Spanking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll wade into this fray. I have spanked my daughter, currently five, and would do so again. I'm not particularly proud of it, and I didn't set out to have that within the repertoire of our parenting/discipline techniques. I was never opposed to it, though, and we came to a point when she was around 3 1/2 or 4 when we decided it was necessary because nothing else worked to address a particular problem we were having, namely, her throwing huge tantrums at bedtime and overnight. I'm sure I'll get flamed for spanking over bedtime issues, what's the big deal, but the issues were severe, disrupting the entire family, and basically allowing her to rule the roost, which we did not want to tolerate. We tried everything else, including positive reinforcement via rewards/bribes, silent walk-back, co-sleeping, locking her in her room, everything. Over a period of months. We came to spanking because (1) we couldn't *make* her do the behavior we needed her to do, i.e., stay in bed and sleep, and (2) she was old enough to understood the issue and the punishment but not old enough to be out of that terribly irrational stage. So, we implemented a relatively mild physical punishment to correct the behavior. She has been spanked probably a total of 8 to 10 times, over the past two years. We also implemented spanking for her deliberately trying to break things, for example, kicking a door (she split the admittedly cheap wood on her closet door at the bottom) or trying to pull over a shelf (which she almost pulled over onto herself).

She obviously throws severe tantrums. I will note she did this before we ever started spanking. As she has aged, she has gotten better though she remains just a volatile child. Ironically, it is my perception that spanking helps her calm down faster. I believe that she CAN control herself, but she needs a real push to do so, and spanking provides that. I have also tried staying with her when she tantrums, doing the time-in thing; my presence would work her up more.

We also utilize time-outs, 123 magic, and positive reinforcement. We praise good behavior, have rewards sticker charts, etc. I do consider myself pretty strict on many things, I just don't enforce most things via spanking.

We also have a son, and he has a totally different personality. I very seriously doubt I"ll need to spank him and if I don't, I won't. I also don't anticipate spanking my daughter for much longer, because I feel less comfortable spanking an older child.

We spank by leaning her over a chair or her bed and giving her firm swats on the bottom, one for each year of age. We are calm when we do it, not out of anger.

DH got "swats" as a child for misbehavior such as not behaving during church. I don't think it was frequent. DH is extremely close with his parents. I was spanked but it was more like a hit, and it was definitely out of anger by my dad. It was infrequent though, but I was scared of him as a child. We have a fine relationship now.

We are UMC and were raised middle class to UMC.

You suck. You should be ashamed of yourself.

-1. I do not believe this poster sucks. She says in her first line it's something that she isn't proud of and I believe she is sincere. PP, you could be me. Very similar issues, same aged child. Same issue of not setting out to use spanking as part of your repertoire of discipline techniques, severe tantrums even before the spanking, all of that.

I think many of these parents decrying spanking were blessed with kids who have mild temperaments or malleable personalities, and they just don't get it.

+1

[Anonymous]

I have two teenagers and a 10 year old. Oldest and youngest were very mild mannered little kids. Dd2 was a different story. We actually thought about spanking her even though it wasn't anything we ever wanted to do. Decided that it wasn't the most effective punishment for her long term along with other reasons. I'm glad we worked through it and didn't resort to spanking her. I don't feel like it would've helped her to self regulate in addition to any other issues it might have caused.

She's now an amazingly well behaved teenager who laughs when she sees videos of her strong willed self as a toddler. No entitlement here either. Just a confident, straight A honors student with a great heart who can stick up for herself and others if needed. She probably would've been fine even if she was spanked but who knows. I think it was a lot more work for us and I'm not going to lie, it was hard, really difficult at times but now I don't feel guilty and have to second guess our choices.

My mom gave me the best advice when DD was younger and we were struggling. She said that our daughter "was going to be an amazing woman one day. Getting her to that point isn't going to be easy but it will be worth all of the work" couldn't have been more true!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two teenagers and a 10 year old. Oldest and youngest were very mild mannered little kids. Dd2 was a different story. We actually thought about spanking her even though it wasn't anything we ever wanted to do. Decided that it wasn't the most effective punishment for her long term along with other reasons. I'm glad we worked through it and didn't resort to spanking her. I don't feel like it would've helped her to self regulate in addition to any other issues it might have caused.

She's now an amazingly well behaved teenager who laughs when she sees videos of her strong willed self as a toddler. No entitlement here either. Just a confident, straight A honors student with a great heart who can stick up for herself and others if needed. She probably would've been fine even if she was spanked but who knows. I think it was a lot more work for us and I'm not going to lie, it was hard, really difficult at times but now I don't feel guilty and have to second guess our choices.

My mom gave me the best advice when DD was younger and we were struggling. She said that our daughter "was going to be an amazing woman one day. Getting her to that point isn't going to be easy but it will be worth all of the work" couldn't have been more true!

NP here. What a wonderful story, but I hope you are not abashing PP because she made a different choice than you. Most of us do the absolute very best we can with the hand we are dealt. Let's wish the best for her child, as your mom wished for yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're spanking more than once, clearly it's NOT working long-term. It only shocks the child out of the behavior in the moment.

I had a willful, high energy runner of a child who I never spanked. It was hard and frustrating and I had to think (and move) fast and creatively. But I am really proud of myself for breaking the pattern and never hitting her.

This is a good explanation of why I don't hit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TyaMaDw5p8

So you never had to employ any form of discipline more than once? That's pretty impressive.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Oh god. So barbaric, and so low class. Literally one of the trashiest parenting moves out there. Not to mention sickening

What is actually low class is having kids who need to be spanked, and are entitled and tedious, yet their parents are so desperately trying to be UMC and enlightened that they don't discipline them.

In the actual upper classes, spanking is incredibly common.

Do you have any evidence to cite that spanking is incredibly common in the actual upper classes? That's where I am and we would never consider spanking. Ever. And my friends in the actual upper classes don't spank either.

Can't wait to see your evidence of this.

DP. That's what you think.

Still waiting for evidence to show this is true. I tend to believe my friends when they say they don't spank. Too bad your friends lie to you.

I'm not sure what evidence you're raving on about. If you are actually upperclass, and of my generation, so around 40, you would have gone to schools where corporal punishment was normal and accepted. But as for say studies? I didn't refer to a study. Feel free to try to find one saying the upper class don't spank but given that it would be reliant on self reporting? Who cares?

This is far from being true for all Americans who are around your age . By the time today's 40-year-olds started kindergarten, corporal punishment had already been banned in many US school districts & was no longer used in many private schools.

I'm 38 and can still clearly remember being spanked in kindergarten by my teacher once.

Yes, & there are schools that still allow corporal punishment today. The point is, though, that many (not all!) schools in the US stopped using corporal punishment by the late'70s/'80s so the PP's assumption that everyone around her age went to a school that used it is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

+1. We are well-educated in areas related to child development (MD and PhD) and like to think we're good parents, and spanking is within our repertoire and it's not in common in our ethnic group. While we reserve the right to spank for certain things, we find that we do it only very occasionally--maybe once every few months--and it's becoming less frequent over time. We also use positive reinforcement like star charts, praise for effort, are well-versed in growth mindset, etc. It's a faulty assumption to presume that parents to spank rely on it exclusively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

+1. We are well-educated in areas related to child development (MD and PhD) and like to think we're good parents, and spanking is within our repertoire and it's not uncommon in our ethnic group. While we reserve the right to spank for certain things, we find that we do it only very occasionally--maybe once every few months--and it's becoming less frequent over time. We also use positive reinforcement like star charts, praise for effort, are well-versed in growth mindset, etc. It's a faulty assumption to presume that parents to spank rely on it exclusively.

Whoops, phone typing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

+1. We are well-educated in areas related to child development (MD and PhD) and like to think we're good parents, and spanking is within our repertoire and it's not in common in our ethnic group. While we reserve the right to spank for certain things, we find that we do it only very occasionally--maybe once every few months--and it's becoming less frequent over time. We also use positive reinforcement like star charts, praise for effort, are well-versed in growth mindset, etc. It's a faulty assumption to presume that parents to spank rely on it exclusively.

When you say that you spank, how do you actually carry that out? Is it the in-the-moment kind? I'm not judging, I'm just wondering what those who are obviously intelligent and whole reasoned views about this topic think and do.

Others feel free to answer as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

Yep. Cognitive dissonance in Trump's America.

[Anonymous]

For those of you that spank, how do you teach your children to not hit other's in anger?

If Johnny steals your child's ball on the playground, Johnny is wrong, is it ok for your child to hit him?

How do you explain "don't hit other kids, but I will hit you when it suits me"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I refuse to spank our DD. My father spanked me from before the time I even understood what was happening. I used to hide under the bed whenever he came home from work because I associated him with hitting me.

I think parents who spank their children are too lazy to really discipline their kids. It's a heck of a lot easier to just smack your child to get them to shut up or do something you want rather than to figure out what's causing a particular behavior.

This assumes that all parents who spank are drooling cretins who don't do anything but spank. It's possible to have loving, involved, engaged parents who use spanking as one form of punishment. Thousands of generations of children who grow up to be productive citizens with good relationships with their parents attest to this.

This discussion is always so silly. I'm not super pro-spanking but to immediately equate it with violence, violent parents, violent kids is just dumb. Talk to 90 percent of people whose parents used moderate spanking and they have no issue with it, violence in their lives etc. Do people just dismiss that which doesn't suit their world view?

+1. We are well-educated in areas related to child development (MD and PhD) and like to think we're good parents, and spanking is within our repertoire and it's not in common in our ethnic group. While we reserve the right to spank for certain things, we find that we do it only very occasionally--maybe once every few months--and it's becoming less frequent over time. We also use positive reinforcement like star charts, praise for effort, are well-versed in growth mindset, etc. It's a faulty assumption to presume that parents to spank rely on it exclusively.

When you say that you spank, how do you actually carry that out? Is it the in-the-moment kind? I'm not judging, I'm just wondering what those who are obviously intelligent and whole reasoned views about this topic think and do.

Others feel free to answer as well.

PP here. I don't know if we think much about "carrying it out" per se. If our kid does something egregious, I might pop her hand in the moment--maybe every couple of months. She got a spanking at the end of last school year after getting in trouble several times around the same period (this is an early elem. kid who is typically very well behaved, but had been goofing off in the last weeks of school). She'd been warned by spouse that if she did it again, she would be spanked. She did, and she got spanked. The end. Not sure she was irreparably damaged from this.

Spouse is from a pretty strict (not American) culture where spanking and other creative punishments are employed. He remembers his mom having a "switch" (branch from a tree) as a kid. In that culture, this sort of thing was normal. I could mention some punishments he got that would definitely raise eyebrows, to say the least. Yet, he's a very conscientious, high achieving, emotionally stable individual now, as is his sibling.

I grew up as a 1st-gen American. I got spanked only very occasionally. One of my sibs had some behavioral problems, and ended up getting the belt sometimes--I do not think this sort of punishment was helpful in his case, although many people I know grew up getting beaten sometimes with shoes, belts, switches, etc., and will even joke about it today--since everyone pretty much got spanked, there wasn't a huge stigma. Spouse and I don't use any accoutrements ourselves as parents, though.

Our kid is typically very motivated by praise for effort and rewards, so we use spanking and other punitive measures sparingly. I think punishments like spanking lose their power if employed too frequently. Kids just get numb to it, and misbehave anyway. So we typically use positive reinforcement to shape her behavior--however. She knows that spanking is within our repertoire. We run a tight ship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you that spank, how do you teach your children to not hit other's in anger?

If Johnny steals your child's ball on the playground, Johnny is wrong, is it ok for your child to hit him?

How do you explain "don't hit other kids, but I will hit you when it suits me"?

NP. It has never come up. I think because, if you spank correctly, and not in anger, kids inherently understand that it's a punishment that is administered with the proper authority of a parent.

To use your example, I might ask if you ever punish by taking away a particular toy, or "putting the toy in timeout" to borrow a particularly nauseating euphemism. Do you ever have to explain why you're allowed to do this, but your child is not allowed to steal Johnny's ball just because Johnny did something to anger him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those of you that spank, how do you teach your children to not hit other's in anger?

If Johnny steals your child's ball on the playground, Johnny is wrong, is it ok for your child to hit him?

How do you explain "don't hit other kids, but I will hit you when it suits me"?

I just responded to another question re: spanking. We use it sparingly, and we don't hit her in anger. We haven't had any issues with her hitting other kids. There's a fundamental difference between parents spanking a child for infractions, IMO, and hitting another child on the playground. In cultures where there's a lot of respect for parents, and spanking is routine and NBD, this doesn't feel like a contradiction.

I would expect an association between actual childhood physical abuse and playground violence, but not between occasional spanking and playground hitting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those of you that spank, how do you teach your children to not hit other's in anger?

If Johnny steals your child's ball on the playground, Johnny is wrong, is it ok for your child to hit him?

How do you explain "don't hit other kids, but I will hit you when it suits me"?

I just responded to another question re: spanking. We use it sparingly, and we don't hit her in anger. We haven't had any issues with her hitting other kids. There's a fundamental difference between parents spanking a child for infractions, IMO, and hitting another child on the playground. In cultures where there's a lot of respect for parents, and spanking is routine and NBD, this doesn't feel like a contradiction.

I would expect an association between actual childhood physical abuse and playground violence, but not between occasional spanking and playground hitting.

For those who say that you don't hit in anger, what do you do? Do you send them to their room and go up in five minutes? Do you sit down in a chair and put them over your lap?