The Smacking Debate
 

Should parents be allowed to smack their kids?

Do they have the right to discipline their kids in the way they seem fit? Or do you consider it abuse?

Under common law, a similar smack to an adult would bring on assault charges. So does the UN convention for the Rights of the Child apply here? Is smacking considered child abuse and should parents be held accountible for the way they discipline their children?

Would you/Do you smack your kids? where do you draw the line between discipline and abuse?

as a parent of a toddler who's going to start acting up soon, ive been thinking about this topic a lot. Does smacking affect the child, and if so, what long term affect does it have on a childs behaviour, and ultimately their personalities?

i have to say that im undecided on this debate as yet, but i think parents can and have a right to be firm with their kids and discipline them without smacking them. The problem here is that the UN convention refers to the physical and mental abuse of kids. Are parents hands tied? should we just ignore the UN?

what are your thoughts?

I have been able to raise both of my kids without having to resort to hitting them.

I know there are other methods to use and am not convinced that hitting your kid is necessary.

I don't believe in smacking, really.
I think that a swift pop with an open hand on the back of a child's hand to get their attention when they are about to do something that will cause bodily injury is acceptable once in awhile. For example, reaching for a hot iron, fingers towards a socket. It's more for shock value and to associate discomfort with the action, rather than punishment. I have found in working with kids that spanking is quite ineffective these days. I got better results by making an 8 year old sit in a chair in time out for eight minutes without touching the floor (started over each time he did) than his grandmother did in 5 years of spanking him for his behavior. Every time I see it happen, I want to yell, "Use your words!" at the parent. Then again, it pisses me off when parents or adults start lecturing three year olds in a manner that is way above them and then get mad when they don't respond how they want them to. "you are embarrassing me, we do not choose to tolerate this behavior in our family so you'd better choose some other way to respond." really lady? Tell tell the kid what he's doing wrong or you can't get mad when they don't change. I think that's how smacking comes about... frustration that a kid isn't acting like an adult or responding to adult words.

I think one aspect of the modern thought regarding this is that using violence as punishment teaches children that violence can be righteous. This is one way where violence begets violence. If a child sees a parent using violence to discipline---to make things right----then they may believe that somehow they may use violence for the same reason as well, perhaps to their peers or those younger than they are.

But like noodle said, sometimes such discipline can be for shock value in moments of danger. If a child were just about to run into traffic or, as noodle pointed out, about to touch or get close to something extremely dangerous, a stinging rebuke is an instantaneous and attention-grabbing rebuke and disincentive for future action. However, I think this isn't absolutely necessary. I don't think inflicting pain on children as a disciplinary action is ever something necessary.

I believe the beatings my mother repeatedly gave me when I was very young fucked me up. It effected me in many ways.

I wasn't beaten on a regular basis, but if I started acting up or got extra mouthy with my parents, they would whack me in the ass to get their point across and it worked. There were no "time outs" or "using your words".
Everyone I know in my age group got disciplined this way as a child. All of us turned out just fine.
There is a line between discipline and abuse. Getting a swat on the ass so it stings is one thing, punching/shoving/kicking is another.

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.

My mom spanked me. It hurt, and it sucked, and after we'd both had a little time to recover, we'd have a talk where she told me why what I did was wrong.

My dad smacked me. Across the face, usually more in anger than discipline. There was certainly no dialogue afterward, and if I "got mouthy," chances are I'd get smacked again.


I think it's worth noting that my mom and I are very close now that I'm an adult, and my dad and I hardly ever speak. There are other factors in the mix, definitely, but how they chose to punish me is something that sticks in my memory.

I work with toddlers. I am not allowed to use corporal punishment at my job. I have to use positive discipline techniques. If I can effectively manage the behavior of 20 kiddos on a daily basis without resorting to smacking or spanking, I think anyone can. To me, spanking and other forms of corporal punishment are lazy parenting. It teaches kids that you are willing to escalate punishment to that point. We have one child at my work who is spanked. Because she is spanked at home, it is sometimes difficult to discipline her because she is expecting that discipline can be raised to punishment.

I'll say more later, but I'm off to positively discipline children.

I feel almost all cases can be handled without physical discipline. I have spoken about this with my wife, and I refuse to say I will never spank but I can not think of a case as of yet (my daughter will be 3 in June) where a spank was necessary.

That being said, just remember you can do as much abuse all psycholoically.

One of my parents is manic depressive. I'd get emotionally fueled... well, not beatings, but definitely more than a spanking. Mostly when I did something dangerous, sometimes when I just pushed them over the edge. I'm certainly not violent, nor do I have anything resembling a temper, but I am *incredibly* skittish around anyone who has shown me they have the potential for an explosive temper. Enough so that I have left entire social groups because of one member.

However, the other parent was level-headed and would only spank me when needed, without the emotional fuel behind it, and that was perfectly fine. Really, the only way to keep me under control as a child was through pain or threat or pain. I wasn't hyperactive, just willful and stubbornly independent.

IIRC, the exact text of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) disallows 'violence' upon a child. The argument is that spanking, or other limited means of tempered corporal punishment is not 'violence' per se. While a drunken beating and kicking would probably amount to violence, I doubt a spanking counts.

I think spanking has its place. I've subject to some pretty jacked up things, but, it is not wrong to teach a child that if/when you fuck up, it might hurt.

I certainly don't want some self-righteous enlightened asshole from the UN telling me how I should and shouldn't raise my child, though.

Absolutely not. Physical assault is bad enough when committed against an adult capable of defending his or herself. It's much, much worse when committed against a child who cannot defend his or herself and instinctively trusts the person who's doing the slapping. It's entirely unacceptable and should be prohibited by the law and by society at large as physical assault of the worst kind.

In addition, based on everything I learned about child development both from college and from experience, using negative reinforcement in the form of anger-filled physical violence teaches children some very harmful lessons. It is linked to increased aggression and using violence to solve problems, and it's also teaching children that when one is angry, one should react physically to that anger. I cannot imagine worse lessons for a child.

So firm is this belief, that when I see a parent spank a child in public, I feel compelled to peacefully intervene.

Personally, I'd rather chew tinfoil than be in a room with 20 toddlers. :thumbsup: for anyone who wants to do that.

However...
They are not your kids.
How many years of school/training did you go through to become a successful cat herder?

I don't have any kids (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster), so I can't comment on whether its lazy parenting or not but it does sound a little "holier than thou".

Another vote here for Lazy Parenting.

I don't think it's holier than thou. I think it's way easier to give your kid a smack than it is to raise your kids without hitting them. The one thing that needs to be understood about going this route is that you need to be engaged with your kids on a constant basis.

I think it's lazy too. It requires a great deal more creativity and effort to control someone without resorting to violence or the threat of it.

I think it's less about control and more about guidance. Certainly, a parent must on occasion give orders, but it's a parent's job to both protect and to teach first and foremost.

My parents never laid a hand on me, and I'm using their model on my own daughter, who's currently 5.

Punishment and being disciplined involved the loss of privileges and time to consider one's mistakes. An explanation afterwards to the child helps them understand. I may threaten a spanking, but so far I've never actually had to make good on that threat.

Kudos to those that take the non-spanking approach and are making it work.

People will do what they want and what they feel is right for them. The best anyone else can hope for is to teach alternate methods and provide support/guidance when asked. By referring to them as "lazy" because you don't agree with their approach is judgemental.

Swatting kids who misbehave has been going on forever. Although the kinder/gentler approach is whats spoken/acted in public, I don't doubt a lot of kids get their butts tanned behind closed doors.

I don't know. When I was growing up, I got in all sorts of trouble. My parents tried more things than I can remember to try to get me to behave. Time outs, groundings, taking away of privileges, paying me, offering payment then slowly removing it, not letting me go to birthday parties or camp, strict talks, sympathetic talks, writing lines, doing chores for free I'd normally get paid for, not letting me read, not letting me have friends over. Who knows what else.

Nothing worked but pain. Immediate pain or threat of immediate pain.

I think on some children creative positive or negative reinforcement works. Probably on most children. But I really can't blame my parents for resorting to spanking me. I certainly would have.

Fair enough. I can acknowledge that kids are different. I think that it's lazy to resort to violence first. It sounds like you were a handful.

Nothing worked but pain because that's what you were conditioned to expect, Poetry.

Think of discipline and punishment as a continuum, with positive discipline on one end and corporal punishment on the other. Using positive discipline methods (redirection, conversation, explanation, etc) sets a child up to expect that. When you move towards the other end of the continuum, into punishment, children come to expect punishment. Once the card of corporal punishment has been played, they understand that their actions could invoke that punishment, and more or less laugh at any attempt to discipline them in another fashion. This is why it's truly best to start off with (and stick to) positive discipline.

Yes, it takes patience. Yes, it takes a lot of hard work. I have a sheet of discipline techniques I keep in my box at work to refer to when I'm feeling short of patience and frustrated. But honestly, if you use positive discipline and stick to it, eventually it becomes second nature to use those techniques.

And yes, it may be judgmental of me, but I stand by my opinion that it's lazy to spank a child.

this^

I'm wondering if this would have been true for me. I don't remember far enough back (obviously) to when I first started needing punishment to keep my behaviors in line, and what they did.

I just remember knowing that sitting in time-out was simply something to pass the time. That while writing lines, I could be daydreaming. That there would be other parties and other days to have my friends over. That if I didn't get my allowance this week, I would get it next. If my mother offered me $10 at the end of a trip and slowly took it away over the course of the trip due to my actions, even if I had a dollar left at the end of trip, it was a dollar more than I would have had. $0 and I had no loss, as I started with $0.

Also, I had child "principles". I had to stick by them. I was incredibly stubborn. Even at 5, I was doing the Bender "Breakfast Club" thing of encouraging more punishment, trying to find out what the breaking point was, the worst thing they could do to me, so I could determine what was worth it.

But if a bar of soap came out, or my father raised his hand to smack me, I was cowed.

You make me wonder if they did or did not start with physical punishment, if anything else would have been more effective in curbing my behaviors. I know my parents weren't the best at raising me, did some things they shouldn't that impacted me poorly. I'm not sure if this is one of them.

i dont particularly disagree with Poetry. But at what point to do smack a child. I dont personally think a slap on the back of the hand or on the bottom is a bad thing, if its warranted. I guess it depends on what it is that the child did, and whether other corrective actions have been taken before resorting to physical corrective action.

Since most of ya'll are agianst even touching a child, and since most of you are north american, i wonder if this is some kind of cultural thing going on here. I know in arab culture it is more acceptable to smack a child if they misbehave. i know some people who have been physically violent with their kids, and i dont particularly agree. I personally have never been beaten by my parents, and i only remember being hit once in my life, and i pretty much deserved it. I was testing the waters and seeing where the boundaries lay. I never even went close to the boundary after that.

My dad gave me tough love. He was a very man-of-the-house type father, but he was always caring and generous. But i could never get away with anything because of the strict way i was brought up. My mother on the other hand would always cave in to whatever i wanted, and i used her as a proxy to get my father to say yes.

Willravel - if i smacked my child on the back of the hand for misbehaving in public, regardless of whether its right or wrong, if someone approached me telling me how wrong i was, i'd tell them to mind their own business.

You'd be right to tell me to mind my own business and I'd be right to put public pressure on you not to use physical violence against your child. It'd end at that. And it depends on if it were just a small thing, just enough to kill an insect, or a slap intended to inflict harm. If it's just a tap, that's less about violence and more about nonverbal communication.

My mom and dad did not spank me when I was small. I remember getting grounded for a day when I nearly burned the house down at 2 and a half, being told to go to my room, and ignoring them and running to my paternal grandmother's house next door to cry about it (I had woken up early and been trying to make my parents breakfast in bed).

I'm a ginger and had very sensitive skin as a child -- including dermatographia, where when my skin is scratched I will welt. When my parents divorced we moved in with my maternal grandparents, and my maternal grandmother believed in spanking. She learned that she had to be very careful with the peach-tree switch she would use or she would hurt me. She never did any real damage and it was a "consequence" rather than a punishment. Never in anger.

When I was about 10 we moved out of that house, and I got really mouthy with my mom over going to school... I was getting beat up there daily, including during class time, and the school was doing nothing even when Mom tried to get them to fix the situation. I couldn't learn in that environment and I didn't like getting hit, so I refused to go to school that day. Mom was under a lot of stress and decided to spank me with a switch. She let her anger get the better of her and when she actually looked at my tush/legs after she was done she was immediately sorry. I was fine, no real damage, but I definitely wasn't able to go to school that day because it looked so awful. Heh. She didn't spank me again after that.

But I have no kids, so I'm not going to judge people for spanking as my grandmother did -- without anger.

Parents should not hit their kids. There's absolutely no reason for doing so.

Hitting a child is merely an adult's expression of anger. It teaches the child that the parent is angry, but doesn't teach the respect that many parents believe that it does. If you have a fight with your s/o, do you hit them when you're angry?

Sure, many of us who were hit/spanked as children ended up becoming decent human beings, but at what cost? If there were any stats about child rearing methods and years in therapy, I'm sure the child subject to this "minor" violence wins hands down.

The key to disciplining a young kid is keeping negatives to a minimum. I totally understand the frustration of saying "no" 24/7, but the fact that it doesn't work and that one feels they have to smack the kid for not listening should make it crystal clear. Constant "no"'s mean nothing. Praise them when they do the right thing and they will do whatever it takes to keep their parent(s) happy, as long as they're being loved.

It may sound idealistic, but it works. Really.

And dlish, you brought up a good point. The parents must ALWAYS back one another for good parenting.

And, just so ya know, I was one of those who was face-slapped by my mother and bare-ass belted by my father. I was such a good girl in public, wasn't I raised so well? When I was 16, my mother told me to put on my shoes and I kept walking away barefoot. She repeated the demand again, I said "no", she backhanded me across my face and, for the first time in my life, I smacked her back. She fell on the ground.

I'm not proud, but I was human. Sometimes, in life, there's backlash. Peace, love, rock and roll. Life is short and love is definitely the way to go.

Way too many broad strokes in this thread.

I reckon it depends entirely on the child. A spanking need not be an expression of the parent's anger at all, but rather an effective deterrent for a particular type of child. I know the new mode of thought is that this is somehow assault or child abuse but that's awfully heavy-handed speaking as a third party. Kids have unique personalities just like adults. Some adults are motivated by negative consequences (avoid bad thing that happens to me), some adults are motivated by rewards, some are motivated by achievement, some are motivated by others, and most importantly everyone is motivated by a combination of the above.

I feel like we've had this thread before, and I've said that the only effective discipline my parents ever gave me was physical. Time-out and locking me in my room wouldn't be effective, because I have a particularly antagonistic and stubborn personality when someone tries to punish me. I would have (and did) goad them into submission once they realized it was having the opposite effect. My sister, on the other hand, was not motivated by negative reinforcement at all. She rebelled even more as a result.

The answer? Yes, parents should be allowed to use all rational and reasonable methods of discipline available to them, but we ought to encourage them to consider what is most appropriate and effective for each child as an individual.

My parents spanked me only when I was being particularly difficult. In retrospect, this happened during my formative years and helped to develop a fetish. As far as discipline, I don't know if it helped at all.

You're rationalizing, J. If everyone's motivated by a combination of factors, then why should a child be punished with violence?

Even an adult receiving the worst punishment allowable by law (in the US, anyway) is put to death in a non-violent manner.

Corporal punishment (CP) is not automatically abuse. Failing to distinguish between corporal punishment (the use of pain, without inflicting injury, as negative reinforcement) and abuse is not only does no justice to CP, it significantly degrades the suffering of those who are genuinely being abused.

Pretending that all physical violence is equally morally objectionable is also nonsense. Violence is not always morally evil. It is trivially easy to contrive a set of circumstances in which the correlating supposed virtue (pacifism) would be extraordinarily morally evil and violence would be righteous. I can name for myself (most of you probably can as well) a great number of punishments inflicted without harming me physically which would cause more suffering than physical abuse.

Also, CP is not metered out solely in anger or frustration, or by parents who are loose canons, as some of you seem perfectly happy to imply.

This is my question.

Why is spanking being automatically equated to parental anger?

In my experience, I was NEVER spanked by my parents simply out of frustration or as a display of anger. I was spanked because I had been told that the consequence of breaking X rule was to receive a spanking with a wooden spoon.

I broke X rule, I got a spanking. My parents were entirely unemotional about it, if only to be disappointed that the spanking was neccessary. I was required to go get the spoon from the kitchen myself. I would usually start crying and apologizing before the tap even came, and not because it hurt. It was because my parents were following through on their rules and I quickly learned it wasn't a bluff.

For me, the worse punishment I ever got as a kid was to lose my nightlight because I was caught reading after I went to bed by it. To me, it is more a matter of making the punishment fit the crime and actually do something to deter the behavior in the future.

Based on my understanding, you would be the rare, rare exception. Did they just have blank faces? What about the fact they were hitting you? Couldn't that be used as evidence they were angry, just able to hide it a bit better than some?

Think of every spanking you've ever seen. How many of them have been accompanied by signs of anger? How many have included yelling and other intimidation tactics? How many have had and angry look in their faces? How many seemed ever so slightly out of control, as if having lost their temper? I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of spankings have their genesis in a parent's anger and/or frustration, and that anger/frustration is communicated along with the spanking, thus connecting them in a child's mind. My parents spanked out of anger, virtually every time (until eventually, perhaps, it was just out of habit). The fact that they were clearly angry when they would dish out corporal punishment suggested to me at the time and suggests to me still that it was as much about satisfying them as it was about punishing me.

Oh for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake.

Sometimes a spanking is just a spanking.

You don't believe in it, fine. Stop trying to make my parents out to be abusive monsters.

And no, I don't say that out of some Stockholm Syndrome either....

I don't think your parents (or mine) were abusive. Rather, I think they were/are antiquated.

There are other ways to parent. Ones that don't involve unnecessary violence.

can we all agree at least that Stephen Quire (if his actions are genuine...) from the freakout videos deserves a spanking if not more? if so, where on the spectrum do we draw the line between the Stephens that probably should be physically disciplined vs kids that dont need it?

Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes,
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.

(As you may well remember - the boy in question grew to be a pig)

-------------
I would have prefered to have been hit. My mother was very inventive and manipulative. I spoke up once, when my brother did something to my sister - I was sitting in my high chair and it was my first sentence. I remember how hard it was - stringing those words together. First time it came out in a whisper, and my dad said for me to say it again, and I did louder. When my dad wasnt there after, she told me things are going to change around here. She was very vicious, and my brother was her more than willing tool. I had children of my own, and she started in on them. She is a bully, and needs a victim, and will always work that way, she also has a favorite to show off for. Her favorites didnt come out too well. My sister a paedo coke head whore. My big sister who was a victim became a nurse and moved away - like me she wants to vomit at the sight of our fathers wife. I was lucky, after my brother glassed me in the face aged 18 months - or maybe before - my dad took me under his wing - my sister never had that - although I paid for being loved by him. House rules - he should only love and believe her. May I say Poetry, that I am in your club - like many others. The nicest people often are.

Why is assault not assault because the victim is a kid?

I dont think its right (legally speaking) to hit people who cant fight back, ever.

Is grounding a kid then equivalent to unlawful detention?

No, because a child doesnt have a lawful right to roam freely, and it is not the in the health and safety interests of a child for such a right to exist.

A child does have a legal right to protection from violence (at least as far as I can tell and believe)

when was the last time you saw an adult in an all out fight with a kid? its not assault, its controlled (most of the time anyways) violence for the sake of discipline

So if spankings didn't work could I, in a controlled manner, use a taser on them to cause more effective pain? What about forcing them to eat a habanero? Why is that abuse but physically striking them isn't? Is it because there's some arbitrary amount of pain and suffering where it becomes abuse? Who gets to decide that? Degrading the suffering of those who ARE being abused by insisting it "doesn't count" is what significantly degrades the suffering of those who are genuinely being abused.

Yes I'm sure you "deserved it" because you "made them do it"...


Children are extremely perceptive. They can tell the difference between getting their attention with swatting their hand away from something that's genuinely about to harm them and genuine physical violence, no matter how supposedly calculated it is. And therein lay the problem: Hitting them doesn't teach them what they did is wrong, or what they SHOULD have done instead, it just teaches them that it's perfectly alright for bigger people to use violence on smaller or weaker people when they're angry with them.

It doesn't just hurt the kids though, violence is like heroin. It doesn't matter how "clinical" you are about it, how supposedly detached or unemotional you claim to be, it changes you inside a little bit every time. Listen to a parent very quickly get angry when confronted about that sometime, they all say the same things: They can stop anytime they want, they're perfectly in control, it's not REALLY hurting anyone, its the kids fault for "making" them do it, and it's none of your business. Just like any addict waiting for their next hit, and just like any addict they will build up a tolerance over time.


Anytime this subject comes up there's one personal anecdote that I've always found very effective on anyone who has not come into the argument already utterly unwilling to change their mind: My mother was raised in an old fashioned religious family in Israel. Her father believed, like a lot of people on the internet do, that corporal punishment isn't abuse. Well, she disagreed, and one day when she grew up she came home and paid him back for a lifetime of violence all at once by literally beating him to within an inch of his life. Nobody did a thing to stop her. After all if it's not abuse then it can't be illegal to do it back to the parent when you're strong enough, if it's illegal to do it to the parent then logically it must be FAR worse to do to a minor who is supposed to have greater protections than an adult.

There are plenty of examples out there of people who do just fine controlling entire roomfulls of what are supposedly the worst kids in an entire county without even raising their voice sometimes. I don't buy it that violence is necessarily, if the kid is that messed up then it should be readily proveable to any doctor and you need an outside solution, otherwise it's simply a failure of parenting.

I slapped my older one on the back of his hand once.
He was two years old, and he tried to stick a toy into the vcr. His six month old brother had just fallen asleep in my arms so I couldn't raise my voice and he didn't pay any attention to a quiet "no".
He didn't cry, but the way he looked at me was heart wrenching.
It was full of disbelief and kind of disappointment.
Looking at him then made me believe that the only thing slaps would achieve would be to drive him away from me, add distance and disrespect.
When you just completely take that option out, there are other ways.

Having said that...
Before I had kids I knew exactly how to raise them.
Now I know that it's not all as simple as that.

tasers and habaners DON'T work because you can't control the severity of the experience. with spanking, you can control the punishment if they, for instance, chase around a sibling with the kitchen's largest knife or if they just lie about whether they stole a cookie. maybe you're right though, tazers and habaneros are just the same and require much less effort to my arms and thought in my noggin, i'll remember to use those when i have kids.

to answer your questions, yes, it is somewhat arbitrary. you can't control the exact amount of carrots the some restaurant is going to put in your soup, but they know when enough is enough to make the soup work. the parent gets to decide that based on the severity of the behavior leading to that punishment.

Your definition excludes the possibility of defining anything that doesn't leave a lasting physical damage (bruises, bleeding, broken bones, etc) as child abuse. By your definition even forcing a child to place their hands in or stand in salty ice water for 90 seconds would not be child abuse, nor would resorting to whipping them until they can't stand for the slightest reason, just something the parent decided was merited based on the severity of the behavior.

I have not yet heard a single justification for corporal punishment that did not boil down to one of three things:

1. You can't stop me
2. They're not big enough to stop me therefore it must be ok
3. It was done to me therefore I am justified in doing it to others

how many people do you know that actually got that treatment? i would say 95% of parents at their worst pull out the belt. do some people do worse? of course. same thing with food though, for all you know, your cook added "special ingredients" to your meal but the vast majority dont. why does physical punishment fitting the transgression = bad?

how many people actually say points 1 and 2? as for number 3, my parents had jobs, got married, had a kid, rewarded me when i did great and punished me when i did wrong. i still fail to see where they went wrong

add reason #414,232 as to why there will be no spawn from me.

too many people telling me how to do it, and then when I do it that way, another set of too many people telling me that I did it wrong.

If I had kids, I'd sure be giving them a spanking if they deserved it.

remember people. the entire world, every single government, is ultimately governed by the threat of physical violence- it has always been so, and I believe it will always be so- non violent approaches work a lot better on the internet, and raising a child is a lot easier for those who dont have one- frankly, I think that no one should have a say in how someone raises their child, unless they have one themselves.... they without a child have no real frame of reference....

Just because "it's the way things are done" doesn't mean it's the way things have to be.

I stand by my earlier statement. There is no need to hit a kid. To do so implies laziness and a lack of imagination.

It also often implies a temper.

Will, I don't think it universally implies a temper. There are parents that do not strike in anger. My mother never hit me in anger.

Regardless of the anger, it simply isn't necessary. There are methods that are equally, if not more, effective that do not require striking your children. The difficulty with these methods is that they require parents to do more work than some appear to want to do.

Hitting your kids is the easy way but, as has been pointed out above, it requires a parent to rule by fear of pain rather than rule through respect.

I think the law is in effect and applies to everyone regardless of whether they breed.

Let's not forget that children are human beings, not property.

Really?

So if a guy in the street hits you, but doesnt go all out and beat the hell out of you, it wouldnt be an assault?

Thats an interesting interpretation of the law.

Spanking strangers isn't assault, is it?

No, once you physically contact someone it becomes battery. Assault is putting someone in the fear of battery.

====================

I really wish people would stop citing the law without a full comprehension of how everything melds together.

..........

although you legally cannot consent to battery, I suppose spanking a stranger clad in latex wouldn't subject one to prosecution...

Unfortunately, I don't think many TFPers are legislators, cops, lawyers, judges, and legal scholars, so we'll have to make do.

If someone come up to you in the street and slapped you in the face, they'd probably get convicted of common assault.

I truly believe there are exceptions to this, and I wish parents would get off their "You don't have a kid yourself, you can't understand" high horse. Some of the kids I work with spend more time with me in a given week than they do with mom or dad, and yes, some of my kids truly mean a lot to me. I have about 24 different frames of reference, because each child I work with is different. Some positive discipline techniques work really well with some kids, and some don't. Using positive discipline requires people to think on their feet and try different approaches to problem solving.

Working with children--parent or teacher--isn't any different than many other activities in terms of problem solving--think, plan, do, review. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, try another trick. I have about twenty different positive discipline approaches I turn to when I need to.

Not necessarily 'universally', but I would argue often. That's why I say it 'often implies anger'.

Reading over the last several comments, I will say that the incidents of physical punishment that stick out in my mind the most and, I would venture, are at least partially responsible for my anxiety in dealing with other people, were the times I was repeatedly struck in anger by my father or yanked (always the upper arms, still unnerves me when I'm grabbed there) by my mother.

The other ones... little to no psychological impact that I can determine.

If I manage to have children, I do not know if I will smack them. I think, if they're like me, they'll need to be smacked. But if they are more like my sister, smacking will be unnecessary.

Where that becomes a problem is if there are multiple children and some warrant smacking and some do not. That creates an inequality that is hard for a child to forget or rationalize.

That's because it can't be rationalized, there is no child that NEEDS violence, only adults that are incapable of dealing with that child without resorting to it.

There is no equivalence between being a parent and being responsible for children for a portion of your day. The roles do not overlap in a way that makes them honestly comparable.

I also think that discounting the opinion of the only group of people (parents) with enough experience to make that judgment and then complaining about their 'high horse' is laughable.

I don't own a car, can I not tell you not to drive drunk? I don't own a gun, can I not tell you not to sweep me at the range? I don't have a child, can I not tell you not to abuse them?

As I said, it all boils down to the same three arguments couched in righteous indignation:
1. You can't stop me (the root of "your opinion is invalid")
2. They're too small to stop me
3. It was done to me

And then when someone who DOES have children or spends more time responsible for them and their discipline than the parents shows up the line is just as indignantly and even more desperately redrawn to somehow render that person's opinion illegitimate.

I think parents are too biased to be left alone to make decisions about how children should be treated. They're emotionally compromised.

As a parent, the level of annoyance that I feel when someone is giving me unsolicited parenting advice is the same regardless of whether the person giving the advice is a parent or not.

However, there are frequently opinions expressed by nonparents about children and parenting which seem completely fucking ludicrous to me as a parent. Not pointing to anyone in particular here, just stating a general experience of mine *cough* analog *cough*.

I'm pretty sure the argument has been made (and if it hasn't I'm going to make it now) that

1. It's effective
2. It's not abuse.

I know this isn't adding any intellectual value to the debate, but:

http://www.badideatshirts.com/Assets..._KIDS_PIC2.jpg

Cheap laugh, I know. :)

Excellent. I came back after a far too short hiatus to another "I have kids, I'm a subject matter expert" thread.

Here's your real LOL, JD! Get some!

Interesting.

I wonder how kids interpret "respect" at their level. Fear of consequences maybe?

Pretty sure parents rule through fear. Respect is merely an amorphous guise word here.

And kids that understand the concept of respect are too old for spanking anyway.

...

You can bet your boots ancient Spartans smacked their kids. That should be our goal.

Kids understand respect as much as anyone else, they may not have the vocabulary to articulate it but just looking at them you can tell that they feel it.

That isn't an argument, that's saying "I'm right because I say I am". Observe:

1. It's not effective
2. It is abuse.

"Do as I say, not as I do, or I'll hurt you" doesn't teach children WHY they shouldn't do something, it doesn't teach them what they SHOULD have done, all it does is teach them that bigger people can make smaller people do what they want by hurting them. On top of that controlling someone by fear and pain only works as long as they actually fear pain. As soon as they build up a pain tolerance, and they will, you're in deep shit because short of killing them there's nothing you can do to them anymore and eventually they're going to figure out that can hit back.

"Just look at them, you can feel it" doesn't hold a lot of water.

Pretty sure they fucked their kids too. Though that might have been for nonpunishment reasons.

With all due respect, Snowy, the kids are not yours, you are doing your job. Should you be a proponent of CP, you'd be arrested and fired if you carried it out.
To those who don't have kids, don't work with kids and their only "experience" is once being a kid, the task of raising and disciplining children is different than what your parents went through because we are not our parents. We might "live what we know" but we still do things based on our own experiences and circumstances. Kids of parents who spanked might do more or less with their own. Those who say "my parents spanked me so I will never do it" or vice versa may very well react totally differently when they themselves become parents. It is simply not something you can define with certainty until you are in it.
I have encountered people like you and it aggravates the piss out of me. I used wrist "leashes" with my twins when they were toddlers so I didn't have to constantly chase them, hold their hands in that annoyingly uncomfortable "arms up in the air" and allow them a modicum of freedom and I was constantly berated with nasty comments of the "they're not dogs" variety. My usual response was "I know. I can replace my dog".
My kids-especially my son-were spanked. (He was later diagnosed with both ADD and a behavorial allergy to Sodium Nitrate). Until his diagnoses, he was incorrigible. Time-outs prompted tempter tantrums.
You do what works. Beatings? No. That's sick. But spanking, a smack on the hand with a firm "NO!" usually work. How dare you cop your holier-than-thou attitude on strangers. Unless you see actual harm, STFU and keep walking.

Where do people stand on corporal punishment in schools?

Time-outs don't teach anything either, other than that a bigger and stronger person can force you to sit in a corner. It is the conversation that takes place parallel to discipline that teaches the appropriate lesson.

Some times a conversation is enough, sometimes it isn't. When it isn't, you have to have something else to bring to the table to force the kid to listen. Revoking privileges, time-outs and spanking are all extended consequences for breaking rules. They also all boil down to a reliance on force. How, for example, can you make a kid stay in their room if they refuse to do so, other than physical force?

Spanking obviously isn't always the best or only solution but it is a tool that can be an effective deterrent.

Fuck! I must have typed thirty different responses to this thread and deleted them all. Most of them started with something about little people and their little minds, no, I was not referring to children. But I'm trying to take a more tactful approach to this, maybe the light will shine.

First let me suggest, if you do not have children of your own STOP! I don't care how much time you spend washing, waxing, repairing, designing, building, tuning or driving a car. You can not teach me how to drive Formula One, unless you've done it. You have no experience, therefore your opinion is mute. If you haven't done it, don't try to teach others how to do it. This is the beginning of many great failures. And a large part of the failings in our educational system, but that's another topic altogether. If you haven't done it successfully, just stop. Maybe, just maybe, this will prevent one senseless "Hey, Skeeter, watch this." moment.

On to the topic.

It all boils down to motivation. Motivating a child to behave in an acceptable manner, one that we can all live with and brings no harm to themselves or others.

Two emotions are at the root of all motivation, love and fear. Everything we do can be traced back to one or the other, often both. I am a fan of love and take that approach whenever possible. However, fear has it's place and is a necessary part of life. It can divert us from harm and it can empower us to face the unknown. Fear is a tool. As with any tool, if you don't respect it, it can take a limb or worse. Fear can cause harm as can love.

It has been my experience that love will motivate a child in most situations, but not all. When 'not all' roles around, you better have a game plan or shit is gonna go sideways fast. Then you're gonna have some nosy asshole in line at the grocery store, trying to tell you how to raise your child. This, in my opinion, is one of the only acceptable times to apply violence. No, not to the child. Now if that game plan entails a swat to the butt or a tap of the hand to get the child's undivided attention, so that you can correct the behavior. I find that totally acceptable, a little fear/surprise is a big attention getter. If it entails a swing and a hit strong enough for an infield double, you may find yourself wondering how you ended up cuffed, on the floor looking up at a couple of EMT's. As with all things, moderation is key.

And that my friends is what this conversation is sorely lacking, moderation.

Why does the popular opinion these days always lean toward extremes? It seems every time an idea is expressed; some 'Guru' or 'Expert' gets a hold of it, mulls it over while sculpting the shit in his diaper, has an epiphany, and announces it to the world as 'The Solution'. WTF are we so lost these thin straws of idiotic pablum is all we have? I think not. Start thinking for yourself, it has remarkable benefits. Combine other's ideas with your experience and you often get moderation. At the very least you're thinking for yourself and that's a step in the right direction.

Now I haven't seen anyone completely disregard discipline as a necessary tool in raising a child. So all is not lost. But I have seen a few examples of what I will call a disservice to your children. If you are not getting your message through, it is your duty as a parent to take the necessary steps to make yourself clearly understood to your children. If that means physical contact must be made, then so be it. Every child is different, some are just too busy in their own head to hear what you have to say. That can be a good thing if properly focused, it's how you make the Darwin List if not. A slap on the hand or swat to the butt, can and will save your child a world of pain later in life. Assuming, of course, that what you have to convey is real world experience and not some bullshit by a best selling author. And that, after all is the point, isn't it? To try to give your child the tools they need to live and prosper in the real world?!

It used to be real simple, children were told how to behave. If they obeyed, they lived. If they ignored the advise, the Lion ate them. End of story. Do you know why you're here today? It's because some Neanderthal beat his kids when they didn't listen. You can take that to the bank. Now, life isn't so cut and dry, but the Lions are still out there and they will eat you alive. Although we like to think we are more enlightened, or some how above violence. Children are not. Until your late 20's, you are still operating on the Neanderthal level. Enlightenment and transcendence comes with time and experience, which enables wisdom. Children have neither the experiences nor the time necessary to understand the experiences, which leads to wisdom. It's up to you to help them develop it before they are permanently scared by a lack of it. You have to think for your children until they can think rationally on their own. Sometimes that means doing things you might not like. Giving them your wisdom successfully, whether they want it or not, is the difference between being Skeeter or being the one saying 'Hey, watch this'.

If you reward your children for everything they do, no matter how poorly it's done.
If you allow your children to behave in a manner unacceptable to society.
If you teach your children that the world is all rainbows and butterflies.
If you force your opinion of child rearing on others by passing laws that disallow discipline.
If you do not listen to your children.
If you do not prepare your children for the real world.

You are every bit as guilty of child abuse as the drunk asshole that beats his kids every day.

One final note. I am a strong believer in the theory that "It takes a Village....". We develop all of our fundamental social skills, our basis for opinion, our diversity and our ability for rational thought through interaction with others. Without the thoughts and ideas of others, we're living in the shallow end of life. If your child is behaviorally unacceptable to his/her peers and/or adults they are forever destine to live in the kiddie pool of life. As a parent, do you really want to subject your child to that, because you read/heard somewhere some 'Expert', someone you don't even know, decided it's not right for you to make physical contact with your child as a means to educate/discipline? Do you think it's right to force other parents to follow this idea by making it a law? How many bad experiences have you had, because you acted on someone else's, unknown to you, wrong opinion? What are you afraid of?





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I don't want to have a child just to earn some kind of arbitrary license to determine whether it's ever okay to slap one.

I don't have to have a child to know that there is a good chance that inflicting pain on a child could have long-term consequences.

By that same logic, I don't think parents need a Ph.D. in child psychology before they should formulate an opinion on the matter.

By that same logic, I don't think that parents should have no say whether there should be corporal punishment in schools simply because "they don't know what it's like being a teacher."

By that same logic, I don't think I need to marry before suggesting that caning your wife as a form of punishment is wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think being too close to a matter can cloud your judgement.

I think maybe you should read a little slower and not jump on the hate train so fast. No where did I say inflicting pain is necessary in child rearing. If you are hitting a child hard enough to inflict actual pain, you have some anger issues. Get help.

Nor did I allude to parents needing a Ph.D in child psychology, in fact, I stated that I believe it takes a village to raise a child. Not a single self entitled asshat full of other peoples ideas and none of his own.

For a well behaved, respectful child, why would there be a need for corporal punishment in schools. The reason we could use it now, is precisely because there is no discipline at home.

What the fuck does caning your wife have to do with anything? I mean, if she's into that kinda thing, go for it. But wait, weren't we talking about children?

Being to close to a subject is one reason, among many, that so called Experts often have their heads up their asses and don't know it. They spend so much time in the theory of a subject, that practical knowledge becomes a distant memory. Then the publisher calls to remind of a deadline and all bets are off.


Really, you're an intelligent human being, your post was beneath you.



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What Baraka said. And that moderation thing. In a big sandwich.

I'm tired of the "I'm a parent, that makes me special" crap.

Congratulations on Biology 101. You figured out the penis/vagina.

Reproduction doesn't give you the civilian equiv of a Ranger tab.

I'm also tired of the "kids are different/special" philosophy.

Kids are like expensive pets that can learn to do more expensive tricks.

You're presuming that my post was a direct and enclosed response to yours. It was only one of many factors.

Don't assume too much.

And what kind of argument am I supposed to use in support of their having one of the basic aspects of human emotional spectrum? You want me to find a betazoid? The argument "They don't really feel, not like we do" holds even less water.

So not having the judgment to properly use contraction magically gives anyone that has a kid the sound judgment on whether or not it's alright to habitually abuse children and call it "discipline"? I don't need to be an F1 driver to tell you that driving into the walls is a bad idea, or that you shouldn't put gasoline in a diesel engine, or try to shift from your highest gear straight into your lowest without changing RPMs, and so on.


I've mentioned the pro-violence tendency to redefine things as is convenient in #64 already, this is just another example of that. Coming into a discussion of beltings, whippings, smackings, slappings, and other forms of corporal punishment and trying to make everyone arguing against it look unreasonable by redefining "corporal punishment" as something that can barely be qualified as physical force is just disengenuous.

This isn't a "continuum", there's a very clear line between what the ever-referenced Reasonable Person would consider to be corporal punishment or not. Swatting a kids hand away from something immediately dangerous in a manner which is specifically done to move the hand rather than cause pain, or their clothed butt in a way designed to cause noise rather than a physical strike when they're about to run into the street, is absolutely different from the calculated brutality of deliberately striking them in a manner which is calculated to cause maximum pain with minimum legal liability.

Trying to compare the two is like coming into a police brutality thread and trying to use cracked ribs from CPR to justify going Rodney King on someone.

Yeaaah, assumption and fuck-ups are my job.

There were only two posts between your posts, mine and Hector. His was a response to another post, so yes, it appeared to be directed at my post.



Yeah, I think if I had the whole world to look to for advise, you're the first person I'd call. What's your number?


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Nice to see we're getting some of our angst out.

It is typically a mistake to assume you know about something when you've never actually done it.

Like assuming you can rap because, you know, they're just talking.

Becoming a parent doesn't make a person any smarter. It does make a person a parent. There are things about being a parent that nonparents can't know. The previous statement should not make you feel bad, if it does, you should take a few breaths and try and figure out why it hurts your feelings when someone points out that you can't accumulate comprehensive knowledge about being a ______ if you've never actually been a _______.

That being said, I don't think that nonparent's opinions on child rearing should be automatically discounted. They should only be discounted if they're ridiculous.

Wow. Some people are very passionate about hitting their kids.

I think this commercial that Irish broadcasters won't play should go here.


I didn't get hit that many times. I deserved one because I was running behind my sister with a knife. But, I don't remember anything before age 4, and I don't think it is good for the kid if they get smacked at that age or younger. There are alternatives.

Some people don't like to be told that they're child abusers just because someone else doesn't like the method of reasonable, effective and non-abusive discipline that they've chosen.

I think I have been very clear. I don't see it as abuse.

I see it as potentially abusive and open to overuse. I think smacking your kid is retrograde and unnecessary.

There are other, ways to disciple kids that do not involve giving the a whack. That are more effective.

Using violence as a form of discipline is a lazy cop out.

Whoa, easy there Chief, in my case the passion is for the right, not the act. In 14yrs I have never found it necessary to exercise that right. But if I do find it necessary, I will exercise my right.

Then again, I don't reward every breath they take either. So they aren't disrespectful little shits that think everyone owes them the world.


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I look at this as the lesser of two evils. I do not condone abuse in any way, physical, verbal or mental. But I do wholeheartedly condone giving your child the tools they need to succeed. One of those tools is discipline.

By taking away the right of a parent to discipline their child, you are telling the parent they are not responsible for their child's behavior. If you take away one tool used in discipline, then you better replace it with something equally effective. So if someone is too lazy, to take the time to talk to their children, explain why what they did is wrong and follow through with a punishment, instead resorting to a slap. If you take away that slap, you better be willing to teach that parent an alternate means of discipline.

Kids aren't stupid and they are devious as can be. They will use everything they can think of, to manipulate you, to get their way. Remove discipline from the equation and you get GeeDubbya Bush and nobody wants/needs that. They don't see a parent talking to them instead of hitting them, they see, that they got to do what they wanted and got away with it.

If you teach your kids they can have anything and do anything they want without any recourse, they will fail in life. Life just doesn't play by those rules and it hits a lot harder than any parent can, life plays for keeps. Life will kill you.

There was a post a couple of years ago about hiring people to work for you. I talked about how I always look for retired seniors citizens when I need help these days because the kids are useless. They would show up when they wanted, put in a pathetic day of work, then ask for a raise. When they didn't get what they wanted, they just quit showing up. No notice, no phone call, just didn't show up or return calls. It was pitiful. They wanted a reward just for being there. I wonder who taught them that? It wasn't isolated either, it was literally 9/10 kids I hired. The one exception was the son of a Dairy farmer who'd been working since he was 6 or 7, helping around the farm. Who do you think is going to do better in life? No, I don't think everyone should start working at 6yo. I think that by working at that young age, he learned discipline and a work ethic that is commendable.

I don't think any real parent holds malice toward their children, but I think a lot of people, not just parents, fail to see the long term effects they're having on children. The current generation graduating college is the scariest shit I've seen in my lifetime. If you think the country is fucked up now, wait 20 years. Think the government is out of control with taxes, non-taxes, corporate lobbying, war, national debt, etc..... What do you think is going to happen when these self entitled little shits hold the keys to the kingdom? That kid who was rewarded just for showing up. The one that got a 5 minute time out for doing exactly what he was told not to do. The child that was taught all his/her life that it's better to just do it and ask forgiveness later. The child who has never had to earn anything and has never paid the consequences of his/her actions?

Fuck, just look at what's happening right now with our economy; the bank bailouts, Wall street, Supreme Court judges, unapproved wars, trillions of dollars of debt and none of those responsible will ever be held accountable for their actions. Just like undisciplined children and we as citizens, bad parents.

Once again, I'm not condoning abuse, just discipline that is effective. The idea that a slap teaches violence as a solution is non-sense as well, beating your kids may teach that, but not a slap to get their attention. Like it or not, we are born violent. Don't believe me? Try watching a few toddlers trying to play with the same toy. In your first year, you haven't had time to learn violence and in all likely hood have never even seen it. But it's a Battle Royale when more than one child decides they want to play with that same toy. Eye gouging, kicking, hitting no holds barred brawls. Hitting is probably one of the most corrected behaviors and likely the reason some one decided it must come from the parents actions, because it is so common. It's common, because it's already there at birth.

We are effectively training morality out of society with these actions.

And somehow people are equating reasonable, necessary, discipline, with abuse???? Equating a hand or butt slap as violence??? Does that make all physical contact violence? I believe the pendulum has swung way too far to the side and these actions are doing far more harm than they were intended to prevent. Parents going to prison and kids in foster care because some tiny minded ass lick witnessed a hand slap and called the police?? What the fuck is wrong with people?

I have a friend. Here mom is a psychotic bitch. My friend decided she would not let her daughter spend anymore unsupervised time with grandma when she found her 8yo daughter in the bathtub with her 65yo mother. What the fuck is a 65yo woman doing bathing with an 8yo??? So grandma calls social services and tells them her daughter is a drunk and she's abusing her granddaughter. In 7 years I've seen her have 3 drinks, not a drunk. Social services shows up at her house, does an inspection, finds 1 old dusty half empty bottle of wine, and takes her child!!?? They then place the child with grandma. 6 weeks later on a surprise inspection, the social worker finds grandma and granddaughter naked in a kiddie pool in the back yard after there was no answer to the front door. Good job social services. At least she got her daughter back the next day. But after 6 weeks of who knows what. Yes, it could have been totally innocent. No one thinks it was and the child was in therapy for reasons unknown to me for 3 years after that. This is the kind of shit that happens when you give control to an uninterested outside party. This is what happens when you try to enforce your beliefs on others. Yes, some children are saved from abuse. However an innocent group is also sucked into the whirlwind of the self righteous cleansing of society and in the process more harm than good is done.


Moderation people, moderation.

Quote:

So not having the judgment to properly use contraction

I typoed contraception and it was autocorrected to contraction. That it was a typo is pretty obvious from the context of the discussion and the fact that "contraction" doesn't remotely make sense. Was it necessary to make such a large multicolored deal out of that?

Also utterly unrelated but since it IS a safety issue: learn some more about transmissions before you blow one up. Engine RPMs transmitted through the gears of the transmission apply torque to the wheels which gets you moving. It may be strongly correlated with vehicle speed, but RPMs and speed are NOT automatically equivalent.


You are indeed being disengenuous (inbetween insults) and here's why: First you try and redefine "corporal punishment" to be something everyone in the thread agrees barely qualifies as physical force let alone "smacking" as has been discussed for a page and a half at least.

Now you're trying to redefine the OP's post to something else for YOUR convenience. The OP clearly asks whether we would/do smack our children, where we draw the line between discipline and abuse, how violence affects the child and long term affects on personality and behavior, and our thoughts on the UN (ie govt) involvement in the whole debate as you can clearly see right here:


Spoiler:

Quote:

So does the UN convention for the Rights of the Child apply here? Is smacking considered child abuse and should parents be held accountible for the way they discipline their children? Would you/Do you smack your kids? where do you draw the line between discipline and abuse? as a parent of a toddler who's going to start acting up soon, ive been thinking about this topic a lot. Does smacking affect the child, and if so, what long term affect does it have on a childs behaviour, and ultimately their personalities? i have to say that im undecided on this debate as yet, but i think parents can and have a right to be firm with their kids and discipline them without smacking them. The problem here is that the UN convention refers to the physical and mental abuse of kids. Are parents hands tied? should we just ignore the UN? what are your thoughts?

No, that's not every child's first reaction starting with the fact that I myself am still here as are at least five other toddlers I've ridden the bus with in the last month alone.

It's called a metaphor.

Gypsy... my tongue was rather firmly in cheek.

That said, I stand by my comments. Discipline is essential. Discipline need not come from hitting your kid. There are other, more effective, methods. Hitting your kids is lazy and shows a lack of imagination.