You answered your own question here. Kids desperately want the love and approval of their parents. Feeling a parents' disappointment in you is deeply painful. Spanking honestly confuses this issue. When kids do very wrong, it is really not hard to impress upon them why it's not okay, especially if you have been raising them with good values all along. I'll tell you what is hard, though. When you hit your kids and then one day they get in trouble for hitting someone else and look at you and say, "Why is it okay when you do it but not when I do it?" Sure, parents who spank will have some line about how they are spanking out of a sense of responsibility blah blah blah, but kids (especially teenagers) are BS detectors and won't buy it. Never do something to your kid that you don't want them doing to someone else. Especially not something smaller and more helpless. You don't want your kids hitting younger siblings? Don't hit them. You don't want them beating up on friends? Don't hit them. You don't want them to hit your eventual grandchildren? Don't hit them. This is not rocket science, and I can't believe we are still having this conversation in 2022. |
I get what you are saying. But let's fast forward to the older years when kids aren't getting spanked....why are kids being nasty to one another, hurting one another, manipulating, doing drugs, constantly lying. Many of them have not been spanked. A lot of this is considered common for older kids but many parents have laid the foundation when they are young. I'm not saying spanking is the answer but the cop out answer of "Oh something is wrong" or "They are just kids" just doesn't do it for me. I don't believe people are always as "good" as some of you are trying to make it seem. I'm not perfect. But I've been around kids when I myself was in middle school, high school, college etc. and some of the things kids do is really not okay. I myself have lied and cheated yet I was not taught to do that. Whether you spank or don't spank I just don't think that makes a child "good". The "just kids" reminds me of all the people that justify bad behavior in later years. You know the boys that rape girls in college at some frat party...."oh they are just kids". I hate this statement. |
I understand. But I don't view my parents as horrible people. I also don't think I would have felt bad if they said "No tv for 3 months". I know b/c those were often my punishments and it just doesn't hit the same. I get what you are saying, but I don't think a spanking or two is going to kill a kid. I've never hit my sibling or anyone else. What's weird is I am an extremely soft person...not sure how that happened. I won't spank b/c I am just way too soft but I also don't feel I lacked in love. This conversation is always weird to me b/c people have every right to discipline their kids how they want. |
Same!! I was spanked and I can't imagine a life without my mom and dad. I love those two to pieces!! |
I do not spank. But I don't think it's YOUR place to judge someone else. There are a lot of things I think are bad that are common but I'm not going to judge others on it. It's okay to die on that hill. Millions of people will do what they feel is best for their situation. |
| I thinking taking away privileges and time out are fine. But I don't think those things signal extreme disobedience. What some of the other posters are bringing up about deliberate disobedience is interesting. I'd be curious to know what people do for extreme offenses because I don't find the same old punishments to work. A lot of you are sharing good disciplines but those are all good for the everyday run of the mill disobediences. If your 7 year old lies repeatedly or destroys something sure timeout or taking away something. But if you aren't spanking how are you making it extremely clear that this behavior is NOT ok? I'm a teacher and I don't think parents discipline their kids nearly enough because they often are disrespectful. |
My mom spanked us and my sister started hitting her back. She stopped after that. |
Spanking also often doesn’t work. |
I mean ok…that was your sister. What does anyone else have to do with your experience? |
| Apparently spanking and punishments are wrong. Anyone follow biglittlefeelings on IG? |
I’ve seen a 2 year old dragging a cat and beating it up. Seriously WTF |
I am absolutely going to judge that you are a sh*tty parent and sh*tty human being if you hit your kids, regardless of how "right" you may feel you were for doing so. |
I'm not the PP from above. I think that it is important to consider the ways in which cultural norms change. There are many ways in which "kids today" grow up faster than I did (b. 1981). There is a lot of youth culture that is toxic, which I blame largely but not exclusively on social media. I personally think that the way they talk to each other is encouraged by online video games. It's like the kind of smack talk that would happen at sports stuff when I was a teenager, except it's relentless and not contained to one event anymore. You could also argue just as strongly that the parents of today's teenagers over-parented them as children including over-scheduling them for activities, unrealistic expectations about academic and athletic success, and restricting personal freedom such that a 14yo today has zero experience behaving themselves in public without a parent to regulate on the activity. But it's also important to recognize that there are a lot of parenting strategies that are unacceptable today. This is one of them. |
I grew up when spanking kids was common and acceptable, and I assure you that when those spanked kids got older, they were nasty to each other, they hurt each other, they manipulated each other, they lied, they cheated, they did drugs. Being spanked as kids didn't hold them back from teen misbehavior at all. |
And the ones that weren’t spanked probably did the same thing. I’m not saying it should be one way or the other but some of y’all are lying acting like kids just don’t do bad things. |