Should you smack your children?

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: PS: Cerek, I've seen BADLY applied Dr. Spock drivel not work, my own uncle used it and they never really disciplined their kids while young. The kids were out of control brats! BUT PLEASE NOTE: I have VERY close friends, a married couple who raised two kids on the time out/extra chores/no privileges method and talked with their kids about everything. They reasoned, punished accordingly but never spanked. Let me tell you, those are two incredibly well behaved young people today! The boy is almost 16 and the daughter is 12. I can honestly say, I've never seen better behaved American kids.

That's great, Cloudy, but I feel it is the exception rather than the rule.

These counselors I mentioned are professionals and ALL of them held the same beliefs about punishment - NEVER spank a child. As I said, the result was that most (but admittedly not all) of their kids were totally out of control.

One of mom's co-workers (who also believed in spanking) got a call from school one day that her girl had gotten a spanking. One of the counselors went nuts and promised to help her if she wanted to "take action" against the school.
Co-worker: "Why would I do that? If she got a spanking, she probably did something to deserve it."
Counselor: (audible gasp) "I would NEVER let a teacher strike MY child."
Co-worker: "What if your child got up and started dancing on top of her desk in the middle of class?"
Counselor: "She's just expressing herself" (no BS, that's what she actually said).

HOWEVER, I will admit that this thread has had an effect on me too. The "anti-spanking" crowd does have a point that parents sometimes use it as the "easy way out". Heaven knows I've been guilty of that myself. But, when I've wrongly disciplined my boys out of anger, I've gone back and apologized to them for it. I've let them know that daddy isn't perfect and I admit when I'm wrong. I've also had them tell me they did something wrong and I've just said "That's OK. We'll fix it/clean it up/etc. Now you understand WHY I didn't want you to do that".

I'll admit that calmer works better MOST of the time. Not long ago, I got angry with my wife one day. The pregnancy hormones were making her very irritable and she was taking it out on all of us (not really her fault, though. Pregnancy will do that to you). So I took the boys to a nearby park to give everybody some time to cool off. Their is a very large creek/small river at the park and we were throwing rocks into the water. My 3yr old kept getting far too close to the water and I kept moving him back. He finally got mad and threw a tantrum. I lost my cool and YELLED right back in his face. He burst into tears and I felt like a total ass. I hugged him and apologized and kept giving him kisses to let him know I was sorry.

My actions were wrong, but they had a profound effect. The second child is generally much more un-ruly than the first and Jared is no exception. He hits/kicks/pinches/bites when he gets mad. He also screams a lot. However, since that day, I've never had to raise my voice to him again. Whenever he starts screaming, I calmly (but firmly) say "Do not raise your voice to me". He immediately quietens down.

AFA the physical stuff goes, there ARE times when nothing short of a physical response will work. Some mornings, he doesn't want to get dressed. He will run around the house and, when we finally sit him down, he will start kicking. He may only be 3, but when he kicks you in the leg with his heel, it hurts ALOT (he's pretty strong for his age). If I grab his legs, he will sit up and try to pinch or bite me. When I fend off that attack, I get kicked again. Usually, he will calm down, but sometimes he won't. When he is particularly stubborn. I grab his foot and pop the bottom of it (have to be REALLY careful with that though, because that's an extremely tender area). I never give him more than a light "pop" and that works 100% of the time. When I do that, he knows I've had enough.

The point is that SOMETIMES, physical punishment IS the only option. (BTW, he is NOT a "bad" child. He just has a fiery temper. Everything I've heard and seen suggests this is fairly normal for the second sibling).

Oh...one more thing....when a child throws toys (like Cloudy's nephew(?)), pick the toy up and throw it in the trash can. THAT works wonders. (This was another favorite tactic of Jared's...one he is learning to overcome so that he doesn't lose any more toys).

[mistral4543]

First off, I haven't any children, and that this post isn't intended to be imposed on others who have differing views.

I just wanted to share my experience as a child, having been caned (which I can assure you, can hurt as much as a smacking/spanking).

As a child, whenever I was naughty or disobeyed rules (at one time, I even stole money to buy stationery because I never had spare cash to buy things I liked), I was caned on the hand. When I got my spelling wrong, I was caned for every single wrong word. And once, in school, I was caught talking during assembly, caned twice on the leg, hauled up in front of the assembly and publicly scolded. On that last event, I cried in class for about twenty minutes.

Being caned was not a pleasant experience. Especially for the spelling part... I remember my face turning ashen when I discovered the number of mistakes I had made, resignedly handing the cane over to my mum and awaiting her strokes (caning, not petting )... she didn't, after a while. I think she realised how frightened I was, and hard I had tried... and possibly, the fact that my fear could result in a mental block, deteriorating my spelling ability.

Do I resent being caned? Well, of course! But I know that I deserved it for most cases (in fact, the only scenario I am not quite sure I agree with to this day is on the spelling one). And yes, to this day, I remember. Could there have been a better way to reform me? I don't know. What I know is that it was effective in my case, and my parents stopped doing that to me by the time I had reached the age of 13.

In all likelihood, I might resort to caning my children (if I had any in future) if they got out-of-hand. Perhaps some of you will feel pity for my to-be children, but it is a choice I would have to make. At the end of the day, my desired outcome would be to have disciplined children who know right from wrong and if they were smacked, they would know exactly why.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: Thing is, John, some of us have empirical knowledge I didn't just read it, I've dealt with kids in person over the years. Sometimes I was more than happy to hand them off to mommy and daddy too.. LOL [img]smile.gif[/img]

Miss Cloudbringer Ma'am, empirical ($10 word for me ) knowlege is a great base, but I'm the Daddy that the child gets handed off to. The buck stops here. Does that mean you have to spank, Lord no, I hope you will find a form of displine that works for your family. No parent that I know of relishes the thought of spanking their child, it's not fun doing the spanking at ALL.

[Aelia Jusa]

Haven't read past the first few posts, so I don't know how the argument's progressing, but my two cents...

I will not smack my children. I was smacked as a child, not hard, but not infrequently. I remember being afraid of being smacked. I don't think fear is a good means of punishment or teaching. Nor is humiliation, which is also a consequence of smacking. There are much more productive ways of teaching children about right and wrong.

[WOLFGIR]

Hmm, after reading all these post one thing gets very clear at least.
We all judge by words that mean so much different things to each other. Spanking for example. I have been spanked a couple of times when I was doing something wrong. Not something I am going to take with me in my childraising. Cause I know how I felt about it. And don´t give me that pain is a good lesson. Works for some, but you always have to compair things to an individual. I have my own scares from my life, forming me as a thinking individual. All things good and bad forms you. Fear of your parents is not a good thing. Respect is. Two words that today is so closely correlated due to misunderstandings.
Cultural differencies. If you smack your kid here in Sweden, you are breaking the law. Thay is childabuse. A "smack" (translate it to your own idea of pain to the target as you like, there is a law and other people that judge you if noticed anyway) rump might be ok. A cane? Take out that and people are going to stone you in the local news.

Be a firm person, that use respect, and clear methods, almost military discipline and you are a "hero". But how does the kids correspond to it? How do they feel about it, and what to we give them to take with for a life as an adult?

Well, some thoughts. I´m not going to interfere with your raising of children any of you. But don´t forget that it is not all about always being a parent, it is also how to be a kid! It is how to form a humans life.

[Avatar]

My Apologies for phrasing this thread slightly badly.
I should have said spanking...
Really any for of Phiscal punishment...

Cloudy: I agree with you that phiscal pain is not the only thing a child can understand sometimes! [img]smile.gif[/img] But I might have to go with MagiK on pain being probably more effective but not always the best.

LadyZ: Wendy! long time no see [img]graemlins/wavey.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

Animal: A BIG WELCOME as well from me *hugs*

[mistral4543]

(Again, speaking from my own experiences)

The ironic thing in my situation is that after getting over the initial fear of my parents, I grew to respect them because raising children is not an easy task and I know they tried to raise me to the best of their abilities.

I know that they'll be there for me as long as I need them around, that we may disagree even heatedly on certain issues. But I will respect them, at least most of the time [img]tongue.gif[/img] and I'm glad that they cared enough about me to discipline me [img]smile.gif[/img]

[caleb]

Would you agree to Mike Tyson smacking you when you did something bad? Then why is it ok to do that to a kid.

[Melusine]

Originally posted by John D Harris: Lord Shield, and Miss Melusine Ma'am do you not see that the disallowing goes both ways? Honestly Look at the title of this thread the word "SMACK" is used, I'm willing to bet in All of it's negative conotations (SP?). It allready assumes that spanking is negative, evil, only to be used by the most Trogliditish (I just love making up New Harrisism's) of parents. HELL the first page is allmost exclusively made up of ANY PARENT that spanks, swatts,thinks about it, even for a fleeting moment is evil hateful, UNLOVING, stupid parents, posts. Please stop the disallowing viewpoints stuff, it "SMACKS"(pun intended) of Hypocrisy and is beneath both of You. Consider the "Cloudy" approach Miss Cloudbringer, has been very effective at presenting an opposing view. She has neither thrust upon, or had thrust upon her this "If you disagree with me you are being close minded and are just mean, Oh by the way I don't have to be held to the same standard" stuff. I'm coming down on both of you because I have found both of you in the past to be intellectually honest, and honourable in the majority of your posts. But you are both grownup enough to make up your own minds on what I have written. I just hate to see such fine and reasoning thinking viewpoints, sink to become the very thing they dispise. Don't that sound nice, actually I don't give a DAMN. (just KIDDING I've been sitting on that saying for awhile and haven't found a time I could use it )[/QB]

*rolls eyes*

Sorry John, but my problem was with the "useless opinions" post, maybe you should read the thing you quoted again since I expressly distantiated myself from the 'kid-beater' comment.
Maybe you should read the first page again as well. People were giving their opinions, which they are allowed to, and if they have a problem with spanking/smacking/whatever they have every right to say that. I did NOT see any of those people come even close to saying parents who do spank are evil, the closest to that was LS's 'kid-beaters' which, as I said already, is something I absolutely do NOT agree with. My problem was with the blunt statement that non-parents/non-adults have useless opinions on this matter. Since we've all been children, I think we can all have an opinion on whether spanking worked in our case. I would have thought you'd agree with me on that one, since your Miss Cloudy is not a parent either, and therefore her opinion, according to the criteria, is useless too (and yes I know this problem's been worked out, but you quoted old posts so I explained the situation at the time).

[Donut]

Originally posted by MagiK: I will also say that anyone who does not have children or if you are still a minor yourself, your opinion on this whole issue is useless.

Oh dear. I had something quite interesting to say as well. Never mind I'll keep it to myself then. My head is just full of useless opinions.