spanking (child discipline): a thought and a few questions?

[bwana devil]

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Spanking shows an immense lack of imagination ... don't know how to deal with a situation, let's hit or yell. Stupid

Find the motivation and deal with that

edit ... I have 5 kids, 2 grandchildren

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agreed. spanking is lazy parenting. you can change immediate behavior w/ spanking but it appears to come at quite the cost. spanking is related to a host of emotional problems and other behavioral problems.

there is a mountain of research relating the detrimental associations of spanking. i can understand people relating their personal stories but be careful in rushing to the conclusion that your own individual memory and personal experience outweighs research.

[Howard Treesong]

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Spanking shows an immense lack of imagination ... don't know how to deal with a situation, let's hit or yell. Stupid

Find the motivation and deal with that

edit ... I have 5 kids, 2 grandchildren

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agreed. spanking is lazy parenting. you can change immediate behavior w/ spanking but it appears to come at quite the cost. spanking is related to a host of emotional problems and other behavioral problems.

there is a mountain of research relating the detrimental associations of spanking. i can understand people relating their personal stories but be careful in rushing to the conclusion that your own individual memory and personal experience outweighs research.

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I am quite skeptical about this research, which strikes me generally as PC and perhaps agenda-driven. Link here:

http://faculty.biola.edu/paulp/spare_the_rod.htm

I don't purport to be an expert. And as I noted above, I've spanked exactly once in twelve kid-years -- and don't expect to again any time soon. But I do think it potentially has value. I likewise think the conclusion that it is "lazy" is utter crap. If used every day, I agree -- but not if used seldomly and parenting is thoughtful, careful, and loving.

[renodoc]

Delilah Jones was the mother of twins,
Two times over and the rest was sins
Raised 8 boys only I turned bad,
Didn't get the lickin's that the other ones had.

[doppelganger]

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Delilah Jones was the mother of twins,
Two times over and the rest was sins
Raised 8 boys only I turned bad,
Didn't get the lickin's that the other ones had.

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Huh, I always thought that line was "didn't get the THINGS that the other ones had...". Learn somethin new every day.

[KotOD]

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Children at times need to understand that there are some hard and fast rules that they may not ever break. A spank is a fine way to articulate this message. I therefore think your premise is wrong.

Even if your premise were right, I'd still disagree. Violence certainly is an effective way of dealing with certain limited situations.

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Best post in the thread.

[JennFox]

I got spanked a lot. I was a clever child with a wild imagination and a very strong will. When I got defiant when I was spanked, I would be spanked more. Often I would make my parents furious by blatantly trying to show them their punishments were ineffective on me while I was being punished.
My sister was quiet and generally sweeter than me, as well as being younger. She rarely got spanked. Ultimately I resented her for many years for never receiving physical punishments, whereas I got the snot beat out of me on more than one occasion. It really screwed up the family dynamic.
On top of that, my parents normally administered punishments when they were crazy pissed. Often situations were escalated to screaming and people getting up in each others faces, while getting "spanked", or smacked in the head. It basically scared the [censored] out of me as a litle kid and made me a hugely overreactive person. It is something I struggle with even to this day. Anytime I'm in an heated argument with someone I feel the same panic I felt as a kid; the same brain responses go off now that did then that make me bristle up and get ready to fight, and hard.
My parents actually ended up feeling really bad about how they disciplined us kids, and still apologize for their "mistakes as parents". They're probably more upset about it than I ever was. But for a long time I was totally pissed at them and we had a bad relationship, and also with my sister for perceived favoritism. I think it made me slightly angrier overall than I should have been growing up, but things are put into better perspective with age. I think a lot of adults never overcome some of the issues they dealt with as children, and I definitely think spanking can give a kid issues into adulthood. Maybe not huge ones, since we are talking about spanking, and not abuse, but even "small" problems can be tough to handle when they're on a psychological level. Spanking didn't scar me; but I think it did change the way I developed and the way I think and react to some things, even today.

[Coffee]

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I got spanked a lot. I was a clever child with a wild imagination and a very strong will. When I got defiant when I was spanked, I would be spanked more. Often I would make my parents furious by blatantly trying to show them their punishments were ineffective on me while I was being punished.
My sister was quiet and generally sweeter than me, as well as being younger. She rarely got spanked. Ultimately I resented her for many years for never receiving physical punishments, whereas I got the snot beat out of me on more than one occasion. It really screwed up the family dynamic.
On top of that, my parents normally administered punishments when they were crazy pissed. Often situations were escalated to screaming and people getting up in each others faces, while getting "spanked", or smacked in the head. It basically scared the [censored] out of me as a litle kid and made me a hugely overreactive person. It is something I struggle with even to this day. Anytime I'm in an heated argument with someone I feel the same panic I felt as a kid; the same brain responses go off now that did then that make me bristle up and get ready to fight, and hard.
My parents actually ended up feeling really bad about how they disciplined us kids, and still apologize for their "mistakes as parents". They're probably more upset about it than I ever was. But for a long time I was totally pissed at them and we had a bad relationship, and also with my sister for perceived favoritism. I think it made me slightly angrier overall than I should have been growing up, but things are put into better perspective with age. I think a lot of adults never overcome some of the issues they dealt with as children, and I definitely think spanking can give a kid issues into adulthood. Maybe not huge ones, since we are talking about spanking, and not abuse, but even "small" problems can be tough to handle when they're on a psychological level. Spanking didn't scar me; but I think it did change the way I developed and the way I think and react to some things, even today.

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My experience was similar, although I was more the quiet child than my older brother, and thus, I don't believe I got into trouble nearly as much. My parents were always quick with the threat of spanking, and the real deal was never out of the question. At least twice I can remember being punished for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Strangely, today my parents have a tendency to downplay how often it happened...maybe the giver doesn't remember the same way the receiver does.

I believe that spanking does need to at least be on the table somewhere...but I think it should be more of a last resort...and I think that the threat of spanking should be not too far behind...occuring after timeouts have failed. I won't go into specifics, but as I got older, I distinctly remember my reactions and impulses to corporal punishment veered farther and farther into the extreme. Corporal discipline should only occur when you have calmed down as a parent. When it occurs in the heat of the moment, eventually, the kid will begin fighting back, one way or another...and then you have two problems, because 1)the value of spanking in the first place is gone, and 2)you now have a child who may very well hate your guts or, at least, develop a lifelong resentment about it.

[registrar]

I always assumed that some form of corporal punishment would be part of my parenting repertoire, as it had been for my parents, but, with kids 6 & 3, I've come to the conclusion that it is ineffective and counter-productive.

The lesson that we teach is that because I am physically more powerful than you, I can impose my will on you.

However, we can do this by simply being smarter, more reasonable, more patient and more in control of our material surroundings.

I've never come close to feeling I have to hit any of my students, or colleagues, so why should I need to hit my kids. Which isn't to say that I never have, just that I don't think there is a single instance that I don't regret.

Well, I can think of one instance. When my little girl was about 2, she slipped from my grasp and ran into the road because her friend had. I grabbed her by her ankles, dangled her upside down, and smacked her bum. I think there is a brief period where language is undeveloped and some messages are so important that we need to communicate strongly. But after from 3 upwards, I just don't see the call for it.

I was an incredibly disruptive and badly-behaved child and I really don't see how corporal punishment made me less so.

[NicksDad1970]

"where you spanked as a child?"

Yes but not often. I didn't get good grades in 7th and 8th grade because I liked to screw off more than so work. As a last resort I was threatened with a spanking. I got em and it didn't do any good.

"if so do you feel it was effective as discipline?"

It scared me but not to the point that it did much good, so no.

"do you spank your own children or do you plan to?"

I have slapped my son a couple of times when he got too smart with me. I think it did some good for him. But I sure felt bad about it after.

"are there guidelines that should be followed if spanking?"

yes IMHO

"if so what are they?"

I think spanking is fine as long as you're spanking as an act of punishment to the child. i don't feel it's ok if it's more of a reaction to how a child is acting.

What I mean is if you say to your child "Next time you do so and so you'll get a spanking" vs Child does so and so and out of anger you slap or spank him/her.

[NicksDad1970]

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However, there IS a big difference between doing it as discipline and doing it out of anger. It's a blurry area. More often than not I think I was hit out of anger, and I think that's wrong.

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That's a great distinction. I remember my dad belting me, and he was almost uncontrollably furious. It scared the bejesus out of me -- but given what I'd done (lighting a fire in the house), I clearly and obviously deserved it.

I can safely say that I would not strike my kids in anger.

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You have great control then. I admire tha very much. TBVH, I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm ashamed to admit it but it's the truth.

Noone and I really mean noone has ever doubted my love for my son (I now have a 15 mo old daughter but she's too young to do anythign wrong) but he's pissed me off to no end at times. I guess I'm getting old and don't remember being a kid as much as I'd like to think I do [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]