posted
We gave Ryan a Thomas the Train set for Christmas along with a train table I made. Luckily, my wife had the forethought to tell me not to put legs on it yet, because he loves to climb on the table and sit in the middle. He knocks things over constantly, especially the bridge pieces. To limit it some, I glued some of those pieces together so they were a little sturdier against Ryan Kong.
The point to this is that one day, he took one of those pieces and whacked me on the head pretty hard. I grabbed in by the arms and shouted "NO, that hurt!". I think I told him I didn't want to play with him when he did that, but I think I had a concussion, so I'm not sure. Anyway, his lips started quivering, his eyes started tearing up and he said "I'm sorry Daddy, I'm sorry." I felt bad for making him cry, but he hasn't really done that again.
I don't need to spank my son to tell him that hitting is wrong, so I don't. I do believe, however, that every kid is different and that what works with one doesn't necessarily work with another.
We do spank him occasionally for other things. He can be very willful at times (he gets that from his Mom). We use other methods, like time out, first, but spanking is something we've done. We always tell him what is going to happen and give him one last chance to do whatever we are telling him to do. Once we tell him that, we rarely have to follow through on it.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
In our household spanking is the last line in the sand and I haven't found it necessary to get to that last line very often. But, it takes patience sometimes to get to the right disciplinary solution for each child and I think some parents leap to spanking as a first resort because they aren't willing to invest the time and effort it takes to find effective discipline. Note that here I'm a) not talking about any hatrack parent and b) not talking about offenses that involve danger to the child like running out into the street or reaching for hot stoves - those must be corrected immediately for obvious reasons.
I'm talking about ongoing behavior problems that exasperate the parent because nothing seems to work. I'll use a personal example to illustrate my point. Our son Daniel consistently came home with a low conduct grade. The teacher has a scale of 1-5, 5 being the best behavior, 1 being the lowest. We were almost always 4 or 3. Every time the remark was either talking at innapropriate times or not listening to the teacher. Now, this is kindergarten, and you can't expect perfect behavior every day from a five year old boy. But we can expect that he learn from his mistakes and correct them, and he wasn't.
We tried everything. He never got spanked, but we tried sending him to bed earlier than his siblings (he hated it but it didn't change anything), restricting him from the XBox (ditto) and just about everything else you can think of. Nothing changed, still consistently getting in trouble at school for the same thing. This went on for months, and we were losing patience and getting frustrated.
Finally, my husband came upon the idea of having Daniel model the correct behavior at a time when he didn't want to. At dinner, we always have each kid tell us about their day, and Daniel always had an involved story for us about something or other. We began telling him when he brought home a 3 or below, he wouldn't be allowed to talk at the dinner table. Instead he would practice being quiet while others talked. This devastated him. He loves telling us about thing (and to be fair, he did get to tell us about his day, just not at the dinner table) and he loves being the center of the family's attention. Not getting to do that was horrible.
Since we began that policy, it's been like night and day. We've gotten notes home from the teacher about how attentive he is and how she hasn't had to correct him. Now we don't expect perfection, and when he did bring home a 4 the other day we told him there would be punishment at all, because it's okay to mess up every now and then, but it just shouldn't be a habit.
No amount of spanking or yelling was going to fix this. It took patience and thought on our parts, and it was difficult. When I hear parents tell me "I spank him almost every day, and he still keeps getting in trouble!" then I honestly believe that's a lazy parent. One that wants a quick fix-all for every situation and thinks spanking is it. It isn't. Nothing is. Heck, when it comes to child rearing there is no such thing as a quick and easy solution to everything.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Now that is a great concept, Belle. Matthew is one of those kids that nothing works with, so I might give that a try with him.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:When I hear parents tell me "I spank him almost every day, and he still keeps getting in trouble!" then I honestly believe that's a lazy parent.
I agree. Not to mention not very bright-- if you're spanking your child every day, it's obviously not working, is it?
I don't disagree with the times I was spanked. I was only spanked twice, both after I was 3 years old (old enough to understand and remember), both for breaking safety rules. Once was for jumping on the couch and pushing my three-years-younger brother off when I was four, and once was for letting go of my mom's hand in the parking lot, despite repeated reminders/warnings, when I was 3 1/2 and running right in front of a car, which barely swerved to avoid me.
Neither time did she spank me in anger. Both times, she sat me down (in the running in the parking lot case, after we got home), explained what could have happened, and that what I had done was something that could cause me (or both my brother and me) to be seriously hurt. Then she said, "I'm going to spank you so you'll remember that when you do this, it hurts." Then she spanked me. Hard enough to sting, not hard enough to seriously injure me, but I was a little wimp and cried all day both times. I remembered, and I never did those things again.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
