spanking or not?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Each child responds to different punishments, but almost all young children require some punishment at some time. The brain goes through distinct levels of maturity with regard to morality, and a two-year-old simply does not understand the concept of empathy or right and wrong yet. Ultimately, the goal would be that by the age of 5 or so, they understand the idea of doing things simply because they are right, and for the most part no longer require punishing. But prior to that age, each child has their own completely unique way of interpreting and responding to the world around them, and being a successful parent to one doesn't mean jack squat about how well one would do with a different kid. [/end rant]

This really sums the subject up nicely. Every child requires a different approach. Some require more punishment than others. I can't ever remember having to spank our first child. My second a few times. My third a few times more than the second.

[Undertoad]

My momma beat me bad one time for bad grades.

Thereafter I got bad grades AND held a deep but uncertain resentment for her causing all of my pain.

Only later on did I realize that everyone holds a deep but uncertain resentment for their mothers causing them all their pain.

[Chewbaccus]

I'm not a parent, but I do remember a couple times when physical discipline was invoked by my mother when I was growing up. I was about eight or nine years old at the time.

-One time, I went to play baseball at a field that I had never gone to before. It wasn't much further away from home than the other ones I'd played at before, but it was never part of my "circuit", so to speak. Well into the game, I remember standing on second, looking out to the outfield during a pop fly, and seeing my mother's car go racing past on the road. I mean, she was cooking, and she rarely sped. Game's over, I get back, and my brother asks me where I was, what I was up to. I tell him, and he tells me that my mother was freaking out because she had no idea where I was or what I was doing. She had actually taken off to a park about half a mile away from the house, thinking I had gone there with some other kids in another parent's car - that was when I saw her flying up the road.

She gets back, sees me sitting on the couch in one piece and calm as milk (totally contrary to her fears that had been escalating every fifteen minutes since last we saw each other), sighs in relief, then goes into discipline-mode. She hauled me upstairs to my room, gave me a few smacks on my backside - flat palm, not a whole lot of force, any pain I felt was more shock than physical damage - and explained in loud and no uncertain terms that I was never to go off somewhere without leaving some kind of note or word with someone as to where I was going. (T-Mobile was a long ways off these days, folks.)

- Second memory I have was the two of us sitting in church. I'm a kid, and no more fond of dogmatically-guided life lessons as any other child. As with any other child my age, one hour is a unit of time that I can only just begin to wrap my head around, and to spend it motionless on a hard wooden pew is a task of Herculean proportions - all the harder to accomplish as I have no wristwatch to calm myself with a countdown to freedom. Ergo, I'm fidgeting.

My mom gets tired of it and grabs my wrist and squeezes it hard to get me to stop. Again, no actual physical damage - any trauma is from the sudden shock of it all. However, given the social obligations of the particular moment, she couldn't explain why she did that to me until after we got out. I got the message, and she took me out to a diner for lunch afterwards to make up for it, but to this day my memory of the event comes with feelings of anger rather than wrong action.

These were the only two times that my mother ever got physical with punishment - she preferred the time-honored methods of toy deprivation and/or a good old-fashioned Scottish guilt trip. However, I think I resent the church incident and not the baseball incident because the explanation for the punishment was delayed. Both levels of force were equal, no lasting physical damage was inflicted, the delay of explanation of wrongdoing was the only difference. That tells me that is the key component of using any physical discipline - closely associating an explanation of what was the offense with the punishment, along with just cause and not going too far.

(if this comes off as rambling rather than a polished argument, i apologize - getting this out before I leave work)

[DucksNuts]

Well said Clod....absolutely magnificently said!!

My two are totally different, so different means of punishment and consequences need to apply.

Funnily enough, the same look comes over their faces at the mention of losing a toy, being sent to the time out corner or a smack.

RK - your opinion is not backed by science. Its backed by more opinions.

Ok, you are the one making the claim that hitting kids is a good thing, so the onus is on you to support that claim.
Find a peer-supported psychological study that supports it for us?

Personally, it sounds like it is your opinion that hitting kids is good.

[DucksNuts]

I'm not saying its a *fact*, it is my opinion that occasionally smacking my children is *acceptable*.

BTW, I NEVER said hitting, you said hitting....no sorry, you said you taught someone to beat another person...thats what you taught him right? How did you ensure that he wasnt going to use his fists to settle other problems that cropped up in his life.

I'd still be interested in your response to Clods question.

I'd also be interested in how the "psychological study" proved that smacking a child will turn them into violent adults, or troubled or whatever it claims?

How do you explain the growing lack of respect in *youngsters* these days?

Smacking is not hitting?
LOL!!!

The onus is on you, you made the claim.

I have read several books, written by or backed by multiple PhDs, that state that smacking/spanking/hitting your kids is harmful in MANY ways.

http://www.jiskha.com/social_studies...ank_child.html

http://www.nospank.net/n-j14.htm

NEW YORK (AP) -- After analyzing six decades of expert research on corporal punishment, a psychologist says parents who spank their children risk causing long-term harm that outweighs the short-term benefit of instant obedience.
The psychologist, Elizabeth Gershoff, found links between spanking and 10 negative behaviors or experiences, including aggression, anti-social behavior and mental health problems. The one positive result of spanking that she identified was quick compliance with parental demands.

"Americans need to re-evaluate why we believe it is reasonable to hit young, vulnerable children, when it is against the law to hit other adults, prisoners, and even animals," Gershoff writes in the new edition of the American Psychological Association's bimonthly journal.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/spankin5.htm

"The implications of these results are clear. The more someone is successful in life (not being a juvenile delinquent, not dropping out of school etc.) the less likely they were to have been physically punished as a child or the less severe the physical punishment. To put it the other way around: the more physical punishment, the more likely the person later became a criminal, high-school dropout etc." 5

"there appears to be a linear association between the frequency of slapping and spanking during childhood and a lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse or dependence and externalizing problems."

"depression often is a delayed response to the suppression of childhood anger...from being physically hit and hurt..." [by parents]...Melancholy and depression have been persistent themes in the family history, religious experience, and emotional lives of Puritans, evangelicals, fundamentalists and Pentecostals for centuries....The first assaults on children's bodies and spirits generally commences before conscious memory can recall them later. The unconscious thus becomes the repository of age, resistance, and desire for revenge that small children feel when being struck by the adults they love...the ancient angers persist while the adult conscience directs rage inward upon the self." 2

The researchers found that the children which were spanked the most as 3 to 5 year olds exhibited higher levels of anti-social behavior when observed 2 and 4 years later. This included higher levels of hitting siblings, hitting other children in school, defying parents and ignoring parental rules. Dr. Murray Straus, the co-director of the Laboratory noted how ironic it is that the behaviors for which parents spank children are liable to get worse as a result of the spanking.

There are more... this is sufficient.

[DucksNuts]

I'm not trying to shove my opinion down your throat or preach to you about how you should be parenting, so there is no onus>

The only proof I need is that my children are happy, healthy, outgoing, cheeky toddlers, who are polite and respectful.

The other proof *I* have for *my* opinions is that I wouldnt have enough fingers or toes to count the well adjusted, successful, non serial killers, respectful people I know (including myself and 3 siblings), who were *smacked* as children.

Your avoidance of Clods question is very amusing to me.

'nuf said from me.

I answered the question, I'll state it again, perhaps you can read it this time.
No, I give it back and never state that I am stealing it. My son is not stupid and understands clearly what the situation is, he can even recognize a loaded question at four... sad that you can't.

The whole thing of, "oh, you only have one kid so you don't know that you have to hit em' " is so damn funny!!!! That one cracked me up!
I've lived with, and taken care of other kids, didn't hit em', nope. Just tried different humane tactics till I found one that works.
Perhaps someone will say it was my acting training that gave me an edge? More tactics at my command! LOL!

Hope no one takes this personally.
I still like you a lot Ducks.
I regret the wording of the loaded question sentence. Sorry about that.

How do you explain the growing lack of respect in *youngsters* these days?

The growing number of adults that don't deserve any. Respect is earned.

How did you ensure that he wasnt going to use his fists to settle other problems that cropped up in his life.

I can't, but not hitting him when he does something wrong then saying "don't hit people when you are angry" is one way to keep from looking like an idiot when I do finally say it to him. The only thing he would be doing then would be doing his DAMNEDEST not to laugh in my face and he would be exactly right to do it.
Do as I say and not as I do is a joke and kids get that joke from day-1.
I will teach him to defend himself and that alone and the only way I can make that stick is to live it in front of him.

[DucksNuts]

The whole thing of, "oh, you only have one kid so you don't know that you have to hit em' " is so damn funny!!!!

Selective reading is another of your many traits?

There are no hard feelings..as I said, I will parent my way.

The growing number of adults that don't deserve any. Respect is earned.

I call BS on that.

Some kids total lack of respect to other's personal property and strangers (wont dont have the ability to earn their respect)..doesnt fit that bill.

Again, critical mass of adults in their life who have treated them like objects. They act like what they see.
Not enough adults behaving respectfully, they are going to act like morons.
We have them in our neighborhood, some who are animals living right next to very well behaved kids. Depends on who they live with.

Personally, I think most kids are just fine and people who have the whole "the world is unraveling one kid at a time" mind-set just watch too much alarmist news.

[Aliantha]

Pretty much everyone I know has been smacked as a child for whatever reason.

There is a growing trend in Australia against doing so which is simply a follow on from the UK and US although in my experience as a parent and an observer of other parents, I'd say it's not really taking hold like it has elsewhere.

It's probably because we're all descended from convicts and don't understand any other form of punishment.

Funny how I don't feel the need to beat everyone up because I copped a few hidings when I was kid. Funny how no one else I know does either.

I just don't buy the arguments that the non smackers come up with. Particularly those that come from places where the death penalty is still a form or punishment deemed suitable by the majority of people.

[piercehawkeye45]

Rkzenrage, I have a disagree with you on the respect thing since I have just grown up through it. While kids will respect people that should very well be respected, that number is still much lower than what is deserved.

In order to be respected by the majority of kids you either have to appeal to them or drastically change their way of thinking. Appealing to them is extremely hard since I can only think of a very few that can appeal to both adults and children, usually it is a choice between one or the other. And not everyone can change someone's way of thinking.

I still think I am missing something and my statement is overexaggerated but those two traits are basically what I have seen that has gotten kid's respect. Social pressure from peers is much stronger than pressure from adults. My guess is because high school and college life is so much different from the "real world", that intermingling is very rare since they seem to contrast.