Poll: Your view on parents spanking their children?

[Burnswell]

What is a kid actually supposed to learn from being beaten other than to use violence to get your way? Explain why they shouldn't do that or you're just saying do what I say because I'm bigger and will hit you if you don't.

 

[Xanadu84]

If you are willing to discipline a child for it's own good, they you are a caring parent, and that already means that your kid will likely be okay. However, as a teaching tool, Punishment is a very inefficient form of behavior modification. Positive rewards in a random interval mixed with teaching is by far more effective. Punishment tends to encourage the child to search for ways of not getting caught rather then learning a behavior of respect, and the good behavior is much more strongly contingent on a continuous threat. If you spank a child, then it probably won't be irrevocably harmed, but you don't spank a child for the same reason you don't hammer in a nail with a screwdriver: Its not a good tool for the job.

 

[Kraus Buchanan]

I would never support anyone hitting a defenseless kid. My stepfather used to threaten me, "If you call the cops on me you'll be dead before they get here."

I understand that his alcoholoic stepfather didn't teach him how to raise a child but there even an idiot should know that assault is a crime no matter the age of a victim.

 

[Loonyyy]

I think it's kind of a dangerous road- since consequences for greater trangressions are usually more extreme, parents can be led into the mindset that greater punishment is necessary, often hurting their children. Kids really shouldn't be slapped across the face or bruised to get the point across. If people could keep it to a reasonable level it might do, but I don't think it's the best option. Especially when you get to the cases where people beat their children to death because they think that corporal punishment is the solution.

Truly authoritative people command respect or fear, they don't need to act to instill it, and violence is only a weak attempt at instilling fear. You don't respect someone who hits you, you fear them, and fear isn't what most parents want from their children. It also ends with a broken relationship dynamic when that kid outgrows the punishment. How do you tell someone who's bigger and stronger than you that you want to smack them for saying a bad word? You've taught them that might equals right, and once they get the self determination, they're going to see that they've got just as much might.

For example, I had both, my father and mother were seperated, and my father commanded respect-he was kind, and respectful, generally a good guy. If there was a fight, his solution was always that both parties were confined to their bedrooms for a short time. It taught us to resolve our conflicts. Doing more minor things got us stern talkings to, and the dissappointment was a powerful deterrent. As such, we all respect him, and his opinion.

Whilst my mother struck us, and, as eventually her children grew into teenage boys who towered over her, she not only lost her power over us, but was in a position where she was trying to enforce power on people who had no respect or love for her, and she ended up resorting to more desperate means-threatening to throw people out of home, or call the police (Because apparently being bigger than someone is a threat. Or that getting angry and being close to lashing out [which you've taught them is right, through using violence as a punishment] is assault), threatening self-harm. It just wasn't effective-if you rule by power, that's what you've got to maintain, and it's not going to be possible.

 

[Matthew Cusanelli]

Walk around walmart and you'll see two types of kids:

well behaved > Disciplined and spanked

Unruly pieces of garbage > parents don't care; never spanked.

Parents are parents first, not best friends first.

P.S. there is a difference between spanking your kids and beating the crap out of your kids.

EDIT: i was spanked as a kid and grounded (sit at the kitchen table and study or in the bathroom)for acting up. Not once did i ever think i was being abused. I knew at the time that this only happened because i acted out of line, didn't do my homework and grades suffered, etc etc. After awhile i realized the being grounded and getting spanked sucks, so what was the best way to avoid it? Do what i was told and behave.

 

[Matthew Cusanelli]

Jesus, why do all the against side act like giving you're kid an open handed slap on the wrist, arse or whatever is the same thing as beating them into submission. I got whacked a handful of times whenever I really acted out. Very small children lack the understanding to know right from wrong what they can pick up on is If I do A it has positive consequences and if I do B it has negative consequences.

I am despised about my fellow escapists. Hitting a child to show it right from wrong? What is wrong with you people? It is truly horrific that apparently 45% here thinks its okay to assault other people who are not only physically weaker than yourself but who also can not even take legal action and does not have the capability to defend themselves or even flee their assailant (which is what spanking your child is) to get your point across.

Little children cant process logic as adults but they do know "nice" from "not nice"

Tell that to my mate's niece who used to pick the dog up by it's tail and swing it. You have to learn right from wrong.

and there are plenty of other options to raise your child than physical assault. You people should try and consider telling the child when it does good instead of abusing it when it screws over

Children need both, they need to be rewarded for good behaviour and punished for bad.

children can not link the beating you give it 30 minutes after it did something to the actual act. What it can link is immediate feedback to behaviour, such as praise when its doing right.

...That doesn't even make sense. Why did you say the punishment is 30 minutes after the actual act being punished and thus the child can't link it. But it can link praise, which I'm assuming for the sake of balance is also occurring a full 30 minutes after the act?

This.

For example if i misbehaved at day care and my mother found out about it later, right before i was spanked my mother would ask me if i knew why i was about to be spanked, if i didn't (which i always did but i'd try to pull a fast one on my mom) she would tell me WHY i was about to be spanked. I can't say for other parents but my mother always made sure i knew why i was being punished.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Walk around walmart and you'll see two types of kids:

well behaved > Disciplined and spanked

Unruly pieces of garbage > parents don't care; never spanked.

Parents are parents first, not best friends first.

P.S. there is a difference between spanking your kids and beating the crap out of your kids.

And you have some kind of evidence that the well behaved ones must have been spanked? Do you think being spanked gave you the ability to read minds? If so I'm gonna have the break that delusion, you really know jack shit about the kids at the stores.

Worst thing here is that people forget that there are quite a few countries were hitting/spanking your kids is illegal. By the logic of 'some' people here, all children in all of those countries would grow up to be ill-behaved. Yet as far as I've seen our schools have some of the least bullying in the world and I havent had anything else but well behaved classmates (With one or two rather mild exceptions)

Obviously this means that there are good, and working alternatives to using physical means to punish children (Ofcourse we knew that already, some people just... dont) And the parent that makes a good kid without using physical means to punish bad deeds, are better parents in my book than those who did.

Then again, quite a few posts here are just from disgruntled non-parent's who wants actual parents to beat their kids because they whinged a bit at the local supermarked. Because they hate kids. Because this is the escapist and those guys are here in quite some numbers.

Edit. Before I forget, /flameshield. Borrowing it from a guy on RnP

 

[ReaperzXIII]

Okay some of you anti-spanking guys are acting as if a quick smack is the exact same thing as an enraged man beating the absolute crap out of a baby with a club.

I was spanked as a child and I endorse it because
a) Didn't even hurt that much
b) I deserved it
c) I was too young to appreciate the logic

I've seen kids, a lot of them cannot appreciate logic any more complicated than pain or pleasure so the pain is a quick reality check of "No don't do that" and in their mind they make the association of doing that wrong thing with pain. Is it the only solution? No. Should it be used in some cases? Yes, especially if the child is one of those children who would find creative work arounds to any punishment you give them

When I was a kid, you took something away from me, fine I'll go find something else to play with. Told me to sit in a corner? Well I'll make funny faces at my sister or I'll walk off the moment you turn around. Shouted at me? Yeah I didn't really care, I was often prone to almost laughing. I wasn't a bad kid I was just aware of the flaws in my punishments and exploited them, I still do it now, pain is a good deterrent when people are too young/stupid to feel guilty or fear other consequences

 

[Smeatza]

Spanking is for lazy parents who would rather resort to violence than put any real effort in.

 

[TKretts3]

My father assaulted me in that fashion when I was younger and the only thing I got out of it was loathing. It is a loathing for him that I carry on to this day, and a loathing to I will never lose. It didn't teach me why what I did was wrong, that knowledge only came from my own initiative when I Was older, it only taught me that there are despicable people in this world.

 

[Agent Larkin]

Never did me any harm.

 

[axlryder]

I agree with very limited use of spanking during a very specific age range (around 2-4). Before 5 or so I think some children can't necessarily fully grasp the dangers of certain things that they might do (running off into the road, putting their fingers in the socket, etc.). Because of that, I think spanking is a more effective deterrent than just saying "don't do it" or some less physically abrasive method. I'd rather my kid feel some stinging than get hit by a car. Obviously a lot of this can be prevented by parents just being cautious, but I don't think it's always practical.

 

[Aslyn]

I lived my child life in fear when ever my mum was angry. I would cry when she directed the anger at me because I knew what was going to await me. She then smacked me and it hurt so much.

So yes, if you want your child to live in the shadow of terror every time you or your partner raises their voice, go ahead and smack your child. I would never smack my child based on my own experience.

You could argue that the nasty experience stopped me doing naughty things. No. No it didn't. I still did naughty things because when you're a child you run off impulse. And to me a lot of the naughty things I did was fair. Like stealing my sister's money because I was given a money box and I didn't understand why it had no money in it. Or breaking the French Stick in half in fury because I wanted to pack it away in the bag because it looked fun putting a bag on either end. Or cutting the cord in a bobbin winder because I had sharpened a pair of scissors (at 6 years old I worked it out) and was busy playing with them, seeing what I could cut (including myself).

There are better ways of discipline that doesn't physically hurt your child. Children are not idiots. They do listen to people. Just freccing tell them what they did wrong in a voice that says "I am telling you something and you better listen". And if you need help, ask for help.

If my kid assaulted another kid, I would find it hypocritical for me to smack them.

This. I believe in making the punishment fit the crime. Spanking for breaking a lamp seems really arbitrary. Spanking for hitting your brother seems hypocritical. Don't hit! To teach you that, I will hit you. What?

We use this system (punishment fits crime) with our son, and so far it's working great. Kids understand a lot more than we give them credit for.

 

[Darkmantle]

Some children, especially those under 5 don't respond to time outs: they don't have the capacity to understand what they did wrong and why it was wrong. They haven't had the socialization to do so. I generally only had to sound disappointed in my daughter to get her to behave, but I have been around children that needed the occasional pop on the arse.

If it's got to the point where a kid NEEDS to be hit, isn't that indicative of a previous failure?

When a child doesn't understand words, taking things away and time outs it's not about failures, it's because the child is most likely too young or they are not physiologically developed enough to understand those things. I have found that children (among the limited group of them that are being and have been raised by myself and my friends) that were not at least spanked a time or two when they were small tend to be more selfish and more defiant than children who were.

most children learn to talk and understand speech by 12-18 months. Are you seriously saying hitting a child younger than that will have ANY positive effect? If they are too young to understand stuff being taken away from them as punishment, then they are too young/underdeveloped to understand why you hit them.

All you are doing is replacing "selfish and defiant" with "likely to be violent when they are older". Spanking seems to be all about short term gain, long term loss. Make your kids obedient, until you are no longer stronger than them. Fear is a poor parent I assure you.

what you always have to wonder with anecdotal evidence, are they good because of the spanking, or in spite of the spanking?

 

[tmande2nd]

Its just an excuse for child abuse.

"Oh my kid needs this!"
"I am such a good parent I can just use my fist!"
"THE BIBLE SAID ITS OKAY!"

God I hate people who hide behind tradition to excuse crime.
"SHE SHAMED MY FAMILY SO I KILLED HER WITH A BIG ROCK! ITS TOTALLY OKAY!"

Grrrr.....