Warren Dew wrote:

ymitchell wrote:Obeying out of fear isn't good discipline., and if they see you beat up on people aren't you sending the msg that physical violence is ok to get you own way?

Ultimately, the reason one obeys governments is out of fear of physical violence, so one could argue this message is an important one for life as an adult.

But we don't want our children to have such a relationship with us, do we? We are supposed to love them and they are supposed to love us

MattHunX wrote:Small children behave like cats and dogs, curious little critters, just doing stuff.

I agree, and I'm fairly sure that if I spanked my cat (how rude does that sound?!) it would have zero effect on his behaviour and wouldn't stop him from dragging tasty bits of leftover dinner out of our bin, dragging it all over the kitchen floor and not having the good manners to then bloody eat it!!!

melchior wrote:

MattHunX wrote:Small children behave like cats and dogs, curious little critters, just doing stuff.

I agree, and I'm fairly sure that if I spanked my cat (how rude does that sound?!) it would have zero effect on his behaviour and wouldn't stop him from dragging tasty bits of leftover dinner out of our bin, dragging it all over the kitchen floor and not having the good manners to then bloody eat it!!!

Well, the cat simply thinks "That servant woman will clean up the mess, I just go take a nap" Or they just stare and stare and staaaaaaaaaaare for hours without blinking.

MattHunX wrote:[

Well, the cat simply thinks "That servant woman will clean up the mess, I just go take a nap"

Oh my god - you know my cat!!

I am also the servant woman who gets up at about 5 every morning to let him out for his wee... and then stays up because (despite being the size of a small lion) he's too weak and feeble to stay outside for more than a nano-second.

My cat is so spoiled.... I probably shouldn't be a parent

Julia wrote:But we don't want our children to have such a relationship with us, do we? We are supposed to love them and they are supposed to love us

We are also supposed to prepare them for life as adults after we are gone.

I'm not actually saying that's a good argument for spanking - I'm just pointing out that the argument that "obeying out of fear isn't good discipline" appears to be disproven by not only parent child relationships, but by adult relationships as well.

Spanking? o_O I used to get beat up all the fucking time by my parents and family, shouted and sworn at, hit with shoes, and at mosque hit with wooden sticks. Used to piss me off how kids would bitch and moan for being 'grounded' or 'sent to their room'.

Valden wrote:

Mac_Guffin wrote:

tatertail wrote:

Mac_Guffin wrote:How about going one further and not hit at all?

I'm not going to wait until they listen when damage is being done, sorry. If I see a quicker way to make it stop, sure, I will go for that. Every time I can. But I'm not willing to risk the same child, or a pet, being hurt again because the message wasn't overwhelmingly clear the first time.

If that makes me an evil, violent person, well, I'll just live with it.

It doesn't mean that you're an evil, violent person, but it does say something about your parenting skills.

How are you teaching not to hit by doing that very thing?
Apparently, you have a recurring problem with your kids hitting each other/pets. Ever wonder if you may be the cause?

I wonder the same.

Never understood the point in using violence (spanking) in an attempt to teach a child not to use violence (hitting)

It makes no sense at all. To me it's the same as teaching a child that it's okay to hit someone else to get what they want.

This makes the fallacious assumption that children cannot connect the punishment with misbehavior and integrate the lesson.

Spanking should be a rare occurrence, reserved for the most egregious of violations after other attempts at control and discipline have failed, and it, like revenge, should be served cold, never in the heat of anger.

I remember two spankings I received in my life. The first one occurred as my father was building our house on our ranch. I was about six at the time and I had a friend over. We were playing, and I had filched a Civil War paper musket cartridge from an ammunition pouch that was a family heirloom and contained nearly a dozen pre-packaged cartridges for the musket we also had. I wanted to see if 100+ year old black powder would still ignite, so my friend and I hid behind a large rock and poured the powder into a pile and ignited it.

Yes, 100+ year old black powder burns just fine.

I forgot one thing. 100+ year old plus black powder is not SMOKELESS powder, and a giant "WHOOSH" and enormous cloud of white smoke ensued. My father saw the smoke, issued an expletive, dropped his hammer and came running. He dragged me back to the house and paddled me thoroughly and in detail.

The second incident was a life-changing one for me. I was standing in the schoolyard, minding my own business, when the school bully (held back twice and therefore much bigger than any of the other 4th graders including me) came up behind me, knocked me face down into the gravel, sat on my back and ground my face into the dirt. The Principal showed up and took us both to his office and gave us both "swats" with a paddle for "fighting", all the while refusing to even listen to an explanation of the events or ask witnesses what happened. That particular and egregious miscarriage of justice is directly attributable to my eventual career as a police officer, because I learned on that day the value of due process of law and a fair and impartial trial.

The other notable event in my disciplinary life was when, at age 4 or so, my dad caught me putting paperclips into the wall sockets. He bought an old crank-style telephone generator and made me hold onto the wires while he cranked. He did it three times, then told me what was in the box was "little electricity," and what was in the wall sockets was "BIG electricity." Worked like a charm, and I never forgot the distinction or the danger.

Do that today and you'll go to jail, more's the pity.

So, spanking is not inherently bad, it can be used properly or improperly.

Of the three options in the OP I would go with, "it's more complicated".

I agree with those that say that physical force should not be use as a normal form of punishment. I think that those parents that use it as such betray an insecurity in their own sense of authority, a neediness towards that sense of authority and a lack of imagination in regards to how respect for it may be engendered in the minds of their children. the over-use of physical punishment to assert authority will be counter-productive and cause resentment. And in general the use of physcial force as a means to engender a respect for authority should be rejected as poor methodology.

However, I also think that denying physical force as a sanction altogether is unrealistic. The claim that 'violence never solves anything' is so trivially untrue that I don't think any argument is necessary. Physical force is our last resort when dealing with dangerous behaviour fromt hose who will not listen to reason, and the fact of the matter is that children are very often unreasonable, and irrational. Furthermore, it is in the nature of children, as they mature, to test the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and the limits of authority. This is just a normal part of the progression towards adulthood. The fact of the matter, however, is that they are not mature, and often times do not consider consequences of their behaviour, for themselves, their future selves, and others, that are immediately apparent to the adults around them that have had the opportunity to experience those consequences. Even when these consequences are drawn out for them, children are as likely to respond with a 'so what?' as anything else.

Parents are not super-human. Even when trying to explain certain things to adults there is a point when we all realise that they lack the capacity to comprehend what we are trying to tell them. For most parents there comes a point when they simply have to fall back on their position of authority; because I say so. This should not be seen as a parental failure. Effectively, it is analogous to the situation we reach when the UN, in dealing with some unreasonable government asserts its authority - the discussion is over, and the government in question must step into line because the international collective says so. But, just as with the UN, toothless authority will be ignored, so it will be ignored in parents. A parent's 'because I say so' must be supported by some sanction, just as the UN's 'because we say so' must. Just as, indeed, the whole of society's 'because we say so', must. An unenforceable law is no law at all, and a law which expects law breakers to willingly comply with a sanction is nonsensical.

Children who believe that parents lack the ability to apply the sanctions they prefer against them will ultimately ignore those sanctions. Physical force gives parents an option to enforce sanctions against their children which does not rely on the willingness of those children to respect their authority. Children who are aware that their parents possess this option will be more inclined to comply with their instructions, even if it is never used.

Warren Dew wrote:

Julia wrote:But we don't want our children to have such a relationship with us, do we? We are supposed to love them and they are supposed to love us

We are also supposed to prepare them for life as adults after we are gone.

I'm not actually saying that's a good argument for spanking - I'm just pointing out that the argument that "obeying out of fear isn't good discipline" appears to be disproven by not only parent child relationships, but by adult relationships as well.

I don't have a problem with obedience through fear. Fear of the consequences of actions is very important... I just don't think that spanking is necessary.
...And while fear is okay, there's a line you shouldn't cross. There must be a level of trust and love that should be maintained between the parent and child.

Mac_Guffin wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:

Julia wrote:But we don't want our children to have such a relationship with us, do we? We are supposed to love them and they are supposed to love us

We are also supposed to prepare them for life as adults after we are gone.

I'm not actually saying that's a good argument for spanking - I'm just pointing out that the argument that "obeying out of fear isn't good discipline" appears to be disproven by not only parent child relationships, but by adult relationships as well.

I don't have a problem with obedience through fear. Fear of the consequences of actions is very important... I just don't think that spanking is necessary.
...And while fear is okay, there's a line you shouldn't cross. There must be a level of trust and love that should be maintained between the parent and child.

What leads you to the belief that restrained, necessary and dispassionate spanking violates this bond of trust? It's my observation that when properly applied, it enhances the bond of trust and love by demonstrating that the parent cares enough about the child to protect them from their own bad judgment. Now it may be true that at the moment of the punishment, a child may be fearful, but they are usually fearful of the expression of displeasure by the parent more than any actual pain. Most "spankings" consist of a couple of strokes with the hand that are not as painful as a skinned knee. For very serious violations, like my misbehavior with the gunpowder, which could have seriously injured me or my friend, the actual pain involved was far less than the potential consequences of my actions, which my father took pains to explain to me AFTER he finished punishing me. Trust me, the psychic torment of the realization of how thoroughly I had violated my father's trust by stealing an important and valuable family heirloom and destroying it was much more painful than the spanking, which was primarily to get my attention and focus it on the misbehavior.

There was no violation of the bond between me and my father caused by the spanking. In fact, it strengthened our bond because I understood the magnitude of my misbehavior and how much I had disappointed him, and I resolved not to do so again.

Seth wrote:
For very serious violations, like my misbehavior with the gunpowder, which could have seriously injured me or my friend, the actual pain involved was far less than the potential consequences of my actions, which my father took pains to explain to me AFTER he finished punishing me. Trust me, the psychic torment of the realization of how thoroughly I had violated my father's trust by stealing an important and valuable family heirloom and destroying it was much more painful than the spanking, which was primarily to get my attention and focus it on the misbehavior.

It sounds to me that the spanking in that case was unnecessary overkill then.

There was no violation of the bond between me and my father caused by the spanking. In fact, it strengthened our bond because I understood the magnitude of my misbehavior and how much I had disappointed him, and I resolved not to do so again.

Again, that would have happened without the spanking. So what's the point except for the parent to act-out some outmoded ritual?

Julia wrote:

Seth wrote:
For very serious violations, like my misbehavior with the gunpowder, which could have seriously injured me or my friend, the actual pain involved was far less than the potential consequences of my actions, which my father took pains to explain to me AFTER he finished punishing me. Trust me, the psychic torment of the realization of how thoroughly I had violated my father's trust by stealing an important and valuable family heirloom and destroying it was much more painful than the spanking, which was primarily to get my attention and focus it on the misbehavior.

It sounds to me that the spanking in that case was unnecessary overkill then.

There was no violation of the bond between me and my father caused by the spanking. In fact, it strengthened our bond because I understood the magnitude of my misbehavior and how much I had disappointed him, and I resolved not to do so again.

Again, that would have happened without the spanking. So what's the point except for the parent to act-out some outmoded ritual?

The point is to focus the child's attention on the misbehavior, express the parent's severe displeasure with the malfeasance, demonstrate to the child that there are firm, non-negotiable boundaries of behavior, and that there are unpleasant and immediate consequences for such misbehavior.

Not teaching children these lessons harms them in the long run.

Seth wrote:

Not teaching children these lessons harms them in the long run.

Of course, there are children that can learn the consequences of certain actions without having to be spanked at all, and so not being spanked would not harm them in the long run.

It also depends entirely upon the child. Spanking could just end up being completely counter productive. It could cause the child to hate the parent (which would of course harm said child in the long run), or the child may not even care at all and thus making it a waste of time.

You can also get a child to "focus" on the "misbehavior" by simply talking to them (again, this depends on the child.) Of course the parent may not know this, if they've never bothered to even try. And even if they have, and it didn't work, they can try it again when the child is a bit older.

Valden wrote:

Seth wrote:

Not teaching children these lessons harms them in the long run.

Of course, there are children that can learn the consequences of certain actions without having to be spanked at all, and so not being spanked would not harm them in the long run.

It also depends entirely upon the child. Spanking could just end up being completely counter productive. It could cause the child to hate the parent (which would of course harm said child in the long run), or the child may not even care at all and thus making it a waste of time.

You can also get a child to "focus" on the "misbehavior" by simply talking to them (again, this depends on the child.) Of course the parent may not know this, if they've never bothered to even try. And even if they have, and it didn't work, they can try it again when the child is a bit older.

Sometimes waiting is not an option. My father's reaction to my paperclip experimentation was entirely appropriate and immediately necessary, and it had precisely the desired effect without any long-term ill effects at all.

Like disciplining animals, disciplining children requires immediacy of punishment, so that the consequences are directly connected to the bad behavior. Trying to have a rational discussion about bad behavior with an unrepentant four year old is merely going to cause the lesson to be lost entirely. If children were capable of making well-reasoned, thought-out decisions they wouldn't misbehave in the first place, and the idea that one can always "reason" with a child is, generally speaking, an idea created by people who appear to have never actually raised children.

Certainly there are many methods of discipline, and spanking should be reserved for serious or intractable misbehavior, but it has to remain part of the arsenal of parents.

Should spanking be considered a Market force and for the sake of efficiency be put out to private tender, Seth? And as spanking never did you any harm, Seth, shouldn't it be included as one of the tenets of tolerism?

aspire1670 wrote:Should spanking be considered a Market force and for the sake of efficiency be put out to private tender, Seth? And as spanking never did you any harm, Seth, shouldn't it be included as one of the tenets of tolerism?

It's there, indirectly, in the tenets regarding one's personal responsibility and acceptance of the consequences of one's actions.

Seth wrote:

Mac_Guffin wrote:

Warren Dew wrote:

Julia wrote:But we don't want our children to have such a relationship with us, do we? We are supposed to love them and they are supposed to love us

We are also supposed to prepare them for life as adults after we are gone.

I'm not actually saying that's a good argument for spanking - I'm just pointing out that the argument that "obeying out of fear isn't good discipline" appears to be disproven by not only parent child relationships, but by adult relationships as well.

I don't have a problem with obedience through fear. Fear of the consequences of actions is very important... I just don't think that spanking is necessary.
...And while fear is okay, there's a line you shouldn't cross. There must be a level of trust and love that should be maintained between the parent and child.

What leads you to the belief that restrained, necessary and dispassionate spanking violates this bond of trust? It's my observation that when properly applied, it enhances the bond of trust and love by demonstrating that the parent cares enough about the child to protect them from their own bad judgment. Now it may be true that at the moment of the punishment, a child may be fearful, but they are usually fearful of the expression of displeasure by the parent more than any actual pain. Most "spankings" consist of a couple of strokes with the hand that are not as painful as a skinned knee. For very serious violations, like my misbehavior with the gunpowder, which could have seriously injured me or my friend, the actual pain involved was far less than the potential consequences of my actions, which my father took pains to explain to me AFTER he finished punishing me. Trust me, the psychic torment of the realization of how thoroughly I had violated my father's trust by stealing an important and valuable family heirloom and destroying it was much more painful than the spanking, which was primarily to get my attention and focus it on the misbehavior.

There was no violation of the bond between me and my father caused by the spanking. In fact, it strengthened our bond because I understood the magnitude of my misbehavior and how much I had disappointed him, and I resolved not to do so again.

I never said that. I was pointing out that there's a vague line between using fear correctly and using it to the extent that it entails distrust.
My stance against spanking is for different reasons than fear. It's unecessary. There is not one parenting problem that can't be solved through other means.

I think that if you are frustrated with a child than instead of using force on them if you are upset, you can show them your dissatisfaction through your own personal actions. Sort of like, if you throw your hands in the air, grunt some words and have a disapproving face on - at least that lets off the steam, and gets the point across.

Mantisdreamz wrote:I think that if you are frustrated with a child than instead of using force on them if you are upset, you can show them your dissatisfaction through your own personal actions. Sort of like, if you throw your hands in the air, grunt some words and have a disapproving face on - at least that let's off the steam, and gets the point across.

One should never spank out of frustration, one should only spank to gain and focus attention on specific misbehavior and to reinforce both discipline and respect for the necessary family power structure, and to demonstrate that there are immediate and unpleasant consequences for improper action. Like revenge, discipline is a dish best served cold.

Seth wrote:

Mantisdreamz wrote:I think that if you are frustrated with a child than instead of using force on them if you are upset, you can show them your dissatisfaction through your own personal actions. Sort of like, if you throw your hands in the air, grunt some words and have a disapproving face on - at least that let's off the steam, and gets the point across.

One should never spank out of frustration, one should only spank to gain and focus attention on specific misbehavior and to reinforce both discipline and respect for the necessary family power structure, and to demonstrate that there are immediate and unpleasant consequences for improper action. Like revenge, discipline is a dish best served cold.

I understand completely. But, you don't want your child to be afraid of you in that way. You know, as if acting like they are in the military. They might grow to resent that.