Spanking

[TheFoo]

Originally Posted by gdl203

I'm not sure I understand the nuance here. Saying that violence cannot always be avoided (which is what you're saying) is the same thing as saying that violence cannot be avoided (which is what you're pretending you're not saying).

Let me be more clear then. In many cases--say, with your children--violence can be avoided. However, perhaps not all children are as well-suited to your parenting style as others. Thus, for some, spanking might be necessary.

 

[Canal Directo]

IÂ think spanking should work like nuclear weapons, it should be a dissuasive instrument, and each time you have to actually do it, somehow it's a failure. I don't remember having been spanked, my mother saying: "you will deal with your father about this when he'll be back," used to make me cut my bullshit at once!

 

[MarkI]

Would not spank

 

[cimabue]

Let's say you have an irascible little tyke who is apt to run into the street. No rhyme or reason, he just likes to run into the street. Maybe he loves cars and trucks so much. You've scolded him, explained the danger, forbid his ever doing it again, and let's say some time later, when in the split-second you've taken your eyes off him, he's jumped off the curb and is into the street again and is nearly hit by a car. How will you respond? What will you do? Time out, or a few brisk swats to the butt and a scolding?

You will never be able to keep your eye on him all the time. How do you make the lesson stick?

 

[Tokyo Slim]

Originally Posted by mafoofan

Let me be more clear then. In many cases--say, with your children--violence can be avoided. However, perhaps not all children are as well-suited to your parenting style as others. Thus, for some, spanking might be necessary.
+1 It's evidently pretty easy for people to forget that there really is no "right" way to teach or discipline all kids. There may be a "right" way to teach or discipline YOUR kids, but the one you are most comfortable with, may not be the "right" one for your child. That's a judgment call that as a parent you have to make for yourself. I've seen plenty of parents make the wrong decision. For some kids, spanking will work better than talking, or time outs, or diagrams, or reading a book, or learning by example, or anything else. For some kids, one of the other methods works better. The learning of discipline and teaching of how to behave should be determined by the child - not the parent. As a parent, you can say "I will never spank my child". And if your child needs to be spanked - you will have just failed to teach your child something they probably need to know. It's a much more complex dynamic than just stamping children out of a cookie cutter mold and expecting them to conform to whatever your ideal is. It's the goal of any educator, whether parent, priest, or schoolteacher - to get the point across. It's up to you to determine the best way to do that, of course, but a simple spanking is no more inherently generally "wrong" as a teaching tool than a time out. Depending on the child, they can both cause similar levels of trauma. That being said, many parents who choose to use spankings as punitive discipline, do so for the wrong reasons, and it gives it a bad name. I'm generally of the opinion that most people have little to no business being parents. In my eyes, ignoring your children can be just as bad as beating them.

 

[acidboy]

I have two kids, the most wonderful and cutest girls (at least to my eyes), and they kinda look alike and all- but they're also very different in so many ways. I have realized that what might work in terms of raising for daugher #1 won't necessarily mean it'll work for daughter #2, and what would be too soft or harsh for one won't necessarily be the same to the other. what I'm trying to say is not all kids are wound the same way, not even siblings, and there is absolutely no fixed formula in raising humans, and thats why parenting can be a ***** sometimes.

I agree with Slim ^, getting the point across is whats important, and the "bad parents" are the ones that miss that, not only by venting out their frustration via spanking but those who chose to ignore their kids and let the tv or the kids' peers and educators be the ones who raise them.

In any case, I have spanked one of my kid once- I did not like it at all, but at that time I felt it was necessary to stress my point (she was deliberately being difficult and was almost ran over by a cab) this happened so long ago and she still remembers it not because it was traumatic but she understood that she wasn't listening to her parents and it almost got her killed. But most of the time; time-outs, standing in the corner and the evil glare works.

 

[Tidybeard]

So we're in two camps then.

Camp one is the civilised human beings, camp two is the knuckle-dragging neanderthals. I'll leave the casual reader to work out which is which.

 

[Douglas]

Maybe my perceptions are wrong, but it seems that spanking, over the course of about 1, maybe 2 generations, has gone from a time-honored tactic of child-rearing, accepted across virtually every culture around the world, to an act of heinous barbarism. I find that interesting.

If violence led to violence and all sorts of other mental disorders, would we not have seen a dramatic decline in violence and mental disorders as this barbaric practice has been put out to pasture? Doesn't seem that's the case.

Anyways, obviously there are millions of confounding factors that make this sort of analysis difficult, but I simply don't buy that spanking is some sort of crime, and one that leads to all the negative repercussions that have been asserted here. I was spanked - there's a difference between spanked and beaten, btw - and I personally think it worked. The shame and surprise of a firm swat to the behind alters reality for just a split second enough to get a child's attention before behavior snowballs or a temper tantrum ensues.

I'm still not 100% decided - I am going to do my best with timeouts and the like (we're already using those) and I've been working on a tone of voice that is meant to convey gravity and authority, but I can already see that's not working all that well. So we'll see, I guess. Thanks for all the responses.

 

[Tidybeard]

Originally Posted by Douglas

Maybe my perceptions are wrong, but it seems that spanking, over the course of about 1, maybe 2 generations, has gone from a time-honored tactic of child-rearing, accepted across virtually every culture around the world, to an act of heinous barbarism. I find that interesting.
Indeed, but we've largely removed a few other things in the last couple of generations too. Racism and indoor smoking spring to mind immediately as things that were generally accepted for an awfully long time until people started to think about whether they were actually acceptable in a civilised society. I'm really passionate about this subject. I can't stand the fact that people can defend controlling children with physical violence and intimidation "for their own good". It's barbaric and belongs back in the dark ages, IMO.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by acidboy

I have two kids, the most wonderful and cutest girls (at least to my eyes), and they kinda look alike and all- but they're also very different in so many ways. I have realized that what might work in terms of raising for daugher #1 won't necessarily mean it'll work for daughter #2, and what would be too soft or harsh for one won't necessarily be the same to the other. what I'm trying to say is not all kids are wound the same way, not even siblings, and there is absolutely no fixed formula in raising humans, and thats why parenting can be a ***** sometimes.

I agree with Slim ^, getting the point across is whats important, and the "bad parents" are the ones that miss that, not only by venting out their frustration via spanking but those who chose to ignore their kids and let the tv or the kids' peers and educators be the ones who raise them.

In any case, I have spanked one of my kid once- I did not like it at all, but at that time I felt it was necessary to stress my point (she was deliberately being difficult and was almost ran over by a cab) this happened so long ago and she still remembers it not because it was traumatic but she understood that she wasn't listening to her parents and it almost got her killed. But most of the time; time-outs, standing in the corner and the evil glare works.

+1

 

[greger]

I remember when non-spanking books came out and it seemed to me all the authors were guilty of something that they were not confessing up to. They were an unbelieveable lot to me.

So many children have been abused by not being spanked. Some people never get it do they?

A spanking last less than 15 seconds, why waste a childs time sitting in a corner or sent to their room or some other nonsense when they could be out doing something worhwhile by getting on with their lifes.

Those who don't know the difference between abuse and punishment, will they ever learn the difference? Guess not, they are still falsly accusing.

Two boys who burglarized houses would have spent a lot less time in prison if they had been spanked. There mother should have been spanked, too, for not spanking the children. That family was a mess and spankings give a reason to think about how to live appropriately. Those two went on to become bank robbers. Needless to say, they robbed everthing else including people on the street. I don't think they ever robbed a church. One did sucide for other reasons, and the other, last I heard of him is, "Judge they let me out of prison to soon, Judge said, "Ok, back in you go". What a wasted life.

Yes, reason works fine until it doesn't work. We have lots of prisons in this country, because some people think their make believe reasoning works. Those with make believe reasoning abuse a lot of people. So many are pimps, thiefs, murders, etc. Pimps and murders belong in the grave not prison. Before punishing a parent should know what the root of the problem is.

 

[greger]

Tokyo Slim, What punishment would have worked for you? Do you even know? You sound like worst than a brat to me. Or, were your problems something else?

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by greger

I remember when non-spanking books came out and it seemed to me all the authors were guilty of something that they were not confessing up to. They were an unbelieveable lot to me.

So many children have been abused by not being spanked. Some people never get it do they?

A spanking last less than 15 seconds, why waste a childs time sitting in a corner or sent to their room or some other nonsense when they could be out doing something worhwhile by getting on with their lifes.

Those who don't know the difference between abuse and punishment, will they ever learn the difference? Guess not, they are still falsly accusing.

Two boys who burglarized houses would have spent a lot less time in prison if they had been spanked. There mother should have been spanked, too, for not spanking the children. That family was a mess and spankings give a reason to think about how to live appropriately. Those two went on to become bank robbers. Needless to say, they robbed everthing else including people on the street. I don't think they ever robbed a church. One did sucide for other reasons, and the other, last I heard of him is, "Judge they let me out of prison to soon, Judge said, "Ok, back in you go". What a wasted life.

Yes, reason works fine until it doesn't work. We have lots of prisons in this country, because some people think their make believe reasoning works. Those with make believe reasoning abuse a lot of people. So many are pimps, thiefs, murders, etc. Pimps and murders belong in the grave not prison. Before punishing a parent should know what the root of the problem is.

Is this a computer generated post?

It's so full of FAIL that I think it could be a standalone piece of evidence to show the potential long-lasting risks of hitting a child...

 

[CDFS]

Originally Posted by greger

Tokyo Slim, What punishment would have worked for you? Do you even know? You sound like worst than a brat to me. Or, were your problems something else?

Time out, without TV.

 

[upnorth]

When all reasoning have failed, spanking is just one of the tools in my arsenal. I've tried everything from making them eat raw hot peppers, doing the household chores, to physical punishments like pushups, holding a phonebook overhead for hours.