Does Spanking kids Work?

[Montrovant]

Maybe it's you who should look up the term "self-defense", because comparing that to hitting your kids is ludicrous. Please try again.

Chausette, with respect I am asking you to please consider my post objectively.

It's not that I'm comparing spanking with self-defense, or beating your child to murder. No, that is not it. The point I am trying to convey is that you are broadly generalizing two strikingly different things. You consider spanking and beating to both be bad because, with a very huge and non-discerning brush, you consider them both as "hitting kids." It's the same as saying both self-defense and murder are wrong because it's "killing people." Or that John and Hitler are both bad people because "they eat their veggies."

The error in your logic is a faulty comparison. You have not considered all of the variables.

You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Hitting is hitting is hitting. What you're trying to do is to justify hitting children.

If there are no degrees, then hitting during play is also hitting and wrong. Is that your contention?

I've played plenty of times with the little one and lightly hit her as part of our game; usually it will start because she decides to hit or kick me because it strikes her as funny, and eventually it leads to back and forth playful hitting. Nothing that hurts, but hey, if hitting is hitting, right?

The little one also likes playful spanking. Again, nothing that hurts, but she'd rather have me give playful spanks when we play than tickle her (and oh how that makes me sad, I love tickling!). Should I equate that to spanking for discipline? Should I equate that to abusive beatings? Hitting is hitting is hitting.......

 

[BillyZane]

Chausette, with respect I am asking you to please consider my post objectively.

It's not that I'm comparing spanking with self-defense, or beating your child to murder. No, that is not it. The point I am trying to convey is that you are broadly generalizing two strikingly different things. You consider spanking and beating to both be bad because, with a very huge and non-discerning brush, you consider them both as "hitting kids." It's the same as saying both self-defense and murder are wrong because it's "killing people." Or that John and Hitler are both bad people because "they eat their veggies."

The error in your logic is a faulty comparison. You have not considered all of the variables.

You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Hitting is hitting is hitting. What you're trying to do is to justify hitting children.

If there are no degrees, then hitting during play is also hitting and wrong. Is that your contention?

I've played plenty of times with the little one and lightly hit her as part of our game; usually it will start because she decides to hit or kick me because it strikes her as funny, and eventually it leads to back and forth playful hitting. Nothing that hurts, but hey, if hitting is hitting, right?

The little one also likes playful spanking. Again, nothing that hurts, but she'd rather have me give playful spanks when we play than tickle her (and oh how that makes me sad, I love tickling!). Should I equate that to spanking for discipline? Should I equate that to abusive beatings? Hitting is hitting is hitting.......

plus also they earlier said spanking was kinky play. If hitting is hitting is hitting in absolutes then when I spank my wife I'm being violent with her.

 

[BillyZane]

You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Hitting is hitting is hitting. What you're trying to do is to justify hitting children.

Seriously, the fact that you can't draw the comparison he's trying to make is sad.

It's an unworkable comparison, spanking is hitting. There's no two ways about it. To try to put spanking on a different level than violence is obfuscation and sophistry.

Spanking is hitting the same as self defense is to murder. In other words self defense isn't murder and spanking isn't hitting. That in no way means that spanking a child is self defense, THAT is the part that you didn't understand that made me sad, you clumsily tried to claim that the other poster was claiming that spanking their child was self defense.


Oh, and I've raised two fine young men, and am now raising two young ladies who will also be fine young ladies when they grow up, I rarely spank as a parent, but there are times when it is the appropriate punishment .

 

[Yurt]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

 

[Iceweasel]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

And if they refused to stand in the corner?

 

[Yurt]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

And if they refused to stand in the corner?

good question. i never refused because a spanking was in the works....

 

[BobPlumb]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

And if they refused to stand in the corner?

That's when a swat on the rear end comes in handy to insure that the non physical measures work.

 

[Asclepias]

Children should never be beaten. Its a sign you cannot parent correctly if your only recourse is to beat your child. If you raise your children correctly from jump street you would never have to beat them. As a Black man I would never beat my children simply because its learned behavior passed down from slavery.

 

[Iceweasel]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

Standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

and if they refused to stand in the corner?

that's when a swat on the rear end comes in handy to insure that the non physical measures work.

lol

 

[asterism]

Children should never be beaten. Its a sign you cannot parent correctly if your only recourse is to beat your child. If you raise your children correctly from jump street you would never have to beat them. As a Black man I would never beat my children simply because its learned behavior passed down from slavery.

Black people didn't beat their kids before that?

Are you sure?

 

[Asclepias]

Children should never be beaten. Its a sign you cannot parent correctly if your only recourse is to beat your child. If you raise your children correctly from jump street you would never have to beat them. As a Black man I would never beat my children simply because its learned behavior passed down from slavery.

Black people didn't beat their kids before that?

Are you sure?

I'm positive. Black people may have popped their kids in Africa but no where near the way they do here in the states. My daughters gets their hair done by a lady from Nigeria and she commented on how crazy Americans were beating their children. This has been echoed by a lot of Africans I have met. When I visited Senegal I never saw anyone hit their child but then again all the children were very respectful as well.

 

[asterism]

Children should never be beaten. Its a sign you cannot parent correctly if your only recourse is to beat your child. If you raise your children correctly from jump street you would never have to beat them. As a Black man I would never beat my children simply because its learned behavior passed down from slavery.

Black people didn't beat their kids before that?

Are you sure?

I'm positive. Black people may have popped their kids in Africa but no where near the way they do here in the states. My daughters gets their hair done by a lady from Nigeria and she commented on how crazy Americans were beating their children. This has been echoed by a lot of Africans I have met. When I visited Senegal I never saw anyone hit their child but then again all the children were very respectful as well.

I definitely saw lots of physical discipline by parents in Somalia and Kenya 20 years ago.

 

[Jarlaxle]

You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Hitting is hitting is hitting. What you're trying to do is to justify hitting children.

Seriously, the fact that you can't draw the comparison he's trying to make is sad.

It's an unworkable comparison, spanking is hitting. There's no two ways about it. To try to put spanking on a different level than violence is obfuscation and sophistry.

No, call it what it is: it is LYING!

 

[Asclepias]

Black people didn't beat their kids before that?

Are you sure?

I'm positive. Black people may have popped their kids in Africa but no where near the way they do here in the states. My daughters gets their hair done by a lady from Nigeria and she commented on how crazy Americans were beating their children. This has been echoed by a lot of Africans I have met. When I visited Senegal I never saw anyone hit their child but then again all the children were very respectful as well.

I definitely saw lots of physical discipline by parents in Somalia and Kenya 20 years ago.

I can only speak to where my people came from. Never been to Somalia or Kenya. The ones I know over here dont beat their kids either.

 

[Jarlaxle]

for me personally, spanking worked a few times, but what worked all the time:

standing the corner

that makes you think about what you did

And if they refused to stand in the corner?

Beat them with a metal-studded belt until they cannot stand up...should take between fifty and one hundred lashes.

 

[oldfart]

It's my impression that many of those who are adamantly opposed to spanking, who equate it to beating children, etc. were themselves abused and beaten as children. That makes such an opinion understandable, but it does make me wonder about the possible differences in reasoning between those who were abused and those who were not that think any form of spanking is wrong.

OK, since I stated that I did not believe all physical punishment rose to the level of child abuse, but that I felt that physical punishment was not necessary, I am not in the "many of those" category. But I find it interesting that those defending physical punishment take one of two positions. One is that spanking is rare, almost symbolic, never delivered in anger, and is discontinued by age six or seven. I find this unobjectionable.

The other position is a rigid unwillingness to believe that children raised without physical punishment could ever turn out OK. This really implies and often is used to justify escalating violence. If a little slap on the behind doesn't work, and you don't want Suzy to become a shiftless lazy undisciplined child, so the reasoning goes, it's time for the paddle. If you accept the premise that physical punishment is unavoidable and the only solution when confronted with willful disobedience, then I think the conclusion of escalating violence is inevitable.

Some posters seem to realize this and don't want to go there. For them I ask, "If spanking doesn't work, and you don't want to escalate, what do you do? And why, if that works, don't you do it instead of spanking in the first place?"

Of course there are plenty of individuals, families, and societies that raise children without much physical punishment at home, in schools, and anywhere else. America is the anomaly in many ways. So why the need to deny an obvious reality? I posit that those defending physical punishment simply can't admit that any other way could ever work for anyone, because to admit it is to admit their actions were unnecessary.

So if you want to use limited physical punishment in your childrearing, that's one thing. But to claim that somehow everyone who doesn't must be lying or produce worthless children is simple self-delusion, and a pathetic one at that.

 

[Pogo]

There's a major difference between spanking and beating.

When I was a young cub, I'd be spanked for attacking kids, stealing stuff, disrespecting people, endangering others/myself, etc, etc, etc. Getting my rump swatted helped me, hah, understand and remember that these things were not acceptable. Being young and immature with ADHD, I didn't give a darn about being "reasoned" with or chided. It didn't work. Spanking got the message through loud and clear. My father's not perfect, but I do thank him for spanking me because it taught me to not do certain things, and has kept me from getting in trouble with the law.

I will love my future children, and I fully intend to spank them in order to help them survive and thrive in society.

Gotta say, I find that kind of thinking completely bizarre. I will never forgive my father for beating me, ever, would never do it to anyone else, and it was in no way necessary when it happened. It taught nothing but rage. To crawl to one's knees and go "yes sir may I have another" after that is just ..... bizarre. There's no other word.

 

[Montrovant]

I'm positive. Black people may have popped their kids in Africa but no where near the way they do here in the states. My daughters gets their hair done by a lady from Nigeria and she commented on how crazy Americans were beating their children. This has been echoed by a lot of Africans I have met. When I visited Senegal I never saw anyone hit their child but then again all the children were very respectful as well.

I definitely saw lots of physical discipline by parents in Somalia and Kenya 20 years ago.

I can only speak to where my people came from. Never been to Somalia or Kenya. The ones I know over here dont beat their kids either.

If you can only speak to where your people came from (and I'm not sure how you get that from visiting, but I'll pass that) why did you start by claiming to speak for black people?

 

[Asclepias]

I definitely saw lots of physical discipline by parents in Somalia and Kenya 20 years ago.

I can only speak to where my people came from. Never been to Somalia or Kenya. The ones I know over here dont beat their kids either.

If you can only speak to where your people came from (and I'm not sure how you get that from visiting, but I'll pass that) why did you start by claiming to speak for black people?

Because I am Black and I know a lot about African History and culture. I know that beating kids was just one of the hangovers from slavery.

 

[Pogo]

Spanking sends a message. The message is that if you are bigger than someone else, it is OK to enforce your will on them by inducing physical pain. In short, this is how bullies are born. It is also a fact that those who are victims of physical abiuse as a child tend to abuse children themselves as they grow up.

That ^^ right there.