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No, it is not abuse. That's spanking, and is the best method for disciplining a child. It must be started when the child iss very young, usually before 1 year old. I first spanked my son when he crawled over and started fingering an electrical socket out of curiosity. I grabbed his hand away from it, put on an angry face, pointed at the socket, shouted, "No, no!" at him, popped him on the diaper twice, pointed at the socket again, shouted "No, no!" again, and let him go.
He was astonished, of course, and went to tears immediately, as is inevitable. He was too young to understand the English words, but understood the fear and the pain... which was what I intended. I pointed again at the socket and said, "No, no!" again. My intention was to get across to him that if he did anything with anything that looked like that electrical socket, very bad things would immediately happen to him that he could not stop or avoid.
Maybe he never would have fiddled with a socket again, even without the spanking. But there's no reason to assume that, and lots of reason to assume he would. He was curious, just as any normal child is. And it was even possible that he might have found a stray paper clip or gum wrapper some day, and push it into the socket, again out of curiosity.
Spanking is unpleasant. But this instance may have saved his life. And that is why spanking is justified. I could not have explained to him WHY the socket was bad to play with. I could only make him very interested in avoiding any electrical sockets, from then on.
I also achieved something else: He had the conviction afterward, that when Daddy said No, he meant it, and if the boy did it anyway he knew he would wind up with a sore fanny. And so he became very interested in doing what Daddy said... and I never had to spank him again. (Well, once, when he toddled out into a street without looking. but that also was a once-only.)
Spanking when very young, when done right (i.e. no injury, with clear reasons pointed out, happens quickly and is over quickly), prevents dangerous behavior... and also prevents future spanking.
When done wrong, it is probably more destructive than halpful, and should not be done. If you let a child get away with bad behavior with no such instant punishment, and then a few years later spank him the next time he does it, he'll learn merely that occasionally the behavior gets him a punishment... but usually it doesn't.
If you merely try to explain to him why he should not do the bad behavior, many children will take that as an oportunity to talk you OUT of genuine punishment... and will learn quickly how to wrap you around his little finger. He certainly won't learn to do what you say, at least not until he reaches an age when his maturity is high enough to think of others more than he thinks of himself.
"Frustration" is absolutely the wrong reason for spanking. So is anger. A desire to get him to want to avoid the bad behavior without causing him any actual inury or long-term fear, is the reason for spanking.
Or, you could have bought socket covers that would protect your child.
The socket had such a cover, as did all the sockets in the house.
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Hitting a BABY is just....insanity.
Not insanity, just abusive and wrong. Which is why I never do it. Instead, I spank when needed - a completely different thing.
A parent's role isn't just to protect. It's also to teach. I can't do that merely by removing all possible threats to him. In fact, I would be neglecting his upbringing to a certain extent, if that was all I ever did.
But doing it my way, I also taught him that it was up to HIM to avoid threats (starting with the possibility of getting spanked, which he sees as a threat even though I know it's carefully designed to be non-harmful). Instead of teaching him that Mommy and Daddy will always make his world perfect for him.
Last edited by Little-Acorn; 04-07-2013 at 04:15 PM..
I never understood the "running into the street" excuse. Why is your daughter in a position to run into the street? I had two three year olds at the same time. They were not given the opportunity to run into the street. If we were walking to the playground, I held their hands. Why isn't holding their hand until they are old enough to understand better than hitting them?
My son was 6 or 7 when he got a hard smack on the azz for running across the street without stopping and looking. He was on his way home from school and was in his own little world. He looked up and saw me waiting and just started running. He ran into my arms and we briefly hugged... then I spanked him. He was more stunned than anything. He got a more verbal thrashing the rest of the way home. This wasn't his first walk home from school.
He never, ever ran across that street again.
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Originally Posted by readyjack
I think there is an oversight of the nature of offense, consequence, and punishment. My children have talked back to me before and I did not like it. Very rare, but it happens right. Just because I feel entitled to limitless respect, does that actually make it the case? They are people too. Do we go our entire lives never disrespecting people or stepping over the line? It reminds me of entitled police who really grind into you if you don't kiss up to them. Obey strength.
Ya know, I never, ever, ever hesitated about popping my son in the mouth for speaking rudely to me. It (the mouth) was being offensive and I let him know it. A light pop... which actually creates a 'popping' sound when done over an open mouth.
Conversely, I let him speak his mind freely when need be. I respected his feelings, but he was not to be rude or hurtful to others in his expressions.
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Originally Posted by Little-Acorn
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No, it is not abuse. That's spanking, and is the best method for disciplining a child. It must be started when the child iss very young, usually before 1 year old. I first spanked my son when he crawled over and started fingering an electrical socket out of curiosity. I grabbed his hand away from it, put on an angry face, pointed at the socket, shouted, "No, no!" at him, popped him on the diaper twice, pointed at the socket again, shouted "No, no!" again, and let him go.
He was astonished, of course, and went to tears immediately, as is inevitable. He was too young to understand the English words, but understood the fear and the pain... which was what I intended. I pointed again at the socket and said, "No, no!" again. My intention was to get across to him that if he did anything with anything that looked like that electrical socket, very bad things would immediately happen to him that he could not stop or avoid.
Maybe he never would have fiddled with a socket again, even without the spanking. But there's no reason to assume that, and lots of reason to assume he would. He was curious, just as any normal child is. And it was even possible that he might have found a stray paper clip or gum wrapper some day, and push it into the socket, again out of curiosity.
Spanking is unpleasant. But this instance may have saved his life. And that is why spanking is justified. I could not have explained to him WHY the socket was bad to play with. I could only make him very interested in avoiding any electrical sockets, from then on.
snip
As above, I lightly slapped the offending body part - in this case my son got his hands slapped while I told him, "No, no. Don't touch.", and then explained the whys.
He learned to leave outlets alone.
Funny story: When he was about 3 he came to me and told me that a "no-no cover" was missing from his room. I was cooking at the moment and could not leave the stove, so I asked him for more info about what he was talking about. I was baffled.
When I finally could I went to his room to see what he meant and he meant an electrical outlet cover. In all those years since babyhood we had never really thought of the covers that were on every outlet not in use. Obviously he did... and he really thought that they were called "no-no covers" because he assumed the outlets themselves were the actual "no-noes"
We still call them "no-no covers".
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Originally Posted by Mattie
Or, you could have bought socket covers that would protect your child. Hitting a BABY is just....insanity. Personally, I think hitting anybody qualifies as such, but the subject has been debated to death here.
I never considered lightly slapping my son on the hand as hitting. It didn't take but a time or two for him to understand I meant business.
Heck, I also took his tiny little hand and held it on the hot oven door for a second or two... to let him know it was hot and to get away. It worked wonders and he never went near that oven door without saying "hot" while looking at his hand. It did not burn his hand, not even a tiny red spot, but he learned a valuable lesson.
I certainly believe children should learn by trial and error and I let those I nurture do so. However, it is my job to keep them safe... especially my own child. I've never hit a child that was not my own. My son doesn't even remember getting spanked as a child. (We have discussed it.)
(Now the time I kneed him is another thing. It was abuse, but very unintentional. I meant to do it, but not as hard as I did... he jumped and landed just as my knee was there. We both suffered. He learned never to do that to another human again... the poor boy he did it to almost ended up in the ER. )
My son was 6 or 7 when he got a hard smack on the azz for running across the street without stopping and looking. He was on his way home from school and was in his own little world. He looked up and saw me waiting and just started running. He ran into my arms and we briefly hugged... then I spanked him. He was more stunned than anything. He got a more verbal thrashing the rest of the way home. This wasn't his first walk home from school.
He never, ever ran across that street again.
Ya know, I never, ever, ever hesitated about popping my son in the mouth for speaking rudely to me. It (the mouth) was being offensive and I let him know it. A light pop... which actually creates a 'popping' sound when done over an open mouth.
Conversely, I let him speak his mind freely when need be. I respected his feelings, but he was not to be rude or hurtful to others in his expressions.
As above, I lightly slapped the offending body part - in this case my son got his hands slapped while I told him, "No, no. Don't touch.", and then explained the whys.
He learned to leave outlets alone.
Funny story: When he was about 3 he came to me and told me that a "no-no cover" was missing from his room. I was cooking at the moment and could not leave the stove, so I asked him for more info about what he was talking about. I was baffled.
When I finally could I went to his room to see what he meant and he meant an electrical outlet cover. In all those years since babyhood we had never really thought of the covers that were on every outlet not in use. Obviously he did... and he really thought that they were called "no-no covers" because he assumed the outlets themselves were the actual "no-noes"
We still call them "no-no covers".
I never considered lightly slapping my son on the hand as hitting. It didn't take but a time or two for him to understand I meant business.
Heck, I also took his tiny little hand and held it on the hot oven door for a second or two... to let him know it was hot and to get away. It worked wonders and he never went near that oven door without saying "hot" while looking at his hand. It did not burn his hand, not even a tiny red spot, but he learned a valuable lesson.
I certainly believe children should learn by trial and error and I let those I nurture do so. However, it is my job to keep them safe... especially my own child. I've never hit a child that was not my own. My son doesn't even remember getting spanked as a child. (We have discussed it.)
(Now the time I kneed him is another thing. It was abuse, but very unintentional. I meant to do it, but not as hard as I did... he jumped and landed just as my knee was there. We both suffered. He learned never to do that to another human again... the poor boy he did it to almost ended up in the ER. )
So, you've spanked, smacked in the face, and hit the hand, as well as holding that hand against a hot oven. In other words, you've escalated the "lessons". Which is the problem with using corporal discipline in the first place.
So, you've spanked, smacked in the face, and hit the hand, as well as holding that hand against a hot oven.
Smacking the butt, or smacking the hand, is OK. Smacking the face is not, and is unnecessary. The hot over is obviously out.
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In other words, you've escalated the "lessons". Which is the problem with using corporal discipline in the first place.
No. Not using a sharp enough slap on the rear or hand in the first place, is the problem. It much be sharp enough, at a very young age, that it will be considered "shocking" and "massive" even though you and I know it is harmless. Then the behavior will stop. And no more spanking will be needed - just a stern "No"... which tells the kid he is one inch away from a spanking, and he believes it because he remembers Daddy already spanked him once.
If you didn't stop the behavior, you failed. And you will be behind the curve from then on. Unless when the next behavior happens, you give a VERY sharp slap... which you wouldn't have had to do if you'd done it right the first time.
Spanking done right, reduces or eliminates the need for later spanking.
Spanking not done right, leads to abuse because the parent couldn't handle it when he needed to.
I really don't understand the insistence on denying the fact that "spanking" and "hitting" are the same thing.
If my kid hit the dog or the cat on the backside with an open hand, I am not going to say "Hey! Don't spank the dog!" -- I would say "Don't hit the dog!" because that's what it is.
Now having said that, I spanked on a handful of occasions. I still don't think it's a good idea and it is not a philosophy I embrace. DD was spanked more than the older two, and we eventually realized it was just not going to work with her, period. None of our kids were spanked anywhere near as regularly as I was as a child and I think that if I could go back in time and do it all over again, omitting any instances of spanking, the kids would have turned out the same and we'd all be better off for removing the spankings from our parent-child history.
So, I am not going to judge someone who spanks/spanked because we did as well but it was never a first choice, it's not something I am particularly proud of, and I would not "recommend" it as a discipline plan if someone were to ask me for my opinion.
Sally, the insistence to call it spanking is like the insistence to say there is a difference between hitting a child in the face and hitting them on the butt or hand. I have not once seen a valid, strong reason to spank. Spankers think it works without ANY evidence.
My dad was abused by his father, and I give him enormous credit for never laying a hand on me. He had enough experience to know the damage it can do. My mother, however, once said she was going to me give a spanking I'd never forget, when I was about 4 of 5. She was right. I'm 58 now and I still haven't forgotten it. I think it was too harsh for the behavior that drove her to it, and all it did was teach me to lie to her about what I was doing, had done, or was going to do. And as I've posted elsewhere on this forum, hitting children for hitting other people is completely hypocritical. It teaches them that the bigger person has the right to bully the smaller, less powerful one.
I never spanked my son, who is 23 now, and even when he was a teen, I never perceived that he was afraid to tell me anything. I'm sure he didn't tell me *everything,* but he told me things I would never have told my mother, because he knew we would discuss it and a dramatic scene wouldn't result.
I am curious which one(s) resonated with you and why. Are you willing to share?
I've read studies on CP, but for the general baby stuff, infant care, tricks and clues about the process I have this book called baby411. It's just excellent and packed full of information on the many decisions that have to be made from labor and beyond. My girlfriend gave me that. I also have two others I haven't started with and while in college I took a two semester course on human development from conception through teen years. This mostly covered physiology, but it was excellent as well.
I never understood the "running into the street" excuse. Why is your daughter in a position to run into the street? I had two three year olds at the same time. They were not given the opportunity to run into the street. If we were walking to the playground, I held their hands. Why isn't holding their hand until they are old enough to understand better than hitting them?
She pulled her hand out of mine. Your kids never did that? We were at the top of my mother's driveway, my mother was lecturing me about being overprotective because I was holding my daughter's hand in the front yard, then she pulled her hand out of mine and took off. By the time I got around the cars, she was across the street and in the neighbor's pool.
The time before that, she pulled her hand out of mine and raced into the duck pond, which turned out to be about six inches of water and two feet of mud. She fell headfirst into the mud, her mouth was full of mud when I got her out.
Another time, she bit into my mom's hand so that my mom ended up letting go and my daughter raced across a busy street.
This is the same kid who knew how to climb out of the shopping cart within seconds of being put into it(she lifted the folding part and got out that way) and race into parking lots. I bought a carabiner to put on the cart while we shopped. She figured it out. I bought a padlock to put on the cart after that.
I tried one of those kid harnesses out of desperation, because I have a bad leg and I am not faster than a three year old. She would wait until someone was watching her, then jerk as if I had pulled her, and fall to the ground and say, "Mommy, why are you hurting me?" Another time, I was pushing her on the swings at the park and she let go and fell to the ground, then got up and screamed that I knocked her down on purpose because I wanted to hurt her. I had the police show up once when I was washing her hair, because she was screaming, "Help, she's killing me" over and over and the neighbors called the police.
She's grown out of all of it now and she's a pretty steady and reliable kid. But it was horrible dealing with her from about age 2-5. We were terrified to have a second child, but our younger daughter was never wild like that, and it's always been possible to reason with her and explain why something is unsafe. There's never been a need to spank her, if you explain to her why what she did was wrong or unsafe, she cries and says she won't do it again...and she doesn't do it again.
My son was 6 or 7 when he got a hard smack on the azz for running across the street without stopping and looking. He was on his way home from school and was in his own little world. He looked up and saw me waiting and just started running. He ran into my arms and we briefly hugged... then I spanked him. He was more stunned than anything. He got a more verbal thrashing the rest of the way home. This wasn't his first walk home from school.
He never, ever ran across that street again.
Ya know, I never, ever, ever hesitated about popping my son in the mouth for speaking rudely to me. It (the mouth) was being offensive and I let him know it. A light pop... which actually creates a 'popping' sound when done over an open mouth.
Conversely, I let him speak his mind freely when need be. I respected his feelings, but he was not to be rude or hurtful to others in his expressions.
As above, I lightly slapped the offending body part - in this case my son got his hands slapped while I told him, "No, no. Don't touch.", and then explained the whys.
He learned to leave outlets alone.
Funny story: When he was about 3 he came to me and told me that a "no-no cover" was missing from his room. I was cooking at the moment and could not leave the stove, so I asked him for more info about what he was talking about. I was baffled.
When I finally could I went to his room to see what he meant and he meant an electrical outlet cover. In all those years since babyhood we had never really thought of the covers that were on every outlet not in use. Obviously he did... and he really thought that they were called "no-no covers" because he assumed the outlets themselves were the actual "no-noes"
We still call them "no-no covers".
I never considered lightly slapping my son on the hand as hitting. It didn't take but a time or two for him to understand I meant business.
Heck, I also took his tiny little hand and held it on the hot oven door for a second or two... to let him know it was hot and to get away. It worked wonders and he never went near that oven door without saying "hot" while looking at his hand. It did not burn his hand, not even a tiny red spot, but he learned a valuable lesson.
I certainly believe children should learn by trial and error and I let those I nurture do so. However, it is my job to keep them safe... especially my own child. I've never hit a child that was not my own. My son doesn't even remember getting spanked as a child. (We have discussed it.)
(Now the time I kneed him is another thing. It was abuse, but very unintentional. I meant to do it, but not as hard as I did... he jumped and landed just as my knee was there. We both suffered. He learned never to do that to another human again... the poor boy he did it to almost ended up in the ER. )
You are an abuser. You slap your child in the face, butt, hand. Hold his hand over a hot stove, and you knee'd him in the face, but you didn't mean to do it as hard as you did. You are an abuser.
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