opening a can of worms...

[kuangning]

.. you all know by now that I do not advocate spanking. My three get along just fine without it when we live on our own. But I know there are those of you who do... so, a few questions.

I know that there are a couple of questions that could have been phrased differently, now that I look at it, but. Answer with an average age range for your children if they're close in ages: if there's a span of five years or more, answer for one of them.

[Poll #62482]

Comments

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

plus, punishment like that never made me want to obey. Just figure out an even better way to disobey :P

[rustedlemon.livejournal.com]

spanking worked for me.
I was so very careful to keep myself from getting in trouble.. but that also meant that I spent a lot of time trying to hide things when I did do something wrong.

When my father took off his belt, it was serious business.
You wouldn't be able to sit for days and you would definitely think twice about doing something wrong. Of course the spankings stopped after the divorce and my father tried to play mr nice guy and eventually I got a very bratty and spoiled sister out of that mess.
pffft.
spanking is good punishment in certain situations for certain children. Some children are sensitive enough to feel punished from a scolding though. It all depends.

[violetvixen.livejournal.com]

well the issue of spanking is very grey, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't... where do you draw the line between dicipline and abuse? I was spanked by my father with a belt... I think of it as abuse. Where as you phrase it as 'serious business' ~ same act.... what was different? I duno.

Re:

[rustedlemon.livejournal.com]

Abuse of a child would be a lot more severe than breaking out a belt to put a rash on their bottom. If spanking is the way to reinforce dicipline that works best on your child, why not use it?
I don't think I would ever spank a child that is not mine though. That's the responsibility of the parent.

But often I have had to baby sit children who are neither praised nor reprimanded by their parents in any fashion. One child I sent to his room for misbehavior and he kicked a hole in the wall in his bedroom. The parents showed an indifference about it and when they got home, he was allowed to go straight to his video games. No reinforcement of any type of punishment. *sighs* I wonder how he's going to turn out...

I believe that the difference between discipline and abuse is that abuse comes out of a lack of control and anger. Abuse is a bully beating on someone who will take it. Discipline is measured out to teach values and lessons from the experience; it's very controlled. Very simply, abuse is the lack of self-control and purpose.

And I know the difference because I have had spankings and have been the victim of abuse. There is no purpose behind abuse but to hurt. And although spankings hurt(not as much abeing abused) you know why you're being punished.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

I'm more of the mind that if you raise a child to need spanking, they're going to need spanking. If you raise them to not need physical abuse to pay attention, then they won't need it... of course, I haven't raised any myself yet.

[ly2me.livejournal.com]

Not to be offensive, but that's complete hogwash. :) For the simple reason a child has much more environmental input than just from the parent.

I certainly know -I- did things my parents would never have dreamed of, and I didn't do them out of any stimuli provided by my parents.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

Actually, I did live (and it wasn't so difficult) a rather sheltered life, in that I was raised only by my parents. I didn't go to friends' houses, for the most part -- they came over to mine; at least until I was rather formed as an individual. And I seriously doubt there was much I could do that my parents would never have dreamed of; I'm sure there's a fair amount that they have done that *I* would never have dreamed of. Admittedly, I went to a public school as well, and there's much brainwashing and whatnot going on there, but with the proper spin on things from home, one survives... :)

so go hogwash yourself. ;)

[ly2me.livejournal.com]

So you had input from school and friends, probably TV to some extent, and I'm sure there were others. And somehow you were lucky enough to be one of those who listened carefully to what your parents advised and didn't get into mischief. Not all children put up with being sheltered. I didn't. Momma tried.

My point is that to say that all a parent has to do is do everything right and no kid will 'get to the point of needing a spanking' is just wrong. See my post below... all kids are different. That's like saying that all the inmates must have had bad parents. It just doesn't work that way. :)

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

read your post below.

umm.

I think we'll just need to agree to disagree here. You can do as you will with your own, and maybe I'll just get lucky with mine.

Not all parents are alike, not all children are alike, but I believe that it is possible get a person to start thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing it... and why you'd rather they didn't, and how that fits in the whole scheme of life: perspective. I'll admit that it could just be a pipe dream, but it's my pipe dream and I'm sticking to it. :)

I had a pretty easy life.

[mopalia.livejournal.com]

Good grief, what are you talking about? You never got spanked!

[zorbathut.livejournal.com]

A few times, actually. Eventually you told me that you always felt bad about it - it wasn't very often, just when you were really angry with me.

Like, three times at most, I think.