The headmaster at my Grammar School assaulted a few boys with a cane, and punished an unknown boy who refused to stand on the bus for a female prefect by detaining all the boys, who caught that bus home after school, for two hours for a week, to punish the culprit!  
How things have changed!

Mac, times have changed. Boys and girls are no longer dancing rock'n roll, but destroying whatever they get between their hands.

mac, there are a lot of good kids out there, I think of them and try to reward good behaviour and try to improve or ignore bad if possible, just like training dogs!

I know Norman,I have 7 g/kids and they are all diciplined but not mistreated,they are all very much loved, therefor all are doing very well,their parents work long hours but they always have dinner together even if its 9pm,and sundays are family days..............oh and dog days too lol
One day a week they each get up early so they can have breakfast together this can be 6am sometimes but they do it,and it works.If you put the effort in you will reap the rewards.
I dont think its the children its the type of parents they have thats the problem they are the ones who set the example.
Norman training dogs is a lot easier 

oh l?,l? Mac - what a wonderful picture!

We were very poor also mac, and my father took me out of school at age 15 to earn some money. I cannot forget the days when we played marbles in the gutter, football in the street, and other games like tipcat, and knock the bobby down and topsy with cigarette cards, and handstands up a wall. Hardly a car to be seen.  An orange and one piece of chocolate at Christmas, not locking the doors, no graffiti that I remember, calling adults Mr or Mrs, no toothpaste or brushhes, outside loo, torn up newspaper on a nail. Bet you remember something like this!lol

Those simple games! We had bags of marbles, and placed one or two each in the middle of the road. Then we rolled big marbles or ball bearings at them, and kept any we hit, until all were gone.
Cards, we propped one up against a wall, and flicked others at it until it fell, and you won it. Topsy, kept flicking cards until you overlapped one, which you won. Tipcat, overlap a tapered piece of wood on the kerb edge, and whack it with a big stick. It would fly up and was known to break windows. The opponents then threw it back to try to land in your chalked square, to get you out. Hopscotch must be universal, we had to do it in the right order. What was whip and top? Oh yes, rounders, and jack jack shine a light, and don't step on the pavement cracks- there must be books on  old street games and their names in regions!
I'm afraid I ruined a lot of my teeth, as I spent any spare coppers on sweets and fizzy pop, but dentists have done a salvage job since age 16.
Did I read you have started Christmas shopping? How did it go? I await the evil hour when I'm told to write my cards..
On Saturday, I have been invited to play the grand piano for fun in a Church near Swindon, where I went to a wedding recently, and had a little dabble on it and held up the coach going home!

We too plated those games. I left school at 14 started work day after boxing day, my mates who were still at school had 2 weeks of, that hurt. While at school used to do a morning and evening paper round,up at 6.30 push a railway barrow up the hill to meet the paper train,(it took 3 of us)load the papers on 3 of us to take it down the hill. then in the shop, sort the papers into our paper bags and then deliver them in hail rain or snow.if we were lucky and got finished in time , home for a dripping sarny, if not it was to school hungry. Good old days, not sure, look back on them with nostalgia tho.