Police in St. Louis say that Nancy Boyd-Porter, 34, was so upset her son didn't start his homework before she returned from work that she hit his hand with a hammer as others held him down. She also allegedly squeezed his fingers with pliers.
While using the pliers, she is said to have threatened to break his fingers. Police say she also threw the hammer at the boy and hit him in the ankle.
She is being charged with child abuse, armed criminal action, endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree assault. The source article does not mention the status of the boy.
Anyone else think that she has been abusing some sort of hard-drug?
She's permanently screwed up the poor kid-- nothing will assuage the pain from the trauma he has undergone. He's going to become a bitter angry adult, possibly perpetuating the abuse.
Seriously though homework is a pile of crap that is generally just busy work. American schools give far too much of it and most does not help education.
Think about it most adults cannot really learn for more than six hours a day. So a kid works for six hours at school and then brings home two hours of work to do in the evening? Doesn't make any sense. You have a tired kid who just wants to finish, he doesn't care about learning, he just wants his life back.
IMHO homework should be given sparingly and only for weekends. While we are on the subject of schools ban multiple choice tests too.
I'm in Uni right now and most of the assignments I submit I've recieved good grades on.. but to be honest I have no idea about the concepts these assignments were supposed to teach me. Just about every class I've taken thats had a multiple choice final, I've gotten a 4.0 in, whereas the essay type exams are much less successful (even then I seem to be able to make up something close enough to the truth to pass). I feel like I am working and paying for a permit to apply to certain types of jobs much more than gaining skills and knowledge.
I think you are right. Certainly from what I have seen in American colleges they drag out what should really be a two year course into a four year degree. They give homework, assignments, extra points for showing up to class, and teach classes that are utterly pointless. My wife took a Karate class for her Psych degree. Pointless and really just a money spinner for the colleges. In England a degree is three years long and does not have such crazy general requirements as America. But in reality it could be done in 18 months without the crazy long holidays.
At the end of the day multiple choice testing does not teach knowledge. All it does is show that you can retain information for a short period of time and guess at the least wrong looking answer. I used to work for a company as a manager that had to close home loans. Some of those loans had insurance involved so I needed a state license to discuss the insurance with the customer. So I did a three day course and a difficult multiple choice test and passed. It's been two years and I could probably score 25% in the same test today.
When I became an audiologist in the UK the written portion of the exam was a six hour written exam. It's been 10 years since I took that. I just passed an exam in America designed for Masters/PhD audiologists, with no prior study. When I learned for the written exam I really learned and retain this knowledge today. It really is the correct way to learn a subject.
Here's a parent who gives a shit about the kid's grade and she gets hell for it? There's something extreme about a mom having to threathen her son with these punishments to get the boy to start on homework - The kid's probably a slacker who deserves the punishment anyways.
I am certain that the mother deserves whatever severe punishment she gets and gets a lengthy probational rehab afterwards. She will lose this kid to the courts. He will grow up to be a psychopath.
Indeed, the SOLs that teachers are forced to follow water down true education. What really sucks is that teachers, on average, have student-teacher ratio that prevents tailored learning in the classroom. Besides, teachers spend half of the classtime keeping the kids disciplined. Then they drop down tests with multiple answers because average kids can only handle rote-learning.
Doesn't matter, I guess, if they retain the knowledge- they aren't going to find a job that's worth a damn anyway. The kid is probably bright enough to know this so he slacks off. Plus, he lives in St. Louis.... poor guy.
Don't hit kids. It hurts. Don't hit kids with hammers.... it really hurts. Don't torture people because they'll turn around and kill you or somebody else in frustration.
I disagree completely. Pain builds character. You are forced to deal, forced to find your way through it. Through conflict, a man finds who he is. If you beat the crap out of your kid for not doing homework, and do it often enough, he'll do his homework and he'll do a damn good job at it.
I myself will be beating the hell out of my kids at the drop of a hat, and you better believe I won't ever have to yell at them again once they're older than five.
I see the Nazis are out in force today. You know even if you believe that hitting kids will make them obedient and a good spanking will fix all behavioral problems surely you have to concede that hitting a child’s hand with a hammer, throwing a hammer at a child’s ankle and threatening to break their fingers with a pair of pliers is a bit extreme? Or maybe I am just a soppy liberal.
perhaps you should change your screen-name to 'Cro-Magnon Man2686'.
Someone hit you in the head with hammer, I think.... a bit too much.
Want to know why? For spouting untrue statements to illicit responses directly at you in a fit of low self-esteem, or for endorsing some sort of ritualistic genitive abuse and mental disconfiguration (your family likes to ring each other's bells). Which is it?
too sleep-deprived at the moment to say anything really thoughtful, so I will lambast this sucker later.
ZCT, I don't know what other measures this woman has taken to punish her child. If the hammer came first, then yeah, that was definetely extreme. However if the kid was calling her 'bitch' and hadn't been doing his homework for weeks, then the hammer was necessary. We just don't know enough about the case, I suppose. Maybe it'll come out during a trial.
See, ZCT, this is what is necessary in the world. Ironboard chose to ridicule and insult my views while you created dialogue. In many ways, this is closer to the utopian ideals that many shortnews people would see, but don't dare begin to exhibit. There needs to be dialogue between differing views, not silence or insults.
Furthermore, it is unfair to refer to me as a 'nazi' when I am not pushing my beliefs. I am commenting on Porter's actions, not prescribing corporal punishment. I'd go so far to say that many parents shouldn't be allowed to beat their children, not because it's bad, but because they wouldn't do a good job. They'd beat for a while and quit, and THEN you have the psychopath that ironboard was afraid of.
theironboard wrote the following: "Want to know why? For spouting untrue statements to illicit responses directly at you in a fit of low self-esteem, or for endorsing some sort of ritualistic genitive abuse and mental disconfiguration (your family likes to ring each other's bells). "
Allow me to disassemble this rant, line-by-line.
'Want to know why?' - Nope, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway.
'For spouting untrue statements to illicit responses directly at you in a fit of low self-esteem...' - First of all, il·lic·it adj. 1. Not sanctioned by custom or law; unlawful. so·lic·it v. 1. To seek to obtain by persuasion, entreaty, or formal application.
I guess you meant solicit.
Who said anything about responses? Or a want thereof? You all voiced your opinions, why aren't I allowed to voice mine? Fascist.
'or for endorsing some sort of ritulistic genitive abuse and mental disconfiguration...' - no idea. I'm not talking about sacrificing the kid to Gozar or making him watch a bit o' tha ultra-violence (a la clockwork orange).
'(your family likes to ring each other's bells)' - When did my family become involved in this?
This is exactly the kind of neo-nazi censorship I'm talking about. I make my comment, and ironboard accuses me of having low-self esteem, of ritualistic sacrifice, and that I'm not the first (or last) in a long bloodline of people who exhibit the first two functions.
ironboard, I'd highly suggest you take a look in the mirror and reevaluate yourself. You don't seem to be about free speech, you seem to be about pushing your fascist agenda on me because our views don't match.
I don't have a problem with someone spanking thier child, but there is NO EXCUSE for torturing or physically harming your child. A spanking is meant to get the attention of the child to warn them not to do it again. The purpose is not to beat your child until they are scared of you. I agree that anyone who beleives they need to do this to earn respect or whatever reason they might have, SHOULD NOT HAVE CHILDREN.
“ZCT, I don't know what other measures this woman has taken to punish her child. If the hammer came first, then yeah, that was definetely extreme. However if the kid was calling her 'bitch' and hadn't been doing his homework for weeks, then the hammer was necessary. We just don't know enough about the case, I suppose. Maybe it'll come out during a trial.”
See this is where you and I differ in opinion. I don’t care what the child said to the mother. The only time I can think of where hitting a teen with a hammer might be appropriate is if the teen is intending to kill you with a weapon. If a teen talks back or uses bad language this is not an excuse to have the child held down and hit their hand with a hammer. Apart from self defense there can be no mitigating circumstances that justify this. The same goes for threatening to break a child’s fingers with a pair of pliers. This is called child abuse, completely different from accepted corporal punishment.
”See, ZCT, this is what is necessary in the world. Ironboard chose to ridicule and insult my views while you created dialogue. In many ways, this is closer to the utopian ideals that many shortnews people would see, but don't dare begin to exhibit. There needs to be dialogue between differing views, not silence or insults.”
I appreciate your comments. I have strong opinions but I am open minded to those intelligent enough to raise a good point in an eloquent manner. I have been known to be heavily sarcastic on this forum but only to those who deserve it ;)
Like I said before I can see why some parents may choose to spank, although I think it is ultimately self defeating if it is continued into teenage years, but when we are hitting with a hammer, throwing hammers at children, and threatening to break fingers with pliers we have gone way beyond any kind of useful or constructive parenting techniques and are certainly in the realm of child abuse.
homework is not only to reinforce what was taught in class or what will be taught in class, but it is also about building discipline. If you go home and do your homework everyday after school, you learn to get the crappy stuff out of the way. I'm not saying you can't be disciplined without homework, I'm just saying it helps. Our educators and parents want their kids growing up with the discipline to do the crap that doesn't really mean anything because when you get a job, you're gonna have to do it anyways. Might as well be trained already to accept it and get it done.
You know, when you phrase it that way, I think we can agree that the hammer is unnecessary no matter what. I'm for corporal punishment that fits the crime, but even I can admit that using a blunt, steel instrutment to do so is just plain overboard. 'Teach the lesson without breaking anything', that's what I plan to go by.
That's why you hit them in the ass. Lots of padding there, so you can't really do a whole lot of permanent damage. You would actually have to be trying if you broke bone or skin, at which point it becomes abuse.
She even had assistance on this. How hard would it have been to grab his textbook and give him a couple of welts on those cheeks. Imagine how mistreated he'd sound if he was complaining about being spanked? A large portion of the population would point and laugh.
We both seem to be suffering from sleep deprivation. However, I wouldn't go around telling people that I plan on beating my kids on a forum discussing a woman using pliers and hammers on her child. It might provoke strong responses from people that value the safety of innocent children.
