If you were beaten as a child….

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05/24/2022 10:01

Subject: If you were beaten as a child….

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:….how do you manage not repeating this with you own kids?

FTR I don’t hit my kids. But I will admit to sometimes being so filled with rage when they are being especially difficult that I get overwhelmed with the urge to do what I experienced as a kid. I always manage to fight it off but it is hard. Harder than I think it should be.

Anyone else in similar shoes? If you were beaten (whatever your own definition of corporal punishment is and your own line of what’s acceptable) do you have a hard time avoiding a repeat of the past?

I think it's a battle that you have to continue to fight. I had a pretty bad childhood with hitting and emotional abuse. Now, I have a son with ADHD (which can be more trying than what is typical).

One thing that has helped OP, is that I've let things go. I don't need to feel personally affronted because my DS isn't listening/responding to me as an authority figure. I also don't need to solve the primary issue (disobedience, lying, defiance, etc) in the moment. When I make it personal or feel that I need to immediately punish a certain behavior, situations have tended to escalate into anger on both sides, power struggles, and feeling that terrible anxiety/anger/helplessness that I felt as a child.

Real authoritative parenting will come from keeping a positive relationship with your child, teaching them to manage their own emotions, implementing reasonable consequences when everyone is calm and more thoughtful, and maintaining moral authority. You lose the moral high ground when you've lost control of yourself in anger-- your child will repeat your patterns, and they won't respect you.

This is a really good point that the pro-spankers will seize upon as an example of being permissive but is actually just a mark of emotional maturity.

My parents used to feel personally insulted by stuff all the time and fly into a rage that would result in a spanking or worse. And now as an adult and a parent myself (one who has been through 20 years of therapy and self improvement to get to this point, by the way) I can see how much of the stuff that used to enrage them just doesn't really even have anything to do with disrespect. It's just kids testing out behaviors or expressing emotions, and still in the learning phase of figuring out what works and what doesn't. And my job as a parent isn't to react (it's not really about me) but to teach and guide.

Just as an example, when my kid whines, I calmly and briefly explain that whining hurts my ears and I can't understand what she is asking for when she does it. And then she tries again. And with time, I've seen her whining decrease. We've also taught her that when she feels like whining, it's often a sign that she is hungry or tired, and that she should try meeting those needs (go get a granola bar, lay down for a little bit) to see if it helps her get out of the funk that is causing her to whine. This is what parenting is, and wonder of wonders, it actually works.

Alternatively, we could become incensed at her whininess, deem it disrespectful and rude, and spank her. And what would she learn? To address her own needs? To regulate her voice? Or that when she is struggling, don't come to use because we will hit her? It just doesn't make sense at all and is honestly the cheap and easy way out of a parenting problem. Parents who to regulate their own emotions and then work to teach their kids to do the same are doing the HARD work of parenting, not taking short cuts, and will see better results. Perhaps my kid can spend her time and money on something other than therapy as an adult, because she's learning this stuff now instead of in her 20s and 30s, like I did.