To spank or not to spank?

[The Grand Nudger]

Is mental abuse a thing in your metric?

Sure, much harder to pin down though.  On that count, I'm not sure whether the words I use or the spank would do more mental harm.  Flying blind and hoping for the best.  I do have -some- indications that for my big girl and big boy it's the words that sting the most, course..they can understand what I mean when I tell them that their behavior have shamed themselves - and me.  Real tears, real sobbing.  They'll come up to me hours after the fact and have a discussion, we'll exchange profuse hugs and I love you's......of course, they'll do the same thing again the very next day.  I've had yet to spank a child more than once on a single count.  After the first spank, the evil eye handles all further near-infractions.  I chalk that up to the gravity of the situation, and the rarity with which I use that particular disincentive.  I think that talking it out will probably yield stronger long term results, but I also understand that the deepest wounds are often not physical ones...and since I'm not out to produce physical wounds -more to abruptly interrupt deleterious behaviors....that really only leaves the mental ones.  Looking back at my own childhood, the shaming left deeper marks than the switch or the belt or the knuckles, but I'll be damned if it didn't work (the shaming, that is).    

If only they came with a manual, eh?

(my favorite strat, at the moment, is to make them "pick cherries" -hold their arms straight out palms up shoulder length, wiggling fingers- or lean into a wall with their hands behind their backs - but I switch it up to keep them on their toes - the more I use any one thing with my kids, the less it seems to work anyway, even if I;m using it on, say, the big girl..the little boy seems acclimated by observation, punishments become a game over time for them.)