents care about her. Did they overreact? Maybe, probably. They are trying to save her future. They are basically good people who are guilty of caring to much. They made a mistake. Their lives do not deserve to be fucked up by the state any more than their daughters does. They should not be labeled abusers any more than she should have to register as a sex offender. They both fucked up. They both deserve a chance for their lives to go back to normal. The Crown should have no more interest in these peoples lives. Hopefully they all learned and grown from the experience. Everything runs a lot smoother when the parents do the parenting, and not the Crown.

Well said rickc.
Someone once said, all of us, our parents and grandparents were all raised the same way. Spare the rod, spoil the child. And we turned out pretty well. Respectful, good members of society who don't hate their parents for using whatever they had at hand to help us make good choices. So when we know that formula worked so well for so long, why are we hell bent on changing it?

I do agree there is a line. It may have been crossed here, I'd certainly never hit my kid with an object. But they did it on her butt for a reason. I don't know. I don't think the state has much place in people's homes, telling them how to raise their own kids. At least as long as those parent's aren't blatantly and obviously "abusing" their kid. The state will never care as much about any kid as their own family.

So using a plastic hockey stick and skipping rope to the point it raised welts that were observed in school, is that crossing the line or not? You don't think taking her phone away would be a much better way to teach her in this case?

14 seems way too old for spanking. At that age, I can't imagine that it accomplies anything positive vs other forms of punishment. If she were 18, any kind of spanking or unwanted contact would be assault, but it seems strange to me that you could just hit any teenager

And striking with objects and leaving marks is going too far anyway.

Apparently this kid was given the choice between losing her cell phone and a spanking and to be spanked.
The parents deserve punishment for offering that choice, not so much the spanking itself.
They should've been able to reduce that brat to a whimpering heap who knew and remembered forever exactly WHY what she did was dangerous and wrong without even touching her AND that phone should be GONE for at least a couple years!

So using a plastic hockey stick and skipping rope to the point it raised welts that were observed in school, is that crossing the line or not? You don't think taking her phone away would be a much better way to teach her in this case?
You are not a parent are you? You are looking at the situation at hand with logic. You have that whole Mr. Spock thing going on. Thats how the courts operate. Calm rationale people make up laws that we all have to go along with. This is how a situation should be handled. I get it. When you are on a jury, you have no connection to the case. Its all logic. You have no personal stake in the case. People like the parents who DO have a stake, have their judgement clouded by emotion. If you had an 8 year old daughter who was being abused by a 16 year old boy, you would find yourself acting emotionally. You (if you are normal) might result to physical violence on the 16 year old boy. Your emotions would override your logic. You could find yourself on the wrong end of the law. You would be assaulting a minor. Logically and lawfully you might be requred to call the police and let them handle the matter. Almost all mammals have a primitive urge to do whatever is necessary to protect their offspring. I as a parent can see how a parent seeing their child being abused by someone older and stronger than their child, could be overcome with emotion and result in physical violence to the perp. Anyone who has children (who gives a shit about their kids) can see that point of view. I react and slap the little bastard around, and now I'm the bad guy? I see you arguing against mandatory minimums all the time. You do not like the black and white view of the law. You want more grey area, more judges discretion. Why not in this department as well? You say that taking the phone away would be better punishment. It probably would be, but it would also punish the parents as well. Taking the phone away sounds good, it sounds reasonable. So what happens when the kid does not come home from school on time? How does the parents contact the child with no phone to call? Trust me on this one, there is nothing more terrifying for a parent than to be calling a child when they should be answering, and they don't. A parents mind conjures the most terrifying outcomes. Have they been kidnapped? Were they in an accident? Etc. etc. My kids phone had a location app. I could always tell where she was. Its not like the old days when we were young, grounded, and phone privileges were revoked. These busy days with all the weirdos/predators out there, taking a phone away from a teenager these days is more punishment on the parent than the child.

Wow, beating kids with objects. Because you're "overcome with emotion." Pretty scary and nice example you're setting for your kids. "I couldn't help hitting that cop, your honor, I was overcome with emotion when he gave me a ticket."