Spanking

[Anonymous]

I've never announced that I spanked. If it comes up in conversation about kids, I say it. PP I have a suspicion that more people do spank, it's just not worth the reaction to discuss it. (The damaged for life, abusing the kid kind of thing)

Out in public? No. Didn't do time outs etc. in public either. Discipline was done in private. Acting up in public meant we went home, or at least somewhere not quite so public.

I did give my son a quick swat at the grocery store one day. An old lady said she should call the police. "I said okay.. you do that. In the mean time do you want to deal with the temper tantrum right now?" She mumbled and went on her way. I shook my head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know spanking causes harm?

This was meant for the PP who claimed that she *knows* it causes harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've never announced that I spanked. If it comes up in conversation about kids, I say it. PP I have a suspicion that more people do spank, it's just not worth the reaction to discuss it. (The damaged for life, abusing the kid kind of thing)

Out in public? No. Didn't do time outs etc. in public either. Discipline was done in private. Acting up in public meant we went home, or at least somewhere not quite so public.

I did give my son a quick swat at the grocery store one day. An old lady said she should call the police. "I said okay.. you do that. In the mean time do you want to deal with the temper tantrum right now?" She mumbled and went on her way. I shook my head.

Then what does a spanking entail in your house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:civil poster - what were the demographics of the dad and the mom who mentioned spanking?

Parent one (mom) was white, lived in downtown DC, upper middle class but not wealthy. Works part time to have lots of time with her little kids. By all accounts (and observations) she genuinely does anything for her kids. Husband owns a local company, two kids, Catholic.
Parent two (dad) self made guy, from rural background, C-level exec of very large company - does not live here, wife is former teacher turned SAHM, four kids, not religious, very wealthy but "new money" for whatever that is worth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:civil poster - what were the demographics of the dad and the mom who mentioned spanking?

Parent one (mom) was white, lived in downtown DC, upper middle class but not wealthy. Works part time to have lots of time with her little kids. By all accounts (and observations) she genuinely does anything for her kids. Husband owns a local company, two kids, Catholic.
Parent two (dad) self made guy, from rural background, C-level exec of very large company - does not live here, wife is former teacher turned SAHM, four kids, not religious, very wealthy but "new money" for whatever that is worth

Interesting. Throws a lot of stereotypes out the window.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:civil poster - what were the demographics of the dad and the mom who mentioned spanking?

Parent one (mom) was white, lived in downtown DC, upper middle class but not wealthy. Works part time to have lots of time with her little kids. By all accounts (and observations) she genuinely does anything for her kids. Husband owns a local company, two kids, Catholic.
Parent two (dad) self made guy, from rural background, C-level exec of very large company - does not live here, wife is former teacher turned SAHM, four kids, not religious, very wealthy but "new money" for whatever that is worth

Interesting. Throws a lot of stereotypes out the window.

This is what I'm saying. There are plenty of educated, non Southern people who spank. Why do people think it's only the poorly educated and/or southerners?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know spanking causes harm?

This was meant for the PP who claimed that she *knows* it causes harm.

I put the *know* in the asterisks because I KNOW it in the gut sense that transcends "I think" or "I feel" because it permeates to my core. You might call that "I strongly believe" but since it is in fact backed by some pretty compelling data (studies mainly, but since i don't have to hold my observations up to scientific scrutiny, i would also include the observations of a good number of people with whom i'm close - family and not - and grew up with, and their discussions about how they feel about spanking today and how they were spanked as a kid). My parents were fine but they did spank, and none of us kids have a super close relationship with them. For me, i can't really pin it to a reason, i just am not really close to them. But my sister specifically attributes it to spankings. and really we didn't get that many of them compared to many kids. My brother is a junkie, so we can't really talk with him about it. Again, I'm not saying that my siblings situation is due to spanking and in fact i don't believe it is the only or even primary issue, but i think it didn't help. So the TL;DR version is I *know* because

1. gut feeling
2. numerous studies
3. my own experience
4. numerous other personal observations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:civil poster - what were the demographics of the dad and the mom who mentioned spanking?

Parent one (mom) was white, lived in downtown DC, upper middle class but not wealthy. Works part time to have lots of time with her little kids. By all accounts (and observations) she genuinely does anything for her kids. Husband owns a local company, two kids, Catholic.
Parent two (dad) self made guy, from rural background, C-level exec of very large company - does not live here, wife is former teacher turned SAHM, four kids, not religious, very wealthy but "new money" for whatever that is worth

Interesting. Throws a lot of stereotypes out the window.

This is what I'm saying. There are plenty of educated, non Southern people who spank. Why do people think it's only the poorly educated and/or southerners?

Because certain types of people make everything into an us vs. them; we know better, they don't; education = wisdom; the answers to all life's questions lie in a study, and you just have to Google the right one; the person with the most degrees is correct, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know spanking causes harm?

This was meant for the PP who claimed that she *knows* it causes harm.

I put the *know* in the asterisks because I KNOW it in the gut sense that transcends "I think" or "I feel" because it permeates to my core. You might call that "I strongly believe" but since it is in fact backed by some pretty compelling data (studies mainly, but since i don't have to hold my observations up to scientific scrutiny, i would also include the observations of a good number of people with whom i'm close - family and not - and grew up with, and their discussions about how they feel about spanking today and how they were spanked as a kid). My parents were fine but they did spank, and none of us kids have a super close relationship with them. For me, i can't really pin it to a reason, i just am not really close to them. But my sister specifically attributes it to spankings. and really we didn't get that many of them compared to many kids. My brother is a junkie, so we can't really talk with him about it. Again, I'm not saying that my siblings situation is due to spanking and in fact i don't believe it is the only or even primary issue, but i think it didn't help. So the TL;DR version is I *know* because

1. gut feeling
2. numerous studies
3. my own experience
4. numerous other personal observations

I respect your points, but the studies look at spanking as a binary variable, and they make no effort to control for other factors or context. Also, 90% of parents spank, and the 10% that don't tend to be the wealthiest (it's also easy not to spank when you have nannies watching your kid most of the time). Do you see the scientific weakness here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:civil poster - what were the demographics of the dad and the mom who mentioned spanking?

Parent one (mom) was white, lived in downtown DC, upper middle class but not wealthy. Works part time to have lots of time with her little kids. By all accounts (and observations) she genuinely does anything for her kids. Husband owns a local company, two kids, Catholic.
Parent two (dad) self made guy, from rural background, C-level exec of very large company - does not live here, wife is former teacher turned SAHM, four kids, not religious, very wealthy but "new money" for whatever that is worth

Interesting. Throws a lot of stereotypes out the window.

I agree, and that's why i posted (the separate post) it in context of people spanking and just not talking about it much. My hometown is fairly rural so you would expect lots of spanking but nobody I grew up with spanks - even those who never left and actually several with not much education (though I don't think that makes them stupid, which I think is generally the inference there)

On the other hand, one of the posters (the mom) grew up wealthy and in a suburb of a large city. It isn't so much that she spanked that shocked me, it was how openly she discussed it, like we'd all (including me) appreciate and relate to it. I didn't say anything at all, but things got kind of awkwardly quiet and I wondered later if it was obvious that I was shocked, and again, that was surprising just considering how taboo it's become.

I think I was left wondering if it was taboo in certain circles (demographic or otherwise) but less so in others.

[Anonymous]

I think it's definitely more taboo in certain circles than others, but like you realized, it would be a mistake to conflate that with an assumption that it's nonexistent in some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you know spanking causes harm?

This was meant for the PP who claimed that she *knows* it causes harm.

I put the *know* in the asterisks because I KNOW it in the gut sense that transcends "I think" or "I feel" because it permeates to my core. You might call that "I strongly believe" but since it is in fact backed by some pretty compelling data (studies mainly, but since i don't have to hold my observations up to scientific scrutiny, i would also include the observations of a good number of people with whom i'm close - family and not - and grew up with, and their discussions about how they feel about spanking today and how they were spanked as a kid). My parents were fine but they did spank, and none of us kids have a super close relationship with them. For me, i can't really pin it to a reason, i just am not really close to them. But my sister specifically attributes it to spankings. and really we didn't get that many of them compared to many kids. My brother is a junkie, so we can't really talk with him about it. Again, I'm not saying that my siblings situation is due to spanking and in fact i don't believe it is the only or even primary issue, but i think it didn't help. So the TL;DR version is I *know* because

1. gut feeling
2. numerous studies
3. my own experience
4. numerous other personal observations

I respect your points, but the studies look at spanking as a binary variable, and they make no effort to control for other factors or context. Also, 90% of parents spank, and the 10% that don't tend to be the wealthiest (it's also easy not to spank when you have nannies watching your kid most of the time). Do you see the scientific weakness here?

Yes, I do, but I also don't know that I agree that every study failed to control for different variables - yes, it's difficult to control for everything but science does attempt to control for confounding variables. Understanding that there is no perfect way to do this because people cannot really control every variable in life and also aren't ethically able to set up a study that encouraged parents to strike their kids given what we DO know about it all firmly suggests it backfires or doesn't work, I'll go with pretty good science over "it works in the short term for me / my family" every day.

Also, I do think that you are incorrect that 90 percent of parents spank, but i don't have time to fact check - maybe you are right about that. If so, that's way more than I realized.

[Anonymous]

Civil poster here and since we are having an honest and civil discussion, where I'm swearing up and down why I'm right that spanking is not ideal and carries big time potential to harm kids, I absolutely need to admit that I have one child that I really do struggle with his behavior sometimes. I absolutely do think sometimes that "a good spanking" would end this ceaseless back and forth over the relentless onslaught of parenting a strong-willed child. Must we really do this thing again where I tell him 15 times to get his darn clothes on? So I'll open that up to you. I was able to change his behavior by concerted effort at redirecting, immediate consequence (you take someone's toy, mom takes it off you and hands to other kid with a redirection. You push a child or misbehave, you come sit with mom for a few minutes when youd' rather be playing, you hit or bite? we leave immediately, etc) (BTW thank god neither of mine were biters!)

My kids are a little bit older now - one is well past spanking age and the other (the rascal) is still in the spanking age but on the older side at 7. Overall i'm really happy with the human beings they are becoming but there were many, many times i left a party feeling like i had the worst behaved kid there. And I bet if I did spank i wouldn't have had that problem. So I really do get why people do it, and I've simply made a different but perhaps also not perfect choice. I just have to think that one involves a big person hitting a child and the other doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If those of you who spank are totally ok with it - do you let your friends know that you spank?

For example, when my child does something wrong and I have to put her in a time out, or remove her from playdate or party, the discipline is handled in public.

For the spankers, do you do it in public?

If not...why?

no, because if threads like these are any indication, there are people out there who think I'm damaging my kids for life, that they're going to wind up angry and sullen and hate me, that I'm abusing them, etc. Why would I do that to myself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Civil poster here and since we are having an honest and civil discussion, where I'm swearing up and down why I'm right that spanking is not ideal and carries big time potential to harm kids, I absolutely need to admit that I have one child that I really do struggle with his behavior sometimes. I absolutely do think sometimes that "a good spanking" would end this ceaseless back and forth over the relentless onslaught of parenting a strong-willed child. Must we really do this thing again where I tell him 15 times to get his darn clothes on? So I'll open that up to you. I was able to change his behavior by concerted effort at redirecting, immediate consequence (you take someone's toy, mom takes it off you and hands to other kid with a redirection. You push a child or misbehave, you come sit with mom for a few minutes when youd' rather be playing, you hit or bite? we leave immediately, etc) (BTW thank god neither of mine were biters!)

My kids are a little bit older now - one is well past spanking age and the other (the rascal) is still in the spanking age but on the older side at 7. Overall i'm really happy with the human beings they are becoming but there were many, many times i left a party feeling like i had the worst behaved kid there. And I bet if I did spank i wouldn't have had that problem. So I really do get why people do it, and I've simply made a different but perhaps also not perfect choice. I just have to think that one involves a big person hitting a child and the other doesn't.

Your comment is very civil indeed. I only take slight issue with your last line because that's kind of developed to still go for *some* moral high-ground. I'm betting that there were plenty of times when you used your advantage of physical size to enforce the "sit by mom" punishments or leave the party punishments.

The other question I'd consider is that would the overall happiness and peacefulness of all parties have been improved if one spanking prevented 15 other punishments or confrontations (or whatever ratio you suggested)?