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Like many others, I got whooped with the belt as a kid - but only if I did something really bad.
I'm a CPS worker, yet I still believe strongly in disciplining children. I've never used the belt on my own daughter when she was small; I did swat her a couple times (with my hand). But your opinion here...
Belt - discipline? Or abuse?
The problem is the belt can be both discipline or abuse. It really depends on how it's used. If it's used for any infraction and you just rail on the kid until he's unconscious, then obviously it's abuse. If it's used for serious problems, it's quite useful as discipline. Every person I've talked to who has gone through corporal punishment agrees that it serves a function and laughs at parents who try time outs instead. Those are the parents who are like "omg, I've tried nothing and it doesn't work!!!"
Like many others, I got whooped with the belt as a kid - but only if I did something really bad.
I'm a CPS worker, yet I still believe strongly in disciplining children. I've never used the belt on my own daughter when she was small; I did swat her a couple times (with my hand). But your opinion here...
Belt - discipline? Or abuse?
Seems like you might want to rethink being a CPS worker....if that's your real job. I just can't imagine someone who works in CPS even posting this.
Like many others, I got whooped with the belt as a kid - but only if I did something really bad.
I'm a CPS worker, yet I still believe strongly in disciplining children. I've never used the belt on my own daughter when she was small; I did swat her a couple times (with my hand). But your opinion here...
Belt - discipline? Or abuse?
The root word of the word discipline come from the Latin word for pupil. Although it is commonly used to mean punishment I urge you to consider treating discipline as teaching. Sometimes a punishment is in order but there are other ways to punish/teach children besides hitting them.
If you make a child fear you the child will be controlled because they will be afraid of being hit. However, if the longer term goal is to teach the child to control himself you have to find ways of making the child understand how to behave even when you are not around.
I see hitting a child with an object as abusive. But more important that that is I see it as lazy parenting. It is easy to hit a small child and make them fear you. They will behave because they are afraid. It is much more difficult to teach your child to behave because it is the right thing to do.
I got paddled a few times as a kid. I was a stubborn SOB (still am). I deserved it, and I needed it, nothing less would work. 'Time outs' didn't work, 'go to your room' didn't work, I was perfectly happy to be alone and read, or occupy myself with my mind. And if I wasn't, I escaped and did what I wanted to do anyway.
Some kids will see reason, or lesser 'punishment' will work...but there are others who will sneer at reasoning and lesser attempts. 'One size' does NOT fit all, despite some of the things you may read. People who say that no child ever deserves a whack once in a while are ignorant of reality.
"Behave, or else I'll hurt you!" does not teach a useful lesson.
Parenting can be difficult. Reaching for the belt, aside from its myriad other deficiencies, is a lazy way of doing things.
Beyond that, the idea that we should do something because that's how we did it yesterday is a poor excuse. Had that rule always carried the day, we'd still be living in caves and snacking on vermin we picked out of each other's hides. Don't tell me how something was done in yesteryear - tell me why it should be done that way today.
Too bad my parents are not around any more so I could sue them - but maybe I can sue some government. I do wish I could take all the love I had for my abusive parents back now that I am so enlightened. Missed my chance I guess.
Thanks to those of you who let me know that I was ABUSED all my life till my mid-teens - wet fly swatter on bare bottom .. fly swatter being an 'object' other than a hand. And of course, now I can recognize that so many of my classmates were likewise abused too - at school - by strap on bare hand - and in their homes with a hairbrush on hand - another form of this insidious abuse.
Doubt too many I knew in my day escaped it - and yet .. here we are .. reasonably good and responsible citizens. Should I go to therapy now? What deep seated issues might this have inspired? I am now 66 - is it possible to ever fix the damage at this late date? I have absolutely no idea why I didn't scream abuse when I was a child or see this whole issue this way.
I may not have hit my own kids (well not with an object anyway, I admit to the occasional rear end swipe as a naughty child passed by and especially when one of them tried to run into a busy street without looking) but it was not because I saw that as abusive - they just weren't kids that responded as well as perhaps I did to that kind of persuasive technique.
Too bad my parents are not around any more so I could sue them - but maybe I can sue some government. I do wish I could take all the love I had for my abusive parents back now that I am so enlightened. Missed my chance I guess.
Thanks to those of you who let me know that I was ABUSED all my life till my mid-teens - wet fly swatter on bare bottom .. fly swatter being an 'object' other than a hand. And of course, now I can recognize that so many of my classmates were likewise abused too - strap on bare hand - and hairbrush on hand was another form of this insidious abuse.
Doubt too many I knew in my day escaped it - and yet .. here we are .. reasonably good and responsible citizens. Should I go to therapy now? What deep seated issues might this have inspired? I am now 66 - is it possible to ever fix the damage at this late date? I have absolutely no idea why I didn't scream abuse when I was a child or saw this whole issue this way.
I may not have hit my own kids (well not with an object anyway, I admit to the occasional rear end swipe as a naughty child passed by and especially when one of them tried to run into a busy street without looking) but it was not because I saw that as abusive - they just weren't kids that responded as well as perhaps I did to that kind of persuasive technique.
If you're being beaten to the point that you have to strip to your underwear so your mom can check for bruises before you go for your visitation weekend with your dad, that's abuse. If your mom is dragging you to the ground by your hair and kicking you in the back until you pee yourself, that's abuse. If she pushes you outside, rips off your clothes and locks you out, that's abuse. If you don't get to see a doctor after you're sexually assaulted or report the assault to the police (because it doesn't happen to nice girls) that's also abuse. And then you tell a teacher or call the police because you need help, and your mother acts like you're making things up for attention.
I know what I went through in my childhood, and what happened to my husband. Calling it abuse because it was abuse helps us to acknowledge that it was wrong and that it shouldn't have happened to us. It gives us the power to raise our children without the fear, shame and guilt that abused children have to live with.
I don't think I really quit loving my mother until recently. As I raise my own children and I see that it's not difficult to give the the love and guidance and basic necessities that I didn't get, it makes me angrier with my mother. I was a good kid. She didn't have to do that to me. She chose to do it.
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
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Within reason I don't think spanking with a belt is abuse. But I wouldn't do it because it teaches kids to resolve disputes with violence, rather than reason.
I find it scary someone who works at CPS would even ask this
Me too. I find it scary to think someone charged with keeping kids safe and protected needs to ask if whipping a child with a belt is abuse.
Hopefully the OP is a paper pusher and not making decisions about a child's welfare.
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