To spank or not to spank?

[drfuzzy]

Wait, I know. We'll get enough of our childhood abuse stories together and make a movie. Yeah, yeah! Now for a title, .................how about Breakfast Club?

How bizarre that you should say that.  Last night I dreamt that I walked into a library where there were four other people and I sat down and looked around at them, and said, "Hey...do you realize that we're The Breakfast Club?"

They looked around at each other and laughed and agreed. 

I was in all black, like Ally Sheedy's character.
There was an athlete, a preppy girl, a brainy type, and a metalhead guy.

It wasn't the actors from the movie, and nobody I know IRL...just the characters.

How very weird you would say that, the very day after I had that dream.

Thanks MTL - - our stories are very similar.  Like you, I wasn't hunting for sympathy.  It was a long time ago.  When I hear colleagues say things like "I was spanked and I turned out fine" I sometimes indulge in sharing.  I think they need to know that there are a LOT of kids out there that have a completely different idea of what "spanking" is.   I think the risk of falling into the area of abuse is very high, even with intelligent, deliberate, reasonable, loving parents.

And I chose this post to respond to because it was short, and I like the Breakfast Club reference.  I'd have to be the little wallflower somewhat-brainy band nerd though . . . we might have to re-write it if you let me in "the club"!    

[Jenny A]

That is the question! What is your stance on physical discipline? This includes soap and hot sauce punishments and other forms of discipline.

Personally I say it's a no go on anything like that but me and bf are still arguing about it. So far we've come to an uneasy truce, we plan using as a last resort and only until around 7ish. And he's doing. I want nothing to do with hitting my kid. I'm hoping he'll change his mind when we actually start having the little buggers.

I don't think spanking is always child abuse although it certainly can be.  And I think that in some cases taking away privileges instead can be child abuse.  It's a matter of degree and proportion.  I can't think of a circumstance where getting out the belt is appropriate.  Nor can I think of a circumstance where locking a child in their room everyday after school with no form of entertainment for weeks on end is appropriate.

My parents weren't anti spanking, they just didn't much and the couple and I do mean couple of times they did it were immediate quick and then over.   Mom popped my fingers if they were doing something they shouldn't (like get into dinner before dinnertime) just after I'd been told not to.  My parents didn't take away privileges much either.  Mostly a look was sufficient.   We've raised our girls the same way.  And it's worked just fine 99.9999% of the time.

But it doesn't always work.  When she was about three, my youngest started biting her sister.  She bit hard and while it didn't pierce the skin it left marks and I was afraid she would eventually draw blood.  Time out and talking did not stop her from doing it again.  So I told her that if she bit her sister again, I'd bite her.  She did and I did.  I didn't leave marks.  But I did make it crystal clear that biting really hurts.  That was the end of her biting career.   She claims not to remember, but I do.  I had to think awhile about that one.

I've seen parents spank their children under circumstances that make great sense to me.  One such was a woman in a park who's three or four year old boy ran out into the street with his mother behind him and cars honking.  Fetched back and lectured, he grinned and ran again.  She caught him before he reached the street and spanked him right there exactly as long as necessary to make him yell.  It appeared to work.

[MTL]

How bizarre that you should say that.  Last night I dreamt that I walked into a library where there were four other people and I sat down and looked around at them, and said, "Hey...do you realize that we're The Breakfast Club?"

They looked around at each other and laughed and agreed. 

I was in all black, like Ally Sheedy's character.
There was an athlete, a preppy girl, a brainy type, and a metalhead guy.

It wasn't the actors from the movie, and nobody I know IRL...just the characters.

How very weird you would say that, the very day after I had that dream.

Thanks MTL - - our stories are very similar.  Like you, I wasn't hunting for sympathy.  It was a long time ago.  When I hear colleagues say things like "I was spanked and I turned out fine" I sometimes indulge in sharing.  I think they need to know that there are a LOT of kids out there that have a completely different idea of what "spanking" is.   I think the risk of falling into the area of abuse is very high, even with intelligent, deliberate, reasonable, loving parents.

And I chose this post to respond to because it was short, and I like the Breakfast Club reference.  I'd have to be the little wallflower somewhat-brainy band nerd though . . . we might have to re-write it if you let me in "the club"!    

Yeah, absolutely!

I guess that was really the point that I was trying to make;

There is discipline.

And there is abuse.

And then there is this grey area in between,

where what is genuinely intended as discipline,
crosses the line into abuse, (my case)

or

what is really just plain old abuse
masquerades as discipline. (what you described, IMO)

[TubbyTubby]

 -Some- spankers are people who have witnessed their children, whom they dearly love, doing terrible, deleterious things, often more than once, and having failed to correct that behavior by a host of others means have decided to employ the distasteful but, in their experience, effective means of spanking their child, not beating them with objects or fashioning tools with which to strip their skin away...for behaviors that have and would otherwise continue.

Children copy, an unavoidable truth. If they are doing 'terrible' things, they learnt them from someone and punishing by violence is not teaching them any sort of valuable lesson to carry into adulthood.

There's always a better, intelligent and more productive way to inform someone (child or adult) that their behaviour is wrong rather than smack them round the arse/legs/face and say "now you've learnt your lesson". It's lazy and if you have to resort to that sort of shit you shouldn't have children.

[BrokenQuill92]

Thanks for all the input and advice! One of the things I want to avoid is the good cop/ bad cop mentality. Where my kids would know I find the other parents method of discipline distasteful and perhaps try to manipulate either of us. I should know, growing up all I had to do was get teary in front of daddy and my punishment was almost always changed or even completely avoided. And I don't want that, I want to present a strong front, and I don't want Joesph to feel that I don't respect his judgments. At least I get to see how his parenting methods work out since he's raising his nephew. He yells a bit more than I think necessary and doesn't always understand that JT isn't a rough and tumble sort of kid. Jt's a soft spoken bookworm type with a sulky passive aggressive streak. And I admit he can get on your last nerve when he's in his little preteen pouty face mode.

[Aroura]

 -Some- spankers are people who have witnessed their children, whom they dearly love, doing terrible, deleterious things, often more than once, and having failed to correct that behavior by a host of others means have decided to employ the distasteful but, in their experience, effective means of spanking their child, not beating them with objects or fashioning tools with which to strip their skin away...for behaviors that have and would otherwise continue.

Children copy, an unavoidable truth. If they are doing 'terrible' things, they learnt them from someone and punishing by violence is not teaching them any sort of valuable lesson to carry into adulthood.

There's always a better, intelligent and more productive way to inform someone (child or adult) that their behaviour is wrong rather than smack them round the arse/legs/face and say "now you've learnt your lesson". It's lazy and if you have to resort to that sort of shit you shouldn't have children.

Although I 100% agree that violence I not the answer, the truth is some people are born with different brain wiring, and may act out or who show negative behavior that is not learned. I don't know about this case, but I hesitate to judge someone who's shoes I have not walk a mile in, so to speak.

Every parent makes mistakes, but kids are not just copies of their parents either.

Kids with learning disabilities, for instance, especially subtle ones that may be going unnoticed, may act out of anger and frustration repeatedly and even violently, even if they have the kindest parents and caregivers.

[MTL]

Horror stories, yall.  Sucks.  I got switched/belted/slapped (and once or twice just flat out clocked) for things like "stop trying to run your sister over with your go-cart".  She got the same for the same reason with positions reversed.  "Moccasins are not toys you play with" - shit like that.  I think that what my grandparents did at least bordered on abuse....but the stories you guys are sharing are unambiguous.

well, I would put "clocking" a kid under the category of abuse, too,
if by "clocked" you mean punched with a closed fist.

[Pyrrho]

.... And I admit he can get on your last nerve ...

The motive to kill the little "dears" is very understandable to anyone who has spent much time with children.  That does not make it the best approach to dealing with them.  I find it best not to have them, as it saves on needless frustration and anger.  Life is simpler and easier without them.  But for those who do choose to have them, they should deal with them properly, rather than just do what one might be naturally inclined to do.

[The Grand Nudger]

Children copy, an unavoidable truth. If they are doing 'terrible' things, they learnt them from someone and punishing by violence is not teaching them any sort of valuable lesson to carry into adulthood.

There's always a better, intelligent and more productive way to inform someone (child or adult) that their behaviour is wrong rather than smack them round the arse/legs/face and say "now you've learnt your lesson". It's lazy and if you have to resort to that sort of shit you shouldn't have children.

Sure, they do...but not -everything- they do is copying...they're human beings..you know, they can imagine, innovate, they dare to dream.....lol.  Sometimes those dreams involve metal objects and light sockets, or venemous snakes (the context of the most memorable beating -and- hugging I ever received).  I don't personally spank my kids to "teach them a lesson", I spank them as a last resort to keep them from killing themselves or their siblings.  You could call me lazy, but here again we find a person resorting to imagining things about another just to make some comment about spanking. Good to know that I shouldn't have children though...real terrible fucker, I've always wondered about that.

[BrokenQuill92]

I guess I accidentally added a stir to the poopy pot