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I'm not against spanking, but I'm not sure if the child is being spank for a good reason. Let's be serious he keeps losing his homework. Before the spanking the man should find out if it's some sort of clumsiness or carelessness which is so often found in kids and juveniles. The child probably don't have the understanding to do his homework on his own and afraid or ashamed to say so and ask for help. That doesn't require spanking but concern and talk.
Secondly, when children are splitting between two parents he/she will be under to different jurisdictions. There will have to be a lot of compromising.
You need to speak to your ex about the spanking issue.
Um, CPS does not write the law, and they are not above the law, in any state.
Every U.S. state does allow parental spanking in some way, shape or form.
See post 60. There is no blanket statement re: spanking...That is exactly why I suggested that the OP find out what is allowed in her jurisdiction....since the "spanking" is the issue being discussed by the OP. And....evidently spanking is allowed in New York, the OP's area of residence....
Found an interesting thread re: State by State rules re: spanking http://kidjacked.com/legal/spanking_law.asp
Last edited by JanND; 02-25-2014 at 08:37 AM..
Reason: text edit
So this angers me because I don't believe in spanking. I have never spanked DS. Ever. I never planned too.
You are right, spanking is never good - it is always very destructive for the child. You have to help your child, by stopping the father from spanking him and from punishing him.
The most important thing to understand is that his father is doing what he thinks is the best thing for his child. Now that is something you have to do something about. Going to court, denying him access to his child etc. is that going to teach him how bad it is to spank his child ? No, it is not, it is going to make it lots worse for you to influence him in any way at all - and your child needs you to help, not to make a problem bigger.
The problem you are having is that we learn parenting from our parents and other people - how they treated us and other kids. We learn from people around us, and not from child psychologist that knows how we should treat our children.
As a one year old you learned how to walk by looking at the people around you, even we fell thousand times, we did not give up and one day we took our first steps just like others. Child psychologist are experts on how children learn, how they best should be treated - they are not people that you only treat a mental problem a child is having. They are people that have read and studied everything available to us of research on how children learn, what is good and what is not good for them to be exposed to.
Don't go to one with your child, go to one without your child, and ask them to explain what you child needs, because as parent don't really know this actually.
Your ex, is doing just that, he is trying to conform with what he has learned, and you need to help your child by getting the father to see things differently. Conflict only makes it harder to understand, and from the things i have read here, your are dangerously close to loosing any influence on the father completely by heading in to more conflict.
I think your ex, will stop the minute he understand that it is bad for your child to be spanked. And i think that he will continue, until you make him see it.
If you fail, chicht i think you are not going to do, - last option is to legally force your ex to go to counseling. Then he has to come and listen to what a psychologist is saying about for example spanking. This can be a condition for seeing his child. But it is close to failure... only to be used as an absolute last option, because it can destroy your possibility to have a productive relationship with your ex.
It is possible (in fact, it sounds extremely likely that) you two are just both on extreme ends of the spectrum in terms of parenting style. You had a spiritual advisor at the birth and got a reading of his past lives. There's nothing wrong with either of those things, but they are kind of on the crunchy granola end of the spectrum (I say that with all kindness.) He spanks over homework being forgotten, which is kind of on the too militaristic side of the spectrum. Kind of sounds like you and the ex were an "opposites attract" sort of situation.
In any case, there is the possibility that the two of you, in combination, could actually be very good for DS if you were both willing to adjust a little to the other person's ways. You said in another post that DS doesn't really require much/any discipline. Maybe that's a little too soft and isn't giving enough structure. Clearly ex's discipline is a little too harsh. I wonder what would happen if you two met in the middle? Would it be possible to sit down and talk through a joint parenting plan that involved what consequence would be applied evenly in both homes for forgotten homework? Maybe a lost privilege for forgetting it teamed up with a small reward every time the task is completed correctly? I suggest this simply because I've seen instances even among married/partnered co-parents where one parent being "good cop" and the other being "bad cop" kind of causes a problem that feeds off itself. Good cop overindulges to compensate for bad cop. Bad cop overdoes it because they're not getting support and they feel like they have to parent for two people. Finding consistency is key, and that's something that a court really isn't going to be able to help you with.
Wow, you've described it pretty well actually. The thing about him and I is that we're not polar opposites but we are far from being alike. Our sexual chemistry was always off the charts but our core values/spiritual connection... we could have never lasted in a relationship. We tried being friends for a while but after I had DS we just didn't talk as much. His personality is SO strict and uptight to the point where it drove me nuts. I can only imagine how controlling he'd be in a relationship. It upsets me just thinking about it. Like I said previously, ex and I get along and I really don't have a problem with him, but it's just situations like this where he gets uptight and overly harsh and it angers me.
I wouldn't mind a parenting plan and I'd be willing to comply. I worry about DS getting confused with new rules and changes. I know that's life but he's just at an age where he is used to a routine and the way his dad handled things confused him. Ex is way more strict than I am and that's all there is to it. It's the excess that I worry about. If DS was a misbehaving kid and needed structure I could see the benefit. Honestly though he isn't.
When we discussed this a few weeks ago he said, "I think we need to be more structured. He needs to understand that when I say it's time to eat we eat and when I say it's time for him to go to bed, he needs to go to bed." Well, that all sounds great in theory but kiddo is used to our routine at home. I'm pretty lax. He eats when he's hungry and goes to bed when he's sleepy. We just don't have a set schedule around here.
The structured daddy time I can live with. The spanking I can't. Luckily we are working toward compromise.
I mean, I wouldn't let this get TOO far off course if overall it seems to have some good points. There are some on here who are quick to turn this guy into the devil for spanking. What I'm reading is two people who have differing views on parenting, one person who may not have experience knowing what is appropriate, and another person who may not be the most effective communicator in coming together with a co-parenting plan. If this guy has been overall generous financially, has demonstrated he wants a relationship with DS (which he has), and generally is a decent guy (which I see no indication he isn't), I would be hesitant to turn the whole thing into WW3 without making the effort to have a conversation first where both parties listen and try to consider the position of the other.
I think the same way too. I was mad as hell about the spanking but I don't think my ex is an evil person. He's not a bad person; I was just deeply disappointed & disgusted with his actions. It broke my heart to think of our kid being hit.
The bottom line is that my ex doesn't normally like kids (to put that in polite terms) and I think he sees all children as bratty, noisy tantrum throwers. He is semi-loving with DS but it's like he thinks all he needs is discipline and structure.
Yeah this co-parenting thing is interesting that's for sure.
Plus...How well do you really personally know this man? He hasn't been in your life. I understand that you are trying to be reasonable and successfully co-parent....But, his attitude about children earlier in your "hook-up" has it gotten better...??
I knew him for a good bit. We were friends and hooked up a lot. Just no romantic relationship. We have friends in common but after DS was born I rarely saw/spoke to him.
His attitude about children hasn't changed, no, but he doesn't make those comments about our kid.
I'd also like to say that Ex was not spanked as a kid, as I have discovered, so I think the spanking came from anger and frustration more than anything.
I knew him for a good bit. We were friends and hooked up a lot. Just no romantic relationship. We have friends in common but after DS was born I rarely saw/spoke to him.
His attitude about children hasn't changed, no, but he doesn't make those comments about our kid.
I'd also like to say that Ex was not spanked as a kid, as I have discovered, so I think the spanking came from anger and frustration more than anything.
Well, keep us posted. I for one have a hard time understanding the push for co-parenting with an Ex you never had a serious relationship with, someone who hates children and never wanted any, and, out of the blue wants to be in the life of the child he fathered fives years later. You say he was never spanked, that's even more troubling. He is just getting to know his son yet he feels comfortable enough to exact a form of punishment on him that he himself never experienced! Wow!
I'd also like to say that Ex was not spanked as a kid, as I have discovered, so I think the spanking came from anger and frustration more than anything.
Even those proponents of corporal discipline will admit that punishing in anger and frustration is absolutely wrong. What are you doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Well, keep us posted. I for one have a hard time understanding the push for co-parenting with an Ex you never had a serious relationship with, someone who hates children and never wanted any, and, out of the blue wants to be in the life of the child he fathered fives years later. You say he was never spanked, that's even more troubling. He is just getting to know his son yet he feels comfortable enough to exact a form of punishment on him that he himself never experienced! Wow!
I mean, I think it's more an issue of "this is where we are." There's really no choice but for the OP to try to make the best of a situation that is not perfect and not going to be perfect, but that is reality. She and the ex are very different people. They didn't have a relationship but they chose to have sex. A baby resulted and this is his father. Legally, I don't think she's going to have the grounds to make all the decisions. He's the kid's parent too. If they can come to an agreement amicably and find a common position somewhere in the middle, they may have a better shot at making this workable. If she alienates the ex by trying to force him this way or that, then he gets joint custody or court-ordered visitation, well, she's going to have next to no control over what goes on when the boy is at his house. Hypothetically, even if she were to have something mandated that there was to be no spanking (for example), that's a drop in the bucket of all the things they will have to negotiate as parents over the next 15 years. If she's forced to take the step to go to court, she's basically guaranteed a contentious relationship forever. He won't listen to her on a thing. It would be far better for everyone (especially the kid) for them to find common ground.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frustrated Hippy
I wouldn't mind a parenting plan and I'd be willing to comply. I worry about DS getting confused with new rules and changes. I know that's life but he's just at an age where he is used to a routine and the way his dad handled things confused him. Ex is way more strict than I am and that's all there is to it. It's the excess that I worry about. If DS was a misbehaving kid and needed structure I could see the benefit. Honestly though he isn't.
When we discussed this a few weeks ago he said, "I think we need to be more structured. He needs to understand that when I say it's time to eat we eat and when I say it's time for him to go to bed, he needs to go to bed." Well, that all sounds great in theory but kiddo is used to our routine at home. I'm pretty lax. He eats when he's hungry and goes to bed when he's sleepy. We just don't have a set schedule around here.
The structured daddy time I can live with. The spanking I can't. Luckily we are working toward compromise.
Personally, I feel your ex's position on this is very reasonable. There are different ways to run a household. As far as spanking is on one end of the spectrum, to have no set rules about bedtime or eating and have the 5-year-old in charge is (IMHO) equally far on the other end of the spectrum. I wonder if maybe BOTH of you need to come towards the middle a little more, and if in agreeing to do so, you both would be willing to give up one of the things that the other parent dislikes (the spanking for you, the complete lack of rules for him.)
I think it might ultimately be more confusing for DS to have one set of rules (no rules) at one house, and a strict set of rules including spanking at the other. That's swinging wildly to both extremes, where you might find it would be easier on DS in the long run if the two of you both agreed to compromise and standardize the rules in both your houses. And I wonder if you approached your ex and said, "You know I was thinking a lot about what you said, and I think you're right. Structure is important too. Why don't we talk about some areas we can do that," and then agreed to have a little more structure in both houses, if you then wouldn't find he would be willing to talk about a consistent way of discipline with no spanking. I think that even in situations where the parents are married or in a relationship, you run into differences in approach. When one parent is too "loose" in the rules, sometimes the other overcorrects and is too much "the heavy" in an attempt to make up for what the other parent isn't doing. And the same thing happens in reverse. One parent is too strict, so the other goes wild.
While I know the unstructured household is your preference, would it not be worth the headache in the long run to give that up if it meant you both also agreed not to spank? Sometimes there is not a perfect solution and you have to find the best of the imperfect compromises both can live with.
Even those proponents of corporal discipline will admit that punishing in anger and frustration is absolutely wrong. What are you doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Seeing a lawyer. Discussing parenting with my ex. He's promised to stop spanking and I had him sign a little something that said he wouldn't. Obviously nothing legal. We both sat down and wrote a list of things that pertained to our son. Then we talked and wrote out rules about him and us.
Initially he thought it was silly but he came around. It was important that we discussed some things and that we both had input. Did we come to a complete agreement about everything? No. He has a completely different parenting style in mind. But oh well, I'm not happy but we have to get past that and do what's best for DS.
I want his dad in his life but at the same time now I wish he would have stayed away. I feel bad for thinking that. Shared parenting is tough and I didn't expect to have to do it. But c'est la vie.
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