How stupid are they …

Some think the increase in playground violence is because parents (and teachers) can’t use corporal punishment. How stupid are they to say that?

We have laws that say we can’t hit each other – something to do with assault. Killing each other is wrong too. So teachers and parents hitting children can’t ever be right.

Kids have a body jam-packed with energy. It comes from testosterone and chocolate and coke and pizza and fish & chips. Girls have testosterone too. There’s also this thing called frustration. And stress. The solution is not for big people to hit small people. Monkey see, monkey do. Child see, child do.

To use up the testosterone and to alleviate their frustration and stress there should be more… (you might want to sit down for this…) balls. Rugby balls, tennis balls, netballs, basketballs, cricket balls, hockey balls, volleyballs, petanque balls, bowling balls, rum balls with real dark rum and chocolate chips, and lumps of coconut and raisins or pieces of dried ginger and… flip, I’ve lost my way haven’t I?…um, golf balls, beach balls, formal balls with or without alcohol, baseball, softball and my all time favourite – snowballs.

It’s not the demise of the cane or the leather strap, it’s the demise of physical sports at lunchtimes and after school that’s the cause of playground violence. The vegetarian cushion-hugging candle-lighting ninnies who think children mustn’t break collar bones or get cuts that need stitches or sprain their ankles or have a front tooth or two knocked out – these are the problem.

And has anyone else noticed the national shortage of cotton wool? It’s because the ninnies are wrapping all their kids in it.

If our kids’ energy and frustration isn’t channelled into a scrum or a lunchtime game of bulldog or climbing a tree or a game of netball or by slamming a softball over a hedge and then running after it… if they don’t do this, they’ll be brats in the playground.

A few more blokes in schools wouldn’t go amiss either – not to be school heavies but to be role models for the boys and to say ‘it’s OK to climb that tree’ and ‘it’s OK to play scrag because no one died of a broken collar bone or a twisted ankle’ and even ‘let’s all have a game of netball’. More balls, that’s the solution!

And just one more time – adults should not hit children. Humans are smarter than animals. Doesn’t anyone remember James Whakaruru and every other NZ kid killed by an angry violent adult?

— Peter Giddens