What are your thoughts on parents that physical discipline their children?
Personally as a kid I got whopping's , they were rare but I hated it. When my father whopped us it was the worst, he always used his big leather belt and made us stick our hands out and he would hit us with his belt three times at the most, when my brother got to be like 14, he whipped him once with a TV cord. Of course we don't whippings anymore since we are both older (I'm 15) and (my brother is 18). Personally when I start a family of my own I won't whop my kids, I believe there is an other way rather than to strike fear into them. Thoughts?
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Physical attacks are bad.
A well deserved spanking for doing something wrong? Yes. I believe sometimes that's necessary. But in my opinion, you should still find other ways to discipline your kid and it should only be a last resort.
Spanking kids for no good reason? No. That should never be condoned under any circumstance.
There are ways to discipline your kids that don't involve physical abuse. It's a savage and primitive way to act.
Neither physical nor psychological pain should go very far. If you don't do either, your child will own you. One should use both mildly in my opinion. Believing you should never touch your child and then raising them through years of mental abuse is just as bad. After bad behaviour, there's is nothing wrong with letting your child feel uncomfortable. A swat on the butt or a stern voice. A brief moment of something they dislike to discourage them. If either lingers for more than a moment(mostly talking pain here), it's too far. The kid shouldn't walk away limping.
I agree. Children are not stupid, they're considerably smarter than parents often give them credit for. Some will learn how to abuse none violent forms of discipline. When a child realizes that no "Real" punishment can come from their actions, their parents can easily lose control. When I mean no real punishment, when the concept of time out for example, no longer cuts it. What are you going to do? Tie them up in a chair in the corner when they stop listening to "time out." Take their Cell Phone away? iPad? All that only goes so far really. When a child realizes the limitations of their parents attempts to punish them, they will abuse it.
Psychological, social reinforcement always trumps physical fear conditioning, so parents should strive for the former, which means if a child does their homework, praise them. If a child cleans their room, praise them. If a child does something kind, praise them. People love attention, and the younger they are, the more they love it. The mistake parents always make, is they fail to react when children do good things, so what do they do?
They do bad things, because then they'll get attention - negative attention, but to a child that's always better than none at all.
And if you can make a child constantly feel good about doing what you want (such as with praise and rewards) and make them constantly feel bad when they don't (such as by ignoring them, which is the best punishment you can dish out, or via taking away a desired stimulus, like a toy, or their phone) you, in theory, can avoid positions where force is the only option.
And that's ideal, obviously, because physical disciplining---while sometimes a necessary evil because children are not rational human beings--is not a good thing.
I support spanking as long as you do it because your kid is constantly being rude over and over.
I'm cool with it. If it stops the kid doing it again, then it works, if not you should work out another means.
I personally don't think I could get myself to do that to a kid if I ever became a parent, I personally think it's wrong and that there are other ways, other forms of punishments that are less harsh and have no risk in terms of hurting a child physically but I won't judge those who do it - they have their own reasons and I can't just assume those reasons or fabricate a negative identity of them.
I've only ever received spanks as a child very rarely, most of the time when I did something bad my parents didn't get mad at me at all but I was left to fester with my own guilt, realizing what I had done was wrong and worrying about their reaction and feeling bad that I didn't get a punishment afterwards. At the end of the day, those moments of physical discipline had little to no impact on me compared to my parents leaving me to feel guilty.
I don't have direct experience as a parent, but my general feeling is that the only time a swat on the backside might be appropriate* is to get their attention when they're about to do something dangerous, i.e. running into traffic.
And I mean a swat in the least violent sense of the word. Enough to jolt them out of their thoughts and refocus on you. Not full force violence against the kid. Because a swat in the context of an otherwise trustworthy and violence-free relationship with you as the caregiver will be many times more impactful in teaching them impulse control. And while we don't live in a perfect world, the parent should be aware not to strike out of anger.
Because anything beyond I see as crutch for poor parenting skills. Kids depend on their parents to teach coping skills and to regulate them. Violence may seem corrective, but it often teaches the wrong lessons. If a kid does something wrong, violence does nothing to teach them WHY whatever they did was wrong. Just that they'll be punished, and should try to avoid being punished. They'll also learn to fear you, not respect you.
And depending on the age, a child may not be developmentally capable of understanding the connection between their actions and the consequences you inflict, so hurting them will seem arbitrary and harm their trust in the world. This will set them up for a difficult time relating to people when they mature.
*rereading this, I don't mean 'appropriate' as much as I do 'forgivable' in a life-or-death circumstance. Stopping me from running out on a busy street was the only time my dad ever gave me a good swat. Not because he is a terrible and evil person-- but because he was truly scared for my life. Boy did it ever get my attention, and I never did that again. When I got older he expressed that he always felt terrible about it, but you know what? I let him know I felt terrible for being a shit and adding a few extra white hairs to his head. So we're even
As somebody who was constantly physically abused by their father whenever I did the tiniest thing wrong, I'm gonna say I completely disagree with violence to put a child in their place.
I believe in spanking, yet other areas should be looked at also. A strict nature of as a parent, yelling at your kid in a stern voice can be beneficial. I was raised by my grandfather that was born in 1927. He'd hit me if I talked back to him and it hurt. After that, if he raised his voice, I jumped up and asked what did he need me to do. He believed in tough love and shortly before he died in 2011, he said he loved me and hugged me. He never bragged on me if I was in the room, he told others about me and they would tell me what he said. I aspire to do the same when I have children of my own. I have helped raise four kids. Two were my nieces, one was my nephew that does well at 13, one was his friend that was 8 and I helped raise him for a year as his mom was a junkie and his oldest sister at 18 always had her mind on drugs, and his older sister was only 14 trying to raise a kid when she was just a child herself. I told him that he could stay with me, yet he'd have to work hard around the property and eat whatever I cooked or eat nothing at all. Eventually his grandparents took him in after the paperwork was done and thanked me. My father was gone constantly in the military so I never saw him much. When I was 11 I told him that I hated him during an argument and he spanked me hard. I learned my lesson that day. I believe kids should only get toys during birthdays and Christmas as I learned to cherish my toys as a child. If they got broken, I'd have to wait months to get a new one. If you buy a kid a toy constantly, then they get snobby. I don't believe in time out and taking or breaking items of kids. That's ridiculous and is part of what is wrong with kids of today. Madea hits home with how to raise kids right. To this day I consider my mom's dad as my adopted dad. My real dad was a drunk that left me at 11 for some hag across the states. He wanted nothing to do with me as he was a joke of a parent. I tried to get to know him two years ago and last year on Facebook I saw that it wasn't me, it was him that was a failure and I cut all contact with him.
Sometimes spanking is acceptable, I got spanked less than a handful of times when I had truly done something bad and needed some sort of higher discipline. Never physical abuse or intimidation, though. That is the kind of shit that can ruin an innocent mind. I see some parents treating their kids like shit in public for bascially just being kids, I shudder to think what goes on at home.
Extra likes for insight.
Spanking is physical abuse.
Depends who you ask, honestly. Also depends what constitutes "spanking" to some people. I'm talking literally a light tap on the bum, some parents think it means bringing out the belt or other objects and letting the kid have it.
Ah, right. "A light tap on the bum" doesn't sound abusive.
Man, I'm not doing this shit with you right now. There are many, many other people in this thread who advocate for spanking and I don't see you rushing to oppose them. Do you actually have children? Got any expert discipline advice for us all?
I very Rarely got physically attacked by my parents and it is a very bad thing and should never be done but sometimes some people just don't know how to control their anger.
I wasn't being sarcastic!
When I'm sarcastic I use this symbol, "¿"
I didn't think you were being sarcastic. I'm just extremely curious why you chose to single me out when there are many other people in this thread who share a similar viewpoint, and who posted long before I did.
I did not have anything fruitful to add to other posts nor did I feel like having a discussion on the topic, but I did feel like pointing out "spanking is physical abuse" was quick and simple.
In my parents household, physical punishment had a place, but a very limited one. If my sister or I were having a tantrum or rage that couldn't be stopped, a hard smack on the butt, or even across face was used. The surprise and pain was usually great enough to immediately break the feedback loop and stop the behavior. i'm fine with this, it isn't even as much a punishment as it is a "snap out of it" kind of thing. I only recieved two in my entire childhood.
Using it as a consequence for doing something wrong, is cruel and ineffective in my opinion. My dad's dad beat him all the time and all it did was build his resentment and tolerance for pain.
If I was being a cheeky little snot when I was a kid, I'd get a smack on the arse. No belt, just a slap.
So for me that's fine. However, people using items to discipline their kids, now that's messed up.
It did work with Sarah, much to my surprise.
Physical discipline is essentially infusing fear to your subject so that they don't do something out of fear.
I live in a country where such thing is illegal. It's nowadays treated as "physical abuse."
Ironically many of the laws are obeyed out of fear, like you have no right to do that or legal system gets you into trouble.
Same principle, yes.
Whacking a kid with a belt is physical abuse. Giving him/her a light smack on the arse isn't.
Let me guess, do you live in Sweden?
I hate the idea of any physical punishment, even spanking. I accept that sometimes words might fail to calm a child down, but only when everything else fails should slapping or spanking be used. Using physical punishment excessively is just going to build resentment at best, and at worst lead them to use excessive punishment on their own children in the future.
I occasionally got a spank from my parents when I was little, and I don't hold a grudge against them for it. I think parents should look for other ways to discipline their kids in ways that aren't likely to build resentment. I also agree with the point made by a user above, that physical punishment makes children obey the rules out of fear rather than understanding the need for the rules. When a child gets older, I think parents should try to make them understand why we need rules, so that in the future they obey the law because they understand why it exists rather than out of fear of punishment.
I can't believe some parents are able to hurt their children. I mean, they are not animals (actually, animals are the purest creatures and are the ones that less deserve being punished like that), they (WE!) understand words. I think parents should rasonate with their children and teach them whats wrong and right (and most important, WHY they are right ir wrong) through dialog in order to educate them instead of causing them pain and leaving them alone to deal with stress and fear.
You do realize that in nature, animals will use physical reinforcement on their young...you see it from cats all the way up to Apes and chimps.
Exactly...you see this type of punishment in nature as well.
That doesn't justify it. Are we animals? (well, actually yeah) We can rasonate instead of causing actual physical damage.
I to got spanked as a child. And I think that it can be an appropriate form of punishment, particularly for a child who knows he's not supposed to do something, yet he does it deliberately.
One thing my dad taught me about being a parent, is that you have to have clear rules of conduct for your child, and clear forms of punishment for when they break said rules.
When people call spanking physical abuse, I laugh like Ray L in Goodfellas.
Spanking is fine but anything beyond that is a no.
Physical abuse is horrible but some children need a good spanking.
No, spanking a child on the bottom is cruel and unusual. Taking an adult, putting them in a cage in solitary for years on end before eventually giving them a lethal injection (or keeping them like that for the rest of their life) is perfectly moral and acceptable /s.
The odd slap is okay, in my opinion. Should it be used as the regular form of punishment? No, I do think it's probably better to talk with the kid and get them to understand why their behaviour was wrong, but as a last resort, when the kid's being a right little brat, a small slap on the arse is fine.
It's never alright to go beyond that. Belts, walking sticks and shit like that were and are just fear factors, and from my own experience, it gives you a very bad image of your parents when you grow older. You're meant to respect your parents enough so that you don't misbehave, not because you're too afraid to step out of line because the father'll batter you if you do.