Does spanking children really teach anything to our children in a positive perspective? (toddlers, girl)

[anifani821]

Well, I agree w/ others - there seems to be no resolution as to whether or not spanking is acceptable. Plus, it seems definitions are very tangled - what one person calls a spanking, another may see as abusive b/c his/her belief is any type of hitting is abuse.

I just have one question. Is there anyone here who spanks their children and was NOT spanked him/herself as a child?

And is there anyone here who WAS spanked as a child and therefore would never spank a child?

The reason I ask is . . . I have a theory . . . everyone who DOES spank their children was spanked as a child and found it to be an acceptable and effective form of punishment.

I also think that the majority of people who are against spanking were spanked as children and saw it as abuse and so are adamant about never spanking a child.

I bet there is no one on this forum who thinks spanking is acceptable and WAS NOT spanked as a child.

[ADVentive]

When someone says that they are against spanking because of what happened to them as a child, and others respond that what happened there was abuse and not discipline/spanking - I really think people need to step back and see that the abuser there probably thought it was just discipline/spanking.

I think that part of the issue here is that while spankers obviously feel that spanking is perfectly acceptable, people who abuse also tend to think what they do is perfectly acceptable.
All of us here can all probably agree on certain situations that we would call abuse. However, does the abuser in those situations consider his actions abuse? He probably thinks he is just disciplining his child and that everyone should just butt out and settle down. The question for outsiders is where and how to draw the line between the abusers and the simple spankers, and I don't think that it's as clear-cut as many would like to make it seem. Some draw the line at whether it leaves a mark after some period of time, others draw the line at where on the child's body you can hit, others draw the line at spanking with a hand vs an object, etc, etc. And others say that they don't believe it is ever okay to hit a child at all, period.

[anifani821]

For me - and again - this is my own personal definition . . . if a child is spanked by an ANGRY parent, then that is problematic. If it is sheer discipline designed to teach a child that some action has dire consequences, the parent will administer the spanking w/ detachment. My experience w/ parents who spank has been that parents are typically very frustrated and angry by the time they decide to spank a child. In addition, it is often stated by parents that this is going to show the child "who is in charge."

I find that problematic. Angry parents spanking a child who is captive and has to endure it sets up patterns wh/ can later lead to a child psychologically accepting abuse from a spouse. Indeed, what children are told is "This is what you get. You earned this." What does that tell a child? You have to accept the consequences for making others angry (or embarrassed) by your actions. That child may not even recognize being whacked as an adult as abuse - after all - the abuser typically says "You made me do this. You brought this on yourself." Victims of spousal abuse often make excuses for why their spouse hit them - and often it is "Well, I pushed him to do it. He warned me."

It is just something to think about. An angry parent is a very frightening thing for a child to deal with. Children learn to be compliant based on the fear that their parent will not APPROVE. This, too, sets up kids for adult problems . . . w/ being a "pleaser" and "walking on eggshells" rather than voicing their own needs.

So I would think if a parent is sending out those messages as part of a spanking . . . then the spanking could be VERY damaging psychologically for a child. In addition, an angry parent does not give a message about resolution to issues. The message is rather one of power and forced compliance. What is especially heinous is when parents say "this was for your own good. Now give me a hug. You know I love you."

What does that teach? Your abuser is to be forgiven. After all, it was for your own good that you got the hell knocked out of you. You brought it on yourself. Therefore, the suffering is all yours - NOT MY FAULT THAT I HAVE ANGER ISSUES!!!

So I believe the key to whether or not spanking can be a valuable tool or is a potentially crippling psychological weapon lies in the parent's demeanor and what is conveyed about why the child is being spanked.

It is the difference between a very frustrated father yanking a kid up and yelling at him for being a brat while spanking him soundly - and a school principal cooly administering two whacks to someone's behind for causing a problem in the lunchroom. The first situation can be very frightening for a child and be teaching him nothing but that when dad gets mad, he doesn't try to resolve the situation except by knocking someone around . . . and the second is simply discipline for an infraction - nothing personal about it.

I believe the state of mind of the parent has a lot to do w/ how effective (and what message is being sent) when a parent spanks a child.

[cpg35223]

Lots of theory versus practice on this board. Most of the people who don't have a problem with a mild spanking have children. Most of the people who do have no children, or one at the most. And, let me tell you, the easiest thing in the world to do is to raise one child. I can raise one child blindfolded.

If you're dealing with a young child, you cannot always sit there and logically discuss the consequences of their behavior. You need to instantly reinforce that some behavior is absolutely unacceptable, without some long harangue. I love to watch parents explain things at length to a child. By about the fifth syllable, the child is tuning the parent out.

The other thing is that, for some children, measures such as time outs are totally ineffective. A swat on the bottom is certainly not child abuse. It suggests to them what will not be allowed in a memorable, instantaneous manner. I have absolutely no qualms about dispensing them, and has certainly led to no resentment among my three children.

[Severs]

method of disipline works differently for different people, some timeouts work, others something more is required, i myself was spanked and i think i turned out better for it, it was an actual punishment, and a way to enforce another such as a grounding if it was violated, i have two brothers who were taught in school spankings are illegal so my mother did not spank them as she did me, and in thier minds that means "no real punishment available... o you grounded me from the computer for a week? and what if i get on anyway, youre not gonna do anything else but increase the time on it, which id then in turn violate again untill you give up" for me it was "no nintendo for a week" a violation meant 3 nice smacks on the rear, or "go sit in the corner for 15 minutes" again violation meant a good whack, sure at the time i thought it was harsh but it worked, i was brought up with knowledge of right and wrong, now im not saying go straight to the spankings, but if timeout stops working and groundings are failing, what else choice is there... and hard spankings are no better than just enough to make the slap sound, as my parents learned from giving me a hairline fracture when i tried to cover, was one time, from my "father" whom i may make a long rant about in a bit

[Filet Mignon]

Originally Posted by catdeoh

Do you think that it is better to spank your child when they are bad, or teach them right from wrong/ "making better choices".

It worked for my wife & me.

It showed our kids that we were in charge, and that when we said we meant business, we meant business.

We did not spank our kids very often, nor did we beat them and call it spanking.


Our sons are in their 20s, and our daughter is nearly there. Recently I asked all of them if they remember me spanking them. All of them do, but all of them remember spankings I don't remember. And frankly, all of them now think the spankings were pretty funny. Apparently they weren't too traumatic.

[Niftybergin]

Originally Posted by Giantone

Agreed ,were talking a spanking........not a beating ,any moron can tell the difference.

Uh...my father couldn't. He'd "spank" us by having us drop our pants and bend over his lap, then he'd whale us with a hairbrush or belt or shoe or kitchen utensil. How hard do you have to hit the naked buttocks of a 7-year-old girl to break a hairbrush in half? I'm just curious, because it happened twice to me. And when I would get defiant and mention abuse, my father would tell me to go ahead and call the cops and they'd just tell me my father was a parent disciplining his child.

So...no. Any moron CAN'T tell the difference between a spanking and a beating. My moron of a father certainly couldn't.

I'm not saying that all spanking is bad. I honestly don't think it is. I think spanking can be an effective way to reinforce a parental edict, or to impress upon the child the seriousness of something. But I think there are plenty of parents out there who hit in a fit of anger...who hit reactively, who hit too hard and too often...who manhandle their kids as if they're inanimate objects...who hit to control or dominate their children...who hit as an outlet for their own frustration and inability to effectively parent their children. And I think there are probably plenty of parents out there who call it "spanking" when in fact it's something else entirely.

[randill]

My mom hardly ever spanked us when we were little but rarely when she did we knew we did something really bad and never did it again