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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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?[/quote]

+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.[/quote]

[b]When you say that you spank, how do you actually carry that out? Is it the in-the-moment kind?[/b]  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. [/quote]

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.
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