Child Raising - Discipline issues

[AbreuTime]

I was never unfairly spanked, but I was often unfairly grounded/sent to timeout. There was nothing more aggravating than being unfairly punished. My parents usually did the grounding thing, but sometimes it did not work (I would destroy proporty in my room while grounded... dragging a comb back and forth over wooden dressers and digging rivets into the side of the piano with the comb), and I was spanked.

I'm 24, and I'll spank my kids if they deserve it.

[jsaund22]

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This is coming up because we just started a psych. unit in medical school, but I started discussing this with several colleagues/friends and was kinda of interested by the results.

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I'm not a doctor. I don't play one on TV. I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But here's my thoughts:

I was spanked as a child. Never hit in the face, but belts, hands, wooden spoons, "switches" ("Boy, go cut me a switch to spank you with!"), and even a 1/4" thick plastic paddle my dad made especially for tanning my rear-end when I screwed up.

I'm not scarred, and I'm not a sociopath. I have a close relative my age who was never spanked, and he's the one who ended up as a drug dealer and in prison for assisting with hiding a body after one of his buddies executed someone.

I'm an IS professional, and I think you'll learn the same thing that I learned not too long after I got out of school -- reality and theory are very often mutually exclusive. The theory is that spanking kids will cause them to become violent, aggressive, out-of-control psychos. Reality is a different story, however.

Take a good look around at one of the most visible segments of society -- the celebrity. You have people like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears who have probably never been disciplined at all showing their ass (both literally and figuratively). Now look at people like country music stars. I'm not a fan of country music, but you pretty much know that these people were disciplined as kids, simply because of the culture they're part of. Very rarely do they do something incredibly stupid. Paris and Britney? Stupid on a daily basis.

As I said, reality and theory differ wildly, and I think you are smart enough to be able to separate theory from reality.

[RustedCorpse]

This issue is one reason I think I will never have children.

I'm 28 and my parents beat the living hell out of me. Both my mother and my father, my father not as often but when he did it was pretty severe (cracked hip, ruptured cornea, broken rib) My mother on the other hand would torment a little and often use anything from tennis rackets to wiffle ball bats.

Eventually, as I left home, my father was diagnosed with severe depression and diabetes. Once getting treated for that he mellowed out considerably, my younger brother and sister as a result never ever really got beaten.

The strange thing is on a comparable scale I'm far more socially balanced/disciplined than my brother and my sister. My brother has had multiple run in's with the law on a level that borders on stupid. My sister is a complete trainwreck in almost all aspects of her life, including child abandonment and two failed marriages.

Looking back I figured I deserved some beatings, probably not to the level of severity that occured, however I don't really harbor animosity to my family over it, I think raising children is hard and they probably did the best they could for them.

I think if I ever had children I'd do a better job, yet at the same time I often wonder if many abusive parents think the same thing. I think the right answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

[miajag]

I only recall actually being hit a couple times, but the threat was made a lot and definitely helped keep me in line. Stuff like my mom giving me the silent treatment for a couple days when she was really mad at me was soooo much worse than any physical punishment I ever got. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with spanking, it's a fine way to control behavior without emotionally or physically scarring the child.

[Golden_Rhino]

I'm 33 and I used to get hit with the wooden spoon by my mom. It wouldn't be a savage beating; just a quick swat to the butt. My dad only hit me once, and he kinda lost control, so he never did it again.

I don't have kids, but I assume that I will spank them when I do have them.

[MissT74]

I think we need to stick with the OP's original thoughts/ideas about spanking vs. outright abuse. There's a HUGE difference and if you can't see that then you were never spanked at all growing up, imo.

T

[istewart]

[adios]

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I'm 33 and I used to get hit with the wooden spoon by my mom. It wouldn't be a savage beating; just a quick swat to the butt. My dad only hit me once, and he kinda lost control, so he never did it again.

I don't have kids, but I assume that I will spank them when I do have them.

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Yeah if you can delay discipline until you're not as angry it's much better. It can also be effective in that the child knows you're going to discipline them and they have to think about what you're going to do and perhaps (hopefully) think that it would be easier to follow the rules next time.

[RunDownHouse]

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he learns that he's not supposed to do that. But now he sees his younger sister do the same thing. Can you really blame him if he smacks her?

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I get what you're saying, and maybe I am wrong. LIke I said, I don't have kids - that I know of! - and I really think this is one of those things where your mindset can change drastically once your situation changes.

That being said, I think kids are smart enough to know right from wrong- that value set may have to be instilled, but once it is, they can make judgments based upon it - and they can eventually learn who the arbiters of justice are. When you're 5, your parents are judge, jury, and executioner. Your example of a brother hitting his sister isn't really applicable because normal people know they aren't in charge of discipline, their parents are.

I guess I should just say that I don't think your example of "kid makes mistake, parent disciplines, sister makes some mistake, kid punishes" is in the least accurate. You ask, "Can you blame him," and my answer is, "Yes, [censored], he's not an idiot, he's not a dog, and should recognize the various reasons that discipline is not his to administer and judgment not his to render."

When you say, "In my opinion, it is very difficult to use corporal punishment to deter kids from misbehaving without giving them the idea that it's okay to hit others who make them upset," are you saying this from the standpoint of a parent? Obviously it's anecdotal, but just as obviously there are tons of kids who both got spanked as discipline and turned out fine.

[astroglide]

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I'm 28 and my parents beat the living hell out of me. Both my mother and my father, my father not as often but when he did it was pretty severe (cracked hip, ruptured cornea, broken rib) My mother on the other hand would torment a little and often use anything from tennis rackets to wiffle ball bats.

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sheesh!