Discipline is the thing!...

Watching Mad Men last night as I always try to do (BBC4 Wednesdays 10pm right after The Apprentice) I, like probably most other viewers, was completely shocked when Betty, Don's ex-wife, slapped their daughter hard across the head because she'd cut off her lovely blonde curly locks in a repressed show of anger at her parents. Today we might be a bit more forgiving and understanding but back in the mid sixties I guess it wasn't that uncommon to get a clip round the ear. I certainly did, not that often, but I did and I still remember how it made me feel. (What do you mean not often enough!) I bet more than a few teachers at Bank Street School and the Slade had their old favourite slipper or cane perched in the corner of the classroom as a warning to the kids not to misbehave. Most kids who went to school in the 1960s and 70s would have received more than one rap across the knuckles with a ruler. Did it do us any good? Should we have not felt guilty like Bets on Mad Men knowing that that was the best way to discipline our children, to teach them some respect? Would talking to us and letting us share concerns have helped us more? The way things are going with the new government things could well be going back to much tougher discipline in our schools, I'm sure I heard someone on a news programme talking about short sharp shocks for young offenders the other day. Personally I wouldn't like to see us going backwards on smacking children but watching the programme last night did make me realise just how far we've come since those days which, after all, aren't that long ago....