RE: Children and punishments
January 16, 2014 at 8:46 am
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2014 at 9:01 am by bennyboy.)
I'm in the middle: I don't believe in "justice" style punishment, where children are beaten for daring to disobey their parents' rules (especially when it involves remembering to do/not do something). But the problem isn't spanking-- it's the pointless and ineffective way it's applied. Young children (like age 2) will respond just fine to spanking, to a scary tone of voice (especially from the father if he has a loud one), and to well-timed (IMPORTANT!) rewards.
Time-outs and lost privileges for very young children are pointless, and in my opinion more cruel than spanking, because they involve social isolation; IF the timing is perfect, like you say, "YEAH! get to your corner!" exactly when you see the kid reaching for the cookie jar, you're okay. But I've seen many retarded trying-to-be-understanding-liberal parents reasoning with a 2 year-old: "Mummy doesn't like it when you hit your brother, because it hurts him, remember last time I said if you hit him again you'd have to go to your room? You don't want to upset mommy, do you?" etc. But the actual child the behavior is doing when he gets dragged off to his room is listening confusedly to his mother-- and he is associating the punishment with his mother's emotional display, not with the hitting behavior it did (way back) two minutes ago. MUCH better is to shout "HEY!" right after the hit (or ideally during it if possible), and storm the kid off right away and dump him in his corner. Then he has a chance to make some cognitive connections AT HIS ACTUAL LEVEL of understanding.
The good thing about a quick swat to the butt is that it can be administered very quickly, with near-perfect timing. The bad thing about hitting in general is that a lot of parents are fucking morons, and become morally offended by their 2 year-old's behavior "How COULD you do that? You KNOW Mommy hates that!" and then starts beating the crap out of the kid to vent her frustrations with her own incompetence.
Time-outs and lost privileges for very young children are pointless, and in my opinion more cruel than spanking, because they involve social isolation; IF the timing is perfect, like you say, "YEAH! get to your corner!" exactly when you see the kid reaching for the cookie jar, you're okay. But I've seen many retarded trying-to-be-understanding-liberal parents reasoning with a 2 year-old: "Mummy doesn't like it when you hit your brother, because it hurts him, remember last time I said if you hit him again you'd have to go to your room? You don't want to upset mommy, do you?" etc. But the actual child the behavior is doing when he gets dragged off to his room is listening confusedly to his mother-- and he is associating the punishment with his mother's emotional display, not with the hitting behavior it did (way back) two minutes ago. MUCH better is to shout "HEY!" right after the hit (or ideally during it if possible), and storm the kid off right away and dump him in his corner. Then he has a chance to make some cognitive connections AT HIS ACTUAL LEVEL of understanding.
The good thing about a quick swat to the butt is that it can be administered very quickly, with near-perfect timing. The bad thing about hitting in general is that a lot of parents are fucking morons, and become morally offended by their 2 year-old's behavior "How COULD you do that? You KNOW Mommy hates that!" and then starts beating the crap out of the kid to vent her frustrations with her own incompetence.
