|
I suspect that when it comes to using violence as a tool of parenting it really depends on a few things. First, if the parent is using violence because they've lost control of their emotions, then I think that will have a different effect both on the severity of the violence and the child's perception of it. There's probably some sort of threshold of severity for which calm violence has the same effect as pissed off violence.
If you lose your shit and hit your kid, you are likely teaching your kid that it's okay to lose their shit and get violent (their future spouses and children likely won't thank you for this). If you don't lose your shit and hit your kid, then you are likely teaching them something else.
I haven't hit my kids. I don't plan on doing so. I have told the older one, after a bout of particularly bad behavior, that she's lucky her mom and I aren't the hitting type.
I think that there is a line between the calm, measure meting out of physical punishment and abuse. The tricky part is that the line is different for different kids and different parents.
|