Ha-ha! That’s a funny story!
It sounds like he’s one of those “spare the rod, spoil the child” believers.
Fair enough. I still don’t see anything wrong with small smack on the butt – one that doesn’t usually hurt, but just to get attention. Like I said, when I was a kid, it was only if I ran out in the street, or went to touch the stove.
(I did get my mouth washed out with soap a couple of times. That sucked more)
As a counter to all those who were physically punished and ‘turned out fine,’ I can state that I was not physically punished and also turned out fine. I did not physically punish my children and they also turned out fine.
But Peterson was physically punished and he does the same to his children, making the news.
So where does that leave us?
I agree with Guinastasia, a smack on a clothed butt to get the attention of a child is fine because is works to the get the attention of a small child.
The logical conclusion, since both of you continued to get spanked is that that that form of punishment and/or discipline doesnt work.
Even worse, he sounds like one of those “how to raise up a child” adherents. Horrible.
Of course it worked. I knew that I was doing wrong, I just decided that the punishment was worth the risk of getting caught. Until the punishment came. Then I didn’t do it anymore. I did something else.
Then there came a day when I didn’t do any of it anymore.
One wonders if he put the paper towels to good use after you’d left 
What’s the over/under?
I guess this is going to out me as anti-spanking, but if your version of raising a child involves beating one until the police get involved, you’re probably doing it wrong.
That still makes it sound like it didn’t work.
Yep.
Then what was the point of the whooping if it wasnt a deterrent and you never learned anything from it except that it didnt last? And what happened that eventually caused you not to do any of it anymore? Did you grow out of it?
Some who were physically punished turned out poorly. Some who were not physically punished turned out poorly.
maybe there isn’t a hard and fast connection between physical punishment and how one turns out.
I was subjected to harsh corporal punishment as a child (whipping with a coat hanger, being struck with fists) and I turned out OK, except for the lasting psychological trauma
This story raises a few questions; however, this thread is probably the wrong one to pose them to you and for you to answer them. Perhaps you should start a new thread: Ask the Pathological Liar.
I gotta say, Monty, I agree with you 100% on this issue.
My parents gave us spankings when we did bad things, and I don’t know if it has affected me or not, except that I remember being utterly terrified of my dad when he would get mad. And I never, ever want my kids, or the little nieces who now live with us, to feel that way about me. And as for the kind of “discipline” performed by Adrian Peterson, or the Pearls and their nightmarish “Train up a child” stuff… I can’t fathom how people can do things like that to their own children.
My wife tells me that her mom never spanked them (my wife, her twin sister, and their slightly-older brother) because one day when they were little, like 1 or 2 (just old enough to start getting into trouble), they did something naughty and she was going to spank them with a belt, just like she had been spanked with a belt as a kid. But when she swung the belt, she accidentally hit herself on the leg, and she said it hurt so much and left such a horrible bruise that she was utterly appalled that she had been going to do that to little kids. So she never spanked them again. And my wife has turned out to be a hundred times as good a person as I am. 
My father didn’t really have to ever spank me – he had what I call his “Dad Look”. My dad is 6’3 and when he gets mad, he gets this LOOK on his face that’s really freaking scary. He’s seriously intimidating when he looks like that. (But really, the worst he ever did was wash my mouth out a couple of times)
And my parents, or my grandparents never really called time out “Time Out”. It was, “You SIT THERE and you STAY THERE until I say you can get up! Or else!” (Usually in a really stern voice, pointing, like you KNEW they meant business) And you KNEW you didn’t dare get up. Or you would get spanked.
FTR: Washing out a child’s mouth with soap is also abuse. I had hoped parental discipline had moved one from that cruelty too.
No interest in following the link. But I will tender a semi-apology for the wording of my original post. You were unfortunately the second person to quote my post and then imply something that my post never said. I was annoyed, and I overreacted a bit.
But my name still isn’t Francis.
I think this is the biggest point to be made here.
The sole purpose of any physical action visited upon a child should be to get his/her attention. And this generally is necessary only when the child has done something to put himself/herself in imminent danger, and the child is too young to grasp a logical explanation of why he/she shouldn’t do what was just done.
In all other cases, whatever good might be accomplished by even spanking a child (let alone worse) is far outweighed by the bad. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that when the issue has actually been studied and data collected, corporal punishment has generally been found to be ineffective at changing bad behavior to good. Some of the stories told here seem to support this.
I spanked my son at most once or twice before the age of five, and I also once in a fit of temper slapped him…something I deeply regret to this day. I have apologized to him as an adult over and over for this; fortunately, I don’t think he remembers the specific incident.
My general method of discipline (which was only rarely necessary; he really was a pretty good kid) was to make him sit on the floor in the middle of his room and do absolutely nothing for 5 minutes. I informed him that if he talked back or did anything other than sit quietly for 5 minutes, an additional 5 minutes would be added to the time. I only had to do this a couple of times, and he got it.
His mom and I divorced, and when he was 11, I remarried and got two stepdaughters. Ask all three of them today about growing up, and they will tell you they toed the line because if they didn’t, they knew they would be subjected to one of my “lectures.”
We joke about it, and they exaggerate greatly (no, they weren’t “three-hour” lectures, they only seemed that way), but they’re also serious. Apparently to be subjected to one of my lectures, which were always calm and rational but apparently, er, a bit repetitive, was a fate worse than death!
Whatever, it worked. They are three absolutely wonderful adults now, we’re very close, and I couldn’t be more proud of them.
Surprised no one else has caught this yet.
Maybe it doesn’t have that wide of a circulation, but my hometown daily newspaper includes a magazine called American Profile with its Sunday edition.
It’s similar to Parade, the Sunday magazine that’s been around forever.
Have a look at what’s on Page 2 of today’s edition:
http://www.dcourier.com/SiteImages/DisplayAds/21815.pdf
Obviously, with lead times, nothing could be done about this, but there have to be a lot of very red faces around their office.
You’re not doing it right or I’m doing it wrong.
Love the last question, “What’s something most people don’t know about Adrian Peterson?”
We all found out something new.