to spank or not to spank? (Page 5)

mothertrucker30: By the way parents who spank dont only use that method. It is simply one of many. Sometimes one that is relyed on when the others dont work.

lostgirl245: i agree, these days any punishment you do is conciderd abuse, you cant win for losing.

_Nicotina_: mothertrucker, you were spanked by your father as a child and as an adult you were once a battered wife. Have you ever thought that perhaps there is a connection there? In no way am I saying that you deserved to be hit or that the abuse was your fault. It seems that where there is "physical" punishment as a child there is an increase in probability of being a victim of domestic abuse as an adult. Domestic abuse is a complex issue and it is going a bit off topic. The possible connection is worthy of taking note, if nothing else.
Thankfully you managed to get out of that abusive relationship. No one deserves to be hit.
Best wishes to you.

_Nicotina_: It is the responsibility of EVERY ADULT to ensure the safety of EVERY CHILD!
That's part of the deal. I would not turn a blind eye to some one spanking their child. Part of the problem with abuse is that few people are willing to get involved. Spanking is abuse, I have and will continue to stand up for the child every time.
Please note that I have also protected adults from being abused. Police were involved and the process took well over a few hours.

Morsy: Spanking today is not a favoured discipline of which I am happy about however in my childhood say the 60's it was the norm and was accepted as a punishment, times change, children have definately changed, they are more astute because they are treated as little human beings instead of 'children', there are more social issues because the population growth is huge and spending extra time applying a non physical punishment is the norm and one which I agree about. For me I accidently acquired a certain 'look' which did the trick and that was my warning.......Don't forget in the Victorian era children were a commodity, hardly seen, they believed had no individual thoughts, more so for girls than boys at that time and worse could be born with tainted blood (out of wedlock etc).

MrSteveA67: For a very young child some form of physical discipline might be necessary. If you have a two year old that wants to play with the stove, that's not something where a sit down conversation is going to work and it's important enough to at least warrant a slap on the hand or something to make sure they're discouraged from doing it (but what do you do if they continued to ignore that? Risk a child burning down a house to save a swat on the bottom?).

On the other hand, it's sad to see some parents spank their children until the kids are practically oblivious to it. I think there are times when a spank is appropriate, especially if a child is both doing something dangerous and intentionally disobeying ... is there much of any other choice in how to address things?

I was rarely spanked and agree it's best to try to teach a child the whys and hope they understand and make decent decisions, but if that fails there might be few options available.

_Nicotina_: So it's OK to hit a very young child? O.K. that makes sense.
I can see a reaction of slapping anyones hand out of the way of danger in order to be as fast as possible, however that isn't spanking.

_Nicotina_: Exactly when is hurting a child appropriate?
The parents are the ones responsible for the child. I think you are punishing the wrong person there.

Teece: I agree with MrSteve.... the word 'no' gets highly overused with small children and there are times (as in possible danger scenario's) when you
have to do a little more than say 'NO' to get their attention and let them know that its not ok to do something..
I can remember smacking (well, more like tapping really) my children's hands a few times when then situation
warranted it - i.e., 'NO' went unheeded.. my children don't remember it though. They never cried, more they just looked surprised and understood that if they did it again, it might happen again - they didn't like it!

My children have never been spanked - ever! I was spanked as a child and I remember the intense humiliation of it.... I don't happen to think that setting about to humiliate another is a good example for a parent to make....
There are so many ways to punish bad behaviour - time out, withdrawing privileges etc... why would anyone want to spank? I can't imagine actually hitting anyone... and living with myself afterwards.....

MrSteveA67: Hi, Nicotina.

The truth is that children are the responsibility of the parents and nature already has it figured out how to take care of bad parenting. We can debate all we want but in the end it's up to the parents to decide.

If you have your own children, you should take care of them. I know many people desire to 'help' parents, but I've seen society tear apart too many families now to feel much sympathy for overbearingly 'charitable' individuals.

As I said, it seems best to teach a child the whys behind things and hopefully they can make wise choices but in the cases where that's not possible and a wall simply needs to be in place to keep life going, then a wall goes up.

If a child didn't feel pain when their hand was in a fire, the hand would burn. There are cases where people feel no pain and it takes practically putting them in a straightjacket to keep them alive.

In a similar sense, a child may not realize the danger of playing with knives or hitting someone else and though trying to spend some time and make sure these actions don't continue, not every child, every time is going to 'get it', in which case the safest route is to make sure they know that there's a danger involved. They might associate it with simply being spanked, which is ultimately a mistake and a parent should try to show a child why they were spanked, but at the time the best and most immediate remedy could be spanking.

What if some child runs out into the street despite warnings not to do so? Do you simply talk and continue to let the child run into the street until they're likely killed? That would be silly, IMO. If the child doesn't understand the dangers (and you don't want to have to lock the child indoors, which ultimately won't serve much purpose), then a spank would be appropriate, IMO and definitely less hazardous than running around in traffic.

A good parent should use whatever is available to do the job and as I said, nature already has it taken care in the case of bad parenting. Social opinions and laws can be what they want, but natural laws are less flexible and whimsical.

If you really care for a child's life, happiness and wellbeing you'd be willing to sacrifice cultural/social views that are in conflict with those.

_Nicotina_: "A good parent should use whatever is available to do the job." Where exactly do you draw the line? A good parent uses a belt? A good parent uses a paddle? A good parent does not spank when angry? worse still... A good parent spanks when calm? What are we teaching children if we calmly hit them? If we do hit children when we are calm, it only serves to teach the child fear of being hurt at any time their parent is calm.

Nature has most certainly not figured out how to take care of bad parenting. That is unless you agree with a child being abused. There are still far too many children who suffer from bad parenting or no parenting at all. That I would call abuse.

I was never hit or spanked, as you may wish to call it. Some how my parents managed to impart the knowledge in me that to run into the street could mean being hurt badly or even death. I never touched the stove either. I was taught ongoing at a level that was suitable for my age.

The cases of a child not feeling pain is very rare. Congenital Insensitivity to Pain aka CIP and Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis aka CIPA are possibly the most rare disease in the world. Only 35 people in the USA have it. So your reference to that is practically irrelevant to the topic of spanking.

To argue that is reasonable to teach a child that hitting a person is wrong, it is acceptable to hit the child is redundant.

You go on to say "If you really care for a child's life, happiness and wellbeing you'd be willing to sacrifice cultural/social views that are in conflict with those." This too is a poor argument at best. It is a vague statement. I'm willing to sacrifice my life for that of a child's.

I agree with you fully that "If you have your own children, you should take care of them." I think most reasonable people would agree also.

It is well known that it takes a village to raise a child.

MrSteveA67: No, it truly doesn't take a village to raise a child. That's said by people who want to raise others children.

Natural evolution already has it figured out. If parents don't take care of their children, then their social and genetic views etc. aren't going to be around for long. There's no debate necessary for that.

How do animals in isolated areas survive for so long if they don't have role models to learn from? It's simple. The ones that are able to raise children and survive and reproduce continue on, the rest don't and it does a disservice to try to alter this.

What if we passed laws to try to force gay people to have children, or if we had all children raised by some form of conveyor belt society where you pop a child in one end and 18 years later they came out as educated adults on the other end?

In either of these cases, the situation is only as tenable as the mechanism forcing that state to exist. If some day, heaven forbid that conveyor belt broke down, who would have the parenting skills remaining to raise the next generation? Or if the laws forced people to have children and they simply did this, not our of natural/instinctual desires but solely because of enforced penalities otherwise, then if that enforced system ever collapses, you could have generations of people who've been bred under a system which (unjustly, IMO) biased people toward having little natural motivation (or even genetic disposition) to raise children.

Unless social and genetic evolutionary theories are wrong, my comments are close to spot on.

It's fine to raise your children in the manner you desire and I see it similar for everyone else. What works, works and as I said, I agree that good parenting uses a minimal amount of force, but that's also something that could vary between people.

I had a friend who had his children taken from him due to a bruise his daughter got on her arm over a dispute for a cell phone with him. They put her in foster homes and she got worse and him and his family suffered. I know people try to excuse this harm and encourage more similar actions but I think it's best to let parents take care of their own children and keep the community/"village" as removed as possible.

It's worked fine like that for a long time and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Like I said, if you really care about your children, you'll do what's best for them. In some cases that might even mean protecting them from "village members" too.

_Nicotina_: It is unfortunate that your friend and child had such a horrible experience. I would think that this is not an isolated case. A couple I know were threatened by Child Services because there was a small hinge lock on the outside of their young son's bedroom door. He was prone to sleepwalking and the stairs in the home were very steep. It was devastating for this couple. I can not imagine the pain of having my child taken from me because of one bruise, nor the distress my child would suffer.

You certainly are delving into a gross exaggeration of Orwellian fears to find a reason to validate your statements.

If, as you are suggesting, the village is as far removed from taking care of a child as possible. Then it would follow that there would be no education, healthcare or social care as that would be interfering. I know that I would want other adults to protect my child if it was needed. Such an instance could be in the form of some one hurting or attempting to abduct my child.

One of the biggest problems with our society is the decreased sense of personal responsibility. This has been shown in many studies in which it was seen that the more people there were around at the time of a person needing emergency help, the less likely that one person was to receive emergency help.

If only the parents or legal custodian of a child taking responsibility has worked so well, why is it we still have vast cases of abuse?

Edited for grammar error.

MrSteveA67: That story you recounted sounds similar to many other similar stories I've heard from others as well.

Maybe it's not completely "Orwellian" but I know many parents that are truly fearful of physically disciplining their children and it appears public/government school teaches children this as well ... that's pretty close to something I'd consider "Orwellian".

Yes, I don't think we should have public education, or health care etc. I personally wouldn't mind contributing some to things I believe are useful community services, but I see most the nationally enforced systems as harmful in many ways and there's plenty of evidence from what I've seen to justify that view.

People tend to take political issues with a very narrow focus and don't consider all the indirect consequences. In real life people don't have the luxury of ignoring those indirect repercussions, and though I do think that people should maintain and strive toward ideals ... life can be rather complex and it's hard to draw pure black and white boundaries for all cases.

You mentioned a drift away from personal responsibility and I agree and tend to see it also as arising from presumptions that various government agencies will do this for us. In either case though, the resources are being paid/taken though it seems better if parents remain more directly responsible for how their children are raised for many reasons, it's not a free service (actually private school typically cost only 60-70% of what public schools cost as well).

I realize if many of these services were removed that would be a challenge for many parents to (re)adapt to, but a reduction in these over time, along with a reduction in the economic burdens of them I'm rather certain would help many people. (If you look at population and economic growth around the world it's almost inevitably the freer and less socialized countries that do best. Yes, it might be nice for a 70 year old person to receive $250,000 for an operation from government, but that's also enough to likely raise two children ... how many people find it hard to even pay for a home now, much less raise a family?)

Though I agree that there are what I'd consider to be abusive parents, that's partly human nature itself - why does violence in society exist? It does seem like something that if people had enough intelligence, communication and responsible motives much of that should be avoidable.

Consider this though, if we teach that it's ok for police officers with guns to intrude into a family and haul people off forcibly and send them to live elsewhere, even if none of the people in that family desired this, then what are we really saying about the acceptability of violence and coercion etc.?

Maybe ideally, no parent would ever raise a child to be a bully but does it seem like reality is going to comply in every case? Would it be better to have the parents provide the physical discipline to discourage this or wait and let police do it later?

I've got 5 children and they're all doing great. Every one of them has been spanked a few times in their life. I've been spanked ... my parents have likely been spanked. We're still all doing fine.

There were a couple incidents where my daughters, even as teenagers, were causing problems in the household and not responding to my discouragements of it. I've got a family that's too important to allow fights to escalate in my home and I've 'nipped that in the bud' a few times. I even handed the phone to my daughter first and told her she should call the police before I spanked her if she really wanted to, but I also pointed out that it would likely tear apart the family to do so, but if she wanted to live somewhere else, it was her choice.

She didn't call and I proceeded to spank her.

Many people have commented on how great our kids are and I'm highly inclined to agree.

_Nicotina_: Then you have intimidated your own daughter, made her feel personally responsible for the wellness of your family by implying that her whole family structure would fall apart. You have terrorized her and this may well show in her future relationships with anyone. I would suspect there to be a deep lack of trust of anyone for her. You showed her that violence in general is acceptable, that violence against a weaker human being is acceptable, that violence against women is acceptable. All this because you were not capable of teaching her. All because of your shortcomings. All because you chose to hit her. You spanked her and along with all that is implied with that one act. Your daughter has suffered abuse. No child deserves to be hit. No child deserves to be spanked. No child deserves to be abused.

Morsy: Good lord Mr Steve I am lost for words. Good posts Nic.

_Nicotina_: Thank you Morsy. Violence of any kind is unacceptable. When it comes to children, violence is reprehensible.
I have and will continue to speak out against spanking and will always protect a child. It is my duty as an adult.

mothertrucker30: What do you do when a child will not sit in time out?

lostgirl245: depends on how old the child is. example i take my kids x- boxes away., i also take there toys away, for about 4 days.

mothertrucker30: My kids dont have much to take away. I took all their toys away countless times for not cleaning them up and it didn't phase them. They are not attached to material things and dont care if the house is completely bare. So now what?

lostgirl245: another punishment we do is, make them stand on tippy toes, nose in a circle on the wall. only do what age is, example my daughter is 7 years old, she gets 7 mins, my son is 12 he gets 12mins. 2 to 3 times doing that, it might help. be consistant with the punishment, but dont over use, you over use it, it wont work

Morsy: Sit in the time out with them cos parents need it too. Standing on tippy toes for 12 minutes!!!

_Nicotina_: Morsy, I have to concur.
Standing on your tip toes with your nose on the wall?

Morsy: You shouldn't get a child to do something you aren't prepared to do we lead by example, so no standing on tippy toes for even 5 minutes is a bit much.

lostgirl245: but talking to d.c.s workers, and my son has a caseworker, that punishment is noit crule and is acceptable for punishment as long as you dont over do it, i never said for her to use it, i just gave an idea, if d.c.s says its okay, my sons says caseworker, from mental health says its okay, then i am gonna do it. spanking dont teach nothing if the state approves it, then i am gonna do it, as long as i am not hitting them.