Why were your kids playing unsupervised on a neighbor’s lawn in the first place? I agree that using a belt is way out of line, on yours or any other kids, but perhaps keeping better control of your kids would have avoided the necessity of this threat in the first place?
My kids are 8 and 10 years old, the house is right next door and they were invited over. They had only just gotten over there when my daughter came home crying. They were not unsupervised.
I never called the police, but my kids don’t play at their house anymore, their children are invited over here anytime they like. I have no problem with anyone diciplining my children. But I don’t think a threat of violence is acceptable.
You keep going back and forth here, Mr2001. First you’re arguing that all a kid will get from a punishment (even if followed by an explanation) is that they shouldn’t do anything because they’ll get punished.
Then you give two choices that both contain punishments. I don’t understand what you’re arguing because you keep going back and reformulating your argument using the very things you’ve just argued against. So, should someone ever punish their kid or not?
All of the reasons you’ve given for not spanking could easily be transferred to non-physical forms of punishment.
As far as your statement of “why resort to physical violence in any but the most extreme situations?” THAT’S WHAT EVERYONE ADVOCATING SPANKING IS USING IT FOR. No one here is saying it should be the primary form of discipline. Why aren’t you getting that?
And Guinistasia, when potty training a puppy, it is customary to swat their nose (gently) and put their nose into their pee so they know what you’re swatting them for. Why don’t you study a little bit about dog training before you go calling people dumbasses, mmkay?
You almost got it this time.
All the kid will get from a punishment without an explanation (as in Binarydrone’s scenario #1) is a desire to avoid punishment.
No. The reasons I’ve given for not punishing instead of explaining can be transferred to various other punishments.
There are also reasons to prefer other punishments instead of violence. I believe they’ve been adequately explained by others.
“Everyone”? Please.
I know it takes a lot of effort to read only my posts without reading the quoted text I was responding to, lezlers, but it isn’t something to be proud of.
When a child is about to run into a busy street, that isn’t an extreme situation that justifies slapping him around. His parents might need to physically intervene (i.e. grab him by the hand) to keep him out of the street, but once he’s back on the sidewalk, hitting him is needlessly cruel.
I am not Guinastasia, but while this may once have been customary, these days it is not. The dog does not know WHY you shove their face in it, and swatting them is only going to make them afraid. Dogs are not disgusted by their bodily wastes the way we are. Most trainers these days advise getting the pup outside as quickly as possible when you realize they’re going to go – or if you catch them mid-go, try to startle them so they stop briefly and then get them outside and praise them when they go outside. It’s called positive reinforcement.
If you study CURRENT books on dog training, you will find this sort of method is VASTLY preferred to whacking them and shoving their faces in it.
Oh come off it you sanctimonious little twit. I have said repeatedly throught this thread that spanking with an explanation is just as effective, and in some cases, more effective than other forms of punishment with an explanation. It depends on the fucking kid. The kid is going to fear any kind of punishment because they don’t want it. It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s a quick swat on the butt or time out or whatever else. You keep going on and on about how spanking only develops fear and the kid doesn’t know why. I’m fucking asking you how you would adjust your argument knowing that the kid is recieving an explanation either prior to or following the spanking. You’re old standby “well the kid doens’t know what they did wrong if you’re just swatting them” doesn’t work in that case.
Gah.
lezlers, I may not be an expert on dog training, but I’ve had a dog, and I know the one thing you do NOT do is constantly hit them. Unless you want a nasty dog.
The only time our dog ever got hit was ONCE-when she started to run out into the street. My mother slapped her rump and said, “NO!”
Animals are entirely different from children. All a dog is going to get out of it is how to be aggressive. It’s just common sense.
A few things. I believe in corporal punishment in some circumstances. Saying that spanking your child does nothing is utter nonsense. It has been an effective means of correction for centuries, and it works. Some things work better, some times.
My kid almost never needs spanking. Almost never needs punishment of any kind. My telling him that I don’t want him to do something is almost always enough, or the mere ambiguous threat about him getting in trouble is.
I used to work in a psych hospital with a nurse who had three children. The first two she was a firm believer that corporal punishment was never a good idea(this is a trained adloescent psych nurse). Her third child, time outs didn’t work. The only thing that worked with the child was spanking. Nothing else would get through to the kid. Most people who say corporal punishment isnt neccesary don’t have such a kid.
We used the consequences stuff in the hospital, and we knew it was bullshit. The consequence of not brushing your teeth is having your teeth fall out, not having to sit in a chair and think about it. Time outs are just as punitive as spankings…even more so. When I was a kid,we were often given the choice between a time out or spanking…Guess what…we always chose the spanking…We hated them both equally, but at least we got back to playing quicker.
Here’s the thing, if little johnny is wandering into the street, and you explain that he shouldnt do that because he may get hit, maybe he’ll grasp that. Many kids wont…its just too abstract for them. Go into the street, pain in the but, got it, dont go into the street. If you wanna take the chance of your kid getting the idea that going into street is dangerous, fine, but I wouldnt take that risk…his little semidevloped brain just wont make the connection between his action and that story you were telling him…But its hard wired into them not to repeat actions that result in pain.
My father, a respected shrink, believed that you should only spank with objects(belt, paddle, etc), never with your hands. That way, your kids don’t fear you unless you have that object in your hand. Schools across the country still use paddles, and with good result. Presonally, although my father was probably right, I never use any object because there are too many reactionarys that have been mislead into believing its abuse.
Then obviously my comments about explanations weren’t directed to you, now were they?
They were directed to the person who claimed that spanking without an explanation is preferable to timeout with an explanation (and tea).
In that case, I would wonder why you chose violence instead of any number of other punishments.
If you have indeed exhausted all other options, and the only way to get the kid to act differently is to hurt him, that’s sad but perhaps necessary.
But if you (any ‘you’) don’t think he’ll understand an explanation of why his behavior is wrong unless it’s punctuated with physical violence, then why would you expect him to understand that violence is inappropriate in other situations? Why would you expect him to know the difference between Dad hitting Johnny because Johnny wasn’t doing what Dad told him to, and Johnny hitting his friend because the friend wasn’t doing what Johnny told him to, if you don’t think he can even comprehend that cars + street = danger?
Regrading rubbing the dog’s nose in its own pee:
I don’t have a dog, don’t know much about dogs, but I once had this kitty who used to pee on my bed. I adopted him (“rescued” is more like it) from a drunken bitch who abused him and allowed her misbehaved daughter to mistreat him. So the kitty had a few “issues”, let us say.
He had a habit of being really sweet and lovey-dovey in the morning, crawling up on the bed, snuggling, purring, rubbing up against me. And then, some mornings, he’d look like he was “spreading his skirts”, and he’d PEE ON MY BED WHEN I WAS STILL IN IT. I could not rest, I could not trust him. I tried everything I could think of to stop him, but he wouldn’t. And I loved this kitty. A loving, affectionate kitty he was. But he had this thing about peeing on beds. It wasn’t a “I’m not trained to use the dirtbox” issue, it was, “I must pee on the bed of my owner” issue. Weird.
One summer I was away for a prolonged period of time, so my sister and a family friend were taking care of the cat. He SHIT on the friend’s bed. He pissed on the friend’s bed. Several times on different occasions. Finally, the friend got SO angry at the cat that one day he dragged the kitty in to the bedroom and ground his little pink nose into the shit that he had deposited on the bed. The cat was utterly terrified, apparently.
But, funny thing is, the cat never shit or pissed on any bed, ever again. And he was a good-natured cat. I absolutely loved that kitty, but he had “issues” that could not be resolved in any other way.
Man, I had this nice, long response ready to post and I lost my connection, damn construction workers. (Re-doing the foundation on the house I live in, I guess they forgot it’s a holiday today :rolleyes: )
The gist of it was agreeing with Yosemitebabe, shortly after I brought my kitty home he peed on the bed while I was in it. I picked him up, put his little kitty nose in it, wopped him on the nose (very gently) and put him in his litterbox. He never had another accident. Considering how much he likes to snuggle with me on the couch, I doubt he’s dealing with any residual violent tendencies or resentment over it.
My parents who treat their dogs like their kids made sure they did extensive research on training them. They were told from muliple sources that you wop them on the nose gently with your finger (I was wrong about the paper, I’ll concede that) and make sure you put their nose in their pee or else they’ll have no idea why they’re being wopped. I’m not talking about hitting them nonstop, obviously.
And Mr2001, you seem to have tunnel vision with your arguments, which may be our problem. When I formulate an argument, I take into account everyone’s posts on the subject, I don’t just pick and chose which ones go best with my argument. I’ve asked you repeatedly about the spanking with an explanation and you’ve ignored me. I was assuming you were including it in your responses to other posts. Apparently you weren’t. To answer your question about why you would chose spanking with an explanation over a time out with an explanation, I’d tell you to look at the multiple posts explaining why sometimes, spanking is the only option. I refuse to repeat others comments that have been said over and over again just because you lack the brainpower to retain informaton from mulitple different posters when formulating your argument.
Except, I guess, when it comes time to say “But no one here is saying what you’re arguing against!”
Someone was indeed saying that spanking with no explanation is preferable to a timeout with an explanation, I called him on it, and for some reason you called me on that. It’s that simple.
And, like I said, if spanking is truly the only option–if everything else has been tried–then perhaps it’s necessary.
It’s sad that a parent would be forced to resort to violence, though, and I still have a hard time believing that a child who only responds to violence was born that way. Seems more likely that the child only responds to violence because the parent has failed in the past.
Wow. You’re really good at the backhanded compliments. Except not compliments but concessions.
So all parents that have to resort to spankings are failures?
Shall I just sit back and wait for the pile-on now? Because you so deserve it after that bullshit.
Can you tell me when someone said that spanking w/o an explanation is preferable to a time out w/ one? I think you may have misunderstood them. I have a hard time picturing someone advocating walking up to a kid, spanking them without a word, and walking away.
Well, yosemite babe, I think that was a situation that was different, and in that case, it was a last resort.
However, I have an aunt who has the cutest little dog-a daschund and beagle mix. She would put HOT SAUCE on the dog’s muzzle for punishment.
Rubbing dog’s noses in messes-considering that dogs EAT their own waste, I doubt it would do any good. Hell, all Lassie needed was too be yelled at-and after that, she would always feel guilty if she had an accident. Jesus, I remember she would go and hide if one of the CATS threw up!
Some of the replies to this thread are making me sad. I was spanked and whipped with a belt regularly as a child, and it sure as hell fucked me up. I still flinch when people make quick moves toward me, and I haven’t been beaten in 11-12 years. I feel utterly physically unsafe and helpless in many situations, despite taking several agression-defense classes, because as a child I was helpless against the physical abuse and I had no choice but to suffer it. I have huge difficulty trusting people because I know that appearances are decieving and someone I never thought of as violent could beat me, or that someone who says “I love you” can in the same breath physically injure me. Bottom line is, I had my concept of physical safety completely screwed up as a child because my father spanked/beat/abused/assaulted me, and I am still screwed upbecause of that.
And here’s a sad story about the whole belt vs. hand thing. When we were bad, my father would let us pick, hand or belt. Then he would usually do the opposite. I figured out, by maybe 5 or 6 years of age, that if I said the hand, he would probably use the belt, and the belt hurt a whole hell of a lot less. YMMV.
I don’t ever plan on having my own children. One of the myriad reasons is that deep down inside, I am terrified that I might be like my father, might be impatient and out-of-control and illogical enough to believe that spanking my child will somehow help them. And obviously, I don’t think that’s right. I would rather be childless than inflict violence on my child. I understand that some people with children think that spanking gets the message across and that’s it’s a logical response to misbehavior, and hey, maybe sometimes violence seems to be the only answer. But I won’t ever put myself in that situation because I think raising your hand to your child is dispicable and filthy and weak, whatever your intentions, regardless of how much you love them. Again, YMMV.
Oh, dear. So we’ve got ‘child-beaters’ who are failures as parents, whose actions are ‘dispicable, filthy and weak,’ and morally equivalent to the gangraping of toddlers.
Look- I am very sorry that some of you guys were abused as children. There is no excuse for it, and i belive that abusive parents should be prosecuted. However, if you can not see how your past experiences skew this discussion, then we’ve nothing left to speak about.
This brings to mind the arguments that recovering alcoholics and smokers use, painting anyone that smokes/ drinks occasionally as ‘abusing’ the substance or ‘having a problem, if only they knew it.’ As hard as it might be, we have to get some perspective on the situation, and it’s not always as simple as you want to make it.
But to address Mr2001’s point- guess what? parenting is full of failures. whatever books you read, however well you prepare, there is no one good way to raise a child, and the products of your efforts are often not realized for decades, for good or ill.
However, given your past posts, you view the role of a parent as pretty minimal in the first place (provide food, clothes and shelter), so perhaps you will not be burdened with any of these moral questions, or, Og forbid, try to find a balance among hundreds of choices that you are presented with daily that might or might not have any impact on your child’s present and future well-being.
So please spare me the hand-wringing self-righteous bullshit philosphy.
Let me know when it happens, okay?
No problemo. Go back through this thread and find Binarydrone’s post about the two scenarios - the one I’ve quoted what, two or three times already?
Oh, but don’t take my word for it. Look for yourself. It’s on the second page, almost halfway down. The astute reader will note that scenario #1 consists of yelling, violence, and no explanation, while scenario #2 consists of timeout, explanation, and some kind of optional hippie ritual.
The super-astute reader will also note that I expressed my preference for scenario #2, and the author of the scenarios responded as if I must have been joking. The super-duper-astute reader will then infer that the author of the scenarios prefers yelling and violence over timeout and explanation.
That’s true, but it’s no excuse for making further mistakes that could have been prevented. I guarantee that if you don’t spank your kids, they won’t grow up to resent you for spanking them.
Shit, Nachos4Sara (BTW, good to seeya-where have you been!), that sucks.
No, it’s quite possible that they will resent me for one of 1000 other reasons, many of which I will never even suspect. I can say that I grew up in a home where we were spanked and whipped, guess what? I don’t resent my dad for that nearly as much as for some of the other shit he pulled. Hell, i resent his horrible table manners (that he affected purposefully) when we went out to eat with my friends a whole lot more than any spanking I was ever given. That’s because I realize that, almost without exception, I deserved every spanking and yes, every whipping (with a belt, on the butt, clothes on) that I received.
My kids receive physical punishment when their behavior warrants it. There are no ‘surprise rules’ in my house. Some things call for grounding, some for extra chores, some for a spanking, and some (very few) things call for a whipping. I do not think that our relationship has suffered because of the method of punishment. I certainly don’t think that my kids ‘fear’ me.
Glad to see you were luckier than some of the other posters in this thread.
Not to call your parenting into question, but do you think those other posters’ parents realized how much their relationship suffered because of violent punishment, or how much their kids feared them?