To spank or not to spank??? - Page 3

This is pretty much what I said in my post. We were never spanked. A swat on the behind to get our attention on a rare occasion. And then explanation. Some parents yell and hit and don't explain ... how does the kid learn if he/she isn't taught the why, what, how, etc. I don't hit, shake, spank or otherwise use physical force with nieces and nephews. But I say what I mean and mean what I say. I have grabbed them and come down to there level to deliver my message, look them right in the eye!

One time, I was making a cake with a niece and nephew and he was really being a pip with her, but she was taking the bait. I told them a couple of times if they didn't behave the cake batter was going in the garbage. Well, they didn't listen. Know what? I did what I said - cake batter RIGHT INTO THE TRASH!! You don't get a good time and yummy cake if you don't listen and behave properly. And their hollering brought my brother running into the kitchen. I told him what happened and what I did and he sent them to their rooms as punishment. At least he backed me up.

I was sorry to waste the batter but I knew I had to.

My folks were tough but fair and for the most part - consistent in doing what they said they would. Many kids today are out of control because the parents don't have a firm grip on things (figuratively speaking) and the children are running the adults, sted other way around.

My mother always told me that being consistent was the most important thing to be when raising children and also the hardest to do.

Therein lies many problems with raising children, one time they are allowed to get away with something and the next time they are punished for the exact same thing. Not the kid's fault, the parents fault.

I absolutely agree!

That is so very very true!

I'll be honest, i don't ever think i was smacked by my parents as a child?. I must have been a little angel!!

As for believing in smacking, yes to an extent.

A smack on the legs, hand or the bottom with your hand to me is fine, but i'm not sure about using any impliments. I remember a french teacher in my early teens getting a boy to bend over and smacking him really hard with a leather strap which was about 2" wide. He hit this boy so hard he jumped forward, it was awful

If a swat on the back is not painful then what is its purpose in punishment? I know some people are saying that it's not painful, that's why i'm asking.

A smack on the bottom or the hand isn't a problem to me, if it is administered with the open hand, no belts or spoons or whatever, and only when the child is willfully disobeying or ignoring other correction or putting himself or others at risk. Some children are like that generally, others are occasionally. My parents gave us the odd smack, and when they did we deserved it and it got our attention. Neither my brother nor I have turned out to be violent people, and I certainly hold no ill feelings toward my parents. I don't have kids of my own, but I would have used a smack in the same way my parents did, and I'm not about to condemn parents who do so.

Where I would have difficulty is when it goes beyond a smack or two, to repeated hitting, beating, use of anything other than the open hand. That does constitute abuse, IMO.

And as for those who prefer not to use a smack for disciplinary purposes, I'm not about to condemn them out of hand, either. You use the method that works with your kids, and it's not up to me to tell you what that is. If your child is acting out in public, though, making things difficult for other people, and you're standing there trying to reason with him, I'll probably manage to bite my tongue, but I'll be wanting to give you a piece of my mind.

Probably because if you've ever been giving a jolt from someone out the blue, it gives you a fright?!

Cindy, I'm not singling you out, when I say this... it's just that your post was short and easy to quote. The sentiment you've expressed has been expressed many times, and though I haven't gotten through the entire thread yet, I wanted to take a minute and respond to this question/statement before finishing getting our dinner ready.

It may not be truly possible to "reason" with a 2 year old (my son is 22 months, so I feel fairly qualified to respond). However, temper tantrums occur when kids have big feelings/emotions/reactions that they can't articulate. That's why they occur much more often in 2 year olds than, say, 7 year olds. I cannot imagine how spanking/swatting a child who is already overwhelmed and unable to articulate what's wrong will help. At all.

For a 2 year old... being hungry, tried, overstimulated, etc. can be BIG DEALS and cause BIG EMOTIONS. You may not be able to reason your way out of a situation like that, but you can remove the child from the situation, and next time, do a better job at trip-planning to help avoid another meltdown. And also, in a moment of calmness, talk to the child and explain what's going to happen. At 2, he/she might not truly get it, but they'll come to understand eventually. Until then, you listen to your child and take cues from them and act accordingly...

For example... yesterday morning, Jude had only been up for about 2 hours when he started having tired eyes and signing "milk." I really wanted to go for a walk and get some shopping done, and since he usually stays up for about 3.5-4 hours after he initially gets up in the morning, I thought I would be able to get to the store and back before naptime. So, just as I was ready to start getting him ready, I stepped back, looked at him and considered the situation. I could either force him to get ready and go to the store, ignoring his cues that he was too tired to go, and thus risk a full-blown meltdown at the store, or I could accept that yesterday wasn't going to function like other days, nurse him down for a nap, and hit the store after he got up. Get which option I chose?

I guess my question, at this point, is: Why is it acceptable to hit children when they don't listen to us (the adults), but it's not okay to hit other adults when they don't listen to us? ... Like, if I squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle (instead of from the bottom) for the millionth time after being asked repeatedly not to by my husband, is it okay for him to hit me since he had tired reasoning, pleading, and bribing me already? If the answer is no, then why is it ok to hit a child? And one who can't understand reasoning?

i agree - physical pain passes, but emotional or mental pain can linger for years.
my mother told me she feels she verbally abused me as a child. she asked for my forgiveness for this - i honestly cannot remember what she's referring to. of course, i said as much - plus, since it was obviously not abusive TO ME i also willingly forgave her.
neither parent has EVER requested forgiveness for an coporal punishment administered. & while open hand/behind swats were probably used, for the most part, when we were still quite small, later years saw my mother using a wooden spoon & my dad using his belt.
never was hit hard enough w/either to cause any lasting marks of any kind... altho i do believe my mother broke a spoon on either me or my sister [i know it broke, just don't remember who was being spanked at the time]. she has said more than once that she prefers using an object [if necessary] that will break if excessive force is used. wooden spoon, yardstick - but not a ruler, they're too solid.

I sort of feel like some people are implying that spanking a kid is the ONLY way to raise a good kid, and I know that's just not true. I may not have kids yet, but I'm not going to change my mind. I think it's kind of condescending to suggest I would. I'm not naive. I think being consistent is just as effective as being spanked.

Well, I must say I've seen the little beggars throwing a tantrum because their parent won't get them the teddy bear or the candy or something else they've seen that they want. That isn't being over-tired, over-whelmed or anything other than a pure tantrum that needs to be dealt with immediately.

Our daughter did that in a department store one day because I refused to buy her a teddy bear she wanted. She lay down on the floor, kicked her feet, screamed and put on a good show. I must say I did not spank her. I walked away, told her I had no intention of getting the bear and that I was leaving. Naturally I was keeping one eye on her for safety sake. I didn't get very far before she came running after me and stopped the tantrum.

What a great and logical explanation. I think those of us who believe in spanking don't believe in hitting a child for every little wrong and anyone who would interpret that as being so is being facetious IMO or exaggerating, neither of which is relevant to a serious response.

So we are talking here about a spur of the moment type of slap just to get someone to snap out of whatever they are doing that's disturbing ....That's not as bad as spanking. But people on here talked about actually doing an after the fact spanking as a form of PUNISHMENT. Like say a kid does something terrible at the park like jump inside a lake -you take the kid home where it's nice and safe and you say "guess what you did something bad and now you're going to suffer the consequences with this spanking". That- is something I could never EVER understand. What you describe is not really punishment, it's more like an act of helplessness, like you have to do something to stop a ridiculous situation but there is nothing you can do so you just slap your child to get their attention...It's not the same thing as spanking.

So how would you feel if you put yourself in danger, later came home and your husband told you, you are going to be punished for what you did, bend over i'm about to spank you now...
I think that was Jillian's point about why it's okay to do it to children but not to adults...It's a double standard.

yes, it IS a double standard.
children are not just "miniature" adults.

Whatever happened to putting a kid in time out??? My parents did that, I was bawling the entire time in time out it was the worst thing EVER.

I am interested in your way of thinking since you do agree it is a double standard.

Neither are animals but I don't thinking physically hitting them when they "misbehave" is okay. Why is it okay to hit little humans?
And who can hit them? The babysitter? Your parents? You? Teachers? Any adult that deems it okay?

While that may have worked for you, it certainly didn't work for our daughter. She enjoyed her time out or at least was too stubborn to admit she didn't.

I thought about bringing that up too, but I didn't want people to think I was comparing a child to a dog. But it's true. Physically discipling a dog is frowned upon, but physically discipling a kid isn't?

animals do not have [for the most part] the intelligence necessary to connect cause & effect.

that said, i've been known to 'spank' an animal in order to connect a dangerous act w/a painful consequence. i have found that yelling/loud reprimanding is more effective, tho.

as far as who is 'allowed' to spank a child, that is something for the parents to decide.

i certainly would not spank/hit/swat a child if i did not know that such an act had prior approval by the child's parents. my nephews/nieces are a good example - & even then, probably only my sister's children. i would include my oldest cousin's, as well, if i'd been around them a great deal when they were small, the way my sister was. she & my cousin treated all of their small children as if they were 'co-mothers' - basically, whoever was present when something occurred dealt the discipline - regardless of the method chosen, which varied depending on the act.

i limit it to them because i know we have similar views on discipline. my oldest brother - i don't know for a fact what his views on spanking are - i would not take it upon myself to make the decision to spank one of his children w/o discussing it w/him or my SIL 1st.
i've nannied for both him & for my sister - spanking was never even necessary. i've never had to even threaten such a thing - but, then, i'm wasn't taking the kids to raise - just a temporary nanny position, or taking them out for a movie or something.

usually, in the case of the latter, the threat of going home was enough [sometimes adding the threat of telling the parents].

all of that said - some children [i was one of them] do not respond to a time-out situation w/correction of the behavior. grounding really didn't bother me [not that i was grounded often] nor did sending me to my room to 'think about what i did' [i usually found a book & read, instead].

kids are individuals, just like adults. we all respond differently to stimuli - that's why some abused children have MAJOR psychological trauma from the abuse [think Sybil] & others have what seem to be much more more minor effects.

Personally I'd like to see a poll set up for this that includes age groups. I suspect attitudes are mostly influenced by generation with a lot of the younger generation who's been raised with the belief that practically any form of punishment constitutes as abuse are the one's most firmly against spanking.
...And that may also be why you see so many mothers in their twenties who have wild disrespectful kids.

Yosemite - timeouts were useless on me as a child, too, and will tend to be so for any child that can happily entertain themselves with their own imagination. I'd just go off into mental lala land thinking about stuff or make up stories. Like Laureen, banishment to my bedroom was useless as well, even when they learned that they had to take my books away it did no good since I'd just stash them.


I do consider some of what my parents did to me to be abuse, but it was not the spanking or even anything remotely physical that left the most lasting scars. It was the verbal abuse and being degraded (constantly called stupid and useless). If anyone wants to debate abuse, this is much much worse than any swat on the butt. These are the things that are going to stay with a person for life.

there are some books i've read so many times i can 'read' them in my head.

I know of some parents, who have a young son, who was biting his fingernails. They tried to get him to stop, from using things on his nails, to slapping his hand when he put his hand in his mouth, to threatening him with a spanking when he did it. It resulted in him getting several spankings before he stopped biting his nails and he did stop.

But no one will ever know why that little tiny boy had a compulsion at such a young age to bite his fingernails to the quick, which I think is the more important factor and would have been my concern, had I been his parent.