Spanking: Should spanking be used to discipline a child?

[LightSun]

Violence and Disciple: True or erroneous belief, "Spare the child, spoil the child." This is archaic, and self defeating. You may get instant results but the wouds and resentment will fessture. You will ultimately be sabotaged.


"Violence is form of negative reinforcement. It introduces the child "That violence and punishment work or will deter deviant behavior. This is ignorant, sorry. (A behavior will shift to another way to express self. You do not alleviate the problem. Hidden yes but it goes hand in hand with, "Spare the rod spare the child." Now there needs to be discipline and boundaries set, of course with certitude. BUT your job is steward with greatest responsibility and that is to raise a child in an environment of, #1 Love, #2. Safety and #3 Nurturer. Guide yes. Dictate to a child exactly what is he or she to do is unfair.

When dealing with adolescent and out of control behavior, then professionals oversee and train. It is learned "To give any attention to say a temper tantrum" will in effect encourage the child to perform in addition repetitively follow this course of action. It is inappropriate and even detrimental to the adolescent or child's long range vital interests. Why? Because any attention is better than no attention. Its called negative reinforcement. The procedure is to ignore aberrant behavior unless the child is in direct and imminent threat to self or others.

Then through approximate steps of Behaviorism deemed terminology 'Shaping' toward more appropriately desirable behaviors only then only will the child get positive reinforcement of heightened special tokens, less restrictions in an environment and more freedom, praise, weekend visiting and etc. The specialized member of staff will appear as ignoring: spitting, foul language, even upturning furniture. Punishment may appear to curtail certain behaviors or mannerism but they simply are shunted.

Passive aggression may appear based on the real problem that is never permenantly fixed. It's a band aid and blind's eye approach to not deal with the problem effectively. It's "A short range view and is reactionary reaction versus to fix the problem effectively using a mature training method."

 

[Red Herring]

Sixty countries, states and territories have adopted legislation that fully prohibits using corporal punishment against children at home, according to both UNICEF and the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children.

Globally, about 1.1 billion caregivers view physical punishment as necessary to properly raise or educate a child, according to UNICEF.

Some of the countries and territories that have bans are: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Aruba, Austria, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Pitcairn Islands, Poland, and Portugal.

The other countries and territories that have bans are: Moldova, Romania, San Marino, Slovenia, South Sudan, Spain, St. Maarten, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Sweden, Macedonia, Togo, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

These are the countries where spanking is illegal - CNN Philippines

I live in one of those countries and it's basically a non-issue here. Spanking seems anachronistic to me, a bit like being allowed to rape your spouse. Something left over from the dark ages, to be honest.

If you need to use physical violence to gain your child's "respect" your authority stands on very shaky ground indeeed. It confounds respect with fear and teaches the child that violence is okay. It can even lead to the child respecting nothing but violence and not taking authorities seriously that don't come cracking down on it with even more violence.

I also see a link to authoritarian personality.

 

[21%]

Nope. I was never spanked, ever. And I think I grew up all right

On a more serious note, I believe that it is important to teach children to reason from a young age.

 

[Obfuscate]

meh, it doesn't seem like a go to step, but it isn't entirely without a place either... it is a matter of how/why/when it is done... i think that it ought to be rare, under most conditions...

 

[Amberiat]

I think violence in any form is inefficient and a desperate solution for parents who are incapable of properly disciplining their children.

A more effective method would be to reason with him/her, it will also help the kid learn reasoning/negotiation skills and it's a more reliable long term tactic, violence is just a short term solution which will not only hurt the child/parent relationship but will also negatively impact the kids social skills later on.

 

[Stanton Moore]

Spanking doesn't work. It is counter productive. Better to achieve fairness.

 

[Lexicon]

I’ve posted it around before, but I couldn’t say it any better:


"I really think it's crazy that we hit our kids. It really is--here's the crazy part about it. Kids are the only people in the world that you're allowed to hit. Do you realize that? They're the most vulnerable, and they're the most destroyed by being hit. But it's totally okay to hit them. And they're the only ones! If you hit a dog they fucking will put you in jail for that shit. You can't hit a person unless you can prove that they were trying to kill you. But a little tiny person with a head this big who trusts you implicitly, fuck 'em. Who gives a shit? Just fucking hit--let's all hit them! People want you to hit your kid. If your kid's making noise in public, "Hit him, hit him! Hit him! Grrr, hit him!" We're proud of it! "I hit my kids. You're damn right I hit my kids." Why did you hit them? "'Cause they were doing a thing I didn't like at the moment. And so I hit them, and guess what? They didn't do it after that." Well, that wouldn't be taking the fuckin' easy way out would it? How 'bout talking to them for a second, you fucking retard!? What are you an idiot? What are you a fucking ape? "Well, I know it's a pain in the ass!" Well you fucked a woman and a fucking baby came out of her vagina! Now, you be patient. It's not their fault." -- Louis C.K

 

[Beorn]

It's a matter of how and why.

It's also a matter of culture.
Societies have done it for millennia. So I'm not going to judge people I don't know.
You know what's worse than spanking??? Having CPS split families apart.

I grew up being spanked and it's the last thing I would complain about regarding my upbringing.

My brother uses spanking in an extremely effective manner. The kids are very well behaved and there doesn't seem to be any negative effect. Of course they have to use a code word for it out of fear of using the "spank" word in public and having some busybody tell them off or worse calling CPS on them.

 

[citizen cane]

I'm not a fan of spanking as a discipline method, but I think the most important takeaway is the following: If you think you have to spank your kid(s), you shouldn't have children in your custody. If you don't know how to modify behavior without doing so, you are nowhere near ready to be a parental figure in any capacity.

 

[Beorn]

I'm not a fan of spanking as a discipline method, but I think the most important takeaway is the following: If you think you have to spank your kid(s), you shouldn't have children in your custody. If you don't know how to modify behavior without doing so, you are nowhere near ready to be a parental figure in any capacity.

Dude...

Prime example of what's wrong with social services.

 

[citizen cane]

Dude...

Prime example of what's wrong with social services.

Social services doesn't really care if you spank your kids, so long as you don't leave marks. You missed my point, which was that while I don't agree with spanking, the bigger issue is folks who think it's a necessity rather than a particular approach, and my point stands. If inflicting physical pain is the best idea someone has as the consequence for any given transgression, there is simply no way they are equipped to handle the many things involved in raising a child that are more complex than dealing with misbehavior.


Also, this is me speaking as someone who retained knowledge and communication skills instilled in high school, not as a social services employee. I would imagine that most social services employees have far lower standards of 'normal' behavior than I do, particularly those in child welfare. Of course, the narrative is that persons with higher expectations are what's wrong with social services, as you have illustrated in the above post.

 

[EcK]

Oh, so this is THAT type of spanking thread.

Nevermind.

 

[Beorn]

Social services doesn't really care if you spank your kids, so long as you don't leave marks. You missed my point, which was that while I don't agree with spanking, the bigger issue is folks who think it's a necessity rather than a particular approach, and my point stands. If inflicting physical pain is the best idea someone has as the consequence for any given transgression, there is simply no way they are equipped to handle the many things involved in raising a child that are more complex than dealing with misbehavior.

I guess I just don't get the point of you making the point.

Obviously, if you can't figure out how to handle a 14 yo without hitting them you have issues.

Also, this is me speaking as someone who retained knowledge and communication skills instilled in high school, not as a social services employee. I would imagine that most social services employees have far lower standards of 'normal' behavior than I do, particularly those in child welfare. Of course, the narrative is that persons with higher expectations are what's wrong with social services, as you have illustrated in the above post.

I don't think this is about what's normal behavior.
It's about what behavior is worse than the alternative of tearing a family apart.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have other institutions outside of the government actually establish expectations and social pressure for "normal" parenting.

 

[citizen cane]

I guess I just don't get the point of you making the point.

Obviously, if you can't figure out how to handle a 14 yo without hitting them you have issues.




I don't think this is about what's normal behavior.
It's about what behavior is worse than the alternative of tearing a family apart.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have other institutions outside of the government actually establish expectations and social pressure for "normal" parenting.

I'll respond to this in parts

Regarding it being better than tearing a family apart:

CPS has to ascertain that there is either ongoing or immediate concern for health and safety of the child to even begin the process of taking a child away. Even leaving visible bruises via spanking, unless the child is an infant or something, a few times isn't going to meet that burden of proof or even come close. If there are marks and bruises a case could be opened, but like I said, unless parents are incapacitated or there is danger to life and limb of the child that can be proven, it almost always takes months of parents actively ignoring CPS advice and continuing the concerning behavior for the process of removing the child to even start. And in that case, CPS is mandated to explore opportunities to place the child with other relatives to keep the family as intact as possible.

Regarding it being helpful to have other institutions establishing social pressure for 'normal' parenting: There are. Schools, daycares, the medical/ psych professions, faith communities, friends, neighbors, coworkers...the list goes on. The fact of the matter is that somewhere along the line, we've accepted a downward slide in parenting quality, lowered expectations of parents, and then scapegoated the resources mentioned above for placing restraints on the authority of parents or 'sparing the rod'. The majority of the general public has never believed that...we just don't have the work ethic anymore to acknowledge that kids need role models, parents don't always know better than experts, and connection to a community on some level is better than rampant rugged individualism.

 

[Coriolis]

Regarding it being helpful to have other institutions establishing social pressure for 'normal' parenting: There are. Schools, daycares, the medical/ psych professions, faith communities, friends, neighbors, coworkers...the list goes on. The fact of the matter is that somewhere along the line, we've accepted a downward slide in parenting quality, lowered expectations of parents, and then scapegoated the resources mentioned above for placing restraints on the authority of parents or 'sparing the rod'. The majority of the general public has never believed that...we just don't have the work ethic anymore to acknowledge that kids need role models, parents don't always know better than experts, and connection to a community on some level is better than rampant rugged individualism.

In some areas, reporting by such institutions - often required by law - has gotten quite out of hand. The institutions and CPS authorities take a "shoot first and don't bother to ask questions" approach, ambushing familes with bureaucratic requirements and intrusive inspections based on evidence that is flimsy at best, and often turns up an accident or brush with another kid that has nothing to do with an abusive family. It turns into a witch hunt, and offers an easy way to make trouble for a neighbor or relative one doesn't like.

 

[Tellenbach]

I'm sure some kids respond to corporal punishment and others don't. Some respond to reason and others don't. Let the parents decide what works best, not some childless elitist know-it-all.

 

[citizen cane]

In some areas, reporting by such institutions - often required by law - has gotten quite out of hand. The institutions and CPS authorities take a "shoot first and don't bother to ask questions" approach, ambushing familes with bureaucratic requirements and intrusive inspections based on evidence that is flimsy at best, and often turns up an accident or brush with another kid that has nothing to do with an abusive family. It turns into a witch hunt, and offers an easy way to make trouble for a neighbor or relative one doesn't like.

I don't disagree. In the brief time I worked for CPS, the amount of times we received reports for minor things where we simply made a phone call and didn't bother to open a case was quite remarkable. All you need is one idiot on a power trip and it doesn't work that way. We also got countless reports from mandated reporters we couldn't do anything about because they were decades-old events.

 

[Fidelia]

I think there are few adults who can use spanking in an appropriate way, as one rarely used tool for a very small child, among many other tools. There are also some kinds of children for whom no amount of spanking will be helpful and it just kindles long-term resentment. Mostly the spankings children remember and are upset about are the ones that were done unjustly and as an outlet for the adult's anger or frustration.

In issues of safety I think there's a place for reinforcing the point when the adult is not upset as a way of emphasizing how serious a situation is if a child repeatedly is doing something. As a toddler or crawling baby, a little swat on a diapered bum is enough to not hurt the child but to thwart their will if they are insisting on doing something unsafe or that they know they are not supposed to. I am very much against spanking being administered by an out of control frustrated adult, or because someone thinks it's good for children because that's how they were raised, when the spanking being given with no explanation, or when it is used as a means of disciplining in public when the necessary training has never been done in private.

If a parent is to be able to provide for a child and keep a child safe, both the parent and the child need to understand what their responsibilities are. A small child who is unwilling to accept instruction or direction from their parent needs a parent who will address that head on. Otherwise the child will become intolerable to anyone else, unable to have their needs cared for, and their own life will be endangered. For some kids, a little bit of humbling at a young age before they are able to have a big showdown with someone they are the same size as is ultimately much better for them. It's not a matter of an adult bullying them because they are bigger, but insisting on being in their rightful role for the child's sake.

I was never spanked as a child, although my older siblings were very occasionally. I've come to believe that while it maybe can be used judiciously as a very serious thing when a child is preschool, most adults don't have the maturity or insight to do it effectively or wisely and inflict more harm than good.

Having said that, I believe that there is a wide scope of ways to parent which can be equally effective. What seems to be the differential is how much relationship there is with the child, where they want to please out of love rather than merely fear. In those circumstances, spanking doesn't have to be a deal breaker, though I think there are other equally effective ways of getting the same result.

 

[Aquarelle]

[MENTION=7111]fidelia[/MENTION] said it really well. I have sure *felt* like spanking my son more than once but never have actually done it. When I feel like spanking him, it's when I'm angry or frustrated; when I think about it when I'm calm I know that it is not something I want to do. I was spanked a few times as a child and I turned out fine, but science has pretty much proven that spanking is not effective and can cause emotional damage.

 

[prplchknz]

Oh, so this is THAT type of spanking thread.

Nevermind.

We can make it that