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Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
And what can be done about it? I don't know where these attitudes came from. This concept that a child can be "bad" for crying or "good" for being silent. It doesn't exist because children are neither good or bad when they're toddlers, they are just children.
It doesn't make sense because these too harsh processes and attitudes have been passed from one generation to the next. Which is unhealthy for families and all of society
Which is why it's important to question them. There are alternatives people can use and better attitudes about children out there. http://www.drmomma.org/2010/03/parenting-tip-formalize-mission.html Like this.
If negative attitudes about children can get into people's mind and effect how they raise their kids, positive attitudes and methods replace them. Protecting and treasuring children is the final frontier when it comes to civil rights.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Stacey-Patton/132237947585?ref=ts Which is why I want to join people like Stacey Patton in their crusade to stop spanking. It's all about compassion and kindness and that foundation starts when kids are just vulnerable babies but it lasts them their entire life.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I'd also note that harshness towards children may well be more the norm in human history than a new aberration. That is, if by "getting harsh" you mean recent childrearing philosophies.

Not that history makes it okay; just that it isn't new, by far.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

I can't really agree with this. Even with the running in the road scenerio, it seems such a harsh thing to do to a small tiny child. Or even a big child for that matter.

Then you have to consider things like, using hands or implements like belts or spoons, how many hits? How hard should the child be hit? At what age should spanking start and stop? It's too easy to cross a line and be too extreme. Plus the point is inflicting pain for correction and I hate the idea of inflicting pain on anything, especially a child.

To me, it would be better not to bother with it at all and find other ways.

quote:
I'd also note that harshness towards children may well be more the norm in human history than a new aberration. That is, if by "getting harsh" you mean recent childrearing philosophies.

Not that history makes it okay; just that it isn't new, by far.

Yeah, and that's the sad thing. There are cultures who don't believe in being harsh towards kids, but I got to wonder if our modern western world has made things harder in terms of raising kids and instincts...
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

You are wrong, excepting times in which a child is in immediate physical danger.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
That's nice.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

You are wrong, excepting times in which a child is in immediate physical danger.
That's the thing, I'm not even sure about it then. There's no.. formula for it. I can't see a formula for helpful spanking and harmful spanking that goes into abuse because there's just not some convenient gauge on a child.
All sorts of writers will have spanking instructions, with rituals, use this, not your hand, hands are for loving and tenderness and they tell you it's for their own good, but I can never see hitting someone as being for their own good when there's other ways that are not as easy, but might be better on the child's body, soul and spirit.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
Orincoro, your comment doesn't make his comment wrong.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
Orincoro, your comment doesn't make his comment wrong.

Well, in my opinion it kind of is. but, I'm totally against it.
When is spanking appropriate?
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
I don't have a strong position on spanking, and have done it. I don't like to do it, and generally it's a case of my father showing up in my behavior unexpectedly. I doubt there's a lot of harm done by moderate/infrequent spanking, unless it's coupled with other behaviors that by themselves would be just about as damaging anyway.

I think some of the bigger and more important challenges for me are:

I'm sometimes unkind.

I don't spend enough time actively engaging with the kids ("quality time" is probably a good enough synonym for what I mean here), so they might not be learning as well as I'd like them to that they are important and valuable and interesting and likable.

Luckily my kids are happy and healthy despite my failings. They are pretty resilient and vital little things.

Syn, to answer your question - how did people get so harsh? I'm going to leave out moderate spanking and respond as if you're talking about what is more universally recognized as child abuse.

I think it's only relatively recently that societies have emerged that are rich and healthy and safe enough that the proper treatment of young children rated a lot of attention. I think disease, starvation, and rotten standards of living generally make people care less about that sort of thing. So people largely resorted to beating and shaming kids because it's less complicated and easier (in an immediate sense) than parenting in a way that requires some thought and sustained effort.

So why does bad parenting persist when we ought to have enough luxury to address the problem? As you've noted there are cycles which are difficult to interrupt, and miserably-parented people will make miserable parents. And a lot of people are still struggling with supporting themselves and dealing with broken households and those kinds of struggles still distract from idealism.

It's unfortunate and inevitable that some people use it as an excuse for bad behavior, but being a parent is pretty darn hard. There have been many, many times where I was at my wit's end and could understand all too well the attraction of resorting to more brutal tactics. [Frown] If I had no real knowledge of any other way, and if I was under the impression that it was my job, (spare the rod spoil the child) then I'd be one of those parents being harsh towards kids.

I'm glad that you want to examine what we can do make better, happier people by treating children better. However, I hope that you don't let this twist you into knots. You need to focus on being a happy person, too.

</ramble>
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
Synesthesia, my comment had nothing to do with whether I think the comment is wrong. [Smile]
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

You are wrong, excepting times in which a child is in immediate physical danger.
In your opinion.


I am not advocating abuse, but equating spanking a child to abuse in most cases is not accurate, nor is it useful. Children are not delicate flowers. They sometimes need a strong incentive to behave at times, and spanking is one way of providing that, particularly if you are short on time.

It isn't lazy parenting, or abusive, to spank your child. Sometimes it is the only way to get though at that moment.

In MY opinion, of course. I also ride a bike without a helmet, drink in moderation, and play rough with my dog.
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
Orincoro, your comment doesn't make his comment wrong.

Well, in my opinion it kind of is. but, I'm totally against it.
When is spanking appropriate?

I think it can be an acceptable practice if <impossibly long list of qualifications>. That's the problem. It's too hard to define what's OK and what isn't.

A blanket "never spank" is not a realistic legal requirement - we can't make criminals out of a huge chunk of the populace, I don't think (and this reminds me of the war on drugs and how I think that's probably worse for kids than spanking could possibly be) - but I think it's a good default position for giving advice when you aren't prepared to provide comprehensive parenting tutelage.

If people were spanked themselves and cannot themselves identify any problems with how it was done then I think it's reasonable to allow that it can be done appropriately, although I'd tend to err on the side of just figure out some other way to get the message across. Just because you might be able to do it right doesn't mean you have to.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
I actually think attitudes toward children are slowly getting milder, not harsher. Spanking, which was a matter of course throughout human history, is finally getting called into question (as evidenced by this very thread). We are studying childhood and babyhood and learning about these times, discovering that a baby's cry is not the same thing as a child's tantrum. Of course, not everyone is on board, but we are thinking about our parenting.

Personally, I don't think there is ever a time to spank. If my child runs into the road (and they have) I grab them and pull them back. Having grabbed them, spanking is now superfluous as they are out of danger. I have dragged my son home like a sack of potatoes when we were out on a walk and he repeatedly tried to run into the street. He was ticked off at that idea!

I think spanking is lazy parenting. The people I know who spank often can't think of other punishments, especially in the heat of the moment. They don't structure their lives and their homes to deal with children (for example, not baby-proofing the medicine cabinet and then thinking they should spank when the curious toddler gets inside).

On a completely separate note...the whole good child is a quiet child thing is kind of to be expected. I mean, I do try to understand that children will be children but sometimes the NOISE! It's uncomfortable for many parents and so even if they don't do it consciously, they will end up rewarding the calmer, quieter behavior.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
I was spanked. I do not have a problem with it. Rather than a long list of qualifications, I have only two (well, my dad did, but it worked just fine as far as I'm concerned and if I have children I will likely use them)

1: It was only one quick spank
2: Spanking was a punishment only used when I was warned IN ADVANCE that spanking was the punishment.

The biggest problem with spanking (and with "not spanking," because many parents are unprepared for how frustrating children can be and have no idea how to get a message across, resulting them eventually breaking their 'no spanking' rule in the heat of the moment) is that when it is used as a last resort by desperate parents, it's a lot easier to end up being borderline abusive than if you set out rules in advance that you firmly communicate to your child.
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
quote:
mean, I do try to understand that children will be children but sometimes the NOISE! It's uncomfortable for many parents and so even if they don't do it consciously, they will end up rewarding the calmer, quieter behavior.
Yes, this is true.

It could be overdone but there's some need to civilize the critters, too. Quietness is often a big portion of courteousness.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Yeah, I have sound issues so that high pitched scream kids make can drive me up a tree.
I'm glad things are getting milder. That folks are learning more and more about what makes children tick, that there's all sorts of people who don't buy that whole DON'T PICK UP THAT BABY SHE WILL MANIPULATE YOU thing. It's nice.
There's the other extreme though, like in this article I read today where a mother had a play date and the other child hit her son and the other mother just said, they are just kids.
I don't get the concept of hitting a child for hitting a child anymore than I understand hitting a child for crying and whining because then they'd cry and whine MORE and not less, but I don't get just letting a kid hit another kid and not doing anything about it.
Times like that, I can see those spare the rod people's points, but, I'd rather use a rod for gently guiding lambs then for hitting them. As lambs are so tiny.

I do have a strong capacity for happiness, since a mere good song can get me drunk, but I can't help being so frustrated by the idea of inflicting pain on kids. They are so... small. So.. short.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Spanking, which was a matter of course throughout human history, is finally getting called into question (as evidenced by this very thread).
Interestingly, I was doing some research on Victorian-age navies; boys who were brought on were whipped as part of ship's discipline. According to a couple sources, boys who came from poor backgrounds were ENTIRELY unprepared for it; boys whose parents were wealthy, and who had attended boarding school, were already habituated to corporal punishment. One of the most frequent complaints that was leveled against the Royal Navy came from lower-class parents of midshipmen who weren't used to this sort of treatment.

The research didn't clarify if it was the whippings or the humiliation that was most objectionable... but generally today, we think that corporal punishment is the province of undereducated and poor. From what I've read, it wasn't always so.

In any case...I'm generally opposed to spanking. Raymond Arnold expressed my feelings pretty well.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
quote:
And what can be done about it? I don't know where these attitudes came from. This concept that a child can be "bad" for crying or "good" for being silent. It doesn't exist because children are neither good or bad when they're toddlers, they are just children.
The general idea of children's behavior in the Gilded Age was "seen but not heard."

Childhood and children as we think of them today are a relatively new and interesting concept. It seems like we've come full circle in a way. Children were treated almost as slave labor for generations, and then in the 20th century, we stopped and looked upon kids as kids, not adults, but with defined timespans of development, toddler, pre-teen, teen, adult. Now it feels like we're headed back the other direction with the onslaught of pop culture, and the many pressures that modern youth have to undergo as their trial by fire to enter adulthood. It's pretty wicked compared to a generation or two ago.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
While I've occasionally spanked my kids (single swat on clothed bottom), I'm inclined to agree that it is lazy parenting as I've found that over the course of 16+ years and 6 kids that the frequency and apparent necessity has steadily decreased. I'm pretty sure that my youngest, a precocious 3-year-old boy, has not "required" any spanking at all.
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
... There are cultures who don't believe in being harsh towards kids, but I got to wonder if our modern western world has made things harder in terms of raising kids and instincts ...

I find it hard to lay the fault (if it is one) with the "modern western world." In my opinion, it would seem that that world is actually much more permissive (or less punishing) than either the developing world or the eastern world (or both), if we're going to be broadly generalizing that is.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
We had a house guest come by a couple of weeks ago with a 3-year-old daughter and he used spanking as a punishment. After he left, my 4-year-old started hitting more and we're only now getting it under control. I can't be 100% sure if there's a connection, but I do have my suspicions.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
Usually. It's pretty easy for children to model that behavior because it's such a vivid event. It's such a striking (no pun intended) use of force by an adult for a child to witness.

This is just one of the myriad reasons why the pros consider spanking a problematic crutch used in lieu of better parenting options.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
... There are cultures who don't believe in being harsh towards kids, but I got to wonder if our modern western world has made things harder in terms of raising kids and instincts ...

I find it hard to lay the fault (if it is one) with the "modern western world." In my opinion, it would seem that that world is actually much more permissive (or less punishing) than either the developing world or the eastern world (or both), if we're going to be broadly generalizing that is.
I reckon. According to a fellow I used to harp on, physical punishment is apart of Chinese culture (he's from China). He commented on some anti-spanking facebook statuses of mine.

Hitting just seems to lead to more hitting. I really can't think of a good reason to hit a kid, and it's too easy to hit them over something kind of ridiculous.
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
Not just Chinese, here's a humorous South Asian look for example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI
 
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
 
quote:
This concept that a child can be "bad" for crying or "good" for being silent. It doesn't exist because children are neither good or bad when they're toddlers, they are just children.

Are you saying that toddlers can't have a fundamentally "good" or "bad" nature, because they don't have individual personalities yet? Or that they aren't intelligent enough to have an understanding of the concept of right and wrong, so you can't judge any of their actions as good or bad? Elaborate please, I'm a bit confused by this statement. If a toddler hits another one repeatedly, hurting him badly, is he committing a "bad" action?
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Actions are more amenable to such labels than toddlers. Hurting another child is a bad act. The kid doing it is doing something wrong. The act should be stopped and then prevented from happening again (with age-appropriate discipline).

You gain nothing by labeling the kid a good kid or a bad kid. Address their actions, and encourage them to be nice people. If you somehow communicated to the kid that he was a "bad kid", then it'd most likely be counter productive.
 
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
 
quote:
Address their actions, and encourage them to be nice people. If you somehow communicated to the kid that he was a "bad kid", then it'd most likely be counter productive.
I'm not saying you should COMMUNICATE it to the kid himself/herself. I'm not suggesting any action actually. I'm saying that young children can be bad people, or good people, or "insert adjective" people. Toddlers are also very changeable, but I think young children can have developed personalities and they can be bad ones (according to each person's individual definition of "bad" of course, it's a vague word).
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:

I think spanking is lazy parenting. The people I know who spank often can't think of other punishments, especially in the heat of the moment. They don't structure their lives and their homes to deal with children (for example, not baby-proofing the medicine cabinet and then thinking they should spank when the curious toddler gets inside).


My parents were hardly lazy, nor were they abusive. They most certainly didn't lack imagination for finding other punishments.

Yet they spanked us on occasion, and we all turned out fine. As did the vast majority of people who grew up with us.

Feel free to not punish your own children that way, of course. You don't need my approval, or permission.

But I don't need yours to raise my children the same way I was raised, and calling me a lazy parent for doing so is as far from the truth as you can get. (not any one person specifically....I am not offended, just stating my position on this).
 
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
Like a lot of things, spanking is a power that I don't think everyone should have. I don't think every parent should have it, and its possibility of abuse makes me waver towards the side that it shouldn't be encouraged at all. That isn't to say that there aren't parents who could use such a form of discipline wisely and well.

I think toddlers are capable of acting "well" or "badly", but any kind of broad rule about what warrants punishment is likely to get misused. A child who is full and sleepy and thus quiet isn't being "good"; a child who has gone from being over-stimulated to being stuck in a high chair with a room full of gabby adults and nothing to do isn't being "bad" when they start to act on their boredom and frustration. Likewise a child who breaks something they thought was colorful and interesting and didn't know was dangerous or fragile.

I think there are too many adults who aren't capable of separating their emotional reaction to a child's behavior with what's good for the child to learn over the long term, what behavior they actually want to encourage, and recognizing in a moment of tension the reasons that might have caused the child to act in a way that's frustrating or inconvenient.

I generally feel that communication, firmness, and the occasional "time-out" or loss of priveliges works well for me. I don't claim that my experience with my own child is going to work as a broadsheet for everyone.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I guess I should just repost some posts I made years ago.

2005:

quote:

- The popular myth that lack of physical punishment correlates with aggression and crime is entirely false; in fact, the opposite is true. People who were not spanked as kids are the least likely to engage in assault or theft in adolescence, AND ALSO the least likely to commit child or spousal abuse in adulthood.

- IN ADDITION, the more violent, criminal behavior a person exhibits, the higher the statistical likelihood that they were physically punished as a child. The correlation between frequency of childhood physical punishment and later antisocial behavior is supported BEYOND spurious correlation (Straus & Kantor, 1994, Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997; Straus et al., 1997).

- Milder forms of spanking in the home correlated with aggressive school behavior to a significant degree, and heavier forms of physical punishment (bordering on or even exceeding legal regulations on permissive spanking) correlated with aggressive behavior at school to an even more significant degree; any child who had been abusively hit even once in their entire life was excluded from the 'spanked' group, yet the correlation between spanking and school aggression remained significant. Higher 'dosages' of physical punishment moving upwards into bounds of classification of abuse accompanied greater measurable degrees of long-term harm, with legal and calm punishments similar in nature but not in magnitude to issues faced by abused children; the level of physical punishment relating strongly to the magnitude of social problems.

- The National Family Violence Surveys used a highly controlled set of parameters in the study of ties between aggressiveness and delinquancy (Straus & Gelles, 1990) and found them in abundance. MacMillan (1999) used a larger sample and found significant correlations between spanking in childhood and psychiatric disorders and substance abuse problems in adulthood.

- Aggressiveness in children has also been linked to maternal permissiveness and negative criticism, more closely than to physical discipline, but the fact that some negative factors are even more linked to aggressiveness doesn't constitute support of spanking, but it does show the similarities of result in different forms of parenting systems that have adverse effects.

- The American Academy of Pediatrics, the professional association of U.S. pediatricians, officially took a stand against all forms of spanking in April of 1998.

quote:
Abstract:

When advising families about discipline strategies, pediatricians should use a comprehensive approach that includes consideration of the parent-child relationship, reinforcement of desired behaviors, and consequences for negative behaviors. Corporal punishment is of limited effectiveness and has potentially deleterious side effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior. ....

The following consequences of spanking lessen its desirability as a strategy to eliminate undesired behavior.

- Spanking children <18 months of age increases the chance of physical injury, and the child is unlikely to understand the connection between the behavior and the punishment.
- Although spanking may result in a reaction of shock by the child and cessation of the undesired behavior, repeated spanking may cause agitated, aggressive behavior in the child that may lead to physical altercation between parent and child.
- Spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to conflict and has been associated with increased aggression in preschool and school children.
- Spanking and threats of spanking lead to altered parent-child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
- Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches, and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use. Time-out and positive reinforcement of other behaviors are more difficult to implement and take longer to become effective when spanking has previously been a primary method of discipline.
- A pattern of spanking may be sustained or increased. Because spanking may provide the parent some relief from anger, the likelihood that the parent will spank the child in the future is increased.

YON REFERENCES LISTE, OF WORKS CITEDAGE

Gunnoe, M.L. & Mariner, C.L. 1997. "Toward a Developmental-Contextual Model of the effects of Parental Spanking on Children's Aggression." Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 151:768-775.

Haeuser, A.A. 1990. "Banning Parental Use of Physical Punishment: Success in Sweden." Presented at the Eighth International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect, Hamburg, Germany, 2-6 September.

MacMillan, H.L.; Boyle, M.H.; Wong, M.Y.Y.; Duku, E.K.; Fleming, J.E. and Walsh, C.A. 1999. "Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders in a general population sample." Canadian Medical Association Journal 161(7):805-809.

Straus, M.A. 1991. "Discipline and Deviance: Physical Punishment of Children and Violence and Other Crime in Adulthood." Social Problems 38(2):133-155

Straus, M.A & Gelles, R. J.. 1990. Physical Violence In American Families: Risk Factors And Adaptations To Violence In 8,145 Families. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Straus, M.A & Kantor, G.K. 1994. "Corporal Punishment of Adolescents By Parents: A Risk Factor in the Epidemiology of Depression, Suicide, Alcohol Abuse, Child Abuse, and Wife Beating." Adolescence 29(115):543-561.

Straus, M.A. and Mouradian, V.E. 1998. "Impulsive Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Antisocial Behavior and Impulsiveness of Children." Behavioral Sciences & The Law 16(3):353-374.

Straus, M.A.; Sugarman, D.B. and Giles-Sims, J. 1997. "Corporal Punishment by Parents and Subsequent Anti-Social Behavior of Children" Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 151(8):761-767.

Strassberg, Z.; Dodge, K.A.; Petit, G.S. & Bates, J.E. 1994. "Spanking in the Home and Children's Subsequent Aggression Toward Kindergarten Peers." Development and Psychopathology, 6:445-461.

Trumbull, D.A. & Ravenel, S.D. (1996) "Spare the Rod? New Research Challenges Spanking Critics" Family Policy, FRC, 9(5), October 1996.

2007

quote:
Most who spank are just trying to get their kids in line and they are going with what they think works.

They probably also work under a belief that it is neglectful to not incorporate spanking as a disciplinary method. In that sense, most who do it are only trying to do what's right for the kiddo. In and of itself, spanking is not something I consider to be a cruel act. I just advocate that it is a misinformed practice that has better alternatives, and this only really contests viewpoints that assert that spanking is a 'necessary' or 'preferable' practice that is integral to parenting.

of course if anything in that old post of mine is BS, feel free to rip it to shreds.
 
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
 
I was never spanked.

When I went to a private school in rural Mississippi, and other kids were spanked, my father made clear in no uncertain terms that if I did something wrong, he and my mother were to be notified, and then they'd take care of it. The teachers were not to touch his son. The idea of someone else spanking me was something my father would not tolerate, and my mother wasn't fond of the idea either.

And they never spanked me either. Then again, I also never really did anything bad when I was young.

However, I am not absolutely against spanking. I wouldn't want anyone else to spank my child... but if I were to do it, it would have to be under some pretty special circumstances. Discipline is important, as I've seen from far too many unruly kids (such as my brother's kids, who walk all over him and are, to be honest, terrible, terrible people) but spanking isn't something that seems to me something I'd primarily do. My step brother Steven got spanked a few times when he was young, but he was quite the terror as a child. Now he's just a moody teenager (what teenagers aren't?) who thinks quite highly of himself and is at times insufferable.

He's still a good kid with a great heart, but he's a teenager. And certainly not a broken one, either. At the same time, my cousin Joseph, who was spanked quite a bit, occasionally was... quite afraid of his father, at least when he did something wrong. He never seemed bad to me, but then I never saw him when in discipline mode.

Meh. I couldn't really find a good point or conclusion there in my ramblings on the subject. I am not for annihilating any possibility of using it, but it's certainly not always the best thing to do. It's a tool, a dangerous tool to be handled carefully and used only with the utmost care if at all. And I know my parents wouldn't ever let anyone do it to me. Perhaps I'll follow suit.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Sam, do you happen to know if any studies have been done on matching discipline techniques to a child's personality? Cause there's a lot of punishments out there, and they may or may not work for any given child.

I've got a friend who'll tell you he liked being sent to his room. If his mom wanted to get his attention about a behavior, she had to get the belt out or he didn't listen. So was he aggressive as a teenager because he was spanked, or did she have to spank him because he had an aggressive personality and only responded to aggression?
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
Actions are more amenable to such labels than toddlers. Hurting another child is a bad act. The kid doing it is doing something wrong. The act should be stopped and then prevented from happening again (with age-appropriate discipline).

You gain nothing by labeling the kid a good kid or a bad kid. Address their actions, and encourage them to be nice people. If you somehow communicated to the kid that he was a "bad kid", then it'd most likely be counter productive.

What he said. If parents just label their kids as bad for doing something they don't like, like whining or throwing a tantrum, they are more likely to harden their hearts against that child. I'm not saying it's OK to whine and throw a tantrum, but I don't know how many times I've felt like that after a long day and I'm crammed onto a train ready to explode. The child could be hungry, tired, any other thing but bad. Even if a toddler hits another toddler, they don't have the brain development to know it's wrong to do that until they are taught REPEATEDLY by their parents not to. A child needs compassion and understanding the most.
Just look at the difference in perspectives this post has. http://nogreaterjoychildren.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/spank-him-again-if-he-keeps-crying-spank-him-again/
The first person understands that a two year old is TWO. That nutwit Pearl tells you it's all about winning even if you have to hit a child repeatedly to make them get the message, but it isn't right because all the kid wanted was to be near his mother and he wasn't being bad at all.
Plus there's always making the child feel like they are bad to consider as well. I believe that being patient with a child and understanding has got to be better than being too harsh or aggressive. One thing a child could do is act "bad" in order to receive more attention even if it's negative.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
Sam, do you happen to know if any studies have been done on matching discipline techniques to a child's personality? Cause there's a lot of punishments out there, and they may or may not work for any given child.

I've got a friend who'll tell you he liked being sent to his room. If his mom wanted to get his attention about a behavior, she had to get the belt out or he didn't listen. So was he aggressive as a teenager because he was spanked, or did she have to spank him because he had an aggressive personality and only responded to aggression?

I [ut the part I'd like to discuss in bold because it states my feeling on this matter better than I did. I am not saying run out and beat your kid. I am not saying no one abuses it. I am not saying that spanking is the only tool, or that it is even the best tool most of the time.

My parents spanked me probably 2-3 times a year as a kid. It wasn't their first choice, or their only solution. But it was always a possible choice, and as I grew older it was used less and less. They never hurt me, and most of it was drama. My dad would say"go get my belt!", and when we did he would snap it behind our backs, and we would jump and yell out.....even though he had not touched us with it yet. [Big Grin]

I have seen many kids raised without spanking, and most of them were very, very bratty as toddlers. Quite a few of them bratty to the point of danger in public places. So I don't think that raising your kid without spanking is easy, nor am I impressed with it's results.

It may work for you, but I think I'll continue with the way I was raised. My kids will never fear me, but they will know that there are consequences to their actions, and that one of those might be being spanked.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:

I think spanking is lazy parenting. The people I know who spank often can't think of other punishments, especially in the heat of the moment. They don't structure their lives and their homes to deal with children (for example, not baby-proofing the medicine cabinet and then thinking they should spank when the curious toddler gets inside).


My parents were hardly lazy, nor were they abusive. They most certainly didn't lack imagination for finding other punishments.

Yet they spanked us on occasion, and we all turned out fine. As did the vast majority of people who grew up with us.

Feel free to not punish your own children that way, of course. You don't need my approval, or permission.

But I don't need yours to raise my children the same way I was raised, and calling me a lazy parent for doing so is as far from the truth as you can get. (not any one person specifically....I am not offended, just stating my position on this).

I have consistently found that pro-spanker's best evidence for their approach is that "I turned out fine." Well, I was spanked and I didn't turn out fine. To this day, I hate belts. I won't go so far as to say I'm afraid of them anymore, but the fact that my parents hit me was a memorable and traumatic part of my childhood. They didn't do it often, they didn't even come close to crossing lines into abuse, they didn't leave marks, etc. They just used spanking as a punishment and it did not work for me. They weren't lazy, either -- I don't think spanking is always lazy parenting but I do see it an awful lot. Recently, someone explicitly told me that he just wasn't good at thinking up alternative punishments. (seriously) This conversation is fresh in my mind right now and it drove me up the wall.

I do not support spanking under any circumstances, though I do accept that in cases of immediate danger, when you want to get an immediate and forceful change in behavior, it can be effective and is probably not lazy. ETA: In fact, there can be a natural fear response on the part of the parent in this case.

So to get more specific, I think spanking is lazy when used in the following ways:

1. constantly or exclusively
2. when the parent doesn't want to spend time enforcing other punishments
3. when the behaviors being punished could be stopped through other means (such as childproofing a home)
4. when it is threatened, but never doled out

I find it very problematic in the following situations, though I wouldn't classify it as lazy:

1. when it is being used to control a child's mood or feelings ("Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!" my dad loved this one)
2. when it is being used to control a child's attitude or perceived attitude, especially when the child has recently been punished. I once heard a popular radio host (the focus on the family guy) suggest that if a child was balling his fists or otherwise not being properly submissive, then he should be hit. Yikes!

Oops...have to run so I'll have to stop there.

[ March 10, 2010, 09:39 AM: Message edited by: Christine ]
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
1. when it is being used to control a child's mood or feelings ("Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!" my dad loved this one)
I would say that this sort of thing DOES cross into or at least flirt with the realm of abusiveness, whether or not it actually left a physical mark.

A lot of the descriptions I've heard about how other people spank do strike me (no pun intended) as unhealthy. While I don't have a strong memory of them, I'm pretty sure I could count the number of times I was spanked on my fingers, possibly on one hand, and again it was always something firmly communicated to me in advance, with as much emotion divorced from it as possible. (It was scary, but only insofar as toddlers are naturally afraid of getting hit, there was no deliberate build up of "I'm gonna get my BELT!!!!" (Not to mention they didn't use belts. To this day I'm not even sure how the belt-punishment was supposed to work. All I can imagine is using it like an actual whip, which does sound horrible to me).

I would like to know if there are statistics on the results of different kinds of spanking, because from the sounds of it the "I'ma gonna go belt my belt!" style of spanking is so different from what I experienced that I wouldn't even put it in the same category.

I think the product of this debate (both on this forum and (inter)nationally) would be more useful if the focus on "what specific parenting behaviors are genuinely bad" rather than "Aww children are so small and cute how could anyone hurt them?"
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:

I would like to know if there are statistics on the results of different kinds of spanking, because from the sounds of it the "I'ma gonna go belt my belt!" style of spanking is so different from what I experienced that I wouldn't even put it in the same category.

I admit to being curious about the effects of different spanking styles myself, although this would be very difficult to judge. No spanker seems to think that his/her approach is wrong and when pressed, very few admit to putting themselves in the situations I mentioned. I have personally witnessed people doing these things but in separate conversations about how they spank, they'll claim they don't do it that way.

It is worth noting that at least one study found the effects of spanking diminished somewhat in cultures where spanking was considered more acceptable.
 
Posted by theresa51282 (Member # 8037) on :
 
I don't spank my daughter. I have noticed the few times I have had the urge to spank it had a lot more to do with me having lost my temper and patience than with the nature of what she was doing. What I mean is the same behavior would usually have made me a lot less upset but because of circumstances beyond her control, I was less able to handle the behavior. It seems totally unfair then to spank her because I was having a rough day. I recognize how hard it would be for me to only spank fairly and consistently so I just don't do it at all. I don't find her to be a bratty child at all. She is really a easy going kid who listens as well as can be expected for a two year old. She loves to be out in public and is very well behaved when she is out and about. She often gets compliments in restaurants for being polite and well behaved.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
theresa51282: Are you so certain the reason you were feeling especially exasperated was not that your child, in those instances, was not reigning in their behavior when you tried your more conventional methods?

----

I myself was spanked maybe three times in my entire life, but my parents were not afraid to grip me, or put me against a wall while they gave me a piece of their mind. They were much more fans of removing privileges I valued and escalating the more I ignored their parameters. They were also smart enough to give me proportionate punishments. But they also recognized if I had already determined to change my behavior, and in response, cut the punishment short and show mercy.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
Orincoro, your comment doesn't make his comment wrong.

No, his comment his wrong despite the existence of my comment. My comment changes nothing much- except to register disagreement with his parenting philosophies. In fact, I am surprised by them. Perhaps I ought to have said so. Porter, I am taken aback at your comment. It is very disappointing to hear.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

You are wrong, excepting times in which a child is in immediate physical danger.
In your opinion.


I am not advocating abuse, but equating spanking a child to abuse in most cases is not accurate, nor is it useful. Children are not delicate flowers. They sometimes need a strong incentive to behave at times, and spanking is one way of providing that, particularly if you are short on time.

My opinion based on a large amount of experience in child care, as well as having been hit myself as a child. It didn't work for me, and it has never worked for any child I have ever known who has been hit. It makes things worse. It did for me, and it did for every other child I knew of who was hit.

And I am, for clarity's sake, talking more about parents who make a habit of it. Obviously those who do it less may get different results. Habitual physical intimidation of your child is not a good idea. Porter should grow a pair and learn to deal with his kids without hitting them, if that's what he's saying he does.

I didn't equate it to abuse. I don't think it's always abuse. I think there is only one situation in which it is "appropriate," and that is to stop a child from acting to harm his or herself. Only case. Blanket statement. No exceptions.
 
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
I think there is a differene between spanking and hitting.

The frequency, the amount of force, and the reason for the discipline can be the difference between hitting and spanking.

I don't agree with hitting. I am fine with spanking.

I hate to use this example, but when you are potty training a puppy, one (rather effective) method is to rub the dog's nose in the business if they go on the floor. The dog learns very quickly not to do that anymore.

A child is the same in a lot of ways. If a child does something wrong for the first time, I am ok with putting them in time out and telling them not to do it anymore. If they continue to do it, then I feel a small swat on the rump is appropriate. A two year old is not going to understand your explanation on why what they did was wrong. If they associate pain to a certain action, then they are less likely to do it. Not any pain that lasts more than a few seconds mind you.

I was the oldest of 6 kids. I was spanked a lot. I wasn't a bad kid, but sometimes I did some pretty stupid things. I noticed that my younger siblings almost never got spanked. This may have had something to do with the older kids keeping them in check and keeping them out of trouble because we knew what the consequence would be.

The last time I was spanked was when I was 14. Well, more like my mother beat the snot out of me. I was very rude to her, and was screaming at her at the top of my lungs calling her all sorts of horrible names. She ran up the stairs, busted my door open, (My mother is only 5'6, I still have no idea how she did this, adrenaline maybe) tackled me, then slapped me on my face about 5 times before she broke into tears and went back downstairs. I knew I had hurt her by calling her those horrible things more than she had hurt me. That was the last time I have ever yelled at my mother.

I see with one of my little nieces that my brother spanks her without telling her why she is being spanked, or spanks her when she accidently does something wrong. I don't agree with this. If you are spanking a child you should make it clear WHY they are being spanked, and only if they deliberately did it.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Geraine:
I think there is a differene between spanking and hitting.

Spanking doesn't leave a mark. That is why adults do it. They don't want to see the consequences of their physical intimidation of a child, so they smack the child open handed on the back or the butt, because they can't face the prospect of hitting the child in the stomach or the chest or face.

I'm sorry, I can't sit in on this conversation if it's going to provoke such an emotional reaction for me. The idea of calmly deciding you're going to hit your child is ridiculous. It's not a line of thinking that applies in any other aspect of our lives. We don't talk about the appropriateness of hitting our coworkers, but our children can't fight back, and are disempowered legally, physically and psychologically to defend themselves. The idea of hitting a child makes me sick, and the idea of people who justify it also makes me sick. Enough said.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Spanking doesn't leave a mark. That is why adults do it.

Hmm. Nope.

Nice try.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
That is why adults do it. They don't want to see the consequences of their physical intimidation of a child...
I think you seriously undercut your message by sounding this hysterical about it. I mean, I don't spank my children, but you've got me rolling my eyes here at the remarkable hyperbole some of y'all are using.

Adults who spank do not choose to spank "because it doesn't leave a mark." They spank because a smack on the buttocks hurts a great deal less and is far less likely to do any lasting physical damage than, say, a punch to the head or stomach.

I think, too, there's a useful distinction to be made between a sustained campaign of physical intimidation and the occasional spank. That some people here aren't making that distinction, to be honest, strongly suggests to me that they aren't parents.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
You must be reading into his statement something that I just don't see. He said "I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate." and you basically said, 'only when a child is in immediate physical danger, spanking is appropriate.' Did MPH say in his statement that he believes there are times when spanking is appropriate beyond immediate physical danger? I'm not seeing it. MPH could easily mean the same thing you meant. That immediate physical danger is the only appropriate time for spanking, but that it is appropriate.

Therefore, I don't understand how you can read into his statement anything more than your own statement.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
I believe that there are times when spanking can be appropriate beyond immediate physical danger.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
I believe that there are times when spanking can be appropriate beyond immediate physical danger.
There may be. In general, though, I don't think that most people are wise enough to know when those times are.

I don't believe I am. I hate giving my kids a swat-- I hate what it makes me feel like, and the fear I see in their faces. Beyond that, I don't think that my kids learn the right lesson from corporal punishment. They don't learn appropriate behavior, IMO; they learn to be afraid of me when I'm angry. The pain and the humiliation of corporal punishment is too much for a lesson about behavioral limits to take effect.
 
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
Orinoco, I understand your frustration with the topic. What is your idea of punishment when a child does something wrong?

I am not saying you have to spank a child to be an effective parent. In my opinion though if that possibility is always looming, the child will be more apt to listen to you. You may only have to spank the child once and never have to do it again.

For my siblings and I, it worked. I have always loved my parents, and to this day I will swear they are the best parents a person could ask for. I don't remember the spankings as a child, but I remember the things they did for me in providing a good home with food, beds, clothes, love, and learning.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
In my opinion though if that possibility is always looming, the child will be more apt to listen to you.
I don't think that it's possible for me to disagree more. The word "looming" is what's setting me off; I really don't like the image it sets up.

Forcing a child to live in fear is monstrous; forcing obedience through fear is equally monstrous. While I understand (dad of five preteens, am I) that *sometimes* fear and unpleasantness are necessary teaching tools, I'd hate to have my kids' lasting impressions of me tied to those emotions. I hope my kids are more apt to listen to me-- and more importantly TALK to me-- because they respect and love me.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:
I believe that there are times when spanking can be appropriate beyond immediate physical danger.
There may be. In general, though, I don't think that most people are wise enough to know when those times are.

I don't believe I am.

I agree 100%
 
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
 
Perhaps "looming" was the wrong word to use Scott. I agree that I would rather have a child love me than fear me. I could have phrased it better.

I'm talking about young children, maybe between the age of 2-3 years old. They don't understand when you sit down and talk to them sometimes. A small swat on the rump lets them know that what they did is wrong, and they are able to understand that a consequence comes with that action. I would still talk to the child afterwords and let them know that this is the consequence that comes with the action, so they understand. I wouldn't just spank them and not tell them what they did wrong.

When they turn 5 just take the Wii away from them, they will shape up quickly. No New Super Mario Brothers for a week? I'd rather take a spanking. [Razz]
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
I'd be curious to know a few instances where people think spanking is appropriate. Even in the few cases where I did spank my kids on reflection I don't think that it was necessarily the best choice.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
They don't understand when you sit down and talk to them sometimes. A small swat on the rump lets them know that what they did is wrong, and they are able to understand that a consequence comes with that action.
It's been my experience with my kids-- and I think this is backed up pretty well by research-- that spanking a 2-3 year old doesn't convey "consequence" either.

I don't know what a swat could accomplish that a sharp tone of voice and direct, and serious dad/mom glare couldn't.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
I'd be curious to know a few instances where people think spanking is appropriate.
I can't think of any time it's been appropriate for my kids.

But I'm willing to admit that I've been extraordinarily blessed with good, intelligent children.
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
... I mean, I don't spank my children, but you've got me rolling my eyes here at the remarkable hyperbole some of y'all are using.

Serious eye-rolling from the "can relate to the Russell Peters POV" person over here too.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Who's Russell Peters?
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
Scott R: The stand-up comedian that I linked to previously.

quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
... Spanking doesn't leave a mark. That is why adults do it ...

That is not what I have heard from the darker or more Japanese corners of the Internet [Wink]

(Alternatively, watch this week's Castle?)
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
I'd be curious to know a few instances where people think spanking is appropriate. Even in the few cases where I did spank my kids on reflection I don't think that it was necessarily the best choice.
As a non-parent I don't think I'm necessarily qualified to make a statement here, but I would say that AFTER you've tried every other punishment you can think of, if a behavior is persisting and it's either a danger to your kid or someone else's, or if it is driving you so crazy that prolonged exposure to it is straining your ability to effectively parent, then spanking is pretty justified.

Spanking isn't the only way you can abuse a child, and refraining from doing so isn't helping anyone if their behavior is stressing you out so much that you're resorting to other unhealthy behaviors.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
Sam, do you happen to know if any studies have been done on matching discipline techniques to a child's personality? Cause there's a lot of punishments out there, and they may or may not work for any given child.

Oh, plenty. It's not even so much about individual studies at this point as the fact that most pediatric specialists will stress the fact that parenting is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. All parenting is, to some degree, adaptive. What the specialists want you to avoid are strategies that are maladaptive and have very superior alternatives. In the case of spanking, there are pretty much always superior alternatives. nearly all people who insist that it was preferable or necessary in the case of their child are flat-out wrong. Still, you will always hear "spanking was NECESSARY for my child" or "spanking was NECESSARY for me" with a healthy side of "and I turned out fine."

quote:
I've got a friend who'll tell you he liked being sent to his room. If his mom wanted to get his attention about a behavior, she had to get the belt out or he didn't listen. So was he aggressive as a teenager because he was spanked, or did she have to spank him because he had an aggressive personality and only responded to aggression?
Well, I can't conclude either way based on a paragraph describing them. I can already see two points which tip me off towards likely issues, though:

1. Was the mother limited to sending him to his room OR spanking? No. It is not difficult to find a punishment that a child will dislike. She didn't have to default to spanking, but felt she did. Not an uncommon scenario.

2. If you have reached the point where you have to get a belt out in order to get your child's attention about a behavior, then, well, you're doing it wrong. Sorry. You are already in a situation you shouldn't be in.

3. Because of no. 2, chicken-and-egg questions are not very relevant, since either way, bad news. However, the relevant knowledge imparted to us from the american association of pediatrics is that we KNOW that spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to conflict and has been associated with increased aggression. it also makes parents increasingly reliant upon it because it lessens the effectiveness of other methods. Either of these situations could seem to readily apply to where this parent and son ended up.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
or if it is driving you so crazy that prolonged exposure to it is straining your ability to effectively parent, then spanking is pretty justified. ...

Spanking isn't the only way you can abuse a child, and refraining from doing so isn't helping anyone if their behavior is stressing you out so much that you're resorting to other unhealthy behaviors.

Ummm, I'm not really behind the idea that you can excuse spanking a kid based on this. It's a pretty straightforward maladaptive process.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
I'd like to clarify that I do not mean you should spank your child because you are stressed out - that's a bad reason and probably where a lot of spanking goes wrong. You should either be giving them enough warning that the spanking comes before you are crazily stressed out, or calming yourself down as much as possible beforehand so that it doesn't turn into a way for you to simply vent your frustration.

I'd also remind you that regardless, it should still be a last resort after you've tried various other punishments.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
But you're still using spanking as a threat in order to 'defend' them from a highly emotionally charged event. A punishment should be used because it is appropriate entirely towards what the child has done that warranted punishment, and it really should not AT ALL be based on a parent feeling in any situation that they HAVE to do it to keep THEMSELVES from doing something worse afterward.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
quote:
As a non-parent I don't think I'm necessarily qualified to make a statement here, but I would say that AFTER you've tried every other punishment you can think of, if a behavior is persisting and it's either a danger to your kid or someone else's, or if it is driving you so crazy that prolonged exposure to it is straining your ability to effectively parent, then spanking is pretty justified.
While I appreciate the response, this is a criteria, not an example. People have so far been fairly vague about when spanking is appropriate other than to say that in some cases it is the right choice. I'd like to know what a few of those cases are.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
If you have reached the point where you have to get a belt out in order to get your child's attention about a behavior, then, well, you're doing it wrong. Sorry. You are already in a situation you shouldn't be in.
In general I agree with you on this point. But parents are not perfect, and it's not always possible to find the right thing to do at the right time and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that some portion of parents will find, at some point or other, that they'd tried everything they can reasonably think of and that spanking is the only way to get their kid's attention.

I might agree that because the majority of spankings are unnecessary, the most effective way to weed out bad parenting is to simply say that spanking is bad, period, the end, since that's a much easier sound byte to propagate throughout society.

But I think if parents ARE doing it right 99% of the time, then the issues that people have with spanking (that it creates at atmosphere of fear and threat and fosters violent tendencies) will likely drop off significantly. I might be wrong, but I can't see there being that strong a correlation when spanking is used only a couple of times in the child's life, total.

There was a question I asked earlier that hasn't been answered to my satisfaction: is there are study that distinguished between last-resort-carefully-controlled-spanking-by-otherwise-model parents and lazy parents who find a reason to yell "I'm gonna go get my belt!" every other week? I really don't think the two approaches are comparable, and so far the negative consequences that have been cited seem to reflect the latter approach.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Geraine:

I'm talking about young children, maybe between the age of 2-3 years old. They don't understand when you sit down and talk to them sometimes. A small swat on the rump lets them know that what they did is wrong, and they are able to understand that a consequence comes with that action. I would still talk to the child afterwords and let them know that this is the consequence that comes with the action, so they understand. I wouldn't just spank them and not tell them what they did wrong.

Here you seem to be comparing the results of spanking with the results of trying to reason with a 2-year-old. I don't find the comparison to be valid. No one is suggesting that the alternative to spanking is not to offer consequences. It is important that consequences be clear and consistent, but there is no reason in the world that striking a child needs to be a consequence. It's not spanking or nothing! [Smile]

Some consequences I use:

Time out (with a brief, age-appropriate explanation of the reason for the punishment both before and after the time out)

Loss of toys

Loss of TV time

Going to bed early (I believe the reason for the misbehavior is simple tiredness.)

Natural consequences -- such as last night when my son threw a fit in the car and took off his shoes. I made him walk around shoeless in the grocery store. Anytime you can simply let a child reap the natural consequences of their action, the lesson is more poignant.

Logical consequences -- similar to natural consequences but a bit more engineered. If you don't eat your dinner, you don't get dessert. That sort of thing.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
If you don't eat your dinner, you don't get dessert.
How can you have your pudding if you don't eat your meat?
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
But I think if parents ARE doing it right 99% of the time, then the issues that people have with spanking (that it creates at atmosphere of fear and threat and fosters violent tendencies) will likely drop off significantly. I might be wrong, but I can't see there being that strong a correlation when spanking is used only a couple of times in the child's life, total.

Sure, and you're not likely to see a lot of correlations with lung cancer among people who only smoked two cigarettes, but in either case it's not necessarily a defense of the action so long as it is minimal.

In the case of spanking, we know enough to suggest that it is best to never resort to it at all. The reason behind this is because of the rather profound impact (another unintended pun) that even a single act of spanking can have on a child. A single event wherein a trusted adult models the infliction of pain as a means of asserting control / resolving conflict.

Here's the best way I can explain — Let's model an incident wherein a mother is walking down the street with her child. A homeless person is standing by a rail stop and looks at the mother and goes "got any change?" The mother is very distrustful of homeless people but as of this point the child has not had any of this distrust modeled onto him/her. The mother is startled, and in response to this, she gasps and instinctively grabs her child and clutches him/her VERY close with a very tight grip. It's a momentary response that transpires over just a few seconds. The mother stammers out a 'sorry, no' and walks away, still a bit agitated. She's probably holding the child's hand a bit tighter, or keeping them a bit closer, etc. The mother could say nothing more about this extremely momentary event, but kids pick up a lot from things like this. Something like this, like, this singular incident, could model distrust or even mild phobia of drifters and street people in an adult who had this experience as a kid. Even if the mom carefully explained later that homeless people are not scary, I was just startled, etc. The same sort of modeling is even stronger in some areas, like the ability for one event to create lifelong distaste/fear of things like spiders or snakes, just because of the way we are wired.

So it's for the reasons provided by this kind of stuff that it's not at all nonsensical to be worried about the impact of spanking even just once, which has problematic future implications in two areas.

One: even one event can be a profound modeling experience. mom just hit me.

Two: parents who resort to spanking even once are very likely to start making a habit of it. The barriers and conditions for application are most likely going to begin lowering immediately.

The studies about all this including comparisons between minimal spanking and regular/habitual spanking do exist and I've trawled through a lot of them, and could probably be unearthed again by trawling through ebsco, but I'm at a loss to provide any citations at this time.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
Fair enough. This is not a position I am particularly invested in or have spent much analyzing. All I know that my own experience was not something I'd consider unhealthy and that the examples people have given of unhealthy situations were not very similar to mine at all.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Some of the anti-spankers might want to further analyze their personal feelings a out spankings, because I'm reading a lot of irrational, unrepresentative, extreme views of spanking that frankly have very little in common with real-life. It reminds me of people who insist that violent movies and video games make people violent, ignoring all data to the contrary.

Look around you. A large portion of the population of adults were spanked as children. Do you not recognize that we aren't violent, traumatized, angry adults as a result?

Your personal emotions are blinding you to common sense.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
How would you track a modeling experience like the example you gave, at so early an age?
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Some of the anti-spankers might want to further analyze their personal feelings a out spankings, because I'm reading a lot of irrational, unrepresentative, extreme views of spanking that frankly have very little in common with real-life. It reminds me of people who insist that violent movies and video games make people violent, ignoring all data to the contrary.

Look around you. A large portion of the population of adults were spanked as children. Do you not recognize that we aren't violent, traumatized, angry adults as a result?

Your personal emotions are blinding you to common sense.

I disagree. And obviously, spanking doesn't cause across-the-board problems, it just increase the likelihood of certain problems. I breastfed for much the same reasons. I didn't guarantee that my children won't get juvenile diabetes nor that I won't get breast cancer, but I bettered our odds.

I have seen spanking in action. Often. And not in abusive ways to where I would get involved or say anything to the parent who did the spanking. Typically, I have seen spanking used after several warnings, using a hand (not an implement), and often after other punishments have been doled out. And I STILL don't think it is a good thing.

Going back to something I brought up earlier, we had a house guest stay for 2 days, spank his daughter around my kids, and my son started hittg his sister more often.

The children I know who are spanked, even within reason, are more prone to hitting and other kinds of violent behavior. They are also no better behaved than my own kids and in most cases, less.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
It reminds me of people who insist that violent movies and video games make people violent, ignoring all data to the contrary.

Well, they did find out that violent video games do make people more aggressive and have higher incidences of anger management issues ..
 
Posted by theresa51282 (Member # 8037) on :
 
Even if I accept the premise that in some instances spanking is ok for kids, I don't think I would spank. It is far too easy to do spanking because you need a release from the frustration of parenting and not because your child actually did something egregious. Its seems like one of those things that once you start it is easy to start expanding the situations it is used in.
 
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
 
Christine- my brother spanks his kids (with all those lovely caveats) and frankly my daughter is much better behaved and I think it is because of the spanking issue. Also, the bigger issue I see is the difference in internal control. If I turn my back on my daughter, I can trust her to behave in pretty much the same way she does if my back isn't turned (which is usually pretty good- worst issue is the constant coloring of the walls). If you turn your back on my nephew, he hits his brother, throws and breaks toys and is otherwise a devil child. His behavior is very clearly tied to the constant threat of spanking. As far as natural temperament, up until 18 months, everyone thought I had the bad kid in the family. Not actual proof and all anecdote, but visiting them does make me so much more confident in my parenting choices.

As a parent, I also am a big proponent of the whole raise your daughters to be rude idea. I don't want a child who is always obedient. That kind of programming makes girls targets. Of course, finding the balance is hard, because as a child she needs to trust I have reasons behind my rules as well and sometimes she does just need to obey (like when running into the streets and I say NO). I think that spanking would undermine both sides (mom hits, can she be trusted?)
 
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
 
quote:
I hate to use this example, but when you are potty training a puppy, one (rather effective) method is to rub the dog's nose in the business if they go on the floor. The dog learns very quickly not to do that anymore.
No, that's a TERRIBLE method. No reputable dog trainer will tell you to do this. What's the puppy supposed to learn from that? Eliminating is bad?

The thing to do is WATCH the puppy until it starts to pee, then shout NO and flip it over on its back. It will stop peeing because puppies hate to pee on themselves. Then immediately take the puppy outside to a place where it can do its business. When it does so, praise it highly.

This is how you house train a Lab puppy in a week.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
The thing to do is WATCH the puppy until it starts to pee, then shout NO and flip it over on its back. It will stop peeing because puppies hate to pee on themselves.
This works with children, too.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
What I've never understood is, how are you supposed to catch the dog while it's still peeing? I'm sure it works wonders if you can do it, but we've caught our dogs in the act maybe twice. Unless you can afford to stare at your dog all day for a week I don't understand how you do it.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
The thing to do is WATCH the puppy until it starts to pee, then shout NO and flip it over on its back. It will stop peeing because puppies hate to pee on themselves.
This works with children, too.
Hmmm....I can see how this would be effective but I'm not sure how to catch my child in the act of peeing. I guess I could make him run around butt naked, but even then it would be hard to do unless I were hovering right on top of him all day.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
My neighbors had their daughter wear a dress with no diaper, which seemed to have a similar effect.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
My son hasn't shown any interest in wearing dresses. [Smile]

I'm actually going to do the butt naked thing this summer if he hasn't figure things out by then.
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
quote:
As a non-parent I don't think I'm necessarily qualified to make a statement here, but I would say that AFTER you've tried every other punishment you can think of, if a behavior is persisting and it's either a danger to your kid or someone else's, or if it is driving you so crazy that prolonged exposure to it is straining your ability to effectively parent, then spanking is pretty justified.
While I appreciate the response, this is a criteria, not an example. People have so far been fairly vague about when spanking is appropriate other than to say that in some cases it is the right choice. I'd like to know what a few of those cases are.
And you think this has thus far been the sort of thread that would encourage someone to feel safe sharing something like that?
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yozhik:
quote:
I hate to use this example, but when you are potty training a puppy, one (rather effective) method is to rub the dog's nose in the business if they go on the floor. The dog learns very quickly not to do that anymore.
No, that's a TERRIBLE method. No reputable dog trainer will tell you to do this. What's the puppy supposed to learn from that? Eliminating is bad?
yeah, it doesn't work because the dog can't connect the punishment to the act itself. it's got to be an immediate response to when they're actually doing it.
 
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
 
When I was little my Dad would yell at me until I felt worthless when I made mistakes that put me in trouble (I always tried to be well behaved). I remember wishing he would just hit me and get it over with, then leave me alone. He never did. I guess looking back on it, it was probably a good thing. I'm against spanking, but I really have no experience at all with it.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
That is why adults do it. They don't want to see the consequences of their physical intimidation of a child...
I think you seriously undercut your message by sounding this hysterical about it. I mean, I don't spank my children, but you've got me rolling my eyes here at the remarkable hyperbole some of y'all are using.

Adults who spank do not choose to spank "because it doesn't leave a mark." They spank because a smack on the buttocks hurts a great deal less and is far less likely to do any lasting physical damage than, say, a punch to the head or stomach.

I think, too, there's a useful distinction to be made between a sustained campaign of physical intimidation and the occasional spank. That some people here aren't making that distinction, to be honest, strongly suggests to me that they aren't parents.

Indeed. I think the fact that it isn't hitting in the face or anywhere else makes it easier on the parents. What I was trying to say was that because the hitting is occurring in areas that are not as exposed as the face or belly, it makes it easier psychologically to justify the hitting. The quality of the hitting seems to be different. I don't think it is *actually* so different.

Just because I'm not a parent doesn't mean I'm not qualified to speak about this. I resent the implication that I am not. I am a human being, and I am a person who has experienced the kind of spanking (or hitting) that parents routinely justify as necessary.

I can tell you it wasn't a good thing for me. I can tell you I believe it has had a lasting and profound impact on my relationship with my parents, as well as my relationships with other people, especially physically. An impact that has haunted me through my adult life. And I was not regularly or even often spanked. It was enough to be lashed once across the stomach and chest with a piece of rubber tubing when my father was angry, I think, to change a lot about the way I was able to comfortably relate to other people, let alone him. The worst part is seeing my childhood and adolescence sprawl ahead of the person I was then, and wonder how I might have been had these things never happened to me. And as much as I don't consciously call them forward in my every day life, I know at least something about what they've done to me.

[ March 10, 2010, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Orincoro, spanking on the butt is definitely less likely to be harmful than punching or slapping other parts of the body. Lasting pain or debilitation from an injury is worse than temporary pain, no?

This might make it easier to justify, but that doesn't mean that "easier to justify" is the actual reason.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
The quality of the hitting seems to be different. I don't think it is *actually* so different.
Uh, the quality of the hitting is actually very much different.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Consider that the person inflicting that punishment on another person recognizes its potential for harming them, and tempers that by choosing a less dangerous area. I think the fact that we instinctively understand hitting on the face and stomach as "abuse" ought to tell us something important about striking in other places as well. Namely that we are dealing with a child, somebody who depends on us quite literally for their physical security.

That said, I really, really shouldn't go on. I'm not liking the conversation.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
The quality of the hitting seems to be different. I don't think it is *actually* so different.
Uh, the quality of the hitting is actually very much different.
Quality in the psychological sense, is what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to argue that the basis of the hitting- the act of hitting, is not changed significantly by where the person is hit. The part about *being* hit, being the most important factor for the child.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Consider that the person inflicting that punishment on another person recognizes its potential for harming them, and tempers that by choosing a less dangerous area. I think the fact that we instinctively understand hitting on the face and stomach as "abuse" ought to tell us something important about striking in other places as well. Namely that we are dealing with a child, somebody who depends on us quite literally for their physical security.

That said, I really, really shouldn't go on. I'm not liking the conversation.

Yeah, I know how this goes. I hate being told that because I'm not a parent yet, that I wouldn't understand but I was a kid and I know what it's like to have someone towering over you hitting you and not being able to do much about it.
I wouldn't want a kid of mine to feel like that and to have that fear and my mother was afraid that I hated her. I did feel a bit of frustration towards her getting older, but mostly it was fear.
There's just too many risks to even "gentle" spanking, I think. You don't know how it will affect the child. If there are better, less harsh ways, I'd rather use those. Not because I'm being unrealistic or something, but I've got to not just think about me and what's best for me, I've got to think about that child, how that child feels. I'd want to find a way to discipline that child so they can still trust me. And I will discipline. i don't want to be the sort of parent with a child running around destroying a supermarket, but I don't want my child living in fear and worse of all, thinking it's OK to do this when they are a parent.

I kind of need specifics. What instances are OK to use the tool of spanking?
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
The quality of the hitting seems to be different. I don't think it is *actually* so different.
Uh, the quality of the hitting is actually very much different.
Quality in the psychological sense, is what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to argue that the basis of the hitting- the act of hitting, is not changed significantly by where the person is hit. The part about *being* hit, being the most important factor for the child.
I see what you mean, Orincoro.

I still disagree (and it's OK with me if you don't want to respond to this - I'm not challenging you to respond). Spanking isn't as likely to invoke the kind of adrenaline, terror and post traumatic effects that you'd see with more physically impactful abuse.

quote:
It was enough to be lashed once across the stomach and chest with a piece of rubber tubing when my father was angry, I think, to change a lot about the way I was able to comfortably relate to other people...
I believe you and I think you're right that just one experience like this can be harmful and can pretty much not be justified, period. But that is not what I would call "spanking." That's physical abuse.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
First of all, I feel like I have to respond because essentially Raymond has been defending my parenting.

A couple of points:

Of the people that I know personally who I have watched raising their children, there are three that I know of that said that under no circumstances would they ever strike a child. I watched two of them slap their children across the face, in anger, because they were beyond frustration and they lost control. In both cases, the looks on the childrens' faces were ones of victory. They had succeeded in pushing their parents' buttons. And I know they hit their kids at other times as well, I just happened to be there for those events. So just 'cause you say it don't make it so.

The third told me that he never spanked his first daughter, and had criticized other parents who couldn't keep their children in control... until his second daughter came along, and all bets were off. He doesn't criticize people's parenting anymore. Some kids are easy, and others are difficult. You can't always blame the parent, and some kids just keep testing the limits.

This argument seems very similar to me as the police argument over choke-holds. There was a time when the news seemed full of people who died in police custody because an illegal choke hold was administered. Turns out that because the hold was illegal, they didn't train the officers to administer it correctly, the result being that in an extreme situation, the officer found themselves wrestling with someone and without being able to think of an alternative, they administered a choke-hold that they hadn't been trained to control, maybe even without realizing they were doing it, and the person died. I'm pretty sure that nowadays most police officers are trained in the choke hold, even though it is still illegal to use.

So for people who say they will never spank their children: OK, maybe. But you should still have a plan in mind for that moment when you reach your limit and your hand starts moving.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
It reminds me of people who insist that violent movies and video games make people violent, ignoring all data to the contrary.

Well, they did find out that violent video games do make people more aggressive and have higher incidences of anger management issues ..
The study I remember reading showed a correlation between playing violent video games and being aggressive, but not a causation. If you have a study that shows that playing a video game makes someone more violent, I'd like to see it, and I'd wager that it's no more than any active activity increases a person's aggression.

Christine: Your kids saw another kid being spanked, and they were more aggressive. How can you know that it wasn't a result of having other kids over, and being more rambunctious as a result of the new activity, or that you only perceived them to be hitting more, because you were looking for it?

Again, it's obvious that you have a strong personal bias against spanking, and I don't think it permits you to be very objective.
 
Posted by jaysedai6 (Member # 8856) on :
 
I am 71, and spanking was not questioned when I was a child. and it seems to me I was spanked a lot.I was spanked for my misdeeds and for letting my my sisters get into trouble. Not that they needed any help. When I was 7 or 8, remembered that I was crying and saying I wont do that again and thinking I wont get caught doing that again. So I guess spanking made me a deceltiful child.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:

Christine: Your kids saw another kid being spanked, and they were more aggressive. How can you know that it wasn't a result of having other kids over, and being more rambunctious as a result of the new activity, or that you only perceived them to be hitting more, because you were looking for it?

I can't be 100% sure that the modeling was the problem...I think I said that. But my son goes to pre-school 4 days a week so it's not like he's never around rambunctious kids. The little girls was actually very mild-tempered (I'm not even clear why she was being punished when she was spanked). And I definitely was NOT looking for him to hit more often. It surprised the heck out of me. It was only a week later, trying to figure out why I had to correct him for the nth time, that I thought about the spanking and that it had all started around then. Hitting is not permitted in my house under any circumstances and any incidence gets an immediate consequence (loss of poker chip, time out, loss of trains for a day...in that order). I hadn't had to take away my son's trains in months but I had to do it twice over the next couple of weeks. It's not like I don't pay attention.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
It reminds me of people who insist that violent movies and video games make people violent, ignoring all data to the contrary.

Well, they did find out that violent video games do make people more aggressive and have higher incidences of anger management issues ..
The study I remember reading showed a correlation between playing violent video games and being aggressive, but not a causation. If you have a study that shows that playing a video game makes someone more violent, I'd like to see it, and I'd wager that it's no more than any active activity increases a person's aggression.

No, it's not like that. You could compare it against watching TV an equal number of hours a day.

The APA has a pretty straightforward declaration on the matter, if only I could find it.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Just because I'm not a parent doesn't mean I'm not qualified to speak about this.
Certainly. But I'm likely to give greater weight to parents who weigh in on the issue because they've theoretically seen both sides of the issue while you've seen only one.

Depending on what the parent says, I mean.

You've seem to have been traumatized by your childhood experiences, Orincoro. While I agree somewhat with your point, the tone in which you present it, and the absolutist fury which you attack this subject makes it difficult to take your point of view seriously.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
I was a kid and I know what it's like to have someone towering over you hitting you and not being able to do much about it.
My mother was an alcoholic who beat me -- not spanked, mind you; beat me -- nearly every day for four years, until I broke her wrist in three places in order to remove a baseball bat from her grip. To this day, our relationship is fairly strained.

So I do understand the extremes waiting in the wings of this conversation. But, that said, this line from Orincoro --

quote:
Consider that the person inflicting that punishment on another person recognizes its potential for harming them, and tempers that by choosing a less dangerous area.
-- to me, see, this is parenting. Parenting is all about recognizing that every single thing you do to your child for his or her own good could also potentially harm them, so you make choices to minimize that harm. Saying this is evil is, in a nutshell, saying that parenting itself is a bad idea.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
I was a kid and I know what it's like to have someone towering over you hitting you and not being able to do much about it.
My mother was an alcoholic who beat me -- not spanked, mind you; beat me -- nearly every day for four years, until I broke her wrist in three places in order to remove a baseball bat from her grip. To this day, our relationship is fairly strained.

So I do understand the extremes waiting in the wings of this conversation. But, that said, this line from Orincoro --

quote:
Consider that the person inflicting that punishment on another person recognizes its potential for harming them, and tempers that by choosing a less dangerous area.
-- to me, see, this is parenting. Parenting is all about recognizing that every single thing you do to your child for his or her own good could also potentially harm them, so you make choices to minimize that harm. Saying this is evil is, in a nutshell, saying that parenting itself is a bad idea.

I can't really totally agree when it comes to hitting.
Because I can't feel like even a slap on the butt is really for someone's own good when there's other ways. Ways that might even be more affective in terms of the child's age and personality.
I'll just have to work harder NOT to have that particular tool in my tool box no matter what, because it's just too easy to cross that line.

Plus I read Dobson's book for example and thought, is it really necessary to spank for this? Especially that whole child challenging the parent's authority thing. What does that mean? It's a tiny child. The parent always has the authority by virtue of being the parent and can lead by example without inflicting pain.
Because I just don't think it's right.
Of course to most I sound like an innocent idealist. So I am. But I don't understand how being compassionate and gentle towards kids by not wanting to spank them suddenly became... a bad thing. Like you want to let kids do whatever they want to do without saying anything about it.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
Because I can't feel like even a slap on the butt is really for someone's own good when there's other ways.
There may be other ways. Sometimes a parent might decide that those other ways, for one reason or another, aren't optimal for a given situation. I know plenty of parents who choose to spank, and plenty who don't, and I'm not going to second-guess either of 'em.

quote:
But I don't understand how being compassionate and gentle towards kids by not wanting to spank them suddenly became... a bad thing.
Rather, I think what's happened here is that some people are insisting that spanking a child is a monstrous thing, and others are disagreeing.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
But I don't understand how being compassionate and gentle towards kids by not wanting to spank them suddenly became... a bad thing.
Neither do I. Where are you getting this idea from?
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
But I don't understand how being compassionate and gentle towards kids by not wanting to spank them suddenly became... a bad thing.
Neither do I. Where are you getting this idea from?
I don't know. There's just this CULTURE. If folks have to spank, I feel like they should be reluctant about it. But sometimes there's just this whole, "This is my child and I'm gonna whup that ass" culture too.
This could be due to being black, because you here that a lot being black... Folks are probably going to say, "You're acting white, not wanting to spank." but it's not as if it's only black people.
I don't know. I can't call it evil. Folks love their kids, but it seems so... warped. Like where did this practice come from and why does it continue?
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
I think that there are times when spanking is appropriate.

You are wrong, excepting times in which a child is in immediate physical danger.
In your opinion.


I am not advocating abuse, but equating spanking a child to abuse in most cases is not accurate, nor is it useful. Children are not delicate flowers. They sometimes need a strong incentive to behave at times, and spanking is one way of providing that, particularly if you are short on time.

My opinion based on a large amount of experience in child care, as well as having been hit myself as a child. It didn't work for me, and it has never worked for any child I have ever known who has been hit. It makes things worse. It did for me, and it did for every other child I knew of who was hit.

And I am, for clarity's sake, talking more about parents who make a habit of it. Obviously those who do it less may get different results. Habitual physical intimidation of your child is not a good idea. Porter should grow a pair and learn to deal with his kids without hitting them, if that's what he's saying he does.

I didn't equate it to abuse. I don't think it's always abuse. I think there is only one situation in which it is "appropriate," and that is to stop a child from acting to harm his or herself. Only case. Blanket statement. No exceptions.

I have a large amount of experience in child care, including dealing with cases of abuse, and I find my experiences to be completely opposite of yours. As are the experiences of all of the parents from previous generations that I know. But YMMV.

I wasn't trying to say YOU claimed it was abuse to ever hit a child, but it is a common claim for people to make when discussing this topic, so I thought I'd head it off at the pass so to speak. [Big Grin]

I'd say you don't know squat about this if you think that Porter is claiming any such thing, and quite frankly after that comment I am less likely to listen to you. Not a very effective technique for making a discussion point.

I'd say Porter not only has a pair, but that his children are far more likely to be well mannered, well adjusted and happy than yours would be. I know I doubt I'd like living in your house if you are half as judgmental at home as you come across here.
[Roll Eyes]

[ March 11, 2010, 12:51 AM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Well, it seems that the hardcore anti-spankers here have equated spanking with torture, violence, intimidation, abuse, and beatings.

You're attacking strawmen. None of the people here defending spanking are saying any of the things you're arguing against.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
...is it really necessary to spank for this? Especially that whole child challenging the parent's authority thing. What does that mean?

It means most of us have a defiant streak and at some point will tell our parents, "I don't wanna and you can't make me". And the parent's job with anyone under, I would say, 15 or so is to say, "Yes, I can".

Most of us do not want to be good for its own sake. Most of us have to learn to value treating others with respect and kindness. And for many of us, myself included, just seeing a good example was not enough.

I'm selfish by nature. I'd really rather keep all my money and spend all my time on me and not waste my energy on other people's problems. And I'm certainly not a fan of other people getting to make the rules. I want to do what I want when I want because I want to.

If my parents hadn't forced me to acknowledge their authority when I was little, I don't know where I'd be now. Probably not employed with any regualrity. I have enough trouble with rules even understanding that the boss gets to make them. [Smile]

Did that have to include spanking? Heck if I know. I'm not having kids any time soon, so I can't say I've read up on it. But I certainly believe that children are under their parents' authority and need to be aware of that. The more hard-headed the kid, the bigger a struggle it'll be to make them understand it.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by LargeTuna:
When I was little my Dad would yell at me until I felt worthless when I made mistakes that put me in trouble (I always tried to be well behaved). I remember wishing he would just hit me and get it over with, then leave me alone. He never did. I guess looking back on it, it was probably a good thing.

Probably not. I think this quote posted early by Samp. is really very important.

quote:
Aggressiveness in children has also been linked to maternal permissiveness and negative criticism, more closely than to physical discipline, but the fact that some negative factors are even more linked to aggressiveness doesn't constitute support of spanking, but it does show the similarities of result in different forms of parenting systems that have adverse effects.
Let's get some perspective here. Spanking probably isn't an effective parenting strategy, but permissiveness, criticism and yelling are even worse. That isn't a defense of spanking, but it really does indicate the issue of spanking gets far to much attention.

If its wrong to spank your child "even once", then wouldn't the studies suggest its even worse to criticize your child "even once", yell at your child "even once", be permissive "even once". Let's drop the hyperbole. There is no such thing as a perfect parent. And given that it is the nature of kids to test the boundaries and push their parents buttons, all parents are going to respond badly from time to time. One spanking isn't going to mar your kid for life any more than one negative comment said in an angry tone.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
I'm a bit skeptical of all these studies because there are so many confounding factors that can lead to correlations. As has been noted many times, correlation does not prove cause. Some kids are simply naturally more prone to aggressive behavior than others regardless of parenting style. Any parent with more than one child will tell you this. More aggressive kids are likely to receive more frequent and more severe discipline than kids that are less aggressive. This is a serious problem for any study of parenting styles and its very difficult to control for. This difficulty is further compounded by what has become a common bias against any type of physical discipline.

The correlation between spanking and aggressive behavior is statistically significant, but it is none the less a relatively weak correlation. Evidence that occasional spanking is harmful for all children is a best very weak.

Spanking isn't a generally effective parenting strategy in today's world but those who claim that spanking is always bad go far beyond what is supported by the data.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Actually, quite of few of those studies have show NO correlation between spanking and future aggressive behavior, so even that weak correlation doesn't support most of these claims.

But I wish more people understood what correlation was, and how it differs from causation. [Big Grin]


I am not saying hit your child all the time. Or most of the time. Or even often. I'm just saying that I get sick of people insisting they know how to raise other peoples children, and that spanking a child makes you a bad parent and a bad person.

If that is true, 99% of all parents before 20 years ago were horrible child abusers. [Roll Eyes]
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I don't know. I'm not saying that spanking makes a person a bad parent or something.
I'm just thinking about how much I hated being hit. I hate getting hit. Spanking does equal hitting and it's just too harsh and it's too easy to get out of control.
Especially after talking to my mother about this. She insists if you don't hit kids they'll turn out bad, but she grew up before they had child abuse lines and stuff, so I've got to question the way folks did things before 20 years ago and even now. There's all sorts of things people did without questioning it. (Circumcision comes to mind)
But there's always new discoveries and new things to learn about the human mind and how it works.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:

I'd say Porter not only has a pair, but that his children are far more likely to be well mannered, well adjusted and happy than yours would be. I know I doubt I'd like living in your house if you are half as judgmental at home as you come across here.
[Roll Eyes]

I know you are but what am I?? That's very nice talk for someone trying to come off so high and mighty. As if I would give to sh**s about your parenting philosophies. I don't.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
I said my piece on this topic a couple months ago in a different thread.

With all the talk of "another way" though, I feel compelled to reiterate that I have seen several kids who are the way they are simply because it's illegal to punch them in the face and no one feels dealing with them is worth paying a fine. I know for a fact that a pair of these kids (they are brothers) have a mother who refused to spank them. The level of spoiledness in the others pretty much leads me to believe the other parents don't either (One parent called my principal simply because I tossed her daughter's test paper on her desk rather than handing it to her-- no, that's not an exaggeration, that was really her issue).

Yeah... you call it "anecdotal evidence". I call it "experience". Potato-PoTAHto

In other words, there are some people who have come to believe they are immune to physical reprisal and do not fear or respond to any other form of discipline. They are not many, but the number is non-zero. I strongly suspect (but have no evidence) that these are the people who end up dead outside of bars at 3am because they are around drunk people with weapons.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
No, those are the people who were hit, and who learned from their parents how to channel their aggression and frustrations into violence. Your folkish wisdom is a bunch of stupid tripe. And I say that in the nicest way possible.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
I may not be reading this thread closely enough since it is going pretty quickly, but most of the anti-spankers here (myself included) are not equating spanking to abuse. The way I see it, we're talking about the consequences of a specific parenting choice.

For my part, I believe that it is an ineffective parenting style that risks negative long-term consequences.

Here's how it was presented to me in my behavior psychology class:

Spanking is effective at getting an immediate, short-term response, but has shown to be an ineffective strategy for shaping long-term behavior. This is why moderates recognize its usefulness in situations in which a child is in immediate danger. (I still wouldn't do it then, but I recognize it.)

As far as long-term negative consequences, studies have not shown that children always become aggressive, which is why there are weak correlations. In fact, all children are different and respond differently to the technique. Some children have increased aggressiveness or bullying behavior but others go the opposite direction and draw in upon themselves. (I was in the latter category.)
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I know you are but what am I?? That's very nice talk for someone trying to come off so high and mighty. As if I would give to sh**s about your parenting philosophies. I don't.

And in one blow, we've met our irony quota for the day.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Pssh. My irony quota is MUCH higher.

What union are you with?
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Too bad this thread is devolving into personal criticism. It was interesting for a while.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
Devolving? It's been there for a while.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Two recent comments == devolving?

Just ignore the personal criticism and move forward.

I'd really like someone to answer my question about how they might track the modeling example Samprimary gave on the last page.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
I may not be reading this thread closely enough since it is going pretty quickly, but most of the anti-spankers here (myself included) are not equating spanking to abuse. The way I see it, we're talking about the consequences of a specific parenting choice.

For my part, I believe that it is an ineffective parenting style that risks negative long-term consequences.

Here's how it was presented to me in my behavior psychology class:

Spanking is effective at getting an immediate, short-term response, but has shown to be an ineffective strategy for shaping long-term behavior. This is why moderates recognize its usefulness in situations in which a child is in immediate danger. (I still wouldn't do it then, but I recognize it.)

As far as long-term negative consequences, studies have not shown that children always become aggressive, which is why there are weak correlations. In fact, all children are different and respond differently to the technique. Some children have increased aggressiveness or bullying behavior but others go the opposite direction and draw in upon themselves. (I was in the latter category.)

That's my concern with it. Will it be good in the long term? Will the child only be "good" to avoid being hit or because it's the right thing? Would I be doing this for the right reason? My mother would hit me repeatedly with a belt over things like leaving out ketchup or a tuna or crying for McDonalds. Was that really necessisary? Is this kid being bad or being a kid or making a mistake that doesn't need to be punished?

It involves a lot of thought and soul searching. I think all the times my motehr used a belt on me was out of anger and not really for my own good. My uncle when I lived with my mother's mother would explain before hitting me with a belt why I was getting hit.
Still, even with explanations and hugs afterwards, I can't help but feel a bit uneasy about it. Especially if the hitting is mixed with talks of love. It may work on the short term, but I'm wondering about the long term affects and everyone is so different that they will react differently to the same stimuli. I think it's better NOT to do it in the first place.
I also wonder about the use of terms like "brat" and bad, like I said above. Does that help the parent-child relationship or hurt it? A child that is crying is not crying because they are a brat, there could be a lot of other reasons.
The women at Gentle Christian Mothers do a brilliant job with this sort of thing. Especially Crystal Lutton who has literally wrote the book on this kind of parenting. Many of them are conservatives who politely question things like GKGW or Dobson. I love it.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
No, those are the people who were hit, and who learned from their parents how to channel their aggression and frustrations into violence. Your folkish wisdom is a bunch of stupid tripe. And I say that in the nicest way possible.
Everyone who ends up dead in bar fights was taught violence by their parents through torturous, cowardly corporal punishment?

Have you ever even seen a bar fight? Both participants are not always violent. Sometimes one is just a real schmuck, and the other is drunk and capable of violence. I'm virtually certain that's the sort of thing Jim-Me was talking about, but it's pretty obvious this is not a topic you're prepared to discuss reasonably or civilly, for whatever reason.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
The thread isn't devolving. It is to be expected in threads like this that some people are going to take some of the things said personally. After all, we're talking about how to raise children, something that is near and dear to all of us and I am certain it is something we all are trying our best at, whatever strategies we choose. The trick is to understand that and not to take it personally.

quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I also wonder about the use of terms like "brat" and bad, like I said above. Does that help the parent-child relationship or hurt it? A child that is crying is not crying because they are a brat, there could be a lot of other reasons.

Actually, I think this sort of thing can be worse than whether or not a parent chooses to spank (within certain boundaries). We internalize the things our parents say to us, and for some reason we internalize the bad more than the good. For every bad thing we say to a child, we need to say about 100 good things.

This is why my favorite parenting strategy is positive reinforcement. Obviously, it isn't always going to work. You have to do something about unacceptable behaviors, but even then, it is important to distinguish between bad BEHAVIOR and a bad CHILD. You aren't being put in the corner because you're being bad, but because it's not ok to _____.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
The thread isn't devolving. It is to be expected in threads like this that some people are going to take some of the things said personally.
Especially when some of them are personal attacks.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
The APA has a pretty straightforward declaration on the matter, if only I could find it.

found it. lolwikipedialol.

quote:
The American Psychological Association summarizes the issue as "Psychological research confirms that violent video games can increase children's aggression, but that parents moderate the negative effects."[33] Craig A. Anderson has testified before the U.S. Senate on the issue, and his meta-analysis of these studies has shown five consistent effects: "increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased pro-social (helping) behavior".[34]
Definitely not a conclusive thing by any means. But we have ample reason to suspect and are acting on current knowledge while it gets updated and refined.

I think it massively sucks that they're finding any such results and that the 'video games make you violent!' idea seems to have any validity at all, and moreso hate watching someone like jack thompson get in any small way validated (not much of an issue now that he seems to have gone literally insane), but there it is, soooo
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
No, those are the people who were hit, and who learned from their parents how to channel their aggression and frustrations into violence. Your folkish wisdom is a bunch of stupid tripe. And I say that in the nicest way possible.

And your comments show that you have no idea what I am talking about, which may, of course, be my fault.

These kids are not violent at all. They are experts at non-violence. They know precisely how to aggravate, taunt, and goad people without ever crossing that line that says "you are legally ok to hit this person". They spend their lives doing it and would probably make outstanding trial lawyers if they gave themselves a chance because they know both exactly what all the rules are and also precisely how to push people's buttons within those rules, and they take great pride in so doing.

And anyone who feels my "folksy wisdom" to be "stupid tripe", feel free to ignore my parenting experiences and thoughts. I certainly have not been up to the task I set myself with mine and I'm sure I am worthy of criticism galore, in the abstract. I'd wager that very few, however, would acquit themselves as well as I have.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:. Sometimes one is just a real schmuck, and the other is drunk and capable of violence.
That's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. I've seen it happen first hand, though fortunately not with fatal results. Add a weapon into the situations I've seen and there certainly would have been, though.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
The APA has a pretty straightforward declaration on the matter, if only I could find it.

found it. lolwikipedialol.

quote:
The American Psychological Association summarizes the issue as "Psychological research confirms that violent video games can increase children's aggression, but that parents moderate the negative effects."[33] Craig A. Anderson has testified before the U.S. Senate on the issue, and his meta-analysis of these studies has shown five consistent effects: "increased aggressive behavior, thoughts, and affect; increased physiological arousal; and decreased pro-social (helping) behavior".[34]
Definitely not a conclusive thing by any means. But we have ample reason to suspect and are acting on current knowledge while it gets updated and refined.

I think it massively sucks that they're finding any such results and that the 'video games make you violent!' idea seems to have any validity at all, and moreso hate watching someone like jack thompson get in any small way validated (not much of an issue now that he seems to have gone literally insane), but there it is, soooo

Am I personally attacking people? I hope I'm not, I don't like to, but I really strongly disagree with the concept of hitting kids if there are other gentler methods that could be used.
Our culture is kind of violent though. I'd say that violent video games are caused by a violent culture. i can get sweary as hell when sitting around playing Final Fantasy or Persona 3 oir 4 and those aren't even FPS which make me motion sick.
I don't know, I'd worry about what sort of message a kid getting spanked is getting vs what the parent is trying to tell them.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
?
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
No, those are the people who were hit, and who learned from their parents how to channel their aggression and frustrations into violence. Your folkish wisdom is a bunch of stupid tripe. And I say that in the nicest way possible.
Everyone who ends up dead in bar fights was taught violence by their parents through torturous, cowardly corporal punishment?

Yes. What I said is exactly equivalent to what you said. I ought to have just written what you said exactly. How foolish of me, not to have known exactly how you would have interpreted whatever statement I was making, and simply written down exactly what you would have said to paraphrase what I said, because clearly you know exactly what I meant, and I didn't. Kudos to you sir. You are indeed a scholar. You are indeed a worthy interpreter of everything I say. You indeed, above all others, understand exactly what I mean to say, but am to cowardly and wishy-washy to ever actually write down. I thank you sir. I truly thank you for what you have done. The valuable service you have provided to this board today is inestimable. Truly. Bravo sir. Bravo.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
I know you are but what am I?? That's very nice talk for someone trying to come off so high and mighty. As if I would give to sh**s about your parenting philosophies. I don't.

And in one blow, we've met our irony quota for the day.
Eat me. Or just go and spank your kids over it. Sometimes that's just the thing to do, apparently.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
How nice.
 
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 
Orincoro: Come on man, take a breather, you don't want to be this way.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
The thread isn't devolving. It is to be expected in threads like this that some people are going to take some of the things said personally.
Especially when some of them are personal attacks.
"I think there are times" when personal attacks "are appropriate." Certainly, if you can get your ire up to smack your kids around, you can call someone a jackass on the internet. Unless that's just *too* uncivilized for you. I understand you have your standards.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
"I think there are times" when personal attacks "are appropriate."
Apparently, when they come from you, and never toward you.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Now you've got it. Spank your kids, don't let them spank you. Thank god, we finally understand each other. Rejoice!
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
?

Why the question mark?

I can't blame Orinoco for being a bit angry. Spanking is a sore subject for me because I hate being labeled as naive because I don't want to spank.

I can't really separate it from hitting because it's sort of... the same thing. Only in degrees.

Whenever the experts write about spanking, even their ritualized version sounds a bit too harsh. I've read Dare to Disipline and I thought, is this REALLY totally necessary? Hitting a child for not staying in bed? Hitting them again if they don't stop crying?

Why?

Then he talks about how nothing brings a parent and child closer than the child crumbling into their parents arm after being wailed on. It makes me think, doesn't he seem something kind of wrong in that? Traumatic bonding isn't the same as a relationship built on love and trust.

I couldn't take advice from Dobson anyway. Why was it necessary to hit that little dog with a belt when he could have just picked up the dog and put it in the dog bed. Dude would not have tried that with a Rottweiler.

Same with squeezing some painful nerve on that kid's neck. All of the examples Dobson provided made me think, I do not want to spank a child over something like that.
 
Posted by Papa Janitor (Member # 7795) on :
 
Orincoro, I think you would have been wise to have taken your own advice earlier. Stop attacking people in this thread, regardless of the point you are trying to make by doing so, or step away. There are not times at this forum when personal attacks are appropriate.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
I can't really separate it from hitting because it's sort of... the same thing. Only in degrees.
Drowning is like drinking, by degrees.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Folks can drown in an inch of water.

To spank means to strike. Why is it spanking just because it's done to a child? As many times as I'd like to whack people for popping gum around me (it's a seriously annoying NOISE that goes all through me and everyone makes it!) I'd get arrested, and I should be as it's really rude to wap random people no matter how much they are driving me crazy.

But mostly, if kids can grow up to be polite and well adjusted without spanking then is there really a need for it?
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
Now you've got it. Spank your kids, don't let them spank you. Thank god, we finally understand each other. Rejoice!

I do not understand what you're saying here.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Syn:

Recognize your ifs and what they entail.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
Why is it spanking just because it's done to a child?

Not just then. It's just more common. And lacking in naughty connotations.

quote:
But mostly, if kids can grow up to be polite and well adjusted without spanking then is there really a need for it?
That's kind of the question I've been asking. Is it possible for certain personality types that they just don't respond well to anything less than superior force? And if so, does that make it ok if they eventaully internalize appropriate behavior thanks in part to it?

Because I don't think spanking will ever work on its own. It can only stop a negative behavior, and probably only occasionally. You've still got to replace that with a positive or you're not making any progress - you're just running in place.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
Syn:

Recognize your ifs and what they entail.

Explain? Are you saying that if kids can grow up to be polite and good without spanking that there really is NOT a need for it at all?

Because that's what I think. I kind of think it's one of those old skool things we're a bit better off without.
Like whalebone corsets, strict cultural standards that cage people. Especially considering how far we've gone in terms of child psychology.

Like crying it out can be damaging to a child's developing brain for example.

I believe firmly in positive re enforcement over negative. I will always question conventional wisdom and strive to improve on it.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Are you saying that if kids can grow up to be polite and good without spanking that there really is NOT a need for it at all?
Yes.

I'm also saying that there may be times and children for when spanking is the only option left to a parent.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:
Are you saying that if kids can grow up to be polite and good without spanking that there really is NOT a need for it at all?
Yes.

I'm also saying that there may be times and children for when spanking is the only option left to a parent.

But when though? And why?

No one here has been very clear on the specifics.
And when pro spanking experts give advice about that, I think, you hit them over that? Why?
 
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
And you think this has thus far been the sort of thread that would encourage someone to feel safe sharing something like that?


 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
I'll note again that I DON'T consider myself an expert by any means, but I'd consider spanking as an alternative in the following cases IF other techniques have already been tried, and the behavior continues over an extended period.

- hitting/bullying other children (or adults for that matter)
- continuous destruction of property
- doing something physically dangerous. I do not think it needs to be "immediately" harmful to qualify; there are a lot of things that are dangerous in the long term that a child lacks the abstract reasoning to connect actions to consequences.

No one really responded to my dad's post, and it hit a lot of points that I hadn't mentioned but were fairly influential in my beliefs here:

quote:

Of the people that I know personally who I have watched raising their children, there are three that I know of that said that under no circumstances would they ever strike a child. I watched two of them slap their children across the face, in anger, because they were beyond frustration and they lost control. In both cases, the looks on the childrens' faces were ones of victory. They had succeeded in pushing their parents' buttons. And I know they hit their kids at other times as well, I just happened to be there for those events. So just 'cause you say it don't make it so.

The third told me that he never spanked his first daughter, and had criticized other parents who couldn't keep their children in control... until his second daughter came along, and all bets were off. He doesn't criticize people's parenting anymore. Some kids are easy, and others are difficult. You can't always blame the parent, and some kids just keep testing the limits.

This argument seems very similar to me as the police argument over choke-holds. There was a time when the news seemed full of people who died in police custody because an illegal choke hold was administered. Turns out that because the hold was illegal, they didn't train the officers to administer it correctly, the result being that in an extreme situation, the officer found themselves wrestling with someone and without being able to think of an alternative, they administered a choke-hold that they hadn't been trained to control, maybe even without realizing they were doing it, and the person died. I'm pretty sure that nowadays most police officers are trained in the choke hold, even though it is still illegal to use.

So for people who say they will never spank their children: OK, maybe. But you should still have a plan in mind for that moment when you reach your limit and your hand starts moving.


 
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
 
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm curious about the subject from a social evolution standpoint. Is it possible that in earlier times, in more tribal societies, spanking (or probably beating at the time -- corporal punishment anyway) developed characteristics in children that allowed them to survive to adulthood, and that those characteristics are not in fact necessary (or one might argue beneficial) in our current society?

It often makes me think of boot camp. All I know of boot camp is from books/movies/etc. -- I have no personal experience (aside from a drill instructor yelling at his recruits because my (at the time 9-year-old) sister could climb the ropes at the confidence course with ease, and some of the recruits couldn't (this was a cub scout outing, but my dad was the cubmaster and my mom was a den leader so my sister always ended up attending). And I don't remember it that well -- I remember my dad recounting it. What I remember is the challenge from a marine that I couldn't drink 15 glasses of chocolate milk. That bet I won. [/tangentially related but non-topical aside]

There seems to be a lot of yelling, and hazing, and ridiculously unnecessary stuff like shining shoes and cleaning floors with toothbrushes and all that. From the outside it seems ridiculous. But are these actually necessary to building the unit cohesion required in the military, and the unquestioning following of orders which may sometimes be required on the battlefield?

And wasn't more of life a battlefield back then? Wild animals attacked flocks, and there weren't the same kinds of weapons to fend them off. Marauders (if stories be believed) were much more common. Civilizations were scattered, and there was much more no-man's-land (and no-law-land) in between.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for this concept. I'm asking about it -- if anyone's thought of it before (here, that is -- I'm sure someone somewhere has). And if there's any basis to it, then is it possible that the time/need for corporal punishment may be passing (or already have passed, some would argue) away? Or that it may return in the case of societal collapse?

Thoughts, thoughts....
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Orincoro:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:

I'd say Porter not only has a pair, but that his children are far more likely to be well mannered, well adjusted and happy than yours would be. I know I doubt I'd like living in your house if you are half as judgmental at home as you come across here.
[Roll Eyes]

I know you are but what am I?? That's very nice talk for someone trying to come off so high and mighty. As if I would give to sh**s about your parenting philosophies. I don't.
Good. I'd worry a lot more if you approved of me. Thank you for proving my point better than I ever could have alone.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
But when though? And why?

No one here has been very clear on the specifics.
And when pro spanking experts give advice about that, I think, you hit them over that? Why?

Syne, the pro-spanking "experts" that you've been reading (and why you insist on reading that crap I do not understand) are not representative of anyone here. No one here is defending looking for excuses to hit your kid, and it's not fair to conflate what people are saying here with the extremes you're venting about.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
(Edited by me, because Moose already made a statement-should've read the entire thread, my mistake)
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm curious about the subject from a social evolution standpoint. Is it possible that in earlier times, in more tribal societies, spanking (or probably beating at the time -- corporal punishment anyway) developed characteristics in children that allowed them to survive to adulthood, and that those characteristics are not in fact necessary (or one might argue beneficial) in our current society?

It often makes me think of boot camp. All I know of boot camp is from books/movies/etc. -- I have no personal experience (aside from a drill instructor yelling at his recruits because my (at the time 9-year-old) sister could climb the ropes at the confidence course with ease, and some of the recruits couldn't (this was a cub scout outing, but my dad was the cubmaster and my mom was a den leader so my sister always ended up attending). And I don't remember it that well -- I remember my dad recounting it. What I remember is the challenge from a marine that I couldn't drink 15 glasses of chocolate milk. That bet I won. [/tangentially related but non-topical aside]

There seems to be a lot of yelling, and hazing, and ridiculously unnecessary stuff like shining shoes and cleaning floors with toothbrushes and all that. From the outside it seems ridiculous. But are these actually necessary to building the unit cohesion required in the military, and the unquestioning following of orders which may sometimes be required on the battlefield?

And wasn't more of life a battlefield back then? Wild animals attacked flocks, and there weren't the same kinds of weapons to fend them off. Marauders (if stories be believed) were much more common. Civilizations were scattered, and there was much more no-man's-land (and no-law-land) in between.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for this concept. I'm asking about it -- if anyone's thought of it before (here, that is -- I'm sure someone somewhere has). And if there's any basis to it, then is it possible that the time/need for corporal punishment may be passing (or already have passed, some would argue) away? Or that it may return in the case of societal collapse?

Thoughts, thoughts....

Interesting points, hazing is another subject because some of the stuff they make people do these days when it comes to hazing are pretty disturbing.
And folks will argue, but it makes the group bond.
But, there's a difference between traumatic bonding and actual bonding. Traumatic bonding is quite unhealthy, as unhealthy as some of the ridiculous rituals folks who are hazed are forced to do from Fraternities and the military. Is there some way to create those same kind of bonds without the hazing? The hazing can be reduced to something that is actually fun and not dangerous.

But then you wonder about militaries and boot camps.Hmmm. Kids aren't quite the same as soldiers.

But, I reckon that would depend on the civilization. Right now there's all sorts of hunter gatherer societies. It would be interesting to look at how they raise their children. Maybe folks were more AP about infants than older children?
I'd like to get a book and learn more about that.
I do think that much of the culture of corporal punishment in the African American community comes from slavery. As for Europe, I've read some great books by Alice Miller and this book called The Invention of the Child. All of those had some insightful things to say on the subject.
I do not want folks who use spanking as an occasional tool to feel alienated. I've got to admit it. I'm biased.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
I'm also saying that there may be times and children for when spanking is the only option left to a parent.
As for me, I'm just saying that 'never-ever-ever' is very rarely true when it comes to human affairs, and I can easily imagine many (that is not to say most) examples of corporal punishment where it wouldn't be true, either.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Ok then, I can't promise that I'd know what to do when my hand raises against my will. Kids can be annoying and frustrating. They will try someone's patience.
But they are kids. Their brains are developing. They are still learning. If I think of them as being bad that would make it way too easy to hit, but if I lose control, I'm not above apologizing and trying to do better.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
Spanking is effective at getting an immediate, short-term response, but has shown to be an ineffective strategy for shaping long-term behavior.

I don't understand how you can say that spanking is ineffective at shaping long-term behavior, but at the same time equate it with doing long-term harm to children.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Allow me to point out that many adults spank and are spanked BY OTHER ADULTS, and that it is not only not-hitting, and non-abusive, but enjoyable.

Spanking is not always "hitting," nor is it violence towards children.

I'll bring up again that the people who are the most strongly anti-spanking seem to have had bad experiences in their childhood, which were hitting, by most people's definition. Please realize that there's a difference.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
Spanking is effective at getting an immediate, short-term response, but has shown to be an ineffective strategy for shaping long-term behavior.

I don't understand how you can say that spanking is ineffective at shaping long-term behavior, but at the same time equate it with doing long-term harm to children.
Probably because a kid is more likely to be "good" out of fear, not because they've actually learned why the behaviour was unacceptable. Some other methods might be better for something like that.
It would probably vary from child to child or depend on the force, the duration, whatever, to me it's just too risky. There's that fear thing for one thing, and the trust.
I know that getting hit by my mother.. it seemed to have taken away my gumption a bit. When I was a kid and someone was smoking, I could tell them to stop. As an adult, I feel so timid. Too timid. There's that risk of making a child too obedient. Making it hard to say no to authorities, but it depends.
I don't think it did me much good. I kept off drugs because I don't see the sense in them. There are ways to discipline that can really get them to learn, to understand and to want to do the right thing not out of fear of pain, but because it's the right thing to and because they can trust their parents. Too much spanking or the wrong kind could undo that.
So how can a child be built up without becoming too entitled? I'm looking for that middle ground between authoritarian who and helicopter parent whose parents don't let the child take responsibility for themselves. Both are unhealthy extremes.
I think of parenting as sending kids out into a wilderness.They've got to be prepared for that.
 
Posted by jebus202 (Member # 2524) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Allow me to point out that many adults spank and are spanked BY OTHER ADULTS, and that it is not only not-hitting, and non-abusive, but enjoyable.

You seem to know a lot about this.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Allow me to point out that many adults spank and are spanked BY OTHER ADULTS, and that it is not only not-hitting, and non-abusive, but enjoyable.

Spanking is not always "hitting," nor is it violence towards children.

I'll bring up again that the people who are the most strongly anti-spanking seem to have had bad experiences in their childhood, which were hitting, by most people's definition. Please realize that there's a difference.

What is the difference though? I have trouble seeing spanking as anything but hitting because it really is hitting. Not all spanking is abusive, but spanking is hitting. It's in the dictionary. It's inflicting enough pain to create a change in behaviour. It's the inflicting pain aspect I have a problem with.
Especially when it comes to toddlers.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by jebus202:
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
Allow me to point out that many adults spank and are spanked BY OTHER ADULTS, and that it is not only not-hitting, and non-abusive, but enjoyable.

You seem to know a lot about this.
That's actually another good reason not to hit a kid, especially on the butt.
I will not have my kid running around in some spank dungeon.

Unless it's not my fault. Then I don't want to know about it!
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
Spanking is effective at getting an immediate, short-term response, but has shown to be an ineffective strategy for shaping long-term behavior.

I don't understand how you can say that spanking is ineffective at shaping long-term behavior, but at the same time equate it with doing long-term harm to children.
Because when you use it, the 'shaping' you get is vastly more likely to not be what you intended.
 
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
 
Why exactly is inflicting physical pain so much worse than inflicting emotional pain? When you're spanking a child (not hitting, not abusively), you're inflicting mild physical pain to change a behavior. When you tell a child you're ashamed of her actions and put her in a corner, you're inflicting mild emotional pain to change a behavior. Why is one necessarily worse than the other?
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
If one is worse than the other, it would be because of the tangible and potent differences between children's psychological response to being put in a corner versus being physically struck to induce pain.
 
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
 
I don't see causing pain in a child as a bad thing when it's used by a parent who's in control of his own emotions. Light pain is a signal for the brain to pay attention to whatever's going on, which can reinforce the message or lesson a parent is trying to convey.

And is there solid evidence for there being a "tangible and potent" difference in the psychological response in physical vs. nonphysical disciplining? I haven't seen that in this thread so far...

[ March 12, 2010, 05:08 AM: Message edited by: sinflower ]
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
If one is worse than the other, it would be because of the tangible and potent differences between children's psychological response to being put in a corner versus being physically struck to induce pain.

And I definitely think that would depend on the personality of the child. For some people, that time out might be a necessary cool down period to shed their overstimulation and leave them the mental clarity to understand what they did wrong. For others, the boredom could leave them more aggitated than they were when they went in and completely unable to process new information.

Remember, not everyone fears pain to the same degree. I run into walls and furniture on a fairly regular basis because it doesn't hurt enough to distract me from whatever else I'm doing. I've done worse to myself through inattention than my parents ever did as punishment. It never rose to a level that my pain threshold viewed as frightening.

By middle school, the world was over if Mom took the phone away. She didn't even have to ground me, just tell me I couldn't talk on the phone and I was miserable. That was the most effective punishment in the bag for me.

Everybody's different. What scares one person might seem ridiculous to another. What helps one person internalize a lesson just makes another angry. There's so much going on in effective discipline that's so specific, I don't know how anyone could ever craft hard and fast rules for it.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by sinflower:
Why exactly is inflicting physical pain so much worse than inflicting emotional pain? When you're spanking a child (not hitting, not abusively), you're inflicting mild physical pain to change a behavior. When you tell a child you're ashamed of her actions and put her in a corner, you're inflicting mild emotional pain to change a behavior. Why is one necessarily worse than the other?

I'd say, let's not do either of those things. Let's not inflict pain on people in general to change their behaviour but find a better way.
No shaming, no being harsh and cruel, respecting people's feelings. Trying to make the child understand that their behaviour was bad, but they themselves are not bad. I think children should be communicated with, respecting their age without pain. They'll face enough harshness in the so-called real world. Why should they get that from their parents? Folks don't have to raise their kids with pain to get their attention when there are better ways.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
It's inflicting enough pain to create a change in behaviour.
I would argue that most modern spankers do not in fact intend to inflict pain as much as they intend to inflict humiliation. Whether this is better or worse is left for you to decide.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
It's inflicting enough pain to create a change in behaviour.
I would argue that most modern spankers do not in fact intend to inflict pain as much as they intend to inflict humiliation. Whether this is better or worse is left for you to decide.
I don't see the necessity of inflicting either of those things. Pain and humiliation tend to make people feel like a pile of steaming dog crap.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:Trying to make the child understand that their behaviour was bad, but they themselves are not bad.
Syn, if you figure out how to do this without getting played, write a book. It'll be a best seller.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
Animals in pain don't think clearly...they start going into a fight or flight mode. The mental and physiological reactions to pain are quit different from the reactions to shame and humiliation.

Syn -- I'm afraid a child just isn't going to go through life constantly feeling good about him or herself. Even under the best circumstances, when you try to clearly differentiate between a bad behavior and a bad child, the child internalizes it as shame and humiliation. For example, when I put my son in time out, he refuses to come out for a long time, even when I say time's up. He's too embarrassed. I can't not punish him for throwing or hitting, though.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Thanks, Christine; I'd been trying to think of a way to say precisely that.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
Animals in pain don't think clearly...they start going into a fight or flight mode. The mental and physiological reactions to pain are quit different from the reactions to shame and humiliation.

Syn -- I'm afraid a child just isn't going to go through life constantly feeling good about him or herself. Even under the best circumstances, when you try to clearly differentiate between a bad behavior and a bad child, the child internalizes it as shame and humiliation. For example, when I put my son in time out, he refuses to come out for a long time, even when I say time's up. He's too embarrassed. I can't not punish him for throwing or hitting, though.

Yeah, this is true, folks seldom can feel good about themselves, but I'd definetly want to decrease those sort of feelings by not spanking or shaming for starters intentionally....
Oddly enough, many of the mothers on GCM do not time out. But they seem to have a lot of other methods. But it's impossible to totally isolate kids from negative feelings.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
Everybody's different. What scares one person might seem ridiculous to another. What helps one person internalize a lesson just makes another angry. There's so much going on in effective discipline that's so specific, I don't know how anyone could ever craft hard and fast rules for it.

As I mentioned before, all parenting is, to some degree, adaptive. But there's always underlying biological and psychological universalities. You could always say that punching your child in the face is something you should not do. You could always say that starvation should not be used as a disciplinary tool. What the pediatrics and other medical/psychological bodies are doing when they come out against spanking is noting that when you review the process methodically and empirically, it proves to be an inferior and problematic parenting method, and they represent this by actively discouraging its use.

The next iteration of defense for the practice is that parents will claim that it was either preferable or necessary in the case of certain children, and try to use anecdote and informal test cases. Stuff like "well, you should see MY child, I dare any pediatric researcher to tell me that he/she didn't benefit from spanking" — happens all the time, and they're practically always wrong.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Stuff like "well, you should see MY child, I dare any pediatric researcher to tell me that he/she didn't benefit from spanking" — happens all the time, and they're practically always wrong.
How do you conclude this in specific cases?
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
In case it was missed in the other thread:
quote:

I found a review looking at corporal punishment. There are plenty of articles about physical abuse/maltreatment but I guess the closest to Pearl's behaviors are corporal punishment as management of children.

quote:
Ten of the 11 meta-analyses indicate parental corporal punishment is associate with the following undesirable behaviors and experiences: decreased moral internalization, increased child aggression, increased child delinquent and antisocial behavior, decreased quality of relationship between parent and child, decreased child mental health, increased risk of being a victim of physical abuse, increased adult aggression, increased adult criminal and antisocial behavior, decreased adult mental health, and increased risk of abusing own child or spouse. Corporal punishment was associated with only one desirable behavior, namely, increased immediate compliance (whether immediate compliance constitutes a meaningful desirable behavior is qualified below).
Depression may be higher, shown in a retrospective study. Associated with increased antisocial behavior or "externalizing behaviors" at a young age even after controlling for other variables. This review for the Journal of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics looks interesting, though I can only see the abstract. Too lazy to go fetch my ID to login to the hospital.

Now I did look up that last review while I'm at the hospital. One pertinent section is below. I removed the footnote numbers for ease of reading. If you'd like me to link the relevant footnotes I can do that today.
quote:
Research investigating the predictors of children’s psychosocial adjustment has consistently demonstrated the importance of parental warmth to children’s mental health. It also has uncovered the relationship between punitive parenting—and physical punishment in particular—and poorer psychological adjustment. A meta-analysis of 88 studies found that, almost without exception, the literature reveals negative relationships between “normative” physical punishment and children’s mental health. While short-term compliance might sometimes result, it can come at a high cost over the long term.

For example, physical punishment’s erosion of parent-child relationships is seen among children as young as 2. Physical punishment has been consistently associated with poorer child and adult mental health, including depression, unhappiness and anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness. Rather than teaching children right from wrong, physical punishment predicts weaker internalization of moral values (e.g., empathy, altruism, resistance to temptation). It should not come as a surprise, then, that physical punishment consistently predicts increased levels of antisocial behavior in children, including aggression against siblings, peers, and parents, as well as dating violence.

I believe that many actions by the parent can change the course of development for a child. You do have to accept some risks: choosing day care, eating at a fast food place for lunch, and maybe even spanking. Each person chooses what they're comfortable with. My point in providing this information is to show that there has been data suggesting that physical punishment causes some quantitative harm and it's now the guideline of various pediatric organizations to discourage its use.
 
Posted by andi330 (Member # 8572) on :
 
I have a question for the forum because I think that this is something that is glossed over. There are many parents I know that think that sending a child to bed without dinner is acceptable punishment. I don't. I was spanked a few times as a child (probably less than 5) it was always for extremely bad behavior, never enough to leave a mark, and always open hand on clothed bottom. I don't have a problem with this type of spanking.

For those who disagree with spanking, do you find withholding food as an acceptable punishment? I ask because a lot of parents who don't agree with spanking that I know, do agree with sending a child to bed without dinner. In my opinion, that's the worse of the two punishments. A few minutes of discomfort from a spanking (and yes, a real non-abusive spanking really only causes a few minutes of discomfort) vs. a whole night of hunger. Which is better?
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andi330:
I have a question for the forum because I think that this is something that is glossed over. There are many parents I know that think that sending a child to bed without dinner is acceptable punishment. I don't. I was spanked a few times as a child (probably less than 5) it was always for extremely bad behavior, never enough to leave a mark, and always open hand on clothed bottom. I don't have a problem with this type of spanking.

For those who disagree with spanking, do you find withholding food as an acceptable punishment? I ask because a lot of parents who don't agree with spanking that I know, do agree with sending a child to bed without dinner. In my opinion, that's the worse of the two punishments. A few minutes of discomfort from a spanking (and yes, a real non-abusive spanking really only causes a few minutes of discomfort) vs. a whole night of hunger. Which is better?

I think this is a stupid punishment. A hungry child is a grumpy, ill-behaved child. My children are always much better behaved with a full belly.

My children have gone to bed hungry, though...when they refuse to eat my dinner. I try to provide at least one food that I think everyone will like but I'm not a short-order cook. We do offer a bed time snack, but if they're really hungry and really anti-dinner then it could easily not be filling enough. I'm honestly still not 100% sure if my strategy is good or not. I've modified it several times over the years.

In general, though, I think withholding of food as an active punishment is a terrible idea.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Hmm.

Our 7 year old is finnicky to the point of frustration. We deal with this by making one dinner for everyone; whoever wants to eat can eat, but we don't make extra meals or special orders. We also don't give out punishments for not eating (except that not eating == no dessert).

When dinner is over, it's over; Mom and Dad make dinner once, and put the leftovers away, and everyone helps clean up the kitchen. If a child decides that they want to eat after the kitchen is clean, and the food is put away, they're mostly out of luck.

Occasionally, the kids have chosen to go hungry rather than eat what we've made, in the time frame that we've allowed for dinner.

I don't think we've ever told a child to go to bed without dinner; that seems like it would exacerbate any problem my kids might have. On the very rare occasion that they've behaved so poorly that they're unwelcome at the dinner table, we've brought dinner up to them.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Christine:
quote:
Originally posted by andi330:
I have a question for the forum because I think that this is something that is glossed over. There are many parents I know that think that sending a child to bed without dinner is acceptable punishment. I don't. I was spanked a few times as a child (probably less than 5) it was always for extremely bad behavior, never enough to leave a mark, and always open hand on clothed bottom. I don't have a problem with this type of spanking.

For those who disagree with spanking, do you find withholding food as an acceptable punishment? I ask because a lot of parents who don't agree with spanking that I know, do agree with sending a child to bed without dinner. In my opinion, that's the worse of the two punishments. A few minutes of discomfort from a spanking (and yes, a real non-abusive spanking really only causes a few minutes of discomfort) vs. a whole night of hunger. Which is better?

I think this is a stupid punishment. A hungry child is a grumpy, ill-behaved child. My children are always much better behaved with a full belly.

My children have gone to bed hungry, though...when they refuse to eat my dinner. I try to provide at least one food that I think everyone will like but I'm not a short-order cook. We do offer a bed time snack, but if they're really hungry and really anti-dinner then it could easily not be filling enough. I'm honestly still not 100% sure if my strategy is good or not. I've modified it several times over the years.

In general, though, I think withholding of food as an active punishment is a terrible idea.

I think so too. Plus there's the bathroom to consider.
It's too harsh. Folks need food.

I also remember having to sit for hours being forced to eat grits. I hate grits. I won't eat them as an adult. gross.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
Syne, what sort of punishments would you not consider "too harsh?"
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
Scott: You seem to use strategies pretty similar to mine.

quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I also remember having to sit for hours being forced to eat grits. I hate grits. I won't eat them as an adult. gross.

For me it was brussel sprouts...shudder

Yeah, the flipside of my plan is I don't force my kids to eat. They have control over what they put in their bodies. They just don't get to request substitutes. And if they don't at least try to eat dinner (one bite of everything), they don't get special treats afterward.

A while back I ran into someone who forced (through intimidation) their child to eat more food than the child really seemed interested in. Seemed like a good way to give a child an eating disorder.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Syne, what sort of punishments would you not consider "too harsh?"

Losing priviledges, consequences like having to study extra for bad grades.
Mostly stuff that isn't pain, isn't humiliating or isn't having their music taken away.
It would be torture if someone took away my mp3 player, stereo, and deleted all of my mp3s. [Eek!] [Frown] [Angst]
Something like that should be reserved for severe circumstances like bullying.
I can't stand bullying.
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
If you really like music, then taking away music (one way or another) is an excellent punishment.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
What about looking at them crosseyed? Too harsh?
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Yes, but only for extreme cases. Instead of saying punish me with music deprevation I should say punish me by taking me to a dir en grey concert full of very attractive men, mostly with lovely tattoos.

Yes, that would be torture. It would be awful. Especially if one took me out for a sundae afterwards and fond my quirks to be cute and irresistible. Oh, the humanity.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
We definitely restrict our kids' media intake, including music.

My 11 year-old is old enough to want to listen to the music that her peers listen to (alas! No more Sandra Boynton for her...) She also saved up money to buy her own iPod.

Recently she wanted to purchase...I don't remember the name of the song, but it was something along the lines of being drunk (literally and figuratively) in love with some guy. We sat down together and found the lyrics on the internet and reviewed them; she was able to make the decision that the lyrics weren't really positive in light of our beliefs. She made the decision that that was a song she didn't want to use her money to purchase.

I'm glad she came to that conclusion on her own; however, if she still wanted to purchase the song, I wouldn't have allowed it. (I also won't let her purchase songs that over-dramatize romance or where the singer-- especially female singers-- desperately pine for their Man. I mention those, because so much of pop music seems centered around unhealthy, desperate declarations of love.)

We've got standards we want our kids to live by. Part of being a parent means enforcing those standards (and living them yourself) even when that decision is unpopular or uncomfortable.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
What about looking at them crosseyed? Too harsh?

naw, i do wish I knew how to glare.I think I look like a rabbit trying to be angry when glaring.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
We definitely restrict our kids' media intake, including music.

My 11 year-old is old enough to want to listen to the music that her peers listen to (alas! No more Sandra Boynton for her...) She also saved up money to buy her own iPod.

Recently she wanted to purchase...I don't remember the name of the song, but it was something along the lines of being drunk (literally and figuratively) in love with some guy. We sat down together and found the lyrics on the internet and reviewed them; she was able to make the decision that the lyrics weren't really positive in light of our beliefs. She made the decision that that was a song she didn't want to use her money to purchase.

I'm glad she came to that conclusion on her own; however, if she still wanted to purchase the song, I wouldn't have allowed it. (I also won't let her purchase songs that over-dramatize romance or where the singer-- especially female singers-- desperately pine for their Man. I mention those, because so much of pop music seems centered around unhealthy, desperate declarations of love.)

We've got standards we want our kids to live by. Part of being a parent means enforcing those standards (and living them yourself) even when that decision is unpopular or uncomfortable.

That is very responsible. I am such a heathen that I worry that when I have kids they can't watch the things I like like South Park. At least most of Dir en grey is in Japanese, so that's good and you can hardly understand Kyo saying the F word, but that's one thing I wonder about. I hated having my books restricted as a jr high school student for example, having books I bought taken away from me. But, sometimes things that are too violent need to be restricted.

Also, she should never listen to Bessie Smith. "I'd rather my man hit me then quit me"!!!
Songs back then were so unhealthily co-dependent, but they were so good. All of these Billie songs, but she's singing about a man who beats her and is mean to her and she likes him anyway.
Billie Holiday was rather troubled anyway. I'd definetly want to ban most modern pop music.
And pink and orange together.
 
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
Scott, at what age do you plan to stop using veto power over purchases like that?
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
I could see a reasonable argument of, "until it's her own money."

I've always been fond of letting kids get a feel for the consequences of their choices, like letting a kid stay up late but still insisting they wake up and go to school on time. But it's just one tool in a multitude of techniques to help a kid figure things out.
 
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
I could too. My question wasn't intended to imply judgement.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:

I'm glad she came to that conclusion on her own; however, if she still wanted to purchase the song, I wouldn't have allowed it. (I also won't let her purchase songs that over-dramatize romance or where the singer-- especially female singers-- desperately pine for their Man. I mention those, because so much of pop music seems centered around unhealthy, desperate declarations of love.)

How confident are you that she actually reached that conclusion on her own? I only ask because I can easily a kid realizing, "This conversation won't end with me getting the song no matter what happens. So I may as well get what I can from it." That's not to say I'm asking, "How confident are you that she's telling the truth?" but rather wondering how much, if at all, that pragmatic consideration entered into the matter at all?
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 8594) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
I could see a reasonable argument of, "until it's her own money."

This works for some things. It really depends upon your value system. You have to choose your battles, of course, but there are definitely things that I would not "let" my children do or buy until they are legally adults. Body piercings and tattoos come to mind.

Music isn't such a big thing for me right now but that may be because my oldest is 4 and doesn't pick his own music yet.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by andi330:
I have a question for the forum because I think that this is something that is glossed over. There are many parents I know that think that sending a child to bed without dinner is acceptable punishment. I don't. I was spanked a few times as a child (probably less than 5) it was always for extremely bad behavior, never enough to leave a mark, and always open hand on clothed bottom. I don't have a problem with this type of spanking.

For those who disagree with spanking, do you find withholding food as an acceptable punishment? I ask because a lot of parents who don't agree with spanking that I know, do agree with sending a child to bed without dinner. In my opinion, that's the worse of the two punishments. A few minutes of discomfort from a spanking (and yes, a real non-abusive spanking really only causes a few minutes of discomfort) vs. a whole night of hunger. Which is better?

I think it is fine, as long as it isn't a default punishment. As long as your child gets regular, nourishing meals, one night going hungry is not a big deal. It won't hurt them in the long run.

But in my past it was used rarely, and usually only for being disagreeable or rude while at the table. And there was almost always something brought to my room....maybe not a full meal, but some sort of food.

I think that ALL punishments have to be doled out responsibly. Sending your child to their room without entertainment options is fine, but locking them in a closet isn't. Going to bed without dinner is fine, but starving your kid isn't (neither is feeding them only crap food, but that is a different topic.). Spanking is ok, but beating your child isn't.


It's more a matter of degree than anything. As are most things in life.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
quote:
Stuff like "well, you should see MY child, I dare any pediatric researcher to tell me that he/she didn't benefit from spanking" — happens all the time, and they're practically always wrong.
How do you conclude this in specific cases?
Well, in the case I've known, it's when they actually consult childrearing experts.

Then there's the cases on those Nanny shows, where these parents get incredulous when supernanny-911 or whoever tells them that part of the PROBLEM with their parenting methods is the use of spanking, and they insist it's necessary and that their kids would be worse off if they quit spanking because it's what keeps them in line and/or they SHOULD do it in instances where the child's safety is at issue and the nanny is always like no no no no etc *fixes all problems*

but these are unscientific versions of what enhanced study is also showing. I don't have to conclude myself, not being part of more studious research.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
From previous thread, lightly edited:

quote:
Samp put it well. Corporal punishment is basically a lazy, low effort way out-- you convey much disapproval combined with a real, tangible punishment, and, unlike other forms of punishment, it does not require constant follow up and enforcement over time: it's one and done (as an aside, is this less traumatic than a long and ongoing explanation of why a kid is bad/wrong?).

However...

As I am constantly telling my kids when I play the "I'm the parent and you will listen to me" card, when there's a limited amount of parent and an excessive amount of kid, sometimes you don't have time to mess around. My overall response to this [previous] thread was basically what Hank said: until you are a parent, you don't understand how time, energy, and emotion-expensive kids are.

So, as Samp said, spanking is pretty much a crutch. I would add, however, that sometimes a crutch is helpful.

This speaking as someone who tries to minimize spanking, but is absolutely willing to use that particular tool. I think the biggest issues with spanking occur when it's your "go-to" method. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

"That's all I have to say about that."
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I really, really, really wish people would stop saying "Until you are a parent.. blah blah blah" when it comes to spanking because on some levels it's true. Having your own child isn't the same as say, babysitting my cousin when I was 13, and he was about 6 months and she'd party all night.
I took care of that kid until he was in elementary school most of the time. It was because of him I didn't think I'd want kids. (Especially when he peed all over my room, not as a toddler, but an elementary school child. His mother spanked him over that. It really didn't work.)
But, one cannot understand how deeply I do not want to spank.
I do like that there's a ton of resources, more folks proudly breastfeeding and slinging babies. I wish my mother had those sort of resources. I feel bad for her because she went through a lot and I had cancer and she didn't really have a lot of support.

There's definitely got to be something more affective than JUST punishment. And there is. If at one time it was considered acceptable to discipline women by hitting, one day it will be totally unacceptable to hit children...

Which especially bothers me when it's done in schools. I went to school down south for a while and I remember getting paddled for running in the hall.
 
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
Mostly stuff that isn't pain, isn't humiliating or isn't having their music taken away.

I'm wary about linking to tvtropes, but I was reminded here of this.
 
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
 
While I understand the frustration at being told "until you are a parent" being a parent does change everything. I don't spank and still disagree with the idea, but I can understand it much better.For me, the big thing I changed my view on was tv. I swore my daughter would never watch tv. Anyone who knows me knows I have failed horribly at that one. [Smile] I think this point comes up so frequently because people don't like being judged by others who have no practical understanding of the situation. And babysitting is very different from being a parent, no matter how frequent the sitting is.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm curious about the subject from a social evolution standpoint. Is it possible that in earlier times, in more tribal societies, spanking (or probably beating at the time -- corporal punishment anyway) developed characteristics in children that allowed them to survive to adulthood, and that those characteristics are not in fact necessary (or one might argue beneficial) in our current society?

From an evolutionary standpoint, hitting when you want something is simply communication. It may mean you want someone's attention, you want them to move, or they did something you don't like. That's why kids hit too. Like it or not, when you hit a child, especially a preverbal one, you're speaking their language.

Synesthesia said:
quote:

I think children should be communicated with, respecting their age without pain.

Hitting doesn't always hurt. Just think how effective it is when a child reaches for something they shouldn't have, and you tap the back of their hand with one finger. It communicates exactly what they need to understand, and they will pull back their hand immediately. The fact that you used one finger and didn't hurt them shows control on your part, and I think that before it reaches the kind of hitting that we all agree is abuse, spanking out of anger, or because you aren't in control sends exactly the wrong message.

quote:
Ok then, I can't promise that I'd know what to do when my hand raises against my will. Kids can be annoying and frustrating. They will try someone's patience.
I posted about this on a previous page, but no one has responded to it. I don't argue that you should spank your kids, but I do argue that you should have a plan in mind before your hand starts to move. If you're totally against spanking so you don't have that plan, I guarantee you it's going to be worse when you do hit. My first step was always to say "if you do that one more time I will spank you." I don't think Raymond ever got a spanking that way, because he stopped what he was doing.


quote:

Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Syne, what sort of punishments would you not consider "too harsh?"

Losing priviledges, consequences like having to study extra for bad grades.

See, as a former remedial math teacher, I think this could be a big problem. From what I have seen, having to study extra just makes them more resistant to learning. I'm sure that good students will benefit if their grades are bad because they slacked off, but if the child feels they are being punished just because they are "dumb," giving them more work is usually harmful. Better to find some learning games and try to get them to enjoy it. Being a lousy student isn't always intentional behavior, so it shouldn't be punished, as such.

Tom Davidson said:
quote:
I would argue that most modern spankers do not in fact intend to inflict pain as much as they intend to inflict humiliation.
Did you really mean to say that? I certainly never intended to inflict humiliation. My purpose was to show that there was an absolute limit to what a child can get away with. I didn't spank very often, but each time, I sat the child down and talked to them about what they had done, and about the fact that they had been warned that certain behaviors carried a "sentence" of spanking. Raymond says that my rule was no more than a single swat, but that's not the case. What actually happened was that after we had talked about it for awhile, we agreed that only one swat was necessary, based on his remorse and his understanding of what he'd done wrong. One swat was the minimum, because they had broken the rule, and spanking was the punishment, and I'm adamant that under no circumstances should you ever make a threat that you don't intend to carry out. Raymond was always good at showing that he understood that what he had done was wrong, so he only got one swat. Emily was considerably more defiant, and I'm pretty sure she got 4 swats, at least once.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I'm kind of being slowly brainwashed in a good way by GCM to be reluctant to be punitive.
I don't totally understand how it works, but it makes a lot of sense. If a kid is hitting because their reaction is hitting, the parents have totally got to be above that somehow, but a slight tap is way better than a certain nut with wapping a child with a toy.

Why do people follow those folks? Urg. A person can drive themselves up a tree trying to make sense of people.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Why do people follow those folks?
Why do you keep asking questions that nobody here can answer?
 
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
 
Glenn,
quote:
Did you really mean to say that? I certainly never intended to inflict humiliation. My purpose was to show that there was an absolute limit to what a child can get away with.
It's not about the ultimate intent, it's about the nature of the mechanism that you use to achieve it.

Did you intend to show [the lesson] by inflicting pain, or by inflicting humiliation? Or was the mechanism something else?

Tom was saying that people use spanking as a way to induce humiliation to achieve any number of ends, not that humiliation is the end.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Why do people follow those folks?
Why do you keep asking questions that nobody here can answer?
Because I need to know... It doesn't make any sense and I don't understand it.

Plus I ask these sort of questions a lot such as, were marriages better in the past with arranged marriages, marriages based more on *hand gestures* economics of some sort and social contracts between or are they better these days when most marry for love but have unrealistic expectations of what a husband or wife can do for them?
Did disdain of divorce force people, especially women, to stay in unhealthy marriages? Does stigmatizing single mothers contribute to abortion?
And most of these above questions come about from reading The History of the Wife. I'm curious to find out what folks think about that because, again, I always, always need to know more. If there was a way to plug knowledge right into my brain, I'd do it.

Then there's the posibility of folks following the Pearls because-
They were raised the same way and think it's right despite lingering doubts in their heads and guilt.
They believe it's the Christian thing to do.
That fear of secular humanists, a sort of extreme backlash against that sort of thought.

But none of those reasons make any sense because even folks who have spanking in their tool box think that guy is a major nut.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Why do people follow those folks?
Why do you keep asking questions that nobody here can answer?
Because I need to know... It doesn't make any sense and I don't understand it.
I swear you must have at least a hundred posts that involve you saying something that essentially goes like this:

1. I am paying attention to / reading / watching <X>

2. It makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

3. Why does <X> exist / write these things / do these things? It makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

3. I believe this is the last time I will pay attention to / read / watch <X> because it makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

4. (continues to divest a lot of energy and attention towards <X>, continues feeling horrible and emitting copious amounts of anguish)

5. (eventually grinds teeth into calcium dust, not being able to leave <X> behind or not pay attention to it)


break the cycle!
 
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
. . .but I do argue that you should have a plan in mind before your hand starts to move. If you're totally against spanking so you don't have that plan, I guarantee you it's going to be worse when you do hit.

I know this isn't the first time you said something in this vein, but this time it totally reminded me of arguments against abstinence-only teaching.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Why do people follow those folks?
Why do you keep asking questions that nobody here can answer?
Because I need to know... It doesn't make any sense and I don't understand it.
I swear you must have at least a hundred posts that involve you saying something that essentially goes like this:

1. I am paying attention to / reading / watching <X>

2. It makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

3. Why does <X> exist / write these things / do these things? It makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

3. I believe this is the last time I will pay attention to / read / watch <X> because it makes me feel HORRIBLE and I can't STAND it.

4. (continues to divest a lot of energy and attention towards <X>, continues feeling horrible and emitting copious amounts of anguish)

5. (eventually grinds teeth into calcium dust, not being able to leave <X> behind or not pay attention to it)


break the cycle!

It drives me up a tree though. These thing affect the larger society.

I did stop reading OSC articles. Except that one someone posted on another topic I did that was sweet and kind and didn't say one thing about liberals or intellectual elites.
And I am not going on Pearl's website. Or KKK websites...

But I do wish there was some way to change the larger society. it's interesting how much it's changed so far.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
But I do wish there was some way to change the larger society. it's interesting how much it's changed so far.
I wonder what the change rate is in response to upset Internet discussion board postings?
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
It drives me up a tree though.

We know. I'm conflicted. It's not like I want to encourage someone to be more willfully ignorant for the sake of anything, but you are constantly torturing yourself by exposing yourself and being unable to disengage from things that you find out about and really honestly DO NOT have thick enough skin to be able to invest time and energy into them without driven crazy by them.

Everyone sort of knows their limits. I know mine. there's a reason I don't go to ogrish, and have never seen 2girls1cup or anything like that. I know what I can anticipate. I know I will actively go out of my way to ensure I don't see it. And if something drives me nuts in a bad way, I drop it and leave it alone! I don't just go back to get tortured by it again and again.

Maybe the 'thicker skin' part is pivotal but I don't know what I can recommend to you! You are totally caught in this cycle and I can see why other people find it practically exasperating.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Scott, at what age do you plan to stop using veto power over purchases like that?
I don't know. It's not something my wife and I have talked about much, though we have discussed our current media filtering strategies.

My best guess is that when she's old enough to keep her music to herself and not allow the message of the lyrics or the feeling of the composition sway her attitude, I'll probably stop vetoing her music choices. But I can't imagine ever letting her play something like...I dunno Tenacious D, out loud in my home, or where the other kids could hear it.

quote:
How confident are you that she actually reached that conclusion on her own? I only ask because I can easily a kid realizing, "This conversation won't end with me getting the song no matter what happens. So I may as well get what I can from it." That's not to say I'm asking, "How confident are you that she's telling the truth?" but rather wondering how much, if at all, that pragmatic consideration entered into the matter at all?
[Laugh]

That reasoning may have gone into it, Rakeesh. I'm not really worried if that was her thinking; there have been other times when she's decided to walk away from things that are opposed to our family's moral standards, when there's been no external/parental initiated reason to do so.

I'm confident she understands our expectations; I'm fairly confident she understands the reasons for them.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Ahh, hit the nail on the head, Scott, thanks for answering:) I was just thinking back to a few similar conversations I had with my parents when I was a child. I had a pretty good idea what was permitted and what wasn't, and I knew pretty clearly where the gray area was where I might be able to use mature conversation to get what I wanted.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
Edit: apparently I missed an entire page of this thread... this was directed at Syn's post containing the quote which follows.

Syn, I don't really follow your last post at all.

But the bit that I am really confused by is:
quote:
But, one cannot understand how deeply I do not want to spank.
You *do* realize that people defending spanking in this thread are not trying to say that *you* should spank, don't you?

Most are saying that there are some situations where spanking *is* the best method. Some (I include myself in this group) basically agree that spanking is generally not the best method for discipline, but it is not so damaging as people make out and not outright abusive. In addition, *I* said there are some kids who, for whatever reason, have reached the point where they do not care about time outs, detentions, or any other non-physical form of punishment. Depriving them or causing them pain is the only thing that gets their attention. My observation of these kids leads me to believe they are that way because of coddling, not because of harshness.
 
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
I'd guess the studies on the first page would apply to that dynamic just as much:

quote:
Aggressiveness in children has also been linked to maternal permissiveness and negative criticism, more closely than to physical discipline...
Instead of physical punishment, what they probably need is to believe someone gives a crap about them and wants the best for them.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AvidReader:
I'd guess the studies on the first page would apply to that dynamic just as much:

quote:
Aggressiveness in children has also been linked to maternal permissiveness and negative criticism, more closely than to physical discipline...
Instead of physical punishment, what they probably need is to believe someone gives a crap about them and wants the best for them.
True this. Coddling, which babies especially need, doesn't mean being permissive. It's not the same thing. Kids need affection from their parents and to be held, it's essential for their development, but they do not need parents to just say, do what you want to do including pulling your sister's hair and jumping on your baby brother.

This is a problem I've had for a while, like I was in college arguing with people on the internet about gay people and wondering why they had to be so dang homophobic. I did at least sort of stop doing that.

URG. I wish I hadn't seen two girls one cup. GROSS. The internet is filled with weird gross things.
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Because I need to know... It doesn't make any sense and I don't understand it.

If you really need to know, you're going to have to talk to people who actually believe that. Which you can't do here. And then you're going to have to listen to what they're saying.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Because I need to know... It doesn't make any sense and I don't understand it.

If you really need to know, you're going to have to talk to people who actually believe that. Which you can't do here. And then you're going to have to listen to what they're saying.
Well, I have discussed with these folks on Amazon...

It's just that Pearl goes beyond spanking straight to pure unadulterated abuse.
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
URG. I wish I hadn't seen two girls one cup. GROSS. The internet is filled with weird gross things.
Wait what?

Synth, this thread is looking less and less like an actual discussion of the merits of spanking and more like a place for you to vent about random things that are making you sad.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
quote:
URG. I wish I hadn't seen two girls one cup. GROSS. The internet is filled with weird gross things.
Wait what?

Synth, this thread is looking less and less like an actual discussion of the merits of spanking and more like a place for you to vent about random things that are making you sad.

Naw, someone up there mentioned it, and I wish I hadn't seen it. He was smart to avoid it. Smart smart smart. It's not sad, just EW!
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
Synth, this thread is looking less and less like an actual discussion of the merits of spanking and more like a place for you to vent about random things that are making you sad.

*grin

It's easier if you think of it as performance art.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese:
quote:
Originally posted by Raymond Arnold:
Synth, this thread is looking less and less like an actual discussion of the merits of spanking and more like a place for you to vent about random things that are making you sad.

*grin

It's easier if you think of it as performance art.

[Confused]

My brain goes in random directions... Plus someone mentioned that video, so I was responding.
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Synesthesia, there is much less randomness in thought when you post on Ornery or at [Gentle Christian Mothers], as someone else noted way back in this thread. Sentences connect, thoughts are completed, there isn't this tangentiality.

And that, of course, is fine. We can all express different sides of ourselves in different places and with different friends. I wasn't meaning to trample on your freedom to express yourself differently in different places. I do think the tangentiality has made it more difficult for some people here to see you as someone who could take on the responsibility of raising a child, but I think the more people know of the whole you, the less that would be a concern.

But the circularity and tangentiality as a pattern of discourse make for difficult conversations in a place where people as a rule engage one another in a more straightforward manner. To do otherwise routinely can make others feel you are making fun of them, or not showing basic respect for the conversation, or, in some cases, that you are damaged.

My best sense of you fits none of these, at least not after reading you elsewhere. My best sense is that of performance art, where you are happily and innocently indulging a side of yourself just for the joy of it, for your own pleasure, and maybe for the beauty of the creation. And, again, that's fine, and I think it should be welcome. But I do think it may be easier for some to deal with if they understand it in a different light than just a typical conversation for here.

---

Edited to add: I think I can see where this may come off as offensive, but I was weighing making a comment against what seemed to be a rising level of frustration. However, if it feels hurtful or wrong in any way, I'll happily edit at your discretion.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese:
Synesthesia, there is much less randomness in thought when you post on Ornery or at GCM, as someone else noted way back in this thread. Sentences connect, thoughts are completed, there isn't this tangentiality.

And that, of course, is fine. We can all express different sides of ourselves in different places and with different friends. I wasn't meaning to trample on your freedom to express yourself differently in different places. I do think the tangentiality has made it more difficult for some people here to see you as someone who could take on the responsibility of raising a child, but I think the more people know of the whole you, the less that would be a concern.

But the circularity and tangentiality as a pattern of discourse make for difficult conversations in a place where people as a rule engage one another in a more straightforward manner. To do otherwise routinely can make others feel you are making fun of them, or not showing basic respect for the conversation, or, in some cases, that you are damaged.

My best sense of you fits none of these, at least not after reading you elsewhere. My best sense is that of performance art, where you are happily and innocently indulging a side of yourself just for the joy of it, for your own pleasure, and mayber for the beauty of the creation. And, again, that's fine, and I think it should be welcome. But I do think it may be easier for some to deal with if they understand it in a different light than just a typical conversation for here.

Sorry about that. You should see my facebook, an odd mixture of randomness and clarity.
Which is how I tend to be in real life too. If I get comfortable enough with people I will talk their ears off about moths and butterflies and Dir en grey. And I'll say something that makes people go [Confused] exactly where did that come from?

Also, it's not that random Samprimary mentioned that yucky video and stuff he is smart enough to avoid.

It's not hurtful. I think I need a bit more structure at times and less randomness so folks can understand what I'm getting at and so I can express myself better and clearer.
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
I think you are poetic. I would hate to lose that as part of this place, all the more less for you in your life.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ClaudiaTherese:
I think you are poetic. I would hate to lose that as part of this place, all the more less for you in your life.

Awww. How nice [Big Grin]
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Well, sincere. [Smile] You add much to the places you visit.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Thanks [Smile]
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
. . .but I do argue that you should have a plan in mind before your hand starts to move. If you're totally against spanking so you don't have that plan, I guarantee you it's going to be worse when you do hit.

I know this isn't the first time you said something in this vein, but this time it totally reminded me of arguments against abstinence-only teaching.
I think it's the same logic. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, kind of thing.
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by scifibum:
Glenn,
quote:
Did you really mean to say that? I certainly never intended to inflict humiliation. My purpose was to show that there was an absolute limit to what a child can get away with.
It's not about the ultimate intent, it's about the nature of the mechanism that you use to achieve it.

Did you intend to show [the lesson] by inflicting pain, or by inflicting humiliation? Or was the mechanism something else?

Tom was saying that people use spanking as a way to induce humiliation to achieve any number of ends, not that humiliation is the end.

Well, as far as that goes, spanking is associated with pain. I certainly don't associate it with humiliation.

And I can see that pain covers a range of nerve inputs, that at the minimum can be a reassuring pat, and climb to... well, it can climb excruciatingly high. But I don't see a lower bound to humiliation that isn't negative. So given the choice, I'd rather associate spanking with pain.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
. . .but I do argue that you should have a plan in mind before your hand starts to move. If you're totally against spanking so you don't have that plan, I guarantee you it's going to be worse when you do hit.

I know this isn't the first time you said something in this vein, but this time it totally reminded me of arguments against abstinence-only teaching.
I think it's the same logic. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, kind of thing.
It seems to me more like telling a married man to carry condoms on business trips, because he's going to be unfaithful eventually, so he'd better plan ahead.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
For clarity, yes almost everyone thinks that cheating on your spouse is morally wrong and not everyone thinks that spanking is. But many of the people who are "totally against" spanking do. Which is why I believe the comparison is appropriate.

If you know you're going to be tempted to do something that you believe is wrong the solution is to plan for how to deal with the temptation in the heat of the moment, not to plan how to accomplish the wrong.
 
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
 
To continue the analogy, inasmuch as it holds, would you consider it wise to teach abstinence-only sex-ed to an adolescent who is "totally against" pre-marital sex?

[Edit -- or would you just prefer that he'd said "if" instead of "when"?]
 
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
Well, I have discussed with these folks on Amazon...

It's just that Pearl goes beyond spanking straight to pure unadulterated abuse.

You're missing my point.

Over and over and over again, you keep asking how people can believe those things. But nobody here can answer you because AFAICT, nobody here believes that.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
To continue the analogy, inasmuch as it holds, would you consider it wise to teach abstinence-only sex-ed to an adolescent who is "totally against" pre-marital sex?

[Edit -- or would you just prefer that he'd said "if" instead of "when"?]

I'd say teach them safe sex anyway because it would be hard to resist some hot person going, you know you want all of this. I think I could hold back from hitting a small child easier than I could resist some irresistible tattooed fellow all inked and pretty. Which is why it's a good thing I am prepared with all of these prophylactics I keep collecting. *Random again*
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
Well, I have discussed with these folks on Amazon...

It's just that Pearl goes beyond spanking straight to pure unadulterated abuse.

You're missing my point.

Over and over and over again, you keep asking how people can believe those things. But nobody here can answer you because AFAICT, nobody here believes that.

Which is nice to know.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Papa Moose:
To continue the analogy, inasmuch as it holds, would you consider it wise to teach abstinence-only sex-ed to an adolescent who is "totally against" pre-marital sex?

No. But I think it would be wrong as part of the class to require said adolescent to plan what type of birth control they were going to use.

Likewise, if there were required parenting classes I wouldn't have a problem with people who were anti-spanking learning whatever information about it was in the curriculum.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I think I could hold back from hitting a small child easier than I could resist some irresistible tattooed fellow all inked and pretty.

Now here is where I do agree with Glenn -- this isn't enough. You do need strategies for what to do when you want to hit the kid. Because at some point you probably will want to. I just don't think those strategies have to involve actually hiting the kid.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dkw:
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I think I could hold back from hitting a small child easier than I could resist some irresistible tattooed fellow all inked and pretty.

Now here is where I do agree with Glenn -- this isn't enough. You do need strategies for what to do when you want to hit the kid. Because at some point you probably will want to. I just don't think those strategies have to involve actually hitting the kid.
Yeah. There's mentality to consider. A woman on GCM had a toddler that flushed money down the toilet and she didn't react in rage which I thought was so sweet and awesome because my mother would have hit me for sure over something like that.
This poster kept in mind that it was a little child, he didn't do it to on purpose. I'm hoping changing that punitive this child is doing this on purpose and is very bad mindset will help for starters, but more is definitely needed. Kids will test their parents and drive them crazy. But as an adult, I don't have to see it as a battle I have to win.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
Actually, the more I think about this, Glenn, the more your argument does not make any sense to me. You’re talking about a situation where “the hand flies up” on its own, right? So the parent is tired, frustrated, angry -- losing control. And your claim is that if they have a controlled spanking plan in place they will be able to restrain themselves from impulsive hitting and implement the spanking plan. But if they have a non-spanking discipline plan in place they will not be able to restrain themselves? Why?
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
I would never spank a baby...infant. I only swatted my kids on the butt when they were old enough to understand they were doing wrong yet not old enough to rationalize with. I can't have a discussion with my dog about stealing food off my plate when I go in the other room, but even the dog knows he isn't suppose to do it. He gets a swat and locked out of the house for the day. I wouldn't swat a little puppy for doing the same thing. Not sure what is a "baby" but a 16 month old knows that sneaking into the cookie jar when mom isn't looking is wrong, hence the sneaking part. My daughter only got swatted between the ages of one and three. I stopped swatting her when my wife realized she was more scared of having dad talk to her. My talking to her gave her comprehension and caused her more pain in the form of guilt. Considering others doesn't come naturally to a child who's every demand has been met since the day she was born. Children eventually need to be taught not to throw a fit to get what they want. Throwing a fit for what they want is purely natural....a crying infant.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
He gets a swat and locked out of the house for the day.
Corporal punishment on dogs is actually a poor method for disciplining dogs, malanthrop. I'm looking forward to an honest and objective discussion on this topic!
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
So the parent is tired, frustrated, angry -- losing control. And your claim is that if they have a controlled spanking plan in place they will be able to restrain themselves from impulsive hitting and implement the spanking plan. But if they have a non-spanking discipline plan in place they will not be able to restrain themselves? Why?
Because the non-spanking discipline plan didn't work. That's the whole point.

The plan at this point is not to control the spanking, but to control the situation. This is the situation where the parent is out of other responses. What do you do now, when you've sworn you won't hit the child, but you can't think of anything else to do? Let the child see that their parent isn't in control of themselves or the situation?

No, the plan is that "when the hand flies up" it doesn't come back down. Instead, you issue an ultimatum. "If you do that again, I will spank you." This is the nuclear option, so to speak, where the child knows that they've crossed a boundary that they can't retreat from. The ultimatum is what gives the parent a chance to remain in control, of themselves, and the situation. And it gives the child the chance to make a decision. It's the last chance. And in all likelihood, if you issue the ultimatum, you won't have to use it. Unless of course you've issued ultimatums before and haven't followed through.

So, as I said before, you should never issue a threat that you aren't willing to carry out. It doesn't have to be a hard spanking, or frightening, but it has to be real.
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
He gets a swat and locked out of the house for the day.
Corporal punishment on dogs is actually a poor method for disciplining dogs, malanthrop. I'm looking forward to an honest and objective discussion on this topic!
Smearing their nose in the pile on the carpet, making sure their feces is driven into their nostrils and then kicking them out...never fails. They never do it again.

When it comes to food, you might be right. Attacking my plate of food when I'm in the other room is one lesson they haven't learned. To an animal, the food is worth the swat...maybe I need to hit them harder. [Smile] I'll try giving them a treat for not eating my child's sandwich when she turns her back.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Uh, thing is, you can't assume a dog KNOWS not to take the sandwich.
Same with a 16 month old child. You can't automatically assume that they know better than to take a cookie. They are still young. They see a cookie in a cookie jar and think, YUM!, not, oh no, I shouldn't take that.
That takes more brain development. Too many people assume a toddler knows more than they do, but they don't consider development.
Bernie-Bunny for example didn't know he wasn't supposed to steal apples out of my backpack. He was just thinking, mmm. APPLE! Same with him getting into my room.

Man, I miss having that rabbit to drive me crazy. It was my responsibility to keep chocolate from his reach, and hide my apples. I could never hit that little dude.

Even when he peed on my bed. Which pissed me off so much.

But, yeah, non spanking takes a lot of effort and challenge, I think, more so than spanking does. Sometimes it requires walking away before that hand lifts then dealing with the child when one is a bit calmer.
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
If they don't know, why do they wait for you to turn your back? When you return they have their tail tucked between their legs or are blushing.

My daughter is really tough. Once when she was three and we were visiting my grandmothers house we warned her not to touch the glass on the pellet stove. Later that day, I noticed she was favoring one hand over the other. I looked at her finger and she had a huge blister. The kind of blister that would've made the average three year old scream. There was also a small finger print burned into the glass on the wood pellet stove front. That three year old stifled the scream and hid the blister because she was told not to touch it. Three year old children know what is right and wrong when their parents tell them and they know how to sneak and hide what they did. That blister taught me a lot about kids. She would scream bloody murder for much less but could tough it out, knowing she disobeyed.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Smearing their nose in the pile on the carpet, making sure their feces is driven into their nostrils and then kicking them out...never fails. They never do it again.
That's not the type of punishment you mentioned before that I replied to. I don't actually know if what you're describing works or not.

quote:
To an animal, the food is worth the swat...maybe I need to hit them harder. [Smile]
Nothing quite as bracing as humor about violence to pets!
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
She would scream bloody murder for much less but could tough it out, knowing she disobeyed.
As for me, it makes me wonder if she thought she would be punished further in addition to the blister - presumably by her father, as you've said she was afraid to speak to you - to the extent that she was more afraid of that than of getting relief for a very painful blister.

Or do you really imagine that what kept her from dealing with a scream-inducing blister was some sort of pride in not being caught disobeying?
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
Smearing their nose in the pile on the carpet, making sure their feces is driven into their nostrils and then kicking them out...never fails. They never do it again.
That's not the type of punishment you mentioned before that I replied to. I don't actually know if what you're describing works or not.

quote:
To an animal, the food is worth the swat...maybe I need to hit them harder. [Smile]
Nothing quite as bracing as humor about violence to pets!

A plate full of people food for being bad outweighs a dog biscuit for being good. There is no better positive reinforcement for a dog than a t-bone steak and mashed potatoes. I don't abuse my animals...I love them. I have a Skipperke, Yorkie and Beagle, a bird and two hermit crabs and every squirrel in my yard eats out of my hand every day. The beagle is the one to watch around the plates. I know she'll never learn but she still gets a swat and locked outside. Beagles are stupid and have only brain power devoted to their noses and stomachs. Still, she gets a swat and ends up whining at the back door for a few hours.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
If they don't know, why do they wait for you to turn your back? When you return they have their tail tucked between their legs or are blushing.

My daughter is really tough. Once when she was three and we were visiting my grandmothers house we warned her not to touch the glass on the pellet stove. Later that day, I noticed she was favoring one hand over the other. I looked at her finger and she had a huge blister. The kind of blister that would've made the average three year old scream. There was also a small finger print burned into the glass on the wood pellet stove front. That three year old stifled the scream and hid the blister because she was told not to touch it. Three year old children know what is right and wrong when their parents tell them and they know how to sneak and hide what they did. That blister taught me a lot about kids. She would scream bloody murder for much less but could tough it out, knowing she disobeyed.

Uh, that's kind of what I was talking about, assuming intent in a toddler that may not be the intent? They are three year olds, not crooks. You can't even make those assumptions with dogs and taking food, it's practically their instincts to go after food, even if it belongs to a higher up in the pack.
That doesn't mean it's right to hit 3 year olds or dogs, or anyone really.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Hermit crabs are cute. I have 3.
I lost poor cute giant Cal to a surface molt though.

Cute Giant Calanthe...

But there are better ways to deal with dogs than hitting...
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
The burn sufficed for my daughter's punishment. It was the best lesson possible. After that she was almost too serious about our warnings. Ever since that day, if we told her it was dangerous,....she listened.

The fact is, the pain of the burn taught her a lesson. Sometimes being afraid of a spanking will keep their hands out of the cookie jar when your back is turned.

Dogs are different. I have three dogs that know better but one of them is ruled by her nose and stomach. Some men know better but are ruled by their penis and cheat on their wives....can you blame their nature?
 
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
I must grant you, you have an uncanny ability to make any thread on this forum all about you.
 
Posted by sinflower (Member # 12228) on :
 
quote:
Dogs are different. I have three dogs that know better but one of them is ruled by her nose and stomach. Some men know better but are ruled by their penis and cheat on their wives....can you blame their nature?
But as you've said, your beagle is stupid and her "only" brain power is devoted to her nose and stomach. While men may be stupid, I optimistically choose to believe that they have some brain power left to devote to other things than their penises, thereby making your analogy flawed ^____^
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sean Monahan:
I must grant you, you have an uncanny ability to make any thread on this forum all about you.

Me, or Malanthrop?

I don't think it's right to hit a dog for being a dog. Bernie would do some annoying things and I never hit him as he was just a rabbit doing rabbit things.
Like chewing up my playstation controller. Oddly enough, I miss being driven crazy by him. I'd always feel very bad if I yelled at him and I'd apologize.
Repeatedly.
 
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
 
Syn, not you.
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
I guess I have higher expectations of dogs than rabbits. A rabbit is to a dog what a cow is to a horse. Big difference. Cow's are stupid. The beagle wasn't stupid, she couldn't control her urges.

My point isn't about me or my dog. My point was about our natural inclination. Does our natural inclination excuse our behavior. I have three dogs that know it is wrong but one can't help herself. Pedophiles, homosexuals and adulterers can't help themselves either.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Arnold:
quote:
So the parent is tired, frustrated, angry -- losing control. And your claim is that if they have a controlled spanking plan in place they will be able to restrain themselves from impulsive hitting and implement the spanking plan. But if they have a non-spanking discipline plan in place they will not be able to restrain themselves? Why?
Because the non-spanking discipline plan didn't work. That's the whole point.

The plan at this point is not to control the spanking, but to control the situation. This is the situation where the parent is out of other responses. What do you do now, when you've sworn you won't hit the child, but you can't think of anything else to do? Let the child see that their parent isn't in control of themselves or the situation?

So what happens if the spanking doesn't work?

Also you missed the point of my question. Your argument was that if a parent doesn't have a spanking plan in place because they are against spanking the kid will be hit worse. That relies on the assumption that the parent has lost control of him/herself and is doing something that he/she considers to be wrong. If the parent is in control enough to step back and use the controlled spanking back-up plan, why are they not able to step back without it?

[ March 14, 2010, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: dkw ]
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I resent gays being compared to pedofiles, but more so I resent rabbits being called stupid.
Rabbits aren't stupid. Bernie was pretty brilliant. He was such an adorable big bunny. *hearts*

I'm with DKW on this...
 
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
 
quote:
So what happens if the spanking doesn't work?
Then you won't have been out of control and spanked your kid in anger. I suppose we can carry this further and say "what happens when your kid pushes you so far that you don't make the ultimatum, you just hit?" To which I reply, well, what would you do in that case? I've never done it. Having the plan prevented it.

quote:
Your argument was that if a parent doesn't have a spanking plan in place because they are against spanking the kid will be hit worse.
I've seen it happen. Call it anecdotal if you want. Some parents spank, some of them insist they will never spank. I've seen two cases where the parents who insisted they would never spank lost it and slapped their kids across the face. Hard. And I know that they have hit their kids at other times, but it must have been very embarrassing for them to know that I'd seen, because they had both had the same argument with me that you are having now.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
I assure you I'm not having it out of embarassment. I would truly like to understand why you think having a plan to spank is a necessary thing. So far it isn't making logical sense to me.

If I follow your last series right, you're saying that a parent has to be willing to spank if they've run out of other responses so as not to let the child see that the parent is not in control of the situation. But if the spank doesn't work either, it's okay to stop there. You don't have to escalate it further in order to not let the child see that you're not in control. Why is spanking the dividing line?
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
I assure you I'm not having it out of embarassment.
He wasn't saying it was embarrassing for you, it was embarrassing for the other people to be seen hitting their child after having this kind of conversation about not hitting their children.

quote:
You don't have to escalate it further in order to not let the child see that you're not in control.
When you run out of other options (which is when we're saying spanking becomes a reasonable option in the first place), then not doing anything or walking away to cool off is not remaining control of the situation at all - you are allowing your child to continue doing whatever is they are
doing (hitting other children, stealing, destroying property, playing with matches or whatever is they are doing that absolutely needs to stop).

If everything other than spanking your child hasn't worked, its a safe assumption that the child is going to keep doing it. If you are a good parent, this should happen very rarely. But sometimes kids really are that obnoxious and sometimes circumstances will cause even the best parents to slip and let things get out of control. However many alternate plans you have (and you should have many), there is always a chance that they will all fail, and when that happens you either have one additional plan, or you don't.

And yes, sometimes a spanking won't be enough, (I have an anecdote about that I might or might not share, haven't decided yet), but a) that will rarely be the case, and b) if you're at that point then the situation is either very out of control or very specific, and there are few options that will make for a particularly healthy resolution.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
You're taking my quote a little out of context there. It was part of summarizing your dad's position -- my understanding of what he's said is that if spanking doesn't work then you don't escalate further. That is my question -- why is spanking the dividing line that you "have to" go to, but not further?

By the way, I hadn't made the connection that you two were related before this thread. Congrats, Glenn, you must have done something right. [Wink]
 
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
 
I didn't realize Glenn and Raymond where related either. [Smile]
 
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
 
quote:
I didn't realize Glenn and Raymond where related either.
Wait, until, like, now? As in, not even earlier in this thread when we were referring to each other?
 
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
 
No, I realized earlier in this thread when the reference was made. [Smile]
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
When you run out of other options (which is when we're saying spanking becomes a reasonable option in the first place), then not doing anything or walking away to cool off is not remaining control of the situation at all - you are allowing your child to continue doing whatever is they are
In any circumstance where I'm assuming you think you have 'run out of other options,' you're not supposed to either walk away and/or not do anything. There are other things you can/should do.

This book covers a lot of them, as well as the applied study of the countereffectual mechanisms of resorting to spanking.

http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Book-Better-Behaved-Child-Birth/dp/0316779032
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
*sigh* The Sears *hearts*
I love them so much because they understand that babies are babies!

I love how Martha Sears described taking her toddlers out and they are absorbed in some task. Instead of just yanking them up and making them scream and cry, she'll say, "bye bye" to their toys with them.
It's so sweet. Their baby book is so useful. Those folks KNOW about babies and children. Plus they have 8 kids.
Who seem to like them! I adore them!
 
Posted by malanthrop (Member # 11992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Synesthesia:
I resent gays being compared to pedofiles, but more so I resent rabbits being called stupid.
Rabbits aren't stupid. Bernie was pretty brilliant. He was such an adorable big bunny. *hearts*

I'm with DKW on this...

My comparison between gays and pedophiles had nothing to do with victimization. Consensual behavior between homosexuals harms no one and is not really comparable to pedophilia. What they do have in common is their natural attraction. Pedophiles are naturally attracted to children, gays to each other and my beagle can't help but follow her nose. She knows she isn't suppose to according to the rules of the house...she can't help her nature. Pedophiles and gays can't help what they are attracted to. A cow will eat itself to death if it gets into an alfalfa field. The only thing that separates gays and pedophiles is the legality of their action. Both will continue in their behavior, despite the consequences. My beagle will eat my plate knowing she is going to be in trouble.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
quote:
The only thing that separates gays and pedophiles is the legality of their action.
And, of course, the morality of their action.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
quote:
The only thing that separates gays and pedophiles is the legality of their action.
Just like the only thing that separates Malanthrop and pedophiles is that they can't resist molesting children and he can't resist being a complete asshole.
 
Posted by scholarette (Member # 11540) on :
 
Looking at the gays I know, if there was an actual demonstrable harm to their actions, they probably would not engage in them. It is of course, impossible to say for certain based on a what if, but expecting someone to not engage in an activity that brings joy and love to their life just because is a little unreasonable. A pedophile though, can see a demonstrable harm in their actions and continue them anyway- which seems like a pretty significant difference to me.
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:
The only thing that separates gays and pedophiles is the legality of their action.
Just like the only thing that separates Malanthrop and pedophiles is that they can't resist molesting children and he can't resist being a complete asshole.
Whistled.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
I think malanthrop wouldn't have a problem with the following:

quote:
My comparison between heterosexuals and pedophiles had nothing to do with victimization. Consensual behavior between heterosexuals harms no one and is not really comparable to pedophilia. What they do have in common is their natural attraction. Pedophiles are naturally attracted to children, heterosexuals to the opposite gender.. The only thing that separates heterosexuals and pedophiles is the legality of their action. Both will continue in their behavior, despite the consequences.

 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:
The only thing that separates gays and pedophiles is the legality of their action.
Just like the only thing that separates Malanthrop and pedophiles is that they can't resist molesting children and he can't resist being a complete asshole.
This ... is not a situation where it's obvious he's being an asshole at all, he even feels confliction over the event, and it is not an action i categorically disagree with, because serial child abusers can chew broken glass and die for all I care in most situations.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
The thing I have issue with is Malanthrop casually comparing gay people with pedophiles or animals, who cannot control their urges. It's disgusting, and offensive, and he's either being a complete asshole or a crude bigot.

If you can't tell, I'm pissed that this kind of obnoxious, offensive crap is ignored and tolerated here so frequently of late.

It's sad that I get whistled for calling out an asshole, but there seems to be little outrage at his comparison of gays to sex offenders and animals. Classy.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:

It's sad that I get whistled for calling out an asshole, but there seems to be little outrage at his comparison of gays to sex offenders and animals. Classy.

It's not really for a BAD reason, or because people don't find that outrageous, it's that he's worn out outrage because of his consistent history. it's like how Snidely Whiplash is just flat-out an evil bastard (tying innocent women to train tracks? seriously? that's freaking grisly) but he's such a hapless caricature that people pretty much only laugh the more he tries.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by MightyCow:
The thing I have issue with is Malanthrop casually comparing gay people with pedophiles or animals, who cannot control their urges. It's disgusting, and offensive, and he's either being a complete asshole or a crude bigot.

If you can't tell, I'm pissed that this kind of obnoxious, offensive crap is ignored and tolerated here so frequently of late.

It's sad that I get whistled for calling out an asshole, but there seems to be little outrage at his comparison of gays to sex offenders and animals. Classy.

I'm not very tolerant of it. I got to admit you're rather right, but I'm too polite to say so...

or am I? [Confused]
It's too exhausting to argue with folks like that. I've retired. [Sleep]
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
mal's a troll. I don't think many people would argue with that. I've long since stopped giving any regard to the things he says, in part because I'm pretty sure he's playing a role to provoke reactions out of people. I don't see the things he says as being ignored or tolerated. Rather, people seem to spring up to contest with him, often by just hurling TOS violating personal insults and curses at him.

The thing is, mal, while he says many odious things, doesn't, as far as I can tell, break the TOS. He rarely even directly addresses individual people here. There's a little bit of gray area here, but with his opponents offering up constant nastiness and TOS violations in the face of him behaving poorly, but within the bounds of the TOS, I don't see how PJ could ever justify using it.

As much as I would like to, I certainly can't stop you from giving mal exactly what he posts here for and I can't make you act like an adult. I can whistle you when you commit blatant violations of the user's agreement here. And I choose to do so, because I judge these reactions as not only not helping, but actively contributing to the problem and restricting any moderator resolution of it.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
I think Tom handled it pretty well.

I'm not sure how name-calling is likely to make the current atmosphere better.
 
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
I think malanthrop wouldn't have a problem with the following:

quote:
My comparison between heterosexuals and pedophiles had nothing to do with victimization. Consensual behavior between heterosexuals harms no one and is not really comparable to pedophilia. What they do have in common is their natural attraction. Pedophiles are naturally attracted to children, heterosexuals to the opposite gender.. The only thing that separates heterosexuals and pedophiles is the legality of their action. Both will continue in their behavior, despite the consequences.

Well noted.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
The "despite the consequences" is what leads me to discount dabbler's edit.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Ignoring Mal obviously doesn't work. He's not ever going to be restricted from being offensive or rude or obnoxious. I think it is silly to tiptoe around the fact that he's a tool and a troll and interact with him as though he should be given as many chances as necessary to eventually decide to be a contributing member of the community.

He's never going to be banned, his posts won't be locked or removed. He's a pustule on the board.

Yes, I'm stooping to his level. I find his behavior repulsive and vile and he's allowed to continue trolling a website that I enjoy for its generally high-quality discussion. I'm frustrated that nothing is being done, so I'm speaking out.

Even if it's unproductive, it sure feels good to just be upfront and say, yeah, he's being a complete jerk. Let's not pretend he's just misunderstood.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
[Smile]

So, to bring this back around to the discussion at hand, you decided that swatting his behind was a good idea because it would make you feel better.

I don't agree it was a good idea at all.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
So is the problem acknowledging that being homosexual has consequences? I'd be willing to grant that in the abstract. Being a female has consequences in terms of female-specific experiences (menstration), choices (women's clothing, for example), and reaction toward myself purely for being female. Those are specific to being female and wouldn't necessarily occur if I were male. Being homosexual has consequences as well. I don't assign negative outcome or negative value to the word consequence and I'm not sure it needs to. Quick dictionary perusal has the first definitions having to do with the order of sequence: antecedent - outcome.

Malanthrop chose homosexual as his comparison to pedophiles and it's surely disruptive. But when he said "Consensual behavior between homosexuals harms no one and is not really comparable to pedophilia" I took it to mean that he doesn't think homosexuals' behavior is harmful. So why not give him some slack and see what his point might be, instead of working yourself into a lather?
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
quote:
Even if it's unproductive, it sure feels good to just be upfront and say, yeah, he's being a complete jerk.
It feels good for mal too. This is the feeling of power he comes here for.
 
Posted by Papa Janitor (Member # 7795) on :
 
MightyCow, malanthrop's posts in this thread, while interpretable as offensive, do not of themselves violate the rules of the forum. Your posts do, and clearly. Moreso, you're completely aware that they do, and defiantly post them anyway. As I've said elsewhere quite recently, I find this to be more problematic than someone having disagreeable opinions. Please refrain from the personal attacks.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
I find it problematic that you find it *more* problematic. Considering especially that the second behavior follows from the first, and not t'other way 'round. You've got the guy rubbing filth all over the place, intentionally, and because it doesn't technically violate the rules, it's cool? You'll do nothing about it? Yeah, can't say I like that plan too much.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
I'm sad that there seems to be a permissiveness to condone homophobic behavior here, in what I find to be an otherwise excellent discussion board full of ethical, compassionate, intelligent people.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Considering especially that the second behavior follows from the first, and not t'other way 'round.
"Correlation does not imply causality."

It's sort of like terrorism, actually, and how to respond to it. Do we say that since some people blew up some airplanes, we have a drastic pruning of civil liberties, or would that be objectionable?

Do we say that because malanthrop is an noxious troll, it's perfectly acceptable to be noxious back? And anyway, he didn't say it was cool, and what do you want him to do about the behavior he just described? It is within the rules. Do you want the moderator to go beyond the forum rules? Exactly how much policy do you think Papa Janitor sets around here?

quote:
I'm sad that there seems to be a permissiveness to condone homophobic behavior here, in what I find to be an otherwise excellent discussion board full of ethical, compassionate, intelligent people.
It seems to me much more likely the 'permissiveness' you note is actually a willingness to leave malanthrop alone to be noxious. Heaven knows I'm far from the best at it, but at least I don't blame my failure on that level on the moderators for not endorsing my mistake.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
You could have chosen to respond intelligently, Mighty Cow. Instead, you decided to call malanthrop names.

You want...what, approbation for this behavior?

Like it or not, malanthrop's opinion was couched in civil terms. You can groan and moan and whine about how he's putting a smiling mask over the face of PURE EVIL, and you're just straight shooting; but you know what? Tom just proved that you can make the same point in a reasoned, intelligent way, without name calling, without cursing, without insulting anyone.

quote:
You've got the guy rubbing filth all over the place, intentionally, and because it doesn't technically violate the rules, it's cool? You'll do nothing about it? Yeah, can't say I like that plan too much.
You've benefited from this particular quirk of our moderators. Live and let live, says I.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Hear, hear to all points. Complaining about the fire to the firefighters by spraying a flamethrower at the affected area seems to me to be a curious method of criticism.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Nice defending the homophobic troll.

I don't give a rip if you like what I said, this isn't about me trying to get more love.

I just think it's pretty pathetic how many people kind of don't mind that Mal is directly comparing gays to animals and pedophiles, but they get up in arms if I say asshole.
 
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
 
MC, I agree that Mal's sentiments are orders of magnitude more offensive than your insults, but the rules of the forum, for better or worse, are such that the former is permitted and the latter is not.

*shrug*

I didn't make the rules but I'm not going to flaunt them just because I'm pissed off.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Rakeesh:
quote:
Do you want the moderator to go beyond the forum rules? Exactly how much policy do you think Papa Janitor sets around here?
Yes. And there have been plenty of times you have wanted him to be able to do that as well, I imagine. That the Cards keep his authority in a mason jar under the sink is unfortunate. It makes him an ineffective moderator- coming from someone who could use effective moderation occasionally.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
I've already given my two cents on the issue but this acts as a pretty good micro-example of ONE of the issues that comes up when the block terms of service is used as your forum's 'rules' instead of what it is intended for (a cursory legal precaution).
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Nice defending the homophobic troll.

No one's defended him or his comments.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
Nice defending the homophobic troll.
Actually, I at least was defending Papa Janitor against bogus accusations.

quote:
I don't give a rip if you like what I said, this isn't about me trying to get more love.
Yeah, this is about you acting like you're actually defending the entire community at large when actually what happened was that malanthrop pissed you off, and you responded in violation of the rules, got called on it, and got pissier about it. Your problem is that you seem to think that people ignoring malanthrop serves as 'condoning' his behavior. That's not the way it works in an online setting. Here, the most effective way of dealing with him is what thankfully most posters do, and you're criticizing them for: ignore him.

quote:
I just think it's pretty pathetic how many people kind of don't mind that Mal is directly comparing gays to animals and pedophiles, but they get up in arms if I say asshole.
Well, speaking strictly for myself, the reason you were wrong isn't because you were mean to mal. He's earned it many times over, after all. It's where you take that anger out on Papa Janitor while acting holier-than-thou, incidentally behaving the same way towards the community at large. You're not the neighborhood watchman. You're not Hatrack's defender. And you're definitely not Hatrack conscience or whistleblower.

But even if you were, that still wouldn't change the fact that Papa Janitor does not, unless I'm mistaken, set moderation policy around here. So what you're doing there is busting on the guy who's just doing his job to the extent possible, a job that's needed, by the way. And then your style of complaint makes his job even more needed, but don't by any means let that help you self-moderate your behavior. Because then, good heavens! A dumbass on the Internet might be able to be wrong about something without being called an asshole!

And that just cannot stand. Not while MightyCow's on the case!

----

Orincoro,

quote:
Yes. And there have been plenty of times you have wanted him to be able to do that as well, I imagine. That the Cards keep his authority in a mason jar under the sink is unfortunate. It makes him an ineffective moderator- coming from someone who could use effective moderation occasionally.
So given this problem, how exactly is criticizing the guy simply doing his imperfect job supposed to help the situation besides making you feel better? Furthermore, if you need effective moderation as you say, complaining that lapses are actually the fault of the imperfect moderators...well, it's not a very sympathetic or persuasive statement.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
I don't intend to place blame for what I do on anyone else. I simply point out that I myself would benefit from better moderation at times. Am I not allowed to think that? I know you think it, so am I not allowed to agree? It wasn't the thrust of my argument anyway, so whatever. As usual you have to be the interpreter of everything I say, as uncharitable as you are. Now go and complain about it on Sake where your posse can cackle along.
 
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
 
We've actually been thinking about changing the name of sake to "Rakeesh's Posse", just to try to be more accurate.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
I've noticed that the troupe is more likely to act up when I haven't been spending quality time with them.

We'd been having problems with our next-to-oldest daughter; defiance, rudeness, screaming, even bullying. Standard punishment is a time-out, but it wasn't really working so well. This particular child doesn't respond to corporal punishment at all, either...having tried that course earlier in her life, and had it fail, we were at a loss of what exactly to do.

It turns out that thirty minutes at the YMCA with me paying close and positive attention to her did wonders. Like...day and night wonders, that have lasted far beyond the initial time investment. It was eye-opening to see how quickly and drastically her attitude improved.

Sometimes, the hunger for attention is more than just a discipline issue. She was needing attention, and positive reinforcement; looking back on that period of our lives, I can see that I had not been giving her much to go on. No amount of discipline, corporal or otherwise could have effectively resolved the problem, IMO. Because what she needed wasn't discipline, patience, or education of any sort-- she was starving for someone to take time with her.

I think many behavioral problems can be resolved by consistent application of casual one-on-one time between parent and child.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
Orincoro,

quote:
I don't intend to place blame for what I do on anyone else.
Sure you do. Your complaints imply you want Hatrack to be a better place. You appear to think that with better moderation, it would be a better place. You think you, personally, would sometimes benefit from better moderation thus making Hatrack a better place. Therefore the fact that Hatrack is not a better place than it is is because you are not moderated more effectively. And the blame for this is on, well, the moderators. So whether or not you intend to blame anyone else for what you do, that is in fact what you are clearly doing.

quote:
It wasn't the thrust of my argument anyway, so whatever. As usual you have to be the interpreter of everything I say, as uncharitable as you are. Now go and complain about it on Sake where your posse can cackle along.
It was what personalized your argument, though. It was why you, specifically were making the argument-why it mattered to you. And anyway, I replied to more than just your 'part of the reason I screw up sometimes is Papa Janitor' argument.

But 'interpreting'? Well, I suppose. A pretty damn good interpretation, though, however unpleasant you find it. Or else point out the link in the chain that isn't sound.

Anyway, as to Sakeriver, that's part of your problem. See, I can count the number of times I've seen you mentioned on Sakeriver in the past month on two hands at most. Probably one hand. And at least one of those times - this one - was me, complaining about your unjust criticism of Papa Janitor for failing to control your behavior...and I get the distinct impression that some folks are irritated by my mentioning it over there at all.

My point is, we're not over there talking about you and cutting on you when you're not looking. Hell, I'm not even a common poster over there these days. But if I was, they'd be my 'crew', not my posse.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
I think many behavioral problems can be resolved by consistent application of casual one-on-one time between parent and child.
I agree. Sometimes because, like in the case you're describing, it's what was needed in the first place. But even when it's not, it's still a good idea, especially if there is difficulty-that time might yield an effective response, after all.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
I've noticed that the troupe is more likely to act up when I haven't been spending quality time with them.

We'd been having problems with our next-to-oldest daughter; defiance, rudeness, screaming, even bullying. Standard punishment is a time-out, but it wasn't really working so well. This particular child doesn't respond to corporal punishment at all, either...having tried that course earlier in her life, and had it fail, we were at a loss of what exactly to do.

It turns out that thirty minutes at the YMCA with me paying close and positive attention to her did wonders. Like...day and night wonders, that have lasted far beyond the initial time investment. It was eye-opening to see how quickly and drastically her attitude improved.

Sometimes, the hunger for attention is more than just a discipline issue. She was needing attention, and positive reinforcement; looking back on that period of our lives, I can see that I had not been giving her much to go on. No amount of discipline, corporal or otherwise could have effectively resolved the problem, IMO. Because what she needed wasn't discipline, patience, or education of any sort-- she was starving for someone to take time with her.

I think many behavioral problems can be resolved by consistent application of casual one-on-one time between parent and child.

Indeed, that's why some parents do time ins instead of time outs. Especially with children adopted at older ages who require a lot of attention and affection and over-disciplining could hurt the fragile bond between new parent and child.

Also, sometimes it's stuff like food allergies and the like, which I wasn't totally aware of.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
that's why some parents do time ins instead of time outs.
Can you explain how time-ins work?
 
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
I think many behavioral problems can be resolved by consistent application of casual one-on-one time between parent and child.
I agree. Sometimes because, like in the case you're describing, it's what was needed in the first place. But even when it's not, it's still a good idea, especially if there is difficulty-that time might yield an effective response, after all.
Absolutely agree with both of you.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
yep... one on one time is huge.

It can also be very hard to come by. The good news is that even a small amount of it(like just a couple of minutes focused on one kid, even while everyone else is around) can pay huge dividends.

Kids need to be seen and heard.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
Supernanny has been interesting to watch. What do you all think of it? It sounds like solid teaching. I'm pessimistic that most of the parents continue her suggestions after the 1 week crash-course but it's still worth it.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
JIm-Me, that you manage that at all is darned impressive. Good job! [Wink]
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
It's produced; I have a hard time believing the specifics of the show.

But she does give some good advice.
 
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 
I totally agree with one-on-one time. It's especially hard for me and my husband with our twins, my son was always the one we struggled with - he is an introvert, doesn't make friends easily and really had trouble in school.

Once my husband started cub scouts with him things have really changed. I credit scouts with some of it, but I think the major thing is that as the den leader, my husband is intimately involved and my son knows that every Monday when there are den meetings, he will get his Dad with him at something his sisters cannot be part of. Also, they go on camp outs and programs and it's a chance for him to share something with his father that the girls do not.

Likewise, my husband makes a point of going to practices with our girls for their sports and playing catch with softball or soccer in the yard...it matters.

It's sometimes easier for me, as mom - I usually chaffeur to various activities and have chances to talk to the kids alone in the car...even that makes a difference. I know for my son, though - having Dad devoted to him and him alone during scouting has made a huge difference for him in all areas of his life. He is more confident, has more friends, is more physically active - and I credit he and my husband being in scouts with a lot of it.
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by dabbler:
Supernanny has been interesting to watch. What do you all think of it? It sounds like solid teaching. I'm pessimistic that most of the parents continue her suggestions after the 1 week crash-course but it's still worth it.

Supernanny is great for a few reasons, the primary one being where the cameras essentially catch the hangups in parenting strategies, mental coping mechanisms, etc. You see parents going "I do <X> because I just don't know what to do!" or "I do <X> because THIS child definitely NEEDS it" or "My dad/mom did <X> and I turned out just fine!" but it's really very obvious that they are substituting maladaptive strategies which run parallel to but are not handling what was actually the problem in the first place.

Then the supernanny for the day goes through the entertaining process of tut-tutting and lecturing openly for the sake of making it good entertainment. Prods the parents into doing things right, etc. Parents will, obviously, receive supplemental education off camera. Gets them to quit spanking, first of all. Points out where their parenting methods are maladaptive and leave the parents cornered by their own methodology. Demonstrates how to change the system. Prods them through changing the system. Prods them to accept and understand the method rather than just following the motions: the why of how it works instead of just 'do this.'

The informative content is limited because the show is screened into a limited subset of parenting profiles: households that are very obviously doing it wrong, have a clear solution that relates to how dysfunctional the parental methods are (permissive mom who sets no real boundaries, authoritarian mom who confuses the child with disproportionate punishment, couple with a member who de-trains what the other member works towards in a work-stressed environment, etc) and the parents are both amenable/malleable to change and are desperate enough to go on television about it.

It's not very representative of most parents and it suffers from monoculture, but even when a parent isn't a dope like the ones on TV, they can just as easily have strategies as maladaptive while still priding themselves on being a good parent. very few people can't benefit greatly from learning the science and strategy we know thanks to pediatric and childrearing expertise that is based off of sound methodology. most don't see any need.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
As a teacher, I find my students benefit greatly from a little one on one time as well. I think I need to start working on a way to make sure they get more of that.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Time in is spending time with the child in your pressense instead of sending them away to sit for several minutes based on age.
Supernanny and Nanny 911 are interesting, but they are not very attachment parent friendly. They are totally obsessed with independence a bit too much I think, totally against safe co-sleeping.
Also, I saw a sad episode of Nanny 911 where they let this grieving child that was worried about her father leaving for the war just cry alone for hours.
Poor little cub. She needed a hug or at least to be rocked or something.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
He gets a swat and locked out of the house for the day.
Corporal punishment on dogs is actually a poor method for disciplining dogs, malanthrop. I'm looking forward to an honest and objective discussion on this topic!
Smearing their nose in the pile on the carpet, making sure their feces is driven into their nostrils and then kicking them out...never fails. They never do it again.

THIS is worse than using an occasion swat on the nose to get their attention. It has been linked to many problems training dogs, and is one of the worse things you can do to a puppy being potty trained. It teaches them to be ashamed if they have an accident, and often leads to them going in hidden places like behind furniture or in potted plans.

Not everyone thinks that an occasional tap on the nose is ineffective for training, but almost every single person who has written any sort of training book for dogs agrees that rubbing a dogs nose in it's own urine/feces is not effective and a horrible training method.


Just so you know.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:
Originally posted by malanthrop:
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:
He gets a swat and locked out of the house for the day.
Corporal punishment on dogs is actually a poor method for disciplining dogs, malanthrop. I'm looking forward to an honest and objective discussion on this topic!
Smearing their nose in the pile on the carpet, making sure their feces is driven into their nostrils and then kicking them out...never fails. They never do it again.

THIS is worse than using an occasion swat on the nose to get their attention. It has been linked to many problems training dogs, and is one of the worse things you can do to a puppy being potty trained. It teaches them to be ashamed if they have an accident, and often leads to them going in hidden places like behind furniture or in potted plans.

Not everyone thinks that an occasional tap on the nose is ineffective for training, but almost every single person who has written any sort of training book for dogs agrees that rubbing a dogs nose in it's own urine/feces is not effective and a horrible training method.


Just so you know.

It also doesn't seem very nice.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Time in is spending time with the child in your pressense instead of sending them away to sit for several minutes based on age.
If a child really hungers for attention, then giving it in response to misbehavior is maybe not the best idea. Instead of learning that the parent views the relationship as inherently valuable, and that one-on-one time is the natural outgrowth of parental affection, wouldn't the child here learn that she only gets one-on-one time when she's obnoxious?

In the example I gave, spending time with my daughter wasn't in response to her misbehavior. It was an event that kind of just happened, that made me realize something deeper about parenting in general.

I don't know a lot about attachment parenting; I admit to being a little biased against it due to some interactions with...um... really zealous advocates of it. (There's nothing like being accused of being a negligent parent because you let your two year old sleep in their own bed)
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
Yeah, there's zealous everyone. AP is supposed to be what's best for each person, especially for the child, but theres fascists, for lack of a better word for everything...

Time in is more like keeping the child with you while you do various things around the house, but they said it can be used mostly for kids who kind of have been passed from one home to the next so they really need the attention. Time outs would feel too much like shunning to them. I'll look up more information about that when I get home. I've done research on older child adoption to know I'm not ready for it. It's quite involved.
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Syn, being nice isn't a concern. Sometimes you AHVE to be firm when teaching a dog, and that is all there is to it. However, 3 min later the dog is playing tug a war with you like nothing is wrong. [Wink]


My point was that not only is it gross, it's highly ineffective, and universally considered the wrong thing to do despite generations of people doing it.
 
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Scott R:
If a child really hungers for attention, then giving it in response to misbehavior is maybe not the best idea. Instead of learning that the parent views the relationship as inherently valuable, and that one-on-one time is the natural outgrowth of parental affection, wouldn't the child here learn that she only gets one-on-one time when she's obnoxious?

I was a school librarian for a while in an inner-city parochial school. Very poor school with very poor students. We didn't even have a full time principle so, when there were discipline problems, the kids got sent to me. One first- grader named Lazarus, was being naughty more and more often. I pointed out that he didn't have to be naughty to come to the library. That he was welcome anytime he had free time and his teacher said it was okay. That I liked to see him. And he put his head down on the desk and cried. "Welcome" and "I like to see you" were not something he was accustomed to hearing.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rakeesh:
Orincoro,

quote:
I don't intend to place blame for what I do on anyone else.
Sure you do.
Ah, well, there you have it. You know more about me than I do. Why ever say anything else to me then? Why should I go on reading? Obviously I'm an empty shell that just needs to be told what it wants, and what it intends. Thank you, that will be all.
 
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
Rakeesh and Orincoro: Take it to another thread or the people who want to talk about the topic are going to start debating whether to rub your nose in the mess you're making before throwing you outside, spanking you both, or taking your computer time away.

"He started it" isn't an excuse that any parent here is going to accept, btw. I'm pretty sure we all agree on that one.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
I think I'll continue to to both, dkw. Thanks, though.

---

Orincoro,

quote:
Ah, well, there you have it. You know more about me than I do. Why ever say anything else to me then? Why should I go on reading? Obviously I'm an empty shell that just needs to be told what it wants, and what it intends. Thank you, that will be all.
Sounded like blame to me, and I daresay to most others who read it. And it'd sound like blame to you if anyone else said it. If you think there's a problem with how you behave, fix it yourself. Don't go complaining Papa Moose doesn't do a better job of it for you. Especially if he doesn't actually have the power to fix it for you!

---------

Synesthesia,

quote:
It also doesn't seem very nice.
Isn't there a line in Wicked that goes something like, "Good doesn't always mean nice." Put another way, it's not nice to make a child swallow medicine that tastes just plain awful. Sometimes it's what's called for, though.

--------

kmbboots,

quote:
That he was welcome anytime he had free time and his teacher said it was okay. That I liked to see him. And he put his head down on the desk and cried. "Welcome" and "I like to see you" were not something he was accustomed to hearing.
I think a lot of parenting problems, and perhaps this is a guy thing in our culture, come from the idea that you can't say 'corny' things like that. When the truth is, sometimes 'corny' or 'sappy' (I don't think what you're describing is, but some would) don't just work, they work best.
 
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Rakeesh: I love the irony of you writing multiple paragraphs extolling the virtues of ignoring people you have a problem with. You're no peach, my friend.

And I'm not busting on PJ. I know it's not his call on what is and isn't against the rules, and I think he does a fine job.

I'm busting on the closet homophobes here who just quietly ignore slander against gays, because they don't think it's really all that far off the mark, even if they aren't willing to say it themselves.
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
No, what I was extolling was not getting on PJ's case when one chooses to refrain from that most effective of techniques, ignoring. But feel free to continue rephrasing the discussion in whichever way makes you feel best.

quote:
I'm sad that there seems to be a permissiveness to condone homophobic behavior here, in what I find to be an otherwise excellent discussion board full of ethical, compassionate, intelligent people.
This was, after all, clearly busting on PJ-and the entire community, actually, but since PJ is the front of what is condoned and what isn't...well, you get the picture.

quote:
I'm busting on the closet homophobes here who just quietly ignore slander against gays, because they don't think it's really all that far off the mark, even if they aren't willing to say it themselves.
It's precisely that sort of malicious mischaracterization that makes many people unwilling to engage with folks like malanthrop and, in this discussion at least, you.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Isn't there a line in Wicked that goes something like, "Good doesn't always mean nice." Put another way, it's not nice to make a child swallow medicine that tastes just plain awful. Sometimes it's what's called for, though.
It's in Into the Woods, spoken by Little Red Riding Hood, upon getting out of the wolf's stomach.

And the exact line is, "Nice is different than good."
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
I'm busting on the closet homophobes here who just quietly ignore slander against gays, because they don't think it's really all that far off the mark, even if they aren't willing to say it themselves.
I don't know who you're talking about; that's mostly because I don't know many people in real life who equate homosexuality with pedophilia; I also am incapable of mind-reading.

I'm a freak, I know.
 
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
 
Are you considering me a homophobe for not jumping against malanthrop and instead seeing if his paragraph holds for heterosexuals, and for agreeing that characteristics have consequences?
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
I think a lot of parenting problems, and perhaps this is a guy thing in our culture, come from the idea that you can't say 'corny' things like that.
I hate the guy thing that demands that men are deficient parents.

I hate MORE that in terms of today's general society, men are deficient parents. Someone mentioned Supernanny up above; in almost all the shows I've seen, the man is the one at whom the criticism is most sharply directed (and admittedly, who needs it the most).

Not just on TV, but in real life, I see men who are not living up to their potential as fathers. I think it absolutely tragic that as women have increased their role in the workplace, men have not (in general) increased their role in child-rearing.

Every year, the men from our church get together with their sons and go camping to celebrate the restoration of the priesthood. It is meant (I think) as an occasion to celebrate male familial responsibility; to honor father and sons; and to remind us that the Father of all cares for us and gave us specific male-centered responsibilities for nurturing, providing, and teaching others. Last year, the boys and I camped next to the families of two of my good friends. At the time, my boys were 8 and 3; we got our tent set up, and a campfire started. It was early afternoon when we finished setting up our camp and in the meantime, I listened to how other men related to their sons in the same task.

I was surprised to hear a lot of anger and frustration and impatience. My two friends were NOT happy with their sons' incapability at setting up tents, or anything really. It didn't nearly border on abuse-- not even close. But it was disdainful. It was uncomfortable to listen to, because these were two really intelligent guys (one of whom is getting a master's degree in psychology), who I really respected.

Compare that to my other friend, who arrived after dark, and who set up his tent with his two young children-- a 4 year old girl, and a newly adopted son from China (who didn't speak English). He was patient; he was moderate. It was pleasant to listen to him relate to his kids; you could feel the care he had for them, even though what they were doing was hardly enjoyable or easy.

Of the three fathers I observed that night, only one really represented the values that I think that celebration should exemplify. That experience has since become a touchstone for me-- when things get hectic and screwy, am I living up to the example set by that dad?
 
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
 
quote:
I think it absolutely tragic that as women have increased their role in the workplace, men have not (in general) increased their role in child-rearing.
Well put. It's interesting how fundamentally that gets overlooked, I think.

quote:

I was surprised to hear a lot of anger and frustration and impatience. My two friends were NOT happy with their sons' incapability at setting up tents, or anything really. It didn't nearly border on abuse-- not even close. But it was disdainful. It was uncomfortable to listen to, because these were two really intelligent guys (one of whom is getting a master's degree in psychology), who I really respected.

Yeah, that disdain does cut. And it sticks, too. From my own childhood, habitual contempt for my mediocre ability at math homework is still remembered now, nearly 20 years later. And it was definitely remembered during elementary and junior high school.

I guess the truth is, lots of parents forget that even when things suck, they're still 'on'. That's human, I s'pose.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Hey, Rakeesh:

You're a mook.

[Smile]

Old habits die hard.
 
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
 
I totally would like a man who is kind and patient when it comes to children. I don't feel like mine liked to be around me a lot
 
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
I am not the most patient person in the world. Not even close. I get angry and frustrated at MYSELF a lot, so I worry about how I will deal with being a father one day. There is no doubt that I will love them, and that they will know it, but I worry that I will not even realize how sarcastic I am being to them, or that I will lose patience with them.

There is no doubt that they will know I love them, and that I will tell that that often, but parenting is so much more than that. Still, it is a good place to start. [Big Grin]

It's funny that someone like me, who has always wanted to be a father, turned 40 without children this year, yet many of my friends who never wanted children have 3-4 of them by now, and have no plans to ever have more.
 
Posted by The Ether of Space (Member # 2656) on :
 
What about infantilizing teenagers? How about criminalizing teenage sexuality?

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2009/04/assault-of-law-on-teenages-today.html
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
I read through the article; let me note that the life expectancy at the time of Lafayette was generally MUCH shorter than it is today (around 35). People grew up faster because they just didn't have that long to live. Becoming sexually active shortly after sexual maturation made complete sense-- you only had about 20-30 years left to live.

I think the changes that prompted the growth of a intermediate stage between child and adult are good changes. They allow for a better education (another thing most people didn't have back in the late 1700s); they allow a stronger social support network for individuals. As the workforce continues to evolve away from manufacturing to support, specialized knowledge and thus more education will become more and more necessary.

I imagine our culture will adapt. It's a good thing; the article you posted misses a huge chunk of the story.

As far as criminalizing teens' backseat adventures: aside from the Jenna 6, I'm not really aware of how big an injustice this is. Is there a consistent and widespread practice of putting teen lovers on sex offender lists for what they do in Daddy's Mercedes?

Do you have statistics you can bring?
 
Posted by Week-Dead Possum (Member # 11917) on :
 
What about people coming on this forum and pretending not to be the authors of the "relevant links" that they provide??

quote:
What about infantilizing teenagers? How about criminalizing teenage sexuality?

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2009/04/assault-of-law-on-teenages-today.html

I believe this is grounds for immediate defenestration.

Also, DOWN WITH BELGIUM.
 


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