Spanking kids yeah or nay

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by afro-elf
{ Sigh}

Does that mean I'm right?

[eowyn144]

Originally posted by afro-elf
I also want to add that I think spanking a child EVERY time it does something is foolish.

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but wouldn't that just confuse the child as to why they were getting hit ,if sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't ,for doing the same thing?

[afro-elf]

I think spanking is perfectly ethical if the child knows what they did wrong/why they are being punished, and if it leaves absolutely no mark and is done only with the hand. I am not emotionally scarred from being spanked,

I'm with ya Starr.

[afro-elf]

Originally posted by eowyn144
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but wouldn't that just confuse the child as to why they were getting hit ,if sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't ,for doing the same thing?

You misunderstood me. ( I think )

It's not a matter of the same thing ( or as you seem to imply inconsistency) it's a matter of the severity of the trangression.

[galadriel88]

I could be wrong about this this, is just my theory - I think that maybe part of the reason spanking doesn't do anything for some kids is that they were not explained to about why they're being spanked. (If you got all that. )

Lizra, my mother always told me, "Laura, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you." No loving parent likes to hurt their kids, but they know that their child needs to be discilplined.

[jerseydevil]

I was hit as a child for serious things - like playing with fire and stuff. I don't think there is anything wrong with hitting a child as long as it's not ovedone. I know I was hit sometimes - maybe even a lot, but I don't remember many episodes. I don't think it had any detrimental affects on me.

My parents may have hit me - but when a friend of theirs did - they stopped talking to them or having anything to do with them. I was 6 years old and I stayed over their house for the weekend while my parents were away. Their daughter for some reason said I was taking her fish out of her fish tank - which I wasn't. The father wouldn't listen to me and completely believed his daughter and hit me in an embarrassing way. I told my parents when they came home and they called them and we never saw them again.

No state as far as I know has laws against parents hitting their child. There are laws in a lot of states against teachers hitting students - New Jersey being one. Indiana allows teachers to hit students. My parents had told the schools when we moved there that if any teacher hit my brothers or sister - they'd have a lawsuit on their hands.

Some children only respond to being hit, sometimes a child can be so bad that it is necessary. But the only person that should hit a child is the parent.

I think the emotional scars that children suffer from parents are far worse than a few smacks. I even got hit with the belt sometimes. It hurt - but it didn't cause me to be violent at all. I've NEVER been in a fight and I've NEVER hurt anyone. I'm sorry - but most kids just think that "time out" is a joke.

I had a friend who gave her kids time outs. They were so bad all the time. They'd do crap and just be terrible. Then at night their mother would take them to the movies anyway or something. She'd threaten them that they weren't going - but then they would anyway. I had asked Anita why she still took them to the movies or did whatever when they were so bad and she had said if they didn't behave that they weren't going. She said it was because she had promised and she felt bad if she didn't.

They were much better when they were with me. If they were bad - they knew they weren't doing anything that had been planned. The one time I was at the store with them and I was going to take them to Burger King or something. One of them decided that they weren't going to behave in the store. So I told them that we weren't going out to eat if they didn't. The one girl asked why she should be punished because of what her sister did. Which made sense. So when Carmen refused to behave - I took her home and only took her sister out to eat. Carmen was much better behaved after that. A couple of years later I had asked them why they behaved better when they were with me and they said it was because when I said we weren't going to do something if they didn't behave, I meant it. I never gave them time outs - which I think are the most STUPIDEST things in the world - nor did I hit them.

And RE - what you describe about what you do to your brothers seems less to do with being hit than what brothers and sisters usually do to each other. It seems pretty normal to me.

[eowyn144]

sorry to sound stupid and british but what's time out?

[Starr Polish]

My stepbrother, who has never truly been spanked in his life, is far more violent than I am.

I agree with Galadriel88, though. If you are going to spank a child, they need to know what they did wrong before the recieve any kind of punishment, whether it be a spanking, being sent to the corner, and extra chore or a time out (all of these were punishments my parents used on me).

If a woman throws a mood, say, and refuses to do her chores in the house, her partner is not allowwed to smack her. If he does it is abuse. How precisely it is different smacking a child for refusing to do their bed in the morning after throwing a tantrum. (presuming this small child knows how to tidy his bed)

I don't think that a spanking would be an appropriate punishment for not doing chores. It's more along the lines of a serious offense, like what I did to my cat, or if the child endangers his or her life, like JD said, by playing with fire. A punishment for not doing chores would be along the lines of no TV, or something mild like that.

[Starr Polish]

Originally posted by eowyn144
sorry to sound stupid and british but what's time out?

A 'time out' is when the parent makes a child go sit down and just do nothing for a certain amount of minutes, usually equal to their age. They can't play, and usually aren't supposed to talk. Sometimes you're faced towards a corner. It's not a very effective punishment unless you're a talkative, social child, like I was.

[eowyn144]

thanks Starr.
that doesn't sound as bad as JD was making out. surely that just gives the child a chance to think about what they've done and to realise that they were wrong, to calm them down a bit.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by eowyn144
thanks Starr.
that doesn't sound as bad as JD was making out. surely that just gives the child a chance to think about what they've done and to realise that they were wrong, to calm them down a bit.

Tell me - if you were a child- would you sit there thinking about what you did wrong - or count the minutes until it was over? In kindergarten and nursery school we had to put our heads down. All we did was think about when it would be over. All the parents that I've seen use it - it has no long term effect on the behavior of the child. They forget about it within a half hour.

I don't think that a spanking would be an appropriate punishment for not doing chores. It's more along the lines of a serious offense, like what I did to my cat, or if the child endangers his or her life, like JD said, by playing with fire. A punishment for not doing chores would be along the lines of no TV, or something mild like that.

We didn't get hit for not doing chores. But we had a set of chores every saturday - the ENTIRE house. Each of us had a section to do. Mine was the Kitchen and Living Room I think. We could watch Saturday morning cartoons and then once those were over - we had to clean. Once everything was done - then we could do what ever we wanted and go outside. The same thing with shoveling the drive way - we couldn't play in the snow until the drive way and sidewalk was shoveled.

My parents had done things that they did feel bad about. Like the one time we had done something - I can't remember what - my parents wrote up a contract stating what we did and that we wouldn't do it again or something like that. We had to sign it and then they posted it on the refrigerator. My mother had a friend that came over and she went by the refrigerator and read it. After the person left my mother apologised to us and ripped it up and threw it in the garabage. I could tell when the person was reading it that my mother was sorry - but didn't know what to say. My mother just gave me this look.

[eowyn144]

well whatever it makes you think about, it has to be better than being physically hit. i know i'd rather sit in the corner and count minutes then end up with bruises.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by eowyn144
well whatever it makes you think about, it has to be better than being physically hit. i know i'd rather sit in the corner and count minutes then end up with bruises.

Yeah and that's the point. It has NO affect on behavior. If a child sits there and counts the minutes and there is no other consequence - then what affect on behavior does it have? Children aren't stupid - they know it'll end and if they do it again they'll just have to stand in the corner again - big deal. It bothers them while they stand there a little - but they get over it within a half hour after it ends and forget about it.

I'm not saying that every child needs to be hit or should be hit. Nor am I saying that hitting should be used in every circumstance. Also - you can hit a child and not give bruises. It just depends how hard you hit. I don't remember ever getting bruises. Maybe I had a red mark for an hour or so - but never any bruises. I think you're thinking of the extreme beatings.

[eowyn144]

they don't have to be extreme to get bruises. sometimes if a parent (particularly a father) lashes out, they don't realise their own stength and can cause bruises whilst only meaning to cause red marks.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by eowyn144
they don't have to be extreme to get bruises. sometimes if a parent (particularly a father) lashes out, they don't realise their own stength and can cause bruises whilst only meaning to cause red marks.

Well that's different. A parent should never just lash out. A parent can grab a childs arm in a store to get their attention and jerk the child to them in order to yell at them and can cause "finger bruises" where they grabbed the arm. There is no hitting taking place - but can be just as painful as being hit.

[eowyn144]

Originally posted by jerseydevil


A parent should never just lash out. .

but isn't that what spanking is? lashing out? getting so frustrated with a child that you hit out in order to control them?

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by eowyn144


but isn't that what spanking is? lashing out? getting so frustrated with a child that you hit out in order to control them?

Not with us - because our parents usually took us to our room. We knew what was coming. It wasn't like they swung us around and slapped us there on the spot. Then after we were hit we had to stay in our room for an hour as we screamed - "you hate us, you don't love us anymore, we hate you" of course they would tell us to either be quiet or they were going to be coming back in there - which basically made us shut up right away.

[galadriel88]

Ditto to JD. And you know, it's not like spankings were the ONLY punishment I got. I think punishments should be age appropriate - for instance, when I was 1 or 2 I got my hand smacked. When I got a little older i received spankings for more serious things, and I also got timeouts sometimes. Mind you, those only worked when I was about 3 and because I was a very social child, like Starr. but I do remember them. We have this little wooden chair in our living room, and that was the Timeout Chair. I remember once when my Mom told me to do something, and I kept repeating No (which was against the rules), and she sent me to timeout for 5 minutes. It killed me! So I learned form that. But when I hit 4 and I got them in preschool, I just counted the seconds until it was over. Then when I got older punishments became no TV fora certain amount of time, and it's grown to radio and computer now. Also deductions from my allowance.

[eowyn144]

Originally posted by jerseydevil


Then after we were hit we had to stay in our room for an hour as we screamed - "you hate us, you don't love us anymore, we hate you"

how can you put a smiley face after that? it sounds horrible!

[Faramir]

I think just taking away privelages is a lot more painful.