posted
I'd actually make them into my bed too and put a thick comforter over the top so the bump wasn't visible.
We didn't actually have a cabinet for the towels, they were folded up and piled on the back of the toilet tank so that was where I'd stick them. Mom knew though so she'd check there.
quote:you aren't allowed to read until you get x,y,z and q done.
I wouldn't characterize this as grounding, but as putting obligations before pleasure.I could get behind this.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Actually an interesting hatrack poll would be who on here has won the most summer reading contests at their local library.
I gave up after my third attempt at a library's summer reading contest led to me losing a book and not being able to continue until I returned said book.
I found it months later, behind the TV.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Sometimes I like to do this --- read only the first post of a new thread, then later check back and read the last post after it is three or four pages long (and not read anything in between). It is quite entertaining!
Like this one -- from corporal punishment serious question, to reading.
Kinda reminds me of that "telephone gossip" game....
posted
I won 2 in a row, in a town with a population of 150,000 before they changed the rules so there wasn't a grand prize winner anymore because I was winning everything in sight. And that was when you could only check out 10 books a and you had to return them the next day to get the next 10 books.
quote: I do like "natural" consequences, whenever I am creative enough to think of them. I can't think of losing reading privileges as a natural consequence for anything.
I think the idea of "natural consequences" is one that sounds good, but in practice is much more artificial than natural. While "let the punishment fit the crime" sounds nice and neat, and probably satisifies some people's sense of symmetry, I think better discipline is to choose a punishment that will actually deter the behavior.
Some punishments provide a negative stimulus such as pain. Some anti-punishments instead focus on rewarding good behavior, which is fine as far as it goes. However, the best way, IMO, of motivating a child (or anybody) to avoid bad behavior is to make sure it is unpleasant in the extreme. This is not best done through pain, but through denial of pleasure.
A child will be willing to do almost anything to have access to that which he loves the most. If that is video games, or treats, or books, or going out with friends, or attendance at a sporting/music event, so be it.
quote: I also worry that kids forced to not read might decide, you know? This is not so bad!
I don't buy it. If reading is truly what the child loves most, this will not happen.
quote: Is there really nothing else that would be effective? No other privilege that could be lost?
If you pick the thing they love second best, they might be annoyed, but they will just take comfort in the fact that they still have what they love best. The motivation to actually change behavior is not there yet.
quote: And what is the definition of effective, anyway?
They abandon the bad behavior, because no matter how much they wanted to continue doing it, there is something they want still more.
quote: I have a stereotype that people who love reading are pretty well-behaved anyway, but I'm sure there are exceptions to that.
Sure, avid readers tend not to get into most of the more outrageous trouble that other kids get into. But they still have discipline issues, and the very fact that they have this thing that they love to do, and can continue doing regardless of what else is going on around them (being confined to their room, having people berate or cajole them, etc.) means that they have very little motivation to change their bad behavior, whatever it is, unless their ability to read is threatened.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Yup, I can ignore absolutely anything while I'm reading. (Even sexual advances, though if tickling is involved it can get my attention but then I'm mad cause you've interrupted me from my book. Steve knows better than to try.)
It's okay . . . it's just an instinctive response on my part. Doesn't look like it will ever be an issue with my kids anyway. :-\
I don't agree about natural consequences. I don't think they always exist, but when I have found them, I have found them to be very effective. I also don't agree that avoiding bad behavior is always "not best done through pain, but through denial of pleasure." With Mango, this just isn't the case. Doesn't mean I spank all the time--I personally think it is very important that parents have a wide arsenal of responses, and that these responses vary in severity and are proportional to the action being curbed--but when it's really important for the message to get through, at this stage in her life, spanking is the most effective means.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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AJ Note: I'm not specifically anti-spanking, I never said I was. As long as it doesnt stray into "abuse"(which is a huge grey area) I think parents should be allowed to discipline their children as they think best. I just said I'm conflicted on the subject, but fortunately except for threads like this I don't have to think about it since I don't have children or plan to have children in the near future.
quote: But I do think spanking = hurt. That's the point - it hurts to be spanked. That's why it's a deterrent - pain is never fun.
For me, I've only ever hurt my kids a couple of times while spanking. I always felt really bad for it and apologized right away. Usually what would happen is I'd start to swat a bottom and my son would twist away and get hit on another place, like his back or arm.
I don't use spankings to hurt. I use them to make a loud noise, and to get attention, and to a lesser extent for embarrassment purposes. It works fine, but mainly because my kids are very young. I don't really think "hurting" a kid at three is necessary.
But it's important to note that my three year old is pretty easy. Once my daughter is three it may be a whole other story. I really sympathize with what Ick said about having tougher birds. Jillian seems like a tough bird in the making.
I do think that there are some kids out there that *only* respond to a painful spanking, or a humiliating spanking. One of these was my young sister-in-law. We all tried everything that existed. I can't think of a punishment that we didn't try for a week and it still didn't work. It didn't even work when her mom spanked her, because she didn't spank hard enough to hurt. (She was one of the smug "Didn't hurt!" kids.) The only thing that ever worked with this child was to get someone else to spank her. It sounds very cruel, I know. But I can think of a few times when I was over visiting, even before I knew them very well, Joëlle would act up and I would be asked to spank her because it was humiliating to be spanked by someone that wasn't her mom, and her mom knew I would actually sting her bum. I didn't like it, but it worked like magic. This child was wild, and someone might have thought she actually had a developmental disorder of some type because she was completely uncontrollable.
I'm happy to say that she's now a very sweet, almost 7-year-old who is very productive and has really amazed us all. But I can't imagine how she would have turned out if they had given up and been to soft to do the thing that was really needed.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I think pain (e.g. spanking) can work in situations that are more a case of stimilus/response. For example, in the case of a child unwittingly getting into a dangerous situation (albeit one she probably has been told not to get into), such as running out into the road, playing with a knife, running with scissors, or messing around with matches or a hot stove. A quick smack can get the point across at an instinctive level, and might even get the child to avoid the dangerous situation in the future, much like a rat or dog can be conditioned through small electrical shocks.
I'm still not convinced it's the BEST response, but I do think it can be effective, and is not "wrong."
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
We use spanking more to get the attention of the child than to actually cause pain. My brother spanks his kids and it's a hard smack. He saw me spank my daughter and asked if that was really a spanking, because I did not hit her hard. I told him that we got the outcome we wanted and I did not have to hurt her.
Posts: 747 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
UofU makes a good point. In those types of instances, the response of a swat to the potentially dangerous stimulus can be much less physically harmful (one would hope) that the actual dangerous stimulus.
Such as sticking a fork in an electrical socket, touching a hot iron, etc. Using spanking too much can trigger a habituation response (it did with me, I turned into the give you the finger type of kid when it came to physical violence).
Some types of stimuli CAN be left to their own devices. At the same age as the hot iron incident, I decided to inhale deeply from the pepper shaker (I still have no idea why). My father saw me picking it up, warned me against it, but didn't stop me.
The resulting 30 minute sneezing fit garnered some fairly hysterical laughter from my father, a red, runny nose from me, and I've never sniffed pepper again. Nor do I intend to.
Life's lessons, I suppose.
You know what? I always HATED hearing "This hurts me more than it hurts you." Why? Because it was bullshit, at least where my father was concerned. He spanked in harsh anger, as hard as he could, leaving marks. If I cried, he hit harder, telling me he'd give me something to cry about ifI didn't shut up. When even those types of spankings didn't get a response from me, then entered belt buckles and other objects.
Will I ever spank my own kids? No. I know this, because of what happened to me. Do I fault others for it? Not when used appropriately, such as with Icarus and Belle. There is a difference between discipline and punishment.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Well, I'm not saying that a spanking that causes pain is terrible, I just don't have to use it on my kids, so I apologize for going to far. I mean, a *loud* spanking works, so a *painful* spanking is crossing the line, IMO. If a loud one doesn't work, a painful one may be needed, and I would explain that to my kid.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Legislators have been loathe to codify a number of spanks- but it is possible to go too far in that direction too. I can only imagine that some people feel 1 per year of the childs age is not enough, which I think is stupid. Once the child is old enough to be reasoned with, I don't think spanking is necessary.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: I used to get hit with a belt, but I don't think I needed it.
quote: In Africa they frequently whip children with specially designed whips that are also used on donkeys.
A shame they don't sell them here.
I Know how you feel synth, I used to get regular beatings from my father, for the most absurd reasons, such as not completeing homework. And he would beat me with whatever he could, shoes, belts, wooden boards, even a horse whip when we had one(until I secretly destroyed it).
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
While I sympathize with the non-spankers (I maybe had to swat Robert on his diapered bottom once, on three or four occasions in situations that were dangerous to him (such as trying to run away in a busy parking lot, or leaning over the bank of a river) when other methods were not working and the danger was immediate) I fervently believe that a few judicious whops on the bottom are all that have allowed me to rais Liam to the age of five.
The child was like me as a toddler-- no sense of danger at all. I never feared spankings when I was small. Mother told stories of me giggling and asking daddy if he was going to spank me? With the belt? *snort* Then one day when I was two, I found where they hid the key to the appartment. Mom was washing dishes in the other room, and thought I was still playing with toys. I moved a chair to the door to use the key, unlocked the door, moved the chair and made good my escape. We were three flights up, and I had a headstart of about a flight when mom started trying to catch me. She finally caught the back of my clothes just before I ran out from between parked cars, into the street. Just as a taxi sped past.
My mother stikll had a spatual in her hand from the dishes when she caught me, and she gave me a lick with it on my upper leg. It stung, but it didn't hurt. What got through to me at that time (when I was still basically too young to reason with, and had no sense of mortality) was how terrified my mother was. My mother was GOD and I had just done something that scared her badly. That really scared me.
She held me and cried and told me she loved me. And if I ever did anything like that again she'd kill me. She wore the appartment key on a chain around her neck after that.
I never understood that horror until Liam opened a ground level window and climbed out while I was making dinner. Robert had always played happily in the room with me while I did chores. But Liam? No. The minute my back was turned... ah. Moving wet clothes from the washer to the dryer takes less than two minutes, and with him 3 feet away, he'd still manage to climb up on the back of the couch, unroll the blind chord from the 'baby-proof' *snort* device we put it in, and wrap it around his neck. I didn't spank him for that one, even. On the scale of Liam endangering himself, that was maybe a six. Usually it had to be really bad, and the need to get his attention/compliance really quickly before he'd get a swat.
Thing is, if Robert had done that stuff, he probably would have gotten more spankings. It DOES depend on the child. I never understood that until I had Liam. Some people may never have a child so bent on causing his own demise. I literally didn't take my kids to the mall by myself for Years. Just to stroll around, get out of the house. Not with this little escape artist.
That said, I think my boys are old enough now to reason with, and their punishments are customized to their personalities. Liam HATES to be sent to his room, and Robert likes it. Robert usually gets grounded from video games, or else loses a token. (The boys earn tokens by doing their chores and being obedient, or sometimes because they did something extra that wasn't expected of them. Token-worthy activities are different for each of them, because they each have different strengths and weaknesses. For Example... Liam can get a token for sitting still and listening in martial arts, even if he doesn't seem to be trying very hard with the moves, because being still is his biggest challenge. Robert is always good at being still and listening, so he has to actually give the moves his best shot, and really apply himself to get a token for martial arts.)
In any case, parenting that treats every child exactly the same may work if your children are exactly the same, but if I punished Robert and Liam exactly the same way, one or the other wouldn't be punished it all (see 'go to your room' above).
Posts: 1664 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Here's my problem with taking away reading from someone who's a really big reader-you don't take away something that is central to who a person is. Its one thing to say you can't read until you've done x y and z, but another to say you were bad, so you can't read for a certain amount of time.
My parents never even considered taking away reading, no matter how bad we were. We'd jsut get more chores. chores and chores and chores, until we learned. Mom's a big reader, and she thought taking that away was too serious to be worth its value as a punishment.
Yes, it would have been a very effective punishment. But some punishments, the question is not only is if effective, but also is the damage caused by the punishment worth it. Someone who needs reading enough that the punishment would be effective is likely someone who shouldn't have reading taken away.
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I think that the very fact that we, voracious readers that we are, find this punishment (taking away reading) to be so horrific, shows that it would, in fact, be a very effective punishment for people like us.
What do you think the point of punishment is, anyway?
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posted
given a choice, would you have preferred a spanking that would leave a few bruises, or having books taken away for 3 days?
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
If the book thing could really be enforced (and I don't believe my own parents could have pulled it off -- I would have found a way to work around it), then I would definitely have preferred the spanking.
Which means, of course, that taking away the books would be the more effective punishment, because it would have greater motivivational power.
By the way, I definitely wouldn't approve of a spanking that leaves bruises. That rises to the level of abuse. I don't even think that spankings should actually hurt, beyond a little stinging. The shock value is the main thing.
posted
thats why I put in the bruises. If a child would prefer a punishment which would meet the legal definition of abuse, then I would tend think the punishment that the child wished to avoid so much would be too much of a punishment.
Yes, it WOULD be effective. Thats not the point I'm trying to argue-I KNOW it would be effective. I just don't think it would be worth the effectiveness in most instances where it would be used.
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I don't know how old Kat was when the removal of books started being implemented as a punishment, but it was at least 8 maybe 10 for me. According to most of the opionions in this thread, that should be too old for spanking anyway.
posted
Just because a child would prefer a bruise to losing a favorite privilege doesn't mean that the bruise is actually a less severe punishment, or more acceptable. The bruise is an injury, it is harm , while the temporary loss of a privilege is not. It is inconvenience, albeit enough of an inconvenience to really get their attention and force them to take things seriously.
Posts: 1652 | Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:I don't know how old Kat was when the removal of books started being implemented as a punishment, but it was at least 8 maybe 10 for me. According to most of the opionions in this thread, that should be too old for spanking anyway.
That's about right. It lasted until I was a sophomore or junior in high school.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: I'll apply it to the food analogy. Your kid needs food, and not zweiback crackers, unless they've eaten everything else and are still hungry. Then they need zweiback crackers, because that's all that's left to give and is the only thing that might satiate their hunger.
I'll take this a step further....what if you never buy zweiback, because you don't think they're a healthy choice? Then they are never an option. My point being (though it's been said by others) spnaking never "depends on the child", it is always the parents choice, no matter how defiant or impulsive thir child is( and I DO have one of each).
Books- I woulod never ground my kids from books, but I have been known to take away a book until a specific chore has been finished. I have to sweep my sons' room for books before he gets dressed in the morning, or I will find him reading half naked an hour after I sent him.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I don't see taking a kid's book away for three days. Is that proportional to what you who have had books taken away experience? I think for me it would be more like "no book for tonight."
My sister had a terrible time with her oldest staying up and reading under the covers. For both that family and my mom, they would have considered it more humane to suspend meals than books.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
The books became a battleground (surprise!). When I was about eleven, it got to the point where my dad would sweep my room for books and take them almost precisely because I had absolutely no intention of honoring any "grounding" I may be given. It's hard to sneak television or away (a zeugma! sad but legit, I think), but easy to hide books. I didn't consider it fair for my books to be taken away, and so made other arrangements. I'd occasionally get caught in those arrangements, and the grounding would last for longer. I can't really remember.
Anyway, there were definitely one or two sweeps of the room where the books ended up in boxes hidden away and I had to start over.
This, of course, led to me cannibalizing my brother's and my dad's bookshelves.
posted
Lol, guess I was lucky there. Due to earthquakes the bookshelf in my bedroom which had been custom made, was firmly anchored to the wall. Otherwise it could have fallen down and squashed me in bed. And there were too many books on that shelf for them to be able to move them elsewhere. Didn't have any available bookshelf space in the rest of the house.
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