English parents want caning back

source: Evening Standard, West End Final, 22.02.07, page 11

similar report online by the Daily Mail




When I came to school (1955), caning already was forbidden in our state.
But a few teachers tried it "hidden": the music teacher at my primary school used a short piece of a house pipe ... and was early retired.
The music teacher at grammar school got disciplined - because he used the violin bow. (He'd done similar at my mother's girl's grammar school, run by catholic nuns 20 years before - changed from there to the than [town's] boy's grammar school - that was during the Nazi period!)

Generally, at schools, caning is forbidden since 1973 in all Germany (in the GDR since 1949).


In private life, the “Act Concerning the Ostracism of Violence in Raising Children and to Alter the Child Maintenance Law” (Gesetz zur Ächtung der Gewalt in der Erziehung and zur Änderung des Kindesunterhaltsrechts - GewÄchtG) regulates such (came into force in November 2000).
Section 1631, Subs. 2 BGB as amended prescribes: “Children have the right to violence-free upbringing. Physical punishment, psychological injuries and other degrading actions are inadmissible”. On the very sensitive point of forbidding abuse the following rule was introduced: The law makes it particularly clear that physical and psychological abuse is inadmissible as degrading ways of raising children. The “parental right to use corporal punishment”, as justification of physical injuries, was accordingly removed.



Searching the internet I found to my great surprise that caning (paddking) is still done in many schools in a lot of countries ... and that astonished me even more than the above copied report.


Do any of you have caning/paddling experiences - own or with children?
Is it really still tolerated and practised?