I cannot believe there are still people out there spanking their children...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if, in my lived experience (is that not redundant?), I found disapproval to be more traumatizing than a moderate, not angry spanking?

I'm sorry that your parents used their approval to punish you. That IS damaging. Are you also saying that because you did not experience the spanking to be as traumatic as the disapproval, no one else can experience the spanking as more traumatic?

("Lived experience" is maybe redundant, but it is a term used to distinguish between something that has actually happened to someone and something that they believe to be true by way of anecdotes about other people and data they read. Your lived experience is different than that of many people who do experience spanking as a trauma from their childhood.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who are these people talking about spanking and corporal punishment in schools? I’m 58 and grew up in a rural area and teachers weren’t allowed to do this even then.

I'm 42, and at my public elementary school in downstate IL in 1990, there was a paddle hanging at the front of the room. The first time it was used on a student by our teacher, I came home and told my mom and she pulled me from that school the next day.

At another elementary school in the same district, paddling was allowed, but it was only allowed for the principal, in the principal's office. Not regular classroom teachers.

She pulled you from public school, and….what, you never returned to that school and she enrolled you in a private school where you continued through 12th grade, because one kid got spanked in third or fourth grade with a paddle that was presumably visible on back to school night, and in accordance with a discipline policy that was public information and widely available to the parents?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotal, but the kids I knew who were spanked generally seemed to grow up in more dysfunctional families and didn't turn out as well as the kids who weren't.

Presumably you are referring to kids who are 7-12 ish age range that were spanked, rather than the 1-4 year olds who were near-universally spanked?

Spanking a 1-4 year old should be a crime. They can't even control themselves yet.

Expecting and requiring no self-control from a 1-4 year old should be a crime. Children can learn and follow rules and instructions. Not perfectly - but believing that they cannot even control themselves is nonsense parenting.

They absolutely can and at age 1-4 it's completely unnecessary to spank to teach them.

Not just unnecessary -- counterproductive. You are squandering the years when their love and trust are easily earned through kindness, patience, and warmth. Eventually kids learn to think for themselves and question their parents' wisdom (this is normal and inevitable). If you hit them, there's no underlying trust and love there. If you are instead kind and patient, that can form the basis for a relationship you can continue to work with well into adolescence and young adulthood.

Spanking is abusive, but it's also not effective.

I believe that you genuinely believe this but how can you explain every mother animal who raises her babies? She doesn't use time outs or losing screen time but her babies still love and trust her. Are human babies that different? Stupid or defective?

Are you arguing that all mother animals "spank" their babies? That's, uh, not true.

Some animals will swat their young but in specific situations -- to prevent them from getting hurt (like swatting their mouths away from something poisonous, or roughly pushing/swatting them away from a predator), or to prevent them from hurting their parent or sibling. Animals don't hit their young for "talking back" or not doing their chores. They don't use hitting as a form of punitive discipline. They also don't ground their babies or send them to bed without dinner or any number of things humans have come up with, which largely have to do with trying to get our children to comply with societal expectations that are much more complex and not always very natural. Animals, unlike humans, are just trying to make sure their babies survive to adulthood and are able to procreate themselves. They aren't trying to get their babies into Harvard or make sure the family down the street is impressed with how well behaved the baby raccoons are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if, in my lived experience (is that not redundant?), I found disapproval to be more traumatizing than a moderate, not angry spanking?

I'm sorry that your parents used their approval to punish you. That IS damaging. Are you also saying that because you did not experience the spanking to be as traumatic as the disapproval, no one else can experience the spanking as more traumatic?

("Lived experience" is maybe redundant, but it is a term used to distinguish between something that has actually happened to someone and something that they believe to be true by way of anecdotes about other people and data they read. Your lived experience is different than that of many people who do experience spanking as a trauma from their childhood.)

No, but I’m offering the personal perspective that spanking isn’t necessarily traumatic, and other forms of dealing with misbehavior can be unexpectedly traumatic. I think it’s all in how each is conducted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if, in my lived experience (is that not redundant?), I found disapproval to be more traumatizing than a moderate, not angry spanking?

I'm sorry that your parents used their approval to punish you. That IS damaging. Are you also saying that because you did not experience the spanking to be as traumatic as the disapproval, no one else can experience the spanking as more traumatic?

("Lived experience" is maybe redundant, but it is a term used to distinguish between something that has actually happened to someone and something that they believe to be true by way of anecdotes about other people and data they read. Your lived experience is different than that of many people who do experience spanking as a trauma from their childhood.)

No, but I’m offering the personal perspective that spanking isn’t necessarily traumatic, and other forms of dealing with misbehavior can be unexpectedly traumatic. I think it’s all in how each is conducted.

And who the kid is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if, in my lived experience (is that not redundant?), I found disapproval to be more traumatizing than a moderate, not angry spanking?

I'm sorry that your parents used their approval to punish you. That IS damaging. Are you also saying that because you did not experience the spanking to be as traumatic as the disapproval, no one else can experience the spanking as more traumatic?

("Lived experience" is maybe redundant, but it is a term used to distinguish between something that has actually happened to someone and something that they believe to be true by way of anecdotes about other people and data they read. Your lived experience is different than that of many people who do experience spanking as a trauma from their childhood.)

No, but I’m offering the personal perspective that spanking isn’t necessarily traumatic, and other forms of dealing with misbehavior can be unexpectedly traumatic. I think it’s all in how each is conducted.

And who the kid is.

No doubt!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotal, but the kids I knew who were spanked generally seemed to grow up in more dysfunctional families and didn't turn out as well as the kids who weren't.

Presumably you are referring to kids who are 7-12 ish age range that were spanked, rather than the 1-4 year olds who were near-universally spanked?

Spanking a 1-4 year old should be a crime. They can't even control themselves yet.

Expecting and requiring no self-control from a 1-4 year old should be a crime. Children can learn and follow rules and instructions. Not perfectly - but believing that they cannot even control themselves is nonsense parenting.

They absolutely can and at age 1-4 it's completely unnecessary to spank to teach them.

Not just unnecessary -- counterproductive. You are squandering the years when their love and trust are easily earned through kindness, patience, and warmth. Eventually kids learn to think for themselves and question their parents' wisdom (this is normal and inevitable). If you hit them, there's no underlying trust and love there. If you are instead kind and patient, that can form the basis for a relationship you can continue to work with well into adolescence and young adulthood.

Spanking is abusive, but it's also not effective.

I believe that you genuinely believe this but how can you explain every mother animal who raises her babies? She doesn't use time outs or losing screen time but her babies still love and trust her. Are human babies that different? Stupid or defective?

As a zoologist I’m very curious to hear your take on mothering in the animal world. Just where is all the punitive physically assaultive parenting happening there? Please advise.

My point was that it's not. Mother animals teach polite behavior to their babies through nips and nudges. Like the swats that mothers use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spanking is so trashy. The only parents I know who talk about giving their kids a “good seat to the behind” cite the Bible in their parenting and are conservative. I don’t know anyone well educated and financially comfortable who resorts to this. We have other ways of instilling values in our children that don’t involve violence.

Seriously. I can't imagine hurting one of my children. So many ways to handle children and teach them why things are wrong not just because they fear you.

[Anonymous]

Spanking is the junk food of discipline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spanking is the junk food of discipline.

Junk food has its place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spanking is the junk food of discipline.

Good analogy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spanking is the junk food of discipline.

No, it is more like poison - harmful and counterproductive

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What a depressing thread. Seriously how are you people not ashamed? The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken a strong stand against spanking, for good reason. I can’t believe so many people are on here advocating against medical advice, because they want to hit their kids. Disgusting. It isn’t an effective form of discipline in the long run and yes maybe you can scare the crap out of your kid in the short term but at what cost. It also used to be fine for men to hit their wives. Now we know better so we do better (hopefully). When will you guys catch up with regard to your kids?

And all you idiots claiming to never spank in anger are full of crap. My parents were generally really calm disciplinarians who belonged to a church that believed in spanking. The vast majority of the time they were calm and collected about it. But the one time I saw my mom hit my brother angrily is still with me to this day. I know she regrets it and has to live with it. It should be a red line you never cross.

When they speak up about CIO then I'll give a crap what they recommend. Spanking a CHILD is not okay but letting a BABY cry itself to sleep is fine? What BS.

What? Hitting a child is physically abusive. Leaving a baby to cry itself to sleep is emotionally neglectful and manipulative but it is pretty different than hitting. I am fine with a strong anti-spanking stance and radio silence on sleep training.

side note sometimes you sleep through baby crying or are in the shower. babies cry ALL the time. not stopping babies crying instantly is not the same as actively walloping a small human.

OK, so teaching a tiny baby they can't count on their parents to take care of their needs so they might as well give up or just run out of energy crying and fall asleep is okay with you -- but you flinch at spanking. Again, what BS. CIO is abuse.

you may well be right but this is not the subject of this thread, nor are those saying spanking is not fine, saying cio is. we are also not saying killing giraffes on safari, putting electric collars on dogs, rubbing cats noses in their own poop, locking kids in their room in time out, 'the silent treatment' for a spouse or partner, firing someone without notice, firing a pregnant person, emotional affairs, affairs when your spouse has dementia, quick remarriage after widowhood, and innumerable other perceived transgressions are or are not ok. we are talking about hitting kids. so please, stay on message.

Well someone brought up the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation not to spank. Hence I was saying, I don't think their opinion is valid since they are silent on the abuse of CIO. Their opinion is suspect.

Follow along, PP.

this is such a niche hill to die on.

It's worse than spanking. Breaking a baby so the parent can get the behavior they want out of them. It's abuse and causes trauma. Just because rich women do it doesn't mean it's okay. If a crack whore left their baby to cry themselve to sleep they'd be put in foster care.

CIO is 100 x worse than spanking. Abusing a baby. Horrible.

Agree that CIO is heartbreaking.
No ethical pediatrician would approve this for a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to think I was spanked by my parents and while I thought it was not great and wouldn't do it to my own kids, it was "the time" and not that damaging.

Eventually I figured out (on my own) that my parents were just abusive. They hit us in anger all the time. My dad "spanked" us with a belt. They screamed at us, made fun of us, gave us the silent treatment, etc. All these behaviors got rolled into this excuse of "this is how it was at the time" and "well, attitudes on child discipline have shifted." And for years I thought my upbringing was normal, if out of step with current parenting "trends."

There were even a few years in there where I realized my parents' hit/yelled/punished more than was typical for the time, but I honestly thought it was just a reflection of my siblings and I being bad kids and getting into more trouble and my parents HAD to do what they did because we weren't the kind of good children who could be raised without that kind of violence. My brothers still both think this on some level.

I believe there are parents who really only "spank" without anger, as a form of punishment, for a certain number of years when kids are what they deem the appropriate age. But I think there are WAY more parents like mine, who lean back on the idea that "spanking" is an acceptable form of discipline to cover a variety of abusive behaviors and convince their kids that it was normal and fine.

+1. My parent spanked but it definitely devolved into solid flanking abuse a few times when they were extra pissed and stressed. I still remember getting slapped across the mouth HARD as a teenager... Because why? I didn't want to practice piano that night. There was no beneficial end result to that, it was unnecessary, and I still resent my (now dead) parent for it 30 years later. My brother got it way worse than me sadly.

I was hit many times as a kid (both traditional "spankings" and also plenty of times being hit in a rage), but the two most memorably upsetting acts of violence by my parents in my childhood were actually against siblings. I watched my mom slap my sister across the face when she was a teen, I think because she hadn't finished her chores on a weekend before going out for some school activity commitment. Another time my dad got mad at my younger brother for not trying harder when cleaning the kitchen after dinner, and started swatting his bottom and then started pulling off his belt to whip him.

In both cases, I remember watching and thinking about how my parents was out of control of their emotions, and of the situation. Like even as a kid I could see that their response was just emotional and immature, and that they were failing in that moment. I lost so much respect for them watching stuff like this, even more than when they were hitting me, because in those moments I was also afraid of them and feeling the shame and guilt they were trying to make me feel. It's almost like seeing them hit my siblings gave me the emotional remove I needed to see their behavior for what it was.

oh 100%.
dont think - spank-o-philes, that the rest of us anti spank parents haven't been tempted to spank our kids. We just did the much harder work of finding other ways to enact consequences or to reach them. It's easy to wallop a defenseless child. it's a lot harder to be the adult in the room and find another way.
I remember my mom nearly spanked me when I was around 7 once, I was crying my eyes out and inconsolable about a playdate being cancelled and she had no idea how to calm me down. She got SO close but didn't do it. I remember in that moment just thinking 'oh wow this lady is losing control.'

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What a depressing thread. Seriously how are you people not ashamed? The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken a strong stand against spanking, for good reason. I can’t believe so many people are on here advocating against medical advice, because they want to hit their kids. Disgusting. It isn’t an effective form of discipline in the long run and yes maybe you can scare the crap out of your kid in the short term but at what cost. It also used to be fine for men to hit their wives. Now we know better so we do better (hopefully). When will you guys catch up with regard to your kids?

And all you idiots claiming to never spank in anger are full of crap. My parents were generally really calm disciplinarians who belonged to a church that believed in spanking. The vast majority of the time they were calm and collected about it. But the one time I saw my mom hit my brother angrily is still with me to this day. I know she regrets it and has to live with it. It should be a red line you never cross.

When they speak up about CIO then I'll give a crap what they recommend. Spanking a CHILD is not okay but letting a BABY cry itself to sleep is fine? What BS.

What? Hitting a child is physically abusive. Leaving a baby to cry itself to sleep is emotionally neglectful and manipulative but it is pretty different than hitting. I am fine with a strong anti-spanking stance and radio silence on sleep training.

side note sometimes you sleep through baby crying or are in the shower. babies cry ALL the time. not stopping babies crying instantly is not the same as actively walloping a small human.

OK, so teaching a tiny baby they can't count on their parents to take care of their needs so they might as well give up or just run out of energy crying and fall asleep is okay with you -- but you flinch at spanking. Again, what BS. CIO is abuse.

you may well be right but this is not the subject of this thread, nor are those saying spanking is not fine, saying cio is. we are also not saying killing giraffes on safari, putting electric collars on dogs, rubbing cats noses in their own poop, locking kids in their room in time out, 'the silent treatment' for a spouse or partner, firing someone without notice, firing a pregnant person, emotional affairs, affairs when your spouse has dementia, quick remarriage after widowhood, and innumerable other perceived transgressions are or are not ok. we are talking about hitting kids. so please, stay on message.

Well someone brought up the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation not to spank. Hence I was saying, I don't think their opinion is valid since they are silent on the abuse of CIO. Their opinion is suspect.

Follow along, PP.

this is such a niche hill to die on.

It's worse than spanking. Breaking a baby so the parent can get the behavior they want out of them. It's abuse and causes trauma. Just because rich women do it doesn't mean it's okay. If a crack whore left their baby to cry themselve to sleep they'd be put in foster care.

CIO is 100 x worse than spanking. Abusing a baby. Horrible.

again WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT CIO.
we are also not talking about many millions of other things so stop deflecting.

again, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE ADVICE OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS REGARDING SPANKING. Their advice is crap because they are silent, i.e., complicit, about the suffering cause to babies by CIO.

I guess you did CIO but didn't spank, so you want to think you didn't abuse your kids but spankers did. You did abuse your kids. Don't be all holier-than-thou about anyone else's parenting if you can't even drag yourself out of bed for your own baby, for a limited amount of time. Abuser.

no - none of us are saying we did CIO you weirdo.
most of us also dont need to reference the AAP to know spanking is wrong. But if you are confused, it's a pretty solid reference point.
I cannot help you with your very specific mission to talk about something totally different other than to suggest you start a new thread.