I was beaten, whipped, smacked, everything but punched. Bloody noses. Red stripes from calves to shoulders. When mother finished, father started in.
No, I have never spanked my son. I simply can’t understand hitting the one person I’d lay down my life to protect.
See, my parents tried that when I was seven or eight. It totally didn’t work. It just resulted in tantrums from me that stretched over entire afternoons or evenings. It made me furious that my parents were pretending not to hear me to the point that I couldn’t say things nicely even when I tried, all I could manage was yelling a little quieter, and that in turn made me even madder, this time at myself, and also frustrated that they couldn’t understand this.
Yeah, I had anger issues as a kid. But if it didn’t work on me, it probably won’t work on lots of other kids.
I probably wouldn’t work on every kid, sure (nothing works for every kid), but it probably would have worked better on you had your parents tried it when you were 2-3 rather than 7-8. By 7 or 8 you have developed a lot of deep-rooted behavior and reaction habits. At 2-3 you are still being conditioned in very fundamental ways. At 2-3 we were able to cause our son to develop the “instinct” (for lack of a better word–I know it’s not exactly applicable) both that talking calmly=more likely to get what you want and that tantrum=complete waste of time and energy. Since he never had any success with the tantrum thing, since it had never worked, his brain quickly dismissed it as one of his behavior options and it just never really came up again after the first few times. By the time you are 7 or 8 I think you would have to really consiously make an effort to regain control over something that was an automatic reaction–much harder to do.
I was spanked a few times, but I can’t remember being spanked after about age 7 or so, and neither of my parents were into beatings. A few swats was about the extent of it. Any trauma I have from childhood was due to other problems in the family, not spanking. Most of the time, being talked to about why what I did was wrong was plenty.
I don’t plan on beating the hell out of my kids, but I won’t rule out smacking them if the occasion warrants it.
Some kids are like I was and respond well to reason, others are like one of my sisters, who responded to absolutely no socially-based punishments and was capable of completely ignoring reason if it didn’t agree with what she wanted to do. To give you an idea of what she is like, I think that as an adult she still sees jail time as more of a possible impediment to getting her way than anything else. She often responded to the threat of physical intervention though, and that was about all that kept my parents in control sometimes.
I have the impression that I was spanked when I was very small, but I don’t remember any specific incident thereof.
I was hit a few times, but that was more a matter of poor anger management than punishment.
I recall my parents spanking me only once. It was one swat on the behind, with the hand, as I was fully clothed. It was unpleasant of course, but left no marks or damage. It may have happened other times, and I assume it would have gone down the same way. They didn’t beat me or anything.
My mom used to throw things at me, though… usually she’d miss, and when she’d hit it was weak. I never figured out whether it was an intentional near-miss to frighten me or if she was really aiming for me.
I don’t have kids, and I don’t plan to. Part of the reason why is because I have terrible anger issues and I don’t know what I’d do if they ever made me mad. (I don’t do babysitting, either!)
First, I’m so sorry for those of you who were beaten; the OP made me so sad and angry.
I was spanked a few times that I remember, one in particular from when I was four years old. Smacked with a brush once, slapped in the face once (called my Mom a fucking bitch - probably had that one coming).
I tried it a couple of times, and it just didn’t work. My twins drove me absolutely batshit at 23-25 months’ old, just wouldn’t listen, lots of fits, backtalking. Awful. Spanking them didn’t help though; instead, they’d imitate me, smacking themselves or each other when they became angry or frustrated. It was even more awful than the behavior I’d sought to remedy! I find that once I’m angry to the point of wanting to spank, I’ve already lost the battle. So I work really hard at not letting it get that far.
They’ve also learned that I most definitely WILL take away whatever toy it is they’re fighting over, I WILL make them sit in the corner, I WILL get up and enforce whatever rule is being broken – so I don’t have to do it all that often anymore.
Oh – and, I also stock happy face stickers in the car. Best way of dealing with the “He’s touching me!” complaint - give one to the child who’s behaving, and let the other one earn it. And then take them away if necessary.
No, not if you didn’t understand what the words meant. The person that deserved the spanking is the person who said them in front of you, even then, they deserved a big fat time out and maybe some lines to write. Remember those. Those sucked.
When children swear it is because they are mimicking their parental units or adults in their lives. If an adult cannot control vulgar vocabulary around children this adult cannot, IMHO, control their temper and emotions. The old adage of If you swear during an argument, you’ve already lost the battle FTR, I’m prone to say Fuck alot, but never when my children are around. Never.
Great idea. I just may steal it from you.
Shirley’s Parental Stuff
I got a couple of spankings. maybe two. (One was definately not deserved as I was blamed for losing my brother’s new contacts and I never touched them.but no one would listen to me. [/size] Not nearly as many as my much older siblings, but that was de rigeur back in the 40’s, 50’s and so on. Because it was how their parents were raised and so on. Beating Your Children To Better Behavior would be an Onion caption back then.
Gave a couple to the kids- maybe three or four total- always when I was at my wits ends and usually exhausted and during the single mom phase of my marriage - which comes and goes intermittently. Always seemed to be an out of body experience. I hated it as it happened. Hated it. No spankings happen now. It doesn’t make sense.
I was never a mom who slapped a child’s hand if it was near a stove. I explained as they toddled up that it was hot and they should never touch the stove - even if I hadn’t been around it all day - because it could be very hot and they could get burned and if their hand got burned they wouldn’t be able to draw with their crayons or wash their hands with warm water or take a bath ( bath times are sacred around here. Thank God I live on a well.) and so on.
I explained in normal words to them about the hazards of the household ( You don’t go into this cupboard because this is where all the household poisons are. It will make you very sick or blind and you will throw up alot and then I have to take you to the doctor’s office where they will make you throw up alot and you’ll probably get a shot and I’ll have to fill out alot of forms and it will cost us loads of money. All of our explanations to this day always end with and it will cost us alot money. money. money. money. There are different ways to traumatize children. *Oh and you could die too, but that would make mama cry forever and ever in her heart because there is only one of you. You cannot be replaced. *But we might get a new dog. Who isn’t as curious and non tax deductable.
I really think many parents talk down to their kids and it does a disservice to the child. They are much smarter than we think or realize.
It also helps, I think, that if a parent does something short tempered, say yelling irrationally at the child, the adult should stop themselves and say, " I’m very sorry. I lost my temper. I don’t know why that happened.That wasn’t pretty and no one deserves to be screamed at like that because no one really hears the words…they just hear the yelling. I’m going to put myself in my bedroom for a time out until I feel I can discuss this situation in my normal voice. You can play quietly until I come out. "
It helps kids to see that their parents are humans and not on pedestals. We fall off…alot.
I did this once ( paraphrased, I wasn’t rational during the 'maniacal dictator screamfest) and the kids were wonderful and all huggy to me and I got a lecture and all that. They were very sympathetic. Told me I would do better next time. And I was probably tired after cleaning and stuff all day. I was PMSing.
Parenting is not all sunshine and fluffy white clouds.
I got my butt whooped. Regularly. And you want to know something? I deserved it. Every time. So don’t get mad at my parents. Don’t feel sorry for me. I earned my spankings fair and square.
Do you know what I learned from those spankings? Amazingly, I learned that doing bad things has consequences. How do we teach that anymore? By putting your kid into a “time-out”. Or by grounding your kid, which for me was a treat beyond words because it gave me plenty of time to read and not deal with my real abusers, the kids my age who I was not allowed to stand up to because my mother “didn’t believe in fighting”. That of course assumes that you can still ground your kid without some busybody calling the cops on you for abuse. :rolleyes:
I have spanked Aaron, but only for the most egregious sins, which is just as it was for me. Remarkably, he has actually learned from this and has avoided repeating said behaviors. Amazing that it still works, all these years later.
Well, I dunno about all that. My kids swear occasionally in Dutch and I don’t know more than four swear words in Dutch well enough to use them. (My personal favorite is ant-fucker, which is roughly equivalent to bean counter in english. But it is a mild swear.). Dearly Beloved does not swear in his native language, which is why I don’t know any swear words in Dutch well enough to use them. Swearing is a bad time to make a lingiuistic blunder. So I figure they are getting it at school.
I rarely try to control vulgar vocabulary around my children, though. I cannot think of a time I have tried, so maybe I should say I never do. If I am swearing it is because I think the situation calls for it and I do not think the presence of a child is a disqualifier. So my kids do occasionally swear in English also. But they do not call names very often, with or without swear words, as that bothers me far more than the specific vocabulary they might choose to do it with.
I agree with you about apologizing, I figure since I want them to apologize for losing their tempers I might as well set the example. But I have done it far mroe than once.
No, I was not.
I have no children, but I’m with the others who can’t begin to understand the mindset of those who think any good could possibly come from deliberate physical abuse. Really, it’s unfathomable.
What’s unfathomable is how you can call spanking abuse. Taken to extremes anything is abuse, but a lasting reminder for the stuff that will hurt much more and much longer if it is repeated does not constitute abuse.
Really; it’s unfathomable that anyone is unable to see the difference between spanking and “deliberate physical abuse.”
Dusty, I am one of the ones who was abused, and there is a big, big, enormous difference between spanking and abuse. Sometimes, with some kids, a swat on the butt with an open hand is the only way to get the child’s attention. If the alternative is the child running into the road - swat.
An occasional, deserved spanking is not abuse.
I was never spanked, but our form of punishment was being locked in our rooms from the outside. At night dickhead (my mom’s live-in boyfriend) would take out the lamp. I feel to this day it is why I’m still afraid of the dark. Anyway there were three of us kids and only two bedrooms so often times if we were all grounded at the same time I’d have to stay in the bathroom.
I couldn’t say we deserved it though because it was for the most minor things. Not tying our shoes, not picking our bookbags up off the floor, things like that.
I’ve only been hit once and it was when I was three. My mom (who wasn’t entirely all there) left me and my three year old cousin home alone while she went to pick up my brother at kindergarten up the street. We decided to leave the house and go to her house which mean we had to cross two streets. We did and almost got hit by a car which my mom saw while walking back home. She slapped me in the face over and over and cried.
I had weird childhood.
Once or twice, although I don’t remember why.
No, although I don’t have any objection to it in theory. It just never was necessary.
Of course, I once made my daughter cry for fifteen minutes by frowning at her and saying, “I am very disappointed in your behavior”. Harsh, I know.
My son only came close to being spanked once. He didn’t want to go to bed, and I made him. So he got the bottle of lotion from the bathroom and poured it in big pools on the floor of his room. Then he spent the next fifteen minutes hiding his head under his pillow while I cleaned it up and let him know how peeved I was. Gad, I was mad. Which is why I didn’t spank him - I was too mad.
Regards,
Shodan
nods frantically until she gets dizzy
A friend of my mother’s was terribly surprised when she realized that her grandson talked a lot better when he was adressing me than herself or her son (the kid’s dad). I don’t do babytalk.
I’ve mentioned before that I really, really wish my parents hadn’t been so intent on “adults are always right”, to the point of being the only parents in my class who didn’t file a complaint when a teacher tried to, ah, educate us sexually a tad too far. You’re my hero!
The kinds of spankings and beatings and psychological torture and excessive punishment posters have described - yes, that is abuse. Horrific abuse.
But I also felt that the couple of spankings I administered were abusive. Because they didn’t speak to my child’s need for correction - they were an expression of my anger, my loss of control. And I could’ve chosen differently.
When you look into your toddler’s eyes and see that your swat (on a diaper, not hard) has made them feel devalued, that is abusive. Sitting in the corner can accomplish that as well. As can just yelling.
The point of correction (and yes, kids DO need to be corrected) should be to draw them onto your team, into a shared purpose; not make them separate and less.
But every parent has to find his/her way, and nobody’s perfect, least of all me. I’ve made plenty of mistakes on my journey.
It’s fine if you think that, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I respectfully disagree, and I believe you’re wrong.
I agree.