When to stop spanking?

CarlaCacoethes said:
[quote][quoted=discuss--898-0-8]opheliac said:
You mentioned he threatens you daily but has he ever spanked you as hard as he says? Because saying and doing are two completely different things.
I should add that im not taking your part or your fathers i merely want to know if he hit you or not.
He hasn't actually done it in years.
But I find the psychological damage from the threats to be ten times worse than actually getting hit.
My dad isn't a bad person though, it's just how he was raised.


Indeed it must be a torment for you. Of course you won't blame your father for it
but in a way he is a bad person cause he doesn't appreciate nor care for his children  instead he mentally abuses them.

There's a lot of different ways to discipline your children and though there's a lot of literature on the subject there isn't 'a book' to tell you how to do it. it's also damn near impossible to justify one form over another, especially to come to some sort of standard.

for Carla's situation it seems to be something like this: physical punishment was used to convey to the child the parent's sense of 'right and wrong' (there are exceptions, yada yada). in the later years this makes it possible for the parent to operate in the 'do what i say or else' frame, making beatings less 'necessary'.

i just realized i dont really feel like talking about this. strange...that

Spanking might work with some children but I know that when I was growing up and getting whipped for everything and anything, all I learned was that being spanked was a natural everyday occurence. It came to be something that was expected. The day just didn't seem normal if I wasn't being hit with a belt for some reason or another. All I think that the spankings did was increase my pain threshold to the point where I'd look at my dad and laugh as he wielded his belt with a 'righteous vengence' and then pretend to cry when it seemed like a wise thing to do in order to act as if it hurt and pretend I'd learned my lesson. Then as I got older, the spankings just led me to believe that it was alright for me to fight back when I was big enough. So it just seems to me' due to my own experience growing up, that if a parent is going to spank a child at all, it should be done wisely and not over every cup of spilled milk, and in a way that won't teach a child that responding to every offense with violence is okay. In fact, an old ex-girlfriend's son had grown up to eventually choke her out once he'd gotten big enough and tired of all of her threats and spankings! I couldn't help but tell her "I told you so!"

Stop hitting them when they start listening. I find it hard to believe that the vast amount of shitty kids around today is a direct result of not getting a good kick in.

I got spanked as a kid and I was a bad little kid; I admit it. At 14, I thought I was a badass little teenager. Being spanked didn't prevent me from being a bad kid, it made me a sneaky kid. I just stopped getting caught.

As a parent, now, I don't spank my kids. I'm not their buddy either. I have a relationship with them where I'm the parent, but I encourage them to be honest with me and I work through either positive reinforcement, skills I learned from coaching, and when discipline is necessary, I revoke privileges or assign chores.

I'm not going to say my parents were bad parents for spanking me; they just didn't have any other tools to deal with me and did the best they could.

[quote]CarlaCacoethes said:
When is it unacceptable to spank your children?
If it is at all to you?


when the palm of one's hand hurts

Personally I believe ALL spanking/smacking is wrong and barbaric.  I think parents who spank/smack their children are lazy as they 'can't be bothered' to source other means or methods to discipline/consequence their children.  I have written MANY reports on this topic before for university, and have come up against A LOT of debate.  
In my home with my child who is 9, we don't discipline, we consequence.  She has never been spanked/smacked and I have been complimented hundreds of times on how well behaved, well mannered and well rounded she is.  A short example on why spanking/smacking doesn't work and actually inhibits children:
An aquaintance I came to know through my work (I'm a clnical Youth Worker) was having a lot of trouble with her 4 year old son hitting children at day care, hitting staff, he even told a pregnant staff member that he would 'kick her in the stomach and kill her fucking baby'.  He had been 'expelled' from three day care centres and she was at a loss of what to do and how to stop his behaviour.  After being asked, his mum told me that she very regularly spanked/smacked him as she didn't know what else to do.  I gave her some advice and techniques on how to discipline/consequence her son and within a month he was no longer hitting other children or staff.  
That is just one example - I literally have hundreds..
I'm sure there are a lot of you that will disagree with me and that's fine, just know that I have worked in this field for almost 10 years.

Harper-- I have a 14 year old and a 11 year old. There are consequences for actions in my household and corporal punishment is never a part of that. It is a lot of work-- positive reinforcement means keeping records sometimes, it means being involved-- it definitely isn't the easy way out. It is so worth it, though. My children will walk into the world understanding the concepts of responsibility and ownership because of the consistent discipline at home.

You have to have balance...spanking should always be last resort...and never do it out of anger towards your child, rather do it to correct if all other processes fail...never beat relentlessly either, one good firm whack on the bottom never killed anyone (I turned out fine) and is effective at getting the point across...the key is patience (which few of us really do have) "laughs" All the violent behavior studies be damned...do they ever study what goes on behind the scenes at home? Child abuse is on the rise these days...and its shown that younger parents (ages 16-25) abuse their children more (both male and female) than older parents (ages 25+) proven facts folks...in my area alone there have been three cases of infant abuse and death in the past 3 years...its hitting dangerously close to home...its sad that people would do that to an innocent child...

I feel like Umi Chan's statement sends out a mixed message.  I can't think of a single time I ever hit anyone when it was not out of anger. What about children who actually believe that they're being  "spanked out of love". Maybe a little girl grows up thinking he hits me because he loves me or a little boy grows up thinking it's okay to hit the people you love. Maybe I'm wrong and a little too lenient with my girl, but I think we need to find a better solution.

My mother rarely hit me in our household words are worse then the belt. I used to feel bad and behaved properly for weeks to months from a 5 min "chat". I just grew up like that i guess.....The pen is mighter then the sword but that was mom. Step dad belive Violence was always the answer and it never worked for me i would still be a annoying ass kid (it seemed the act only opened my paiin thresh hold). And dad being abused as a child was like mom with words but refused to hit his children.

LunaObscura said:spank until they try to spank back. ...then send them to a montessori school

Now that was humorous.

Spanking isn't about the physical pain, though that can help. The only problem with spanking as far as I'm concerned, is when someone who is doing the spanking doesn't know when to stop or causes physical injuries. Most kids don't want to get spanked and certainly not in front of others. Spanking too much simply removes the embarrassment factor and the spanking is no longer effective. The butt can take a lot of pain and I know many adults who rather enjoy it, so keeping it short and to the point is the best way to approach it. The kids will cry with the slightest spanks, sometimes they start before it even happens. Once you have their attention, redirect their behavior. If they are crying, chances are they won't hear what you are saying. Redirecting them gives them a chance to reset and find out what they should be doing instead. If they go back to the undesired behavior, redirect them after one or two spanks. Don't get crazy with the spanks, just be a parent and let them know you are not just doing it to push them around and be the boss, that you are showing them what they should be doing. Parents are the first teachers a child has. Do a poor job and they will carry their behavior to school where teachers will then have to deal with it while not being able to teach class. I worked for more than four years as a teacher's aide in classes for kids with behavior issues.
Think about this, your child may be the one losing out in class because someone else's was never properly disciplined at home. So don't be the parent that is helping our educational system fall way behind the rest of the world.