believer258 said:
There's a huge difference between "beating", i.e. actually bruising your child, and giving them a painful smack on the bottom when they do something wrong.
Also, let me quote a bit of the article you linked:
"They are attentive to their children?s needs and concerns, and will typically forgive and teach instead of punishing if a child falls short"
You see, in theory, this might work perfectly. In theory. However, in reality - thousands of years of mothers spanking their children, that reality - it just doesn't. If you forgive a child for every wrong he does, particularly complete disrespect for everything, then he'll expect forgiveness from everyone for every wrong that he does. You can sit down and explain to him/her that what he/she did is wrong all you want to. It will not work. Sorry, that's just how life is.
Beating, as in bruising and bashing your child, will make him/her hate you and will make the child rebellious. Note that I'm not talking about that, but a smack on the bottom that smarts will generally teach a child that what they did was wrong. Obviously there are some special cases, that's why I said "generally".
No there's not. You inflict pain, the level of pain is irrelevant. Even more so, you humiliate them, and associate yourself with pain and humiliation. If you want respect, you're only getting fear and perhaps obedience. Is that what we're going for, military discipline and blind obedience out of fear? That is not respect. There's respect, there's common decency, and there's obedient discipline. Only one of those things are taught by hitting your child.
Please educate yourself. What you suggest is another style altogether: Authoritative parents still punish their children, through taking away privileges. Most of all, however, they teach. That's what you seem to miss, it's not about forgiving and letting it slide. You teach them why it's wrong, you let them know you're disappointed in them. That is where the parenting comes from. I would suggest you read the rest of the article, as it expressly has a part on the indulgent parenting style, which fits your idea of not doing anything. I agree, that is a worse way of parenting than hitting your kid and instilling fear in them, but that's not what I'm endorsing.
Most of all this comes down to the belief that many of those in favor of hitting children have, namely that children will try their hardest to cause trouble and be a nuisance. To this, I suggest that these people are terrible parents. Y'see, parenting is not having good intentions or clear ideas. It's about living and truly being a good person that the child can learn from. The very basis of a child's personality is formed in the early years, 0-5, by observing their parents and emulating them. They pick up on everything, even things you are not aware of, and as such your child can be seen as an imprint of your own behaviour. If you reach the level where your child is being disrespectful to everything and being an unruly little brat, you only have yourself to blame.
It may teach a kid that something was wrong, but not why it was wrong, which is really what is important here. If you are able to make the child understand the wrongness of something, smacking them shouldn't even be necessary. On a related note, all you'll teach them is that violence is acceptable. And when they grow up, they'll keep that impression. Let me ask you, when do you consider it acceptable to hit another grown up person, save when they attack you first? If hitting adults is not alright, why should hitting children be, and why would you want to teach them violence as a tool for handling conflicts?
