I had to respond to the letter on spanking in the Jan. 9 Sun Journal.

It is amazing to me that there are people who believe that giving a stranger – meaning teacher, principal, etc. – the right to hit a child is OK.

There is a huge difference between a loving parent disciplining a child and a stranger having that right.

My husband and I are blessed with four outstanding, well-behaved children. We have put an enormous amount of effort into taking the most selfish thing in the world, a newborn baby, and teaching it how to behave, how to respect adults and how to get along in our society. I agree that many parents don’t do this today. Something should change. Maybe more classes for parents. I don’t know the answer. I do know the answer is not hitting with “the thick paddle with holes in it.”

Children need guidance, they need positive reinforcement, they need to be accountable for their actions, not hit. It doesn’t work.

My family has just moved to Maine from Alabama. We lasted a year there. The schools there have the right to hit a child without contacting parents. The school my children attended had a principal who had the reputation for “hitting them so hard they can’t sit down.” Fortunately, we never dealt with that, but volunteering in the school, I had the awful privilege of seeing the results of his work.

As you can tell, this is a sore spot for me.

Katie Fortier, Greene