POLL: Spanking

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He's not that well-mannered as he is only two. But the very mention of the word "time out" seems to make him change his behaviour because he hates being stuck in his room for the two minutes of time out.

 

I'll play the Sensate.
Why would you not let a kid feel physical pain? It's a part of life. It also prepares him for future experiences, that surely he or she will experience, like sports or heavy work, or anything that involves great physical activity. My psychology teachers said that without some discipline children will grow without limits and without self control. In a movie, they say a hit helps people remember things, and I haven't forgotten a terrible slap on my face my german teacher gave me...
I think it's not the pain, but the fear it inflicts what's valuable about spanking. It also disciplines observers, don't forget about that. I still remember my primary school teacher olimpically (!, Argentinian idiomatic expression) spanking one of my classmates in front of us all.
One last thing, spanking shouldn't be a "method", but used ocassionally when need arises. And if that doctor thinks his son commited suicide because he spanked him, he's dead wrong. When science meets the media, it screws up.

 

A child can feel pain, but I'd rather it was the pain of falling off a tree, stubbing his toe on concrete, being hit by a cricket ball, or even as part of play-wrestling - than being subjected to physical violence by someone bigger than him who is unable to get his point across any other way. I still intend to try and do it without resorting to spanking. Maybe it won't work, but I'm still going to try - because I don't want to teach him that you can hit people just because you're bigger than them. Note, that I don't intend to raise a poncey weaner of a kid, either. If he wants to, I'd love it if he went to learn karate, just like his Mum and Dad did (where he would learn another sort of pain and more lessons on discipline). Same goes for playing rugby.

 

My $.0002 (decimal on purpose ):

I was never spanked as a child; if I had been, I likely would have become a serial murderer. That said, I am not you, nor anyone else's child except my parents. Everyone needs a different kind of discipline, and I can tell you what happened to me in two different places by virtue of my parents being divorced.

My father outright sucked at punishing me. He was a one-trick pony, and any time I did something wrong he would take away TV, or video games, or the computer, or a combination. He could seemingly think of nothing else. Half the time it didn't even work, as I'd find ways around his punishments. I could watch TV in the time between when I got home from school and when he got home from work (at least until he caught me once and slashed the power cord). I could transplant the power cord from one of his computers to power my own. I got very good at memorizing where things were so I could put them back exactly where they were before (to the millimeter).

My mother, OTOH, used the "Oh, darling, don't do it again, please, or mum will be sad." technique that chev so derided, and it worked incredibly well. For those of us who care about how their parents feel and actually have an ounce of empathy at an age when they're not supposed to (I was old for my age), it's just the trick to make you feel guilt.

The one punishment that my parents almost never used but was the perfect torture for me was the time-out. I simply cannot stand being still for more than a couple minutes without some distraction like TV or a video game. I'd scream bloody murder just to have something to listen to.

In conclusion, there's a reason that there are so many options. No one method (or even combination) will work for everybody, and parents must adjust to their children.

Spanking may bring a child into line, or it may damage them.
Time-outs may be ineffective to the point of non-discipline, or an excellent deterrent.
Verbal guilting may work, or it may not.
Removing privileges may work, or it may not.

Whatever punishment you use must be tailored to the child; inflexibility in methodology is what causes damage.

EDIT:

Hear hear! (Sounds like you've got a little Felinoid growing at your house...the horror. )

[ March 12, 2006, 23:51: Message edited by: Felinoid ]

 

No! I'll beat that out of him! .... errr ..... oops.

 

As the father of three I can say from experience that the most important aspect of any punishment is consistancy. Tell them what they can and can't do, tell them what you are going to do about it, and most importantly, follow through with what you say you are going to do. My dad did the count to three thing, you know, I'm going to count to three and you had better... I never let him get to three, because I knew what that meant. I was going to get a spanking. He wasn't angry, he didn't yell, he spanked me, sat me on his lap and told me he loved me so much he wouldn't let me misbehave.

The issue of spanking vs. time out vs. grounding is not nearly as important as doing what you said you would do, when they do what you tell them not to.

I have a cousin that thought it was cruel to slap my 11 months old hand when she was trying to stick her finger in an outlet, she said when I have a child I will never slap his/her hand. She was right, her son stuck his little finger in an outlet and got shocked. Need I say more.

As parents, we are all responsible for the way we punish our children, and we will all choose differently. I choose to spank my children. I don't beat them, I don't leave marks, I spank them. I feel that this is the way for me to do it. If you don't agree that is OK, I'm not here to push my beliefs on others, I'm just giving my opinion.

 

Agreed - that it is vital, otherwise nothing will work.

 

Agreed. I think spanking should only be employed when it's clear it's punishment for something wrong and not just solving a dispute with dad or mum.

There was a special emphasis on more than just making sure the child knows doing bad things makes mum feel sad. I'm much in favour of showing kids the consequences of the wrongs they have done, as well as letting them see the effect it has on parents. However, "please don't hit me/your mum/sister" etc doesn't work. When my teenage brother attacked me once, I kept blocking for perhaps a minute... okay, maybe a half because time runs fast in combat mode. When that time expired and he wouldn't stop, I sent him in the air with one swift move. Would have done the same if he had been my son and especially taking it out on a sibling or mother. But I can't really see myself spanking a daughter and it would be bad to have different rules for different children. I guess it's just violence meets violence for me. Slapping hands that go where they don't belong etc isn't really spanking, I guess.

By the way, why are you people opposed to spanking? What's the reason? Because it's degrading? I can think of many non-violent punishments I got as a child which were more humiliating than spanking. Cruel? Come on, psychological torture is way worse than physical and some of the non-violent stuff is really creepy. Teaches bad responses? Setting up a tariff of pocket money cuts wouldn't teach better. Or grounding. Or ignoring, sending off etc.

Not sure if I get Rally's concept of time-out right, but I'm much in favour of refusing to talk until insults, swear words, raised voice and any taunting or otherwise disrespectful tone is dropped. Slapping the child on the face until it shuts up is not an option.

And I think parents who are physically weaker than their children should never do spanking. There's too much risk of rebellion and bad things following. And I'm generally not a fan of people who hit you and expect you not to hit back.

 

Oh, I agree so much with that comment. As a parent of two children also, I never spank them for exactly that same reason. Thank you for commenting in such a rational, common sense manner, Rally.

 

We're facing a problem in New Zealand with many people pushing to have spanking outlawed. Making it illegal to physically punish your child. If you do, youth services will come around and take the child from you and you'll be charged with child abuse. It hasn't passed yet but with all this yelling these socialists are doing it could happen.

I think people have an objection to spanking because it's 'barbaric' and 'non-democratic' in nature. In effect a parent that spanks is a despot - rule through fear and power. Nowadays it seems parents want to be friends with their children rather than the authority in their lives. I guess it's linked to this modern epedemic of disreguard for personal responsibility. It's very easy to take a shot at the big guy, blaming schools for the problems of the youth. Schools COULD be responsiable for the moral upbringing of children, they used to be, but then spanking in schools was removed and teachers lost their social status as child raisers and simply became educators. Kids used to go to school to be taught life skills, discipline and to be educated. Now it seems they go to school to score so many points on this test.

It's a rather hard issue to deal with for me that spanking could be illegal very soon in my country. Frankly I think it'll doom future generations to come since not everybody is as apt at raising children without spanking as Harbourboy and Rallymama.

 

I'm sure Rallymama is both a friend AND a very serious authority figure to her children, without having to hit them.

 

I have no kids myself, so maybe my point of view is not very well based.

Physical punishment should only be used in extreme circumstances, if at all. On a regular basis, it does more harm than it does help. The kids learn that violence is a legitimate instrument for solving problems.

I think that if a parent feels like it absolutely has to spank the child, it should explain why.
Violence is a sign of helplessness. In every situation.
If the child knows the reason for the abuse (and it is one), it can understand it most of the time.

 

@Shoshino and BA: I'm dealing with a 5-yo here. Of course you don't put a teenager - or even a tweener - into time-out. Punishment has to be age-appropriate. Time-outs are an effective way to make a SMALL child understand that when Mommy says "Stop coloring on the walls NOW," she means it. Words that aren't backed up with consistent action - as Brallrock and HB have pointed out - are meaningless.

And yes, I'll admit that we had to physically restrain Arlyn through some of his time-outs when he was very small. Sometimes he just couldn't break out of whatever mood he was in any other way. But we didn't strap him down or sit on him or anything, we held him in our laps until the thrashing and flailing and kicking stopped, and then he could serve the time out. Believe me, we didin't have many of those fights, and he quickly turned into one of those kids who never gets past a count of one. All without a single spank ever being landed. It will be interesting to see if we go through the same thing with Marcus, considering that he'll have his brother's example to show him what "time out" means.

@HB: I've only got two boys, but some days I think they make enough laundry to be three!

 

Growing up, I was spanked on a regular basis, and looking back, I think it was best.

But as for my own kids, I think a smack up-side the head and a "WTF do you think you're doing?!?!?" would work better than spanking.

Refusing to spank, yell, shout, or anything like that results in having children that grow up to be in Emo bands.

 

If I understand correctly, the objective is correction, not displacing anger. I see situations where the child would be forced to wait until cooler heads can prevail before dicipline can be dealt out, but violence is one thing that must be dealt with swiftly and that would be one place where spanking be appropriate (You don't like it? Niether does the person you hit). But there are probably more effective ways, but that last resort should be there.

 

Maybe this is weird (from some of the comments here, it seems to be) - but I was pretty much never punished as a child (or at least, not in the systematic way which most people seem to use). I'm not sure what the formula for this is, but as far as I can tell it worked fine. I always found it odd when people told me they were grounded or sent to their room...

I think a lot of rules which parents seek to enforce with punishments could just be dumped entirely. Make something unattractive by being disinterested. One example I can think of is when I brought the Offspring's Americana album which has the word '****' (er, that'll be with a 'f') in it and, being the excitable little **** I was, showed it to my Mum to see whether she'd be all 'ho noes!' about it. And she went: 'Okay, that's nice. I don't really care' - ta da, the great mystery of swearing is demystified - swearing as rebellion doesn't work, therefore, it becomes a non-issue.

However, occasionally my Dad used physical punishment - and that I can't stand. I don't want to go into that much though. Let's just say that it felt like random unreasonable violence that only served to make me dislike him.

Now, this is different from the systematic spanking that some of you are talking about - but I don't care for that either. It's not an environment I would want to be raised in, where the parent has all the power and the child has no say, especially with petty things where it doesn't really matter.

 

This Supernanny show that was mentioned...I've seen some of that too. While to some the idea of "using a stern tone" etc. may seem ineffective, it seemed to work quite well with the kids on the show. The thing is, though, that while Jo Frost did it very well and to great effect - with nerves of steel, consistency and everything - the parents themselves weren't quite so good at it when they had to try it. Quite often they would slip into their old ways, pointless yelling or nonexistent discipline, very quickly. They didn't have the willpower, or were too used to being the underdogs of the family.

What I'm trying to get at here is that even though this approach may not work for every kid, and not every parent's really cut out for it, it's ridicilous to outright dismiss it as ineffective. You should really try to catch a glimpse of that show.

(Edited to make a bit more sense.)

[ March 13, 2006, 16:41: Message edited by: Susipaisti ]

 

And that's not exactly good for them, to say the least. It's not like I can't keep discipline without shouting on people if I'm in charge ( ), but in case of violence, I might be inclined to deliver some spanking. Still, spanking IMHO works best if it's meted out soon enough and soon enough for it to sink in is often too soon for heads to cool down, and violent tendencies need professional aid apart from parental guidance.

 

I used spankings for my children when they lied. It was a big formal thing -- they were sent to their room for about an hour before. Then I gave them "the talk", which was basically telling them how disappointed I was that they forced me to do something so extreme (this was actually the punishment). The spanking was not hard enough to leave a mark, but they were usually crying before it even started. As I said, the real power in the punishment is psychological -- in their knowing that the parent is disappointed in them. Perhaps the physical part wasn't necessary, but it certainly drove home how serious I was about lying. I think I only spanked my daughter once, and my son twice.

After the kids reached ten-years-old, spankings were no longer a punishment. In this I agree entirely with Rally -- the lack of force in my spankings would only become a joke to them. Increasing force would bring resentment (something I have a lot of first hand experience in -- no pun intended).

Fear and negative reinforcement is only a short term motivator. In the long run it always results in poor motivation and resentment. I've seen this both in the workplace and in the family.

I'm not sure what everyone else's idea of spanking is -- I've listed mine above. My parents idea of spanking was much different: my mother did not believe you were adequately punished until she saw enough welts on the back and butt, she used a stick. My step-father did not feel you had been properly punished until you were screaming or begging for him to stop (or he became tired, which happened a lot after I turned twelve), he used a belt -- either end.

 

Father of a ten year old boy here. He probably hasn't been spanked in three to four years. It is a very effective method of getting a point across. Things for which he was spanked he has never done again. Things for which he has been scolded or given a timeout we haven't had even close to the same success ratio. Of course, you can't spank for everything as it would lose its effectiveness if it became routine (which would probably constitute abuse). Recently, even the threat of a spanking caused a dramatic improvement in behavior.