Oh, I wasn't implying you'd said anything about consenting adults, sidony. I was just trying to be clear on my stance. I apologize if I came across as attacking you.

Did anyone watch Montel today? It was about spanking! Well, really, it was about parents who differed on discipline, with one parent being pro-corporal punishment, and the other being pro-non-violence. I felt Montel didn't do a great job, though, at giving reasons to pro-spankers to abandon that type of punishment. He talked of "respect" and "love," and that's great, but it doesn't really address pro-spankers' beliefs. For one thing, they usually consider it showing love for a child to spank them, in that they're teaching them to keep safe and to be respectable in society.

One of most disappointing opportunities Montel missed was when one father asked (and this might not be an exact quote), "When you put the three-year-old in the corner, and he runs away, what do you do, then?" Montel said that's what the female doctor or expert (whatever she was) he introduced next was going to address, but she didn't. I think it would have helped if she'd answered his question. I'm not saying the pro-spankers would have been convinced, but at least address their questions, and maybe viewers at home who weren't convinced before might re-think their positions.

Another thing they didn't really do was, give alternatives to spanking. Some of the parents mentioned their non-violent methods, but only briefly, and there were no details how to handle the child disobeying the order to stay put until the punishment is completed.

Montel kept saying things like (this is definitely not an exact quote, but it's the gist of the message), "If you hug your child, he'll know he's loved and won't be afraid of showing affection. He'll respect you and when you tell him not to do something, he'll listen." I think there's more to it than that. Yes, teaching a child to respect you is important, and as they grow older, that should make it much more likely they'll obey you, or at least consider your words. But when they're still learning, they will do more of what one of the pro-spanking fathers said, which is that they'll test the boundaries, and see what they can get away with.

I'd also like to know techniques for disciplining pre-teens and teens, especially if you've made parenting mistakes and now your teen is unruly. A lot of people made mistakes, or their children fell into the wrong crowd. As much as we'd like to believe a child taught to respect their parents will never fall into drugs and whatnot, sometimes, they meet the wrong person and make mistakes. Plus, every child's different; the way one responds to events in his life may be different than another's response to the same events. Additionally, as horrible as it is, a child can be respectful and never get in trouble, then an older child or adult does something terrible to the child, and that child's world is shaken. That child may lose self-esteem and make mistakes. Obviously, this takes more than discipline to correct, but some discipline is necessary to help the child get back on track, if possible.

Anyway, my point is, the show disappointed me. They didn't address spanking and sexuality at all. However, the female doctor (I think she was a psychiatrist, specifically) who spoke in the last ten minutes (and I missed about the last four or five minutes, when Montel spoke) said something really good, but I can't remember what it was, darn it!