Can You Smack Your Child?
- Thread starter MrPresident
- Start date
funxus
Orange Cycloptic Blob
This is sick
After the first 20 posts aahp...ahp... I don't know what to say... I was terrified...
You should never ever hit children. I've only once seen a parent hit his child, and I left immediately, went home and cried on my mother's shoulder. I have never been hit by my parents, my friends haveb't been hit as far as I know and we are all decent people and alive.
When I was 5, me and my friends found matches and started a small fire in the forest. When my parents found out, I wasn't allowed to see the children's programme on TV. I didn't burn anything until I was 12 and understood the consequenses of it and could handle any situation. As allready said children can't defend themselves and should be treated with the same respect as adults.
After the first 20 posts aahp...ahp... I don't know what to say... I was terrified...You should never ever hit children. I've only once seen a parent hit his child, and I left immediately, went home and cried on my mother's shoulder. I have never been hit by my parents, my friends haveb't been hit as far as I know and we are all decent people and alive.
When I was 5, me and my friends found matches and started a small fire in the forest. When my parents found out, I wasn't allowed to see the children's programme on TV. I didn't burn anything until I was 12 and understood the consequenses of it and could handle any situation. As allready said children can't defend themselves and should be treated with the same respect as adults.
VoodooAce
Emperor
My son just ended up spending a lot of time in his room. My idea was for him to be thinking about how right I was.
I'm sure that he just sat in there and stewed. But it WAS punishment to him. He hated it an that's what truly mattered. 
He got the point.I will admit, however, to telling him last year when he was having issues with a true bully that mercilessly gave him a bad time because he's dyslexic and has to work a little harder than most kids, how to 'handle' the situation. It had just reached that point. The principal had talked with him and his parents numerous times. What I told him was 'one way' to handle it, probably once and for all, and if it bothered him that much there wasn't much else he COULD do. I wanted to go and beat the little b@st@rd myself.
Lol, I struggled with it....I think I may have even posted about it here. What to tell him? What to do? I was afraid he'd take it as a mixed message coming from a guy that constantly preaches peace. So, basically what I told him was that he'd exhausted all other options.....in other words, he'd tried and tried to handle it peacefully.
I think you taught a valuable lesson--that there is a difference between initiated violence, and self-defense. When teachers bust BOTH kids for fighting, when they clearly saw that a bigger kid hit and the littler kid just fought back (as is natural and MORAL), they teach the opposite, which is misleading and destructive.
Self-defense IS peaceful. Peace is all about not INITIATING force. [/B][/QUOTE]
Well, actualy, what I told my son was to strike first. Tsk, tsk, I know. But this kid was, uhm, large....big AND heavy. He was told that, once he felt it was going to come down to it, to get down to it.
He made me proud by confessing to me at the time that, while they sat in the office, he actually felt bad for the kid. I guess he himself gets it from other kids for his size. My son felt bad he'd hauled off and hit him. What can you tell a 13 year old. Its a fine line....and he didn't do anything wrong. We both knew before hand what the consequences would be....he'd get suspended for a day or two and so would the other kid. Thems the rules.
FearlessLeader2
Fundamentalist Loon
Spanking is not violence. It is not even violent. Violent actions cause damage, spanking does not. Arguments against spanking on the basis that it is an assault or attack are irrelevant. The parent of an unruly child who uses a spanking to negatively reinforce anti-social behavior is guilty of nothing but good parenting.
I've read some of the drivel in this topic against spanking, and honestly, I am appalled that anyone could actually believe half of the tripe they are spewing.
Answer me honestly, if you were trying to train a puppy not to turd on the carpet, would you try talking to it after it did? Or would you put its nose in the mess, whack it on the bottom, and send it scurrying with a message emblazoned in its brain, that pooping on the rug is BAD?
Children are little different. Don't let the capacity for speech fool you. They are NOT rational, they do NOT have the capacity for abstract thought, and they will NOT listen unless you give them a darn good reason to. If you do it right, you'll probably only have to do it a few times in their entire childhood. I myself was never spanked for the same thing twice, and never once for anything that it was made clear I would get a spanking for. My dad may have given me all of a dozen spankings in my childhood, and I am grateful that he cared enough to do a good job of raising me, instead of taking the easy way out, and being my buddy. I had plenty of buddies growing up, I'm glad I had a father too.
I've read some of the drivel in this topic against spanking, and honestly, I am appalled that anyone could actually believe half of the tripe they are spewing.
Answer me honestly, if you were trying to train a puppy not to turd on the carpet, would you try talking to it after it did? Or would you put its nose in the mess, whack it on the bottom, and send it scurrying with a message emblazoned in its brain, that pooping on the rug is BAD?
Children are little different. Don't let the capacity for speech fool you. They are NOT rational, they do NOT have the capacity for abstract thought, and they will NOT listen unless you give them a darn good reason to. If you do it right, you'll probably only have to do it a few times in their entire childhood. I myself was never spanked for the same thing twice, and never once for anything that it was made clear I would get a spanking for. My dad may have given me all of a dozen spankings in my childhood, and I am grateful that he cared enough to do a good job of raising me, instead of taking the easy way out, and being my buddy. I had plenty of buddies growing up, I'm glad I had a father too.
Hitro
Feistus Raclettus
Through all my life the kids (and adults) who have been violent were those who were abused ("smacked") at home.
With that I don't mean a little hit on the hand to tell a very small child that it has done something wrong, I mean stupid and lazy parents who didn't want to spend their precious time with educating their children but rather brought their message across with a nice smack in the face.
And the kids learned how it worked.
A parent that has to go down to physically punish his or her children is a bad parent, it is as simple as that for me. That wrong behaviour is responsible for a whole lot of social problems we face.
Of course there are situations where punishment may become necessary, anti-authoritarian education is also not the answer, but that punishment should never be physical. Funxus gave an example for it.
With that I don't mean a little hit on the hand to tell a very small child that it has done something wrong, I mean stupid and lazy parents who didn't want to spend their precious time with educating their children but rather brought their message across with a nice smack in the face.
And the kids learned how it worked.
A parent that has to go down to physically punish his or her children is a bad parent, it is as simple as that for me. That wrong behaviour is responsible for a whole lot of social problems we face.
Of course there are situations where punishment may become necessary, anti-authoritarian education is also not the answer, but that punishment should never be physical. Funxus gave an example for it.
ozscott75
Groper of Sand
I think that there are two views here on what constitutes smacking/spanking.
Most parents (that I know) use a light form of contact, just enough to cause the child to recognise that it doesn't like what just happened.
Some of you seem to equate smacking/spanking with some form of lasting physical abuse, replete with bruises and bleeding. That is unneccessary and should be classed as and dealt with as assault.
When a child is old enough to understand reason, you reason with it, until then you need another way of dealing with the child. I would challenege any of you to successfully reason with an 18 month old toddler.
One thing I have picked up on (maybe erroneously) is that those who are so diametrically opposed to corporal punishment are those that have had a bad experience with it in the past, either directly or indirectly. Maybe this colours their views.
As to those who say that smacking their child is the root cause of a lot of social problems, maybe those people with social problems weren't smacked enough as children. That has certainly been my experience.
Most parents (that I know) use a light form of contact, just enough to cause the child to recognise that it doesn't like what just happened.
Some of you seem to equate smacking/spanking with some form of lasting physical abuse, replete with bruises and bleeding. That is unneccessary and should be classed as and dealt with as assault.
When a child is old enough to understand reason, you reason with it, until then you need another way of dealing with the child. I would challenege any of you to successfully reason with an 18 month old toddler.
One thing I have picked up on (maybe erroneously) is that those who are so diametrically opposed to corporal punishment are those that have had a bad experience with it in the past, either directly or indirectly. Maybe this colours their views.
As to those who say that smacking their child is the root cause of a lot of social problems, maybe those people with social problems weren't smacked enough as children. That has certainly been my experience.
andrewgprv
Second Class Citizen
Even a light spank teaches them that hitting is solving the problem. I have alot of experience babysitting toddlers and not once have needed to spank.
Without going into a ($300 an hour) discussion on what limis the state should set on corporal punishment of children, I will state that rarely with normal children would their be much much disciplinary value to physical punishment byond the restraint to bring a phisically out of control child to a stop or one one two light taps to force them them pay attention to the main corse or verbal re-education. My current principal physical displine is to hold the child's head with one hand on the cheek and jaw to compell then to lock at my face whilst I re-educate them, letting go once they are adequately focused. I have used in the past the one or two taps as an attetion focuser. When younger, I experimented with spanking (under the rule of thumb be light enough to not make a mark) as the main course of punishment, but gave that up as less effective.
ejday
King
Does a puppy understand English? Not beyond "kibbles" and "walk." However, children who haven't developed speech are still capable of understanding expression. Spanking, swats, whacks and whatever other "tools" you use for instilling discipline should be a last resort.
Whoa. Kids with speech but no capacity for abstract thought? Sorry about the miscommunication: I was referring to normal kids, not victims of mental retardation.
So you can't reason with a young kid! That would mean that I and my fellow people that have not been smacked as a child and still understood what was wrong is much smarter then the rest cuz they HAD to smack you.
Interesting...
(Or did I misunderstand you on this)
Interesting...
(Or did I misunderstand you on this)
allan2
Gone Fishing
Perhaps. Different people develop on a different schedule, and even a very brilliant adult could have been a "late bloomer" as a child.
Actually, it is not so much reasoning ABILITY, as resistance to reason. Indeed, in questions of right and wrong, reason may often contradict what the child WANTS to do on a more base level. So what do you do when the child UNDERSTANDS your reasoning, yet resists it anyway, and chooses to act on their baser wants instead? Think THAT never happens?
Hell, even adults often choose to fulfil their baser wants over what they know by reason to be the right thing--and they do this up to, and including, criminal behavior. So reasoning ability may HELP deter wrongdoing, but it won't guarantee it won't happen.
Pillager
League of Empire Loyalist
Yes, I think we probably should. 
allan2
Gone Fishing
I'm saying that there are no "pat" answers, and NOT being a parent yet myself, I have to defer a little to parents who DO have experience--many of whom include spanking as PART of their repertoire. It is easy to say "spanking is wrong" when you've never been faced with the actual dilemma. And yes, some parents have had success with discipline without spanking--I say "lucky them"! But children differ. I could be a totally irrational yet willful little hellion when I wanted to be, growing up, and I imagine some kids were even worse, no matter how hard their parents tried to reason with them. Given that these parents still have TOTAL responsibility for the deeds, and the welfare, of their children, I guess I can sympathize when this task is made harder by particularly incorrigible or indifferent children.
Life has very few EASY, one-size-fits-all answers. I guess the thing that matters more than ANYTHING else is that the parents love their children--and spanking is not at all indicative of the absence of love. What would worry me more is a social worker on a crusade (and these types DO exist, believe me), who takes a child from a family that LOVES them, and places them in unloving institutional environments or foster homes, all over a harmless spanking on the backside. It would have broken my heart if I were taken from my parents "for my own good" like that--and probably would have made me a very bitter person, angry at the world and sociopathic. My parents' love gave me the strength to be positive, in spite of a lot of adversity I got from other quarters.
allan2
Gone Fishing
And, regarding the rest of that paragraph you quoted me from, you would take a child who was spanked but unhurt AWAY from the family that loves him, and into a bleak, unloving institution? Would you? For that's what laws like these would entail. Let's put things in perspective. A drunk and negligent Dad who hits his kids with fists for the "fun" of it or whatever, who DOES NOT love his children, I'd say yes, get the kid out of there. But a family who loves their child with all their hearts, who occasionally gives a mild swat on the backside when nothing else seems to work? LOVE is the most important thing for a child. If you cannot see that, you should not be a parent.
I would inform them that it's not something you do, and if they did not get that - I would place them into an LOVING family that will.
Hitting a child has nothing to do with love, if you can not get that you should not be a parent.
Hitting a child has nothing to do with love, if you can not get that you should not be a parent.
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
It is not about reason but about tone of voice with a child so young. And anyway smacking is about reasoning with a child, you apply a small amount of pain (or whatever you wish to call it) and expect them to understand that this means disapproval. Why wouldn't a child understand that you speaking in a loud commanding voice also means disapproval?
allan2
Gone Fishing
Again, it may work, or it may not. No pat answers.
As a parent, I think I would use spanking as a LAST resort, i.e. I'd try whatever else I could first. My parents took that approach, and given how willful I was as a kid (still am, but I now use it for positive purposes!), these things apparently didn't work on ME. That doesn't mean they won't work on other kids, and again I say "lucky them!" to the parents who don't have to spank--most parents REALLY don't WANT to, and I know I wouldn't.
But I try to look at the forest for the trees. Were my parents criminals for occasionally spanking me? *I* know they weren't. Did they love me? *I* know they did. Do I really give a sh*t, frankly, what others THINK the answers to these questions were? NO. I was and am in more position to know the answers to these questions than anyone else (besides my parents themselves) could ever hope to be. People KNOW when they are loved, and I was and am!
allan2
Gone Fishing
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