I grew up in the 'beating" generation and I can say I'm sure I got many that I didn't deserve. Certainly what we went through would be considered abuse today. However, I also got a lot of good parenting. I think the key is to set the rules young. Of my children I think I spanked my son once when he was 8. A few times he rode his bike down the drive out into the road without looking, took the bike a few times. Then once in front of me he did it again right in front of a car....He got a spanking to remember....and I never saw him do it again.

I recall once when he was young at the store, some kid was pitching a fit for a toy, screaming, rolling on the floor, why the mother babied him. She finally got him the toy. I looked at my son and said with a stern voice..
"Do you know what I would do to you if you acted like that." He shook his head yes......

Simply, we don't have to beat kids, but we have to show we are boss. My children have never disrespected me.

I do know when I was in school, we had great respect for teachers. Sure, we got in our troubles, but we still respected teachers. We talked back, acted like nuts, we got paddled at school, then often at home again.

I'm sure they're many reasons, but today I see a terrible disrespect for parents and teachers.

It's not so much this is the generation that doesn't spank, it's were the generation that doesn't parent.

Sorry, trying to compare Roy Rogers with Saw just doesn't get it...

I've just recently argued that teaching is not a respected profession in America, and that the cause is political, not parental in cause. We label schools as 'indocrination centers' and demonize teachers every day. It is no wonder that these attitudes trickle down to America's youth.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068833/

QED

An rather obscure 1972 movie that didn't have nearly the gore or gruesome special effects that modern movies have. But the main issue here is scale. For every Last House on the Left back then you have a dozen far more dark and bloody movies today. Even TV is becoming that way which is far worse imo than any movie because it's so pervasive. Watch a CSI, or Criminal Minds or The Closer and you'll see what I mean.

Besides this isn't a light switch effect here. No single movie is going to turn a "normal" kid into a mass murderer overnight but watching hundreds of such movies and TV shows over an entire lifetime?

Feel free to ask my kids how much foolishness I put up with. I don't want to brag but my kids do not drink smoke and I never hear the F word

And while we still don't know that much about the shooter, here is another perspective: http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother

Everybody says that they could've seen warning signs with these behaviourally-impaired kids, but then what? The fact is that noone's ever had a good solution for them. It's easy to just leave them be, say they are their own or their parents' responsibility, but it really does not address the issue. One of the real problems is the lack of options out there for dealing with kids like these. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Tucson to Aurora to this latest one, the shooters were known for years to be problematic, behaviourally-impaired or mentally-ill boys. It is telling that the politically-convenient issues of violent entertainment and gun control have been discussed widely every time one of these massacres happened, and yet nobody seemed to broach the issue of dealing with mentally-ill young men in any meaningful way, because nobody has good black-and-white answers to that apparently.

Wow. That kid should be institutionalized.

Are you kidding? Last House on the Left is one of the most depraved films that I have ever seen in my life, exceeding anything I've seen in a Saw film and it is hardly obscure, having achieved cult status. In fact, it was put Wes Craven on the map as a horror director.

Let's also not forget Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Omen (1976), The Exorcist (1973), and the Amitiville Horror (1978), all of which were just as gruesome as any modern horror film. Again, this kind of stuff isn't new.

I still maintain that Gunsmoke was every bit as violent as CSI, Law and Order, and the like.

I have not denied it. However, we are experiencing more kids actively involved in multiple killings with weapons. It does not throw a wrench in anything. Citing one movie with incorrect rating does not dispel movies of violent nature can produce desensitized people. It does illustrate parenting as it should be, at least in my case, that viewing such a movie at my age was denied. What we agreed on is parents are perhaps more lax in rules concerning appropriate media for the child's age. My wife and I do not approve certain movies for our teens.

You may stop with the idyllic golden age never existed mumbo jumbo. I did not state the there was an idyllic golden age. You alluded to this in another thread that the good old days were not always so good. Of course they were not good old days. Crimes of today are not much different then. Maybe less of them perhaps but just as violent and bizarre as today's. The good old days to most are thoughts of friends, family and ice cream. People realize social issues existed then as now but the dynamics and how we are fed media has changed. It would seem these days anything goes.

Let's look at this way, there is nothing left to the imagination in the movies we see today.

Nice to see that the Police are moving quickly these days, concidering what just took place at Newtown. This guy was arrested after threatening to go to a nearby school to shoot as many as he could! Police found 47 guns and ammo at his house!

http://news.msn.com/us/ind-man-with-...-school-threat

Add me to the list. But I will brag. It takes work. I credit my wife for most of it. Brag away Neal.

I will stop with the idyliic stuff when you stop talking about it. I mean, my goodness, look at your last two sentences. You didn't even wait a full paragraph to revert to it.

How is it wrong? That when I did things I definately wasn't supposed to my parents put their foot down? Im not saying beat your kid bloody whatever. All Im saying is these kids that they talk about they led up to the shooting because of a bullying or etc, these things could have been prevented by good parents. Looking at what I said I do realize I used the completely wrong analogy. But bottom line, better parenting will reduce this sort of disturbing violence.

exactly my point, this kind of parenting equals kids who don't feel like they can walk all over kids at school which means bullying almost goes away, which reduces the need for these kinds of events. Thats where I was going with the belt analogy.