Before you vote, please take note of what the question is NOT.
I am NOT asking if you spank your own kids. It’s acceptable and honest to vote "Yes, I think corporal punishment can be
I am also NOT asking if you were spanked as a child.
The question is this: REgardless of your own child-rearing practices, are there any circumstances in which spanking justifiied?"
Poll in a moment. I’ve decided to make the results private because, while I’m not asking people if they actually do spank their kids, I don’t want to hear the whining.
I’m not a parent, so I won’t vote and skew the results. But I want to be a parent eventually, and no, assault is never acceptable. And yes, a spanking is assault, regardless of how minor you think it is. Besides which, a kid feels things more than just physically, being assaulted by a parent is a violation of trust and can be incredibly traumatic.
Parents who believe in abusing their children use “spanking” because the word carries less negative connotations than synonyms like assaulting or beating, but I see no need to validate that belief by using such a polite, harmless sounding euphemism. Assault is assault.
I can’t conceive of why children receive less legal protection and have less recourse in domestic abuse situations than adults. It’s horrific.
There are times when reasoning doesn’t work and a little applied negative reinforcement is needed. YMMV. But a quick snap of the knuckles across the back of the head will produce immediate results that stick, whereas talking to the kid just gets you kicked out of church.
Hard to pick an option. I don’t believe it’s *necessarily *abusive, but I think it’s rarely-if-ever a good form of discipline. Just about every spanking advocate will say they don’t do it out of anger, but first of all I don’t believe that (hey, I yell at my kid out of anger sometimes which isn’t good either…people have emotions and kids that are pissing you off try them), but even if they’re NOT, emotionless violence doesn’t seem so great either.
One thing I have heard several times was parents saying their toddler went through a biting phase and just didn’t seem to realize that it really hurt, so they bit the kid back one time and the kid made the connection and problem solved. My kid never had a biting phase, but I can see where that MIGHT be true. I might have tried it in their position.
Once your kid is old enough to understand reason, I can’t think of a time when spanking would be a good option. I was spanked as a kid and I remember how I felt about it. It sure never did me any good.
I’ve always thought that an effective system of discipline has to have to ability to escalate. If a child knows that the worst thing that can happen is a five minute time-out there is limited ability to influence behavior. On the other hand, if a parent’s first option is spanking than there is limited room to escalate.
I compare it to international relations. First actions are condemned (talking), then economic sanctions (time out, grounding) finally military action (spanking).
I think spanking is only ever appropriate for very young children, in very limited use. I liken it to watching a mother cat or dog - sometimes, a thwack of the paw is what’s needed to get the baby animal’s attention and show Mama means business. Since very very small children are more animals than civilized human beings, it’s sometimes appropriate. But still hardly ever; I do believe that if it’s turned to often as a discipline tool, it’s very easy to overuse and use too long. I thwacked my son once, as unthinkingly and instinctively as a mother cat, when he bit me while nursing. He cried for about 30 seconds, and I cried most of the afternoon. (He never did bite again, however.)
Most of the time, I prefer to discipline through allowing natural consequences to unfold and then assisting the child in figuring out how to fix the mess and explore options for doing it differently next time. But sometimes, that just isn’t safe. My daughter got a rap on the diapered behind when running into the street, after yanking her hand out of mine. I consider that an appropriate use: the temporary shock of a sting on the bottom was far less physically harmful than allowing the natural consequences of her action to unfold.
You meant instinctively , not institutionally, yes?
My oldest niece is fond of telling the story of the one time I spanked any of her cousins. The then-8-year-old boy was horsing around in the kitchen and had ignored my commands to stop; he knocked over a chair which nearly hit the crawling baby, whom I’d not been aware had entered the room. So after making sure the baby was okay, I grabbed him, whacked him hard on the rump, and carried him through the house to his mother, telling her to keep him where he was. When he, crying, said that I’d whacked him, my oldest niece (the same age as he), gasped in surprise and said, “But Uncle Mike will let you get away with MURDER! What did you DO?”
I’ve read the reports that say something to the effect of “Spanking children makes them more aggressive.” OK, fine, but is that necessarily a bad thing? There are so many situations in adult life that a having a little aggression is completely appropriate. Being devoid of that might make your life a little more complicated.
Also, I’ve caught a few episodes of “The super Nanny” (Or whatever it’s called) A scenario I’ve seen on that show on more than one occasion drives me crazy:
A guy puts in a 12-14 hour day. Comes home feeds the children and then when it’s time to go to bed, the kid doesn’t want to go. Under the Nanny’s direction, the Nanny suggests that he put the kid to bed, then five minutes later when the kid gets up screaming, you pick him up and politely put him back in bed. This back and forth goes on for a good two or three hours. Much to the exhaustion of the already over worked Father/mother.
This is just crazy, the idea that he should spend that amount of time teaching a child to go to bed when all of that could have been taken care of in less than a minute with a good firm whack on the bottom.
Spellcheck. Thank goodness for the Edit function, so that no one will ever know my shame! (grumble grumble…nothin’ like being outed by a grammar nazi…)
I think I’ve only seen that show once and it was annoying because I wanted to smack those little monsters myself and she was all overly-patient with them…but the idea is that you won’t have to do that for long because the kid will quickly learn that getting up repeatedly is useless and boring. It’s not like they’re saying do it every night indefinitely.
Would it though? A friend of mine would go in with the belt to get her kids to stfu and go to sleep, like all the time. To be fair I’d be tempted to do the same thing if I was a single parent to four young, bad kids. But that’s why I don’t do that.
I believe it is an inherently evil act to strike a child in any way. It’s ignorant and barbaric. Study after study has been done and they all show the same result; children who are not hit do better by almost every measure. I really don’t know what it will take for our society to figure this out once and for all.
Hitting gets kids to act a certain way in the moment, which is not at all the same as raising a child.
I know you’re joking but obviously I wouldn’t try it with anyone else’s kid. But if it DOES work, it could certainly be better than the kid getting kicked out of multiple daycares causing the parent having to quit their job or whatever. As I said, I haven’t personally dealt with it and I don’t believe everything I hear from physical punishment advocates…but I’ve spent a billion hours with toddlers and been bitten by a few, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. I wouldn’t try it more than once though.
I might try this with my niece.
