Spanking of Children Why Not?

[Twilight Hue]

Never found spanking necessary.

Within reasonable measure it is. It's a life lesson by which it's far more preferable to learn than the lessons that the government will put on it's misbehaving citizens.

We as a society as well as societies all over the world rule by hitting and beating people.

Better a paddling on the bottom early than a beating by authorities for non-compliance later.

 

[Skwim]

Although I recognize there are alternatives to spanking, I'm not convinced moderate spanking is altogether excessive. I can see situations where a child is independently minded and impetuous, and the parents lack the capacity to deal with it on a non-physical level and find no alternative other than spanking. Moreover, I remain unconvinced that moderate spanking is harmful.

If anyone disagrees I'm open to any reasonable argument against it.

.

 

[Jumi]

If not spanking as a life lesson in consequence, what changed with kids of yesteryear and kids of today?

They use less drugs and alcohol and are less violent. Good or bad?

 

[sealchan]

Too often spanking turns into the fast food diet of parental discipline. All the non spanking advice is most important. But sometimes the inner world of the child overwhelms their outer awareness and for their sake a brief pain administered with care is a great substitute for a real world injury.

 

[sealchan]

Although I recognize there are alternatives to spanking, I'm not convinced moderate spanking is altogether excessive. I can see situations where a child is independently minded and impetuous, and the parents lack the capacity to deal with it on a non-physical level and find no alternative other than spanking. Moreover, I remain unconvinced that moderate spanking is harmful.

If anyone disagrees I'm open to any reasonable argument against it.

.

So long as the threat of spanking is also efficacious...if not then spanking is probably seen as an easy way to be absolved.

 

[Skwim]

So long as the threat of spanking is also efficacious...

And teaching should be the only motivation to spank, not vengeance.

.

 

[dianaiad]

Also: children run out into the street and get themselves run over by cars. How do you choose to prevent this?

I was only spanked three times when I was a child. One was for doing precisely this...well, the running out into the street part, not the getting myself run over. Just ALMOST run over. I'm not certain, even now, whether the spanking was for running into the street or for having just told my mother "I can do what I want!" just before I proved that I could by running out into the street and causing an almost crash. The only other two times I got spanked were a: when I told my father "I don't have to!" when he told me not to do something, (involving petting the neighbor's Dalmation...that later bit me) and "you aren't the boss of me!" when Mom told me NOT to climb over the back fence into the alley to see the garbage truck come.

These involved two things: grave danger...and I do mean grave and immediate physical danger, and extreme disrespect to my parents in exercises of stupidity that I still cringe over, considerably over six decades later.

I remembered those lessons. That's obvious, that I remember......but it's also a lesson I applied to my own kids. Only one of 'em got through their childhoods without getting spanked, one of 'em got spanked eight or nine times, and the other three ended up with two or three, all for the same reasons; extreme rebellion and disrespect that resulted in immediate physical danger.

I do remember this: after that particular spanking, I NEVER ran out into the street again. I'm still rather obsessive about being a safe pedestrian. .....and about not petting Dalmatians.

Oh....and not climbing fences into the path of oncoming garbage trucks. Good safety rules.

 

[Jumi]

I once read about an old man who didn't spare the rod on his children, then when old his son became his caretaker. The son, being taught by the father, didn't spare punishments when his dad made mistakes either.

 

[England my lionheart]

As a spanked child I once thought spanking was an important tool, but I am convinced that it may be altogether unnecessary, that there are better methods of discipline. That being said, I want to hear evidences that spanking is unnecessary, and I want to hear methods of replacing it.

Children have tantrums. They disobey. They lie. They steal. They won't go to bed. Children won't clean . What do you do? What are other situations where children might be spanked, and what do you do?

Please no shaming of parents who spank. Children do not come with instructions, and some parents deeply believe spanking is necessary. I only want to talk about the uselessness of spanking, itself. I don't want parents hauled to jail, don't want them fined or anything like that.

I was caned at 5 years old on my first day at primary school, I got caned on the backside and a cross the hand, when I got to 12 years old I refused to have corporal punishment by any teacher, violence against children has never been a good Idea, it has the opposite effect and controlling children with fear is just wrong.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

We're not talking about abuse. An ***-warming is hardly abuse, at least where I come from. And yes, anything can be done to excess but corporal punishment is not intrinsically evil.

Research on Disciplinary Spanking is Misleading

An Uber-Conservative website, as such, cannot be trusted.

It appears to be one of those Super Christian bs sources.

From their "about" page:

The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances..

[In Bold-- my emphasis] As bigoted a statement I have not seen in quite a long while... but then I avoid SuperKKKristian websites like the plague. They can cause damage to your perception of reality, and other brain-rot. Their weasel-words at the end are likely there because they don't want to be sued....

 

[Jainarayan]

An Uber-Conservative website, as such, cannot be trusted.

It appears to be one of those Super Christian bs sources.

From their "about" page:


[In Bold-- my emphasis] As bigoted a statement I have not seen in quite a long while... but then I avoid SuperKKKristian websites like the plague. They can cause damage to your perception of reality, and other brain-rot. Their weasel-words at the end are likely there because they don't want to be sued....

You're quote-mining. Check the other links I posted.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

What Science Says--and Doesn't--about Spanking

A quick skimming of that seems to agree with me, and not so much with what you said....

... oops!

Yes-- it's still rather a contentious issue. But. Since there are effective alternates?

It kind of boils down to, "well, cigarette smoking isn't all that bad, and it doesn't kill 100% of those who smoke.. at least, not right away. So why not let kids smoke?"

A bit over the top? Yeah... but.... kids only have the one (1) childhood.... it'd be nice if it didn't involve violence for every little thing...

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

You're quote-mining. Check the other links I posted.

You need to review "quote-mining".

To check the veracity of a link? I always go back to the home page (unless I recognize an established-- CREDIBLE source like Scientific American-- your second link, which doesn't support your claim... )

Your first link is from a BULLSHIP website, that has that "family values" crapola--- their bigoted "man woman ONLY for family" bigotry.

 

[Vinayaka]

Just ask the question sincerely ... "Did it work?" and then observe. The bottom .line (pun intended) is that it doesn't work.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Meet The Scientists Who Haven't Given Up On Spanking

Aaaaand... another bullship unknown website...

With a misogynistic name like "fatherly" I can only guess what it's agenda is....

.... as in, literally, guess ....

.... they don't have an "about" page at all, thus? Zero credibility. I didn't even bother to scan that link. Unknown page, unknown credibility.

Could be anything. Might support you? Might not-- who cares?

No credibility.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

If not spanking as a life lesson in consequence, what changed with kids of yesteryear and kids of today?

Ummm.... kids are more resilient than we thought? Which is good?

Of course... back in the day, something like 1 of 4? Didn't make it to age 12. It was much-much worse than that, the farther back in time you go... so we don't have the adult results of a significant fraction of kids to begin with, what with them dying so soon.

But nevermindthat: why not give them the best chance we can, instead of muddling along like a blind person in the dark?

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I once read about an old man who didn't spare the rod on his children, then when old his son became his caretaker. The son, being taught by the father, didn't spare punishments when his dad made mistakes either.

Karma can be ... vindictive.

Or as an old wit put it? What goes around, comes around.

 

[metis]

I didn't spank any of our kids but I would give them a swat when they were younger, and then make it clear why I didn't want to do that to them but had to.

I'll never forget the time we were at my wife's parent's house and our older daughter misbehaved, so I gave her a swat. She ran around the kitchen table crying, jumped up in my lap and I consoled her.

My mother-in-law looked at me with a quizzacal look on her face and asked my wife in Italian so I wouldn't understand what just happened whereas I swatted our daughter and yet she jumped up onto my lap and I patted her on the back and hugged her. My wife then had to explain it to her that I was getting the point across that she did wrong but that I still loved her.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

We're not talking about abuse. An ***-warming is hardly abuse, at least where I come from. And yes, anything can be done to excess but corporal punishment is not intrinsically evil.

Research on Disciplinary Spanking is Misleading

What Science Says--and Doesn't--about Spanking

Meet The Scientists Who Haven't Given Up On Spanking

That first link is from a pseudo-scientific anti-LGBT hate group: American College of Pediatricians - Wikipedia

 

[Jainarayan]

Aaaaand... another bullship unknown website...

With a misogynistic name like "fatherly" I can only guess what it's agenda is....

.... as in, literally, guess ....

.... they don't have an "about" page at all, thus? Zero credibility. I didn't even bother to scan that link. Unknown page, unknown credibility.

Could be anything. Might support you? Might not-- who cares?

No credibility.

Whatever, you see what you want to see.

This coddling ticks me off no end. We have an entitled, violent, do-as-I-please, I-get-a-pass generation because they have not learned any respect or the consequences and repercussions of their actions. Because "spanking is bad". A child screaming in a grocery store or mall or restaurant, swatting at its parents because it didn't get what it wants gets a talking to? "Time-outs", "you'll lose privileges"?... that is supposed to do what, exactly? And what happens when the child grows up and learns (quickly) that his or her father or mother will not raise a hand to defend themselves, because the child never learned anything more than sitting in a chair for 15 minutes without a phone or tablet. Please, give me a break. My husband's niece never got any kind of spanking. What happened? She punched her mother in the face, at 20 something years old, because she didn't get her way. And for the record, yes I'd have knocked her teeth out. Wanna play with the big kids?