norwaysaint

He didn't have his best game today, but any English keeper playing week in week out in the PL stands a fair chance of making an England squad, though it won't be as first choice.

Just got my TV2 premier league package set up. Seems pretty good.

Although I'm not particularly a fan, everything in the OP is about right, so there doesn't seem any need for such a nasty little reply. I guess it's the nature of SWF though.

That's interesting, I lived in Gøteborg for a short while and absolutely loved it, but everyone always told me Stockholm was nicer. I got offered a job at the international school there but turned it down after we decided to move to Bergen. We could've moved to Malmø a couple of years ago, but my wife said the same as you and that she'd never move our family there. I could definitely live in Gøteborg though. I'm not a city person, but I really felt comfortable there.

Can anyone fish out the preseason comments from last year? I'd imagine people were posting similar stuff then, yet we started well and then we got a great new CB in. Two years ago? Didn't we come second two years ago? I'd take that again.

Oslo is a ****ing nightmare at the moment. The city is swarming with gypsies, largely from Romania. They've got a genuine problem as it's been the anniversary of Utøya and so complaining about immigration is a sensitive topic. They're setting up camps all over Oslo, I was there a couple of weeks ago and it was shocking to see.

Any player willing to sign for saints is clearly well below the level we need to be signing and if they're not, then frankly I question their ambition.

Oh come on, I don't think Spurs would ever try to offload a hopeless player onto us pretending that they were a massive prospect for the future, only for them never to make a senior appearance for us. I think we can trust them and we should offer him a five year contract.

Pap, one question that's been posed a few times is whether or not you teach your kids that hitting is wrong. I'm assuming you don't teach them that, but that you tell them hitting is sometimes okay? Having taught my kids that it's wrong, I could never hit them. Also, do you believe you couldn't raise your children properly if you lived in a country where it's illegal? If you could still raise your children just as well, how does that affect your belief that children sometimes have to be hit? On top of this, if, like most Norwegians, you'd never been hit as a child and none of your friends had ever been hit, do you think you'd ever even consider striking a child? I'm not looking for arguments, I just genuinely don't get why you think it necessary when it's clearly been shown that millions of people manage without. And if it's not necessary, don't you really think people should avoid it?

Yes he can and he already had. That's what I was explaining to you. Reasoning isn't the punishment. It's an effective replacement for punishment, but only for parents who have put in the work to bring up their children that way.

I think what Tim means is that rather than give his kids a punishment, he takes them aside and talks to them about why they shouldn't have done what they did and what the consequences could be. Not the punishment consequences, but the practical reasons why we shouldn't do something. I'm the same with my kids. I try to use concentrate on praise and giving them pride in good behaviour rather than punishing bad behaviour. it generally works better but is a lot more work. I comment regularly on how nicely they spoke or how polite they were. It's hard to remember to do this and it's much easy to tell them off when they do it wrong, but as a teacher over the years I've found it works far better with all children. If I do punish, it's usually something like saying we won't be doing something nice we'd planned to do. I still don't entirely understand how some of you teach your children that hitting is wrong if you're willing to hit them.

Gave up 14 years ago. I just stopped, none of these silly wishy-washy substitutes. If you want to stop you will. The pub was definitely the hardest place to stick to it though. Also, smokers love company and all of my smoking friends kept offering me ciggies despite my having given up, so you don't get much support. The fact is, if you're a smoker you're just another drug addict and I didn't want to be that any more. Good luck, dune.

Okay, I'll bite on this one more time then I'm done with it. The main reason I've joined in on this debate when I usually steer clear is that this whole issue is really so obvious that I'm confident that while this thread might make one or two people reconsider hitting their children, I don't believe anyone will be going the other way and deciding they need to start hitting, because no good reason has really been given and can't be. I would also like to point out that in none of my posts have I mentioned abuse, physical harm, crime rates or anything similar. Your comment that I'm naive to believe that Norwegian parents aren't secretly smacking their children only shows how deeply entrenched it is in British culture that you can't picture a place where it isn't in the culture. suggesting that people here secretly hit children is about the same as saying most British people secretly hit their wives, that's about right for how it's seen here. I have taught young children here and in Britain and read stories where smacking occurs. British children accept it as normal, but children here are shocked to hear about it happening. I teach about English speaking countries on my English courses for 16-18 year olds now. They ask me regularly if it's really true that British parents hit their children and they want to know why, it's very clear this is an alien idea to all of them. Explaining why, I can't tell them that that that's the only way to stop children doing something wrong, that it's a necessary last resort and that it's the only way to teach about boundaries, because they would laugh at me. They all grew up learning these things and they've never been hit. Again referring to your comment that it's the only way to teach children not to touch a hot pan, well we managed it and I have known (literally) hundreds of children over here who seem to have learned it without being hit. Maybe our communication from the start has been better. As a teacher over here, it's my duty by law to report if I suspect that any child is being hit, not abused, just being hit at all. In all of my time here there have only been a couple of suspected cases and both were immigrant parents. I've known a lot of parents over here, many of them immigrants and there has been a huge consensus that the laws against child-hitting are excellent. A lot of people are like me and might have fallen into the pattern of automatically accepting it as an option, but quickly realising we would have been wrong and it's really not necessary. I find it a bit odd that you want examples of how to bring up children without hitting them. Surely you know there is no miracle solution to parenting and it's a constant thing that depends on parent and child and a relationship they build up right from the beginning. How you communicate with your children and reprimand them might be completely different from me and mine. I have explained thing honestly and carefully to my children right from the start. i don't like to do this because I think it sounds patronising, but you asked what my style of parenting is. I try to educate them as we go. I try to give them as much praise as possible for doing the right thing so that they are keen to do what's right and react quickly if they're told something isn't right. They respond to my tone of voice, because I only use certain tones when it's something immediate or dangerous, and when I'm wrong I admit it. Most importantly I try to set them a good example. If I say hitting is wrong, and I have, there is absolutely no way I can hit them or anybody else. these are some of the examples that come to mind, most of what I do I'm probably not really doing that consciously. Have you even seen ONE of those annoying programs about getting kids to behave where the "nanny" figure has said "Yeah, then you'd probably better just hit them, then they'll understand."? Somebody else mentioned seat belts or car doors and falling under trains. Well, by the time they had seat belts they could undo themselves they were very aware of the dangers. When they were little I would never have left them alone by a train track. My wife (Norwegian) just asked me what I'm writing and she actually laughed about what you've written and she assures me that hitting a child is seen as far worse than hitting your wife and that there is absolutely no chance that it is widespread in private, it's just an utterly alien idea in Norwegian society. She asked me three times if it genuinely is legal in Britain and i can understand why. The idea that that small children learn better from being hit while older children and grown ups are protected by law is ludicrous. I can see that it's too ingrained in your culture for you to step outside of it and see that millions manage very well without ever hitting their children, but I genuinely hope one or two people have been given reason to think it over again. I'll finish by once more repeating the same question. Hitting may not cause physical damage, but if it's been shown that whole countries manage to raise children with clear boundaries and a sense of right and wrong and have managed to keep their children safe and well behaved WITHOUT hitting them, why hit? The only possible answer is that you just prefer doing it that way, which I find either strange or lazy.

Are you suggesting hitting a child is the only way to stop them undoing a seatbelt or falling onto train tracks? Do you believe that children over here are just dropping like flies onto motorways and railways because we won't hit them? Why on Earth would I hit my children to teach them those lessons? What you do to teach the child depends on the child and on your own ability to communicate with them, but hitting them seems like a pretty unlikely method. One of the most important and effective ways to be a good parent is simply to be a good role model, if I hit anybody in front of my children, I would think myself a very poor role model. I've told them hitting is wrong, I can't start doing it myself or I send out a very bad message "Hitting is wrong unless I'm having real difficulty getting my point across, then it's acceptable."

I've been on versions of this board since about 2000 and I've never known a time when there haven't been people regularly posting that the board's not as good as it used to be and that all the best posters don't bother any more. I actually think that it's pretty much the same as it always was. People see it differently because they've moved on in different ways, but the overall quality is almost exactly the same. When i first came, I didn't bother returning for ages because I thought it was too full of dull people posting **** and thinking they were hilarious. Now the people who were doing that look back on it as a great time and dislike the newer ones doing exactly the same thing. The only significant change I remember was when it started as a paying forum and only a few people had paid at first, so it was just the same twenty people or so starting threads and posting regularly. One constant is that ******** (don't want to name names, I'll let you work it out based on his ludicrous post count) is and always has posted constantly and considered himself an expert on every subject for as long as I remember. Also, anybody with over 10,000 posts should avoid criticising the board for being **** as they are responsible for too much of its content and are a major part of how **** the forum might be.

I don't know your children so I couldn't possibly say, but there seems to be a constant insistence on this thread that hitting is a necessary last resort when all else fails. somebody just above stated that it's needed because some other children just don't respond to other methods. This is clearly wrong and has been proven to be wrong time and again. I'll repeat it, in many countries, certainly Norway, Sweden and Denmark, somebody else mentioned Germany, the option on hitting a child was taken away years ago. Yet parents in these countries have still managed to raise children perfectly well. I have never heard a single parent bemoaning the fact that they can't hit their children, yet the children aren't running riot, disrespecting authority and knowing no boundaries. it turns out hitting them wasn't some necessary last resort at all. it turns out that there are always other methods that children will respond to. It's not child-led anarchy over here you know. so, bearing this in mind, why still hit? There's a good chance that hitting children will be illegal in Britain one day, do you really believe you'd become utterly unable to enforce boundaries if it does? If so I really despair at your communication abilities and also feel embarrassed that other countries will have proved themselves more competent at raising children. For the record, I was hit as a child (I refuse to use the very relative phrases "slapped", "lightly slapped" or any others that are far too opinion based, not often, but it was used. I might have fallen into the same pattern of automatically using physical punishment myself if I hadn't emigrated and realised it's utterly unnecessary. My dad has seen how we raise our kids and has said he regrets how he was as a parent and that it's clearly better and more effective this way, but he was just doing what his parents did and he never really knew any other way. I think that's widely the case and people find it hard to move on. just think, if your children would be taken away from you if you did it, are you sure you wouldn't manage to find an effective alternative? And if you could, doesn't that make you question ever hitting in the first place?

Still nobody's answered the question for me. It's been proven many times over that you can raise children with clear boundaries, a sense of right and wrong and a respect for authority without hitting them at all. so why on Earth would you choose to? The comments about a need for discipline are utterly irrelevant to choosing to hit your children. I've kept discipline firmly with my own and other people's kids for 20 years, there is just no need for hitting. Do you think parenting in the UK, where hitting children is commonplace, is really providing better citizens than the many countries where parents don't hit their children? It's just not the case. I still haven't seen any reason given for doing it that makes it worth doing when there are alternatives.

Still nobody's answered the question for me. It's been proven many times over that you can raise children with clear boundaries, a sense of right and wrong and a respect for authority without hitting them at all. so why on Earth would you choose to? The comments about a need for discipline are utterly irrelevant to choosing to hit your children. I've kept discipline firmly with my own and other people's kids for 20 years, there is just no need for hitting. Do you think parenting in the UK, where hitting children is commonplace, is really providing better citizens than the many countries where parents don't hit their children? It's just not the case. I still haven't seen any reason given for doing it that makes it worth doing when there are alternatives.

Yet there is something odd about having a choice of discipline methods and choosing the one that involves hitting a child, when it's clearly not necessary. I think in fifty years time people will be amazed that it was legal anywhere in the civilised world in the 21st century.

It's illegal here and it simply isn't done. I think people over here find it pretty barbaric that English parents do it. They seem to manage to raise children perfectly well here without hitting them, so all of the comments that sometimes it's necessary clearly don't bear up. It is clearly true that it is absolutely possible to set boundaries, to reprimand children or to make children aware that something is wrong or dangerous. I understand that many people think that hitting children doesn't do them any harm (although I don't think it sets a good example to them about how to solve an issue), but if you have the evidence in front of you that that you don't need to hit your children to discipline them ever, why on Earth would you keep doing it? Somebody made a comment about sitting an unruly five year old down and discussing things with them, I'm not sure if it was meant to be flippant, but of course you can do this. my youngest is four and that's how we've always done it since she was two. I taught primary school for years and never had discipline problems and never felt the need to hit a child, it just isn't ever necessary, so why do it? It seems like a communication failure on the part of the parent, that the child suffers for. This idea that you it's ok to do it because your parents did isn't really good enough, it's evident now that you don't need to, so why carry on? Hopefully in the future hitting children will become illegal in Britain too and those parents who resort to hitting will have to learn some new parenting skills.

Yep, hitting, kicking, whatever. They are all good ways to teach right from wrong and to convince somebody you're right, although only when they're smaller than you. Obviously once they're bigger than you, they become right because they win the hitting, so it's best to try to hit them quite a bit when they're still small. Try to do it in places where it doesn't leave a visible mark though, that's one of the key skills of being a good parent. Also try to always use alternative words for hitting. Never say "I hit my children", make it sound more harmless and acceptable by using phrases like "a smack" or "cuff" or a particular favourite "a clip round the ear". Remember, you can't convince other grown ups you're right or get them to do what you want by hitting them, so do it with your kids instead, it'll teach them valuable life lessons.

Anybody who talks about other people who wouldn't manage "in the real world". What? Do you believe your life is more "real" than somebody else's? Most of these too:

Sounds like he's in a very poor school there. I taught in primary school for years in England and never heard of anything like that. Most primary teachers work very hard and spend large amounts of the time people assume they have free, working on things for their classes. I don't teach at that level any more, but would say it is by far the most demanding and has the most dedicated staff on the whole. Of course you can dismiss that based on your experience, but I have worked with a lot of teachers in a lot of schools, so mine is probably less of a "kneejerk reaction" opinion.

I think pompey supporters are pretty much the same as saints supporters. I think in their situation most of our fans would be pretty much the same mix as they've got. I understand the banter, the rivalry and the constant need for oneupmanship, but anybody who genuinely believes people from Portsmouth are completely different to people from Southampton is a moron.

The start is going to be interesting. We've always made such bad starts until last season where we set the pace from the start. Looking at the first matches, it'll be impressive if we get another good start.