Is it right to smack a child?

[meli1981]

quotes to big so for Lovie.
You are right there are many negative ways apart from spanking to punish a child, like time outs and taking things away. All of which I do not do either.

then how do you discipline? if you dont do time outs or taking toys away etc, how do you show consequences for their actions? i see you have very young children, practically babies, so maybe you havent had to do much discipling yet. im sorry but even the greatest kids act up and test their boundries every once in awhile.

 

[Tasha]

then how do you discipline? if you dont do time outs or taking toys away etc, how do you show consequences for their actions? i see you have very young children, practically babies, so maybe you havent had to do much discipling yet. im sorry but even the greatest kids act up and test their boundries every once in awhile.

We try not to use either of those as well. Rather teach them consequences to their actions, so for instance one of my daughter's drew on the wall, and so we explained what she had done wrong and then got her to clean it. None of my children have ever hit, bit etc so I am not sure how we would handle that but probably something along the lines of a chat, them writing an apology card and doing something nice for the child they hurt. For us it is making sure the 'punishment' fits with what they have done.

 

[meli1981]

that is very extreme, and makes me wonder if something else was going on. i am 100 percent sure my girls would NEVER do anything like that to me. we are a very close family, and that hasent changed, not with a spank here or there

Nope, not as far as discipline. It ruined him, I believe.

i think it was more so because he did it to your brother and not to you or you sister(s). maybe there was some resentment from that? to me it sounds more like that then the actual smacking issue.

 

[Tasha]

Yes, that would mess with anyone's head I think. It would make it seem as if they werent as loved as the girls. Or at least that is how I would of felt if I was getting smacked and my siblings werent.

 

[meli1981]

then how do you discipline? if you dont do time outs or taking toys away etc, how do you show consequences for their actions? i see you have very young children, practically babies, so maybe you havent had to do much discipling yet. im sorry but even the greatest kids act up and test their boundries every once in awhile.

We try not to use either of those as well. Rather teach them consequences to their actions, so for instance one of my daughter's drew on the wall, and so we explained what she had done wrong and then got her to clean it. None of my children have ever hit, bit etc so I am not sure how we would handle that but probably something along the lines of a chat, them writing an apology card and doing something nice for the child they hurt. For us it is making sure the 'punishment' fits with what they have done.

what are you going to do if they keep writing on the walls for example? just keep having them clean it up, instead of having a punishment? theyre not going to care, as theyre thinking, "hey ill have some fun writing on the walls, and then ill clean it up and do it again!" there is no consequence! same with writing an apology card, in real life you would apologise anyway, so its not a punishment. children look for boundries. you have to enforce them, and just sitting them down and talking to them is not going to cut it. they forget at the drop of a hat, as theyre brains arent fully developed.
my mind keeps going to the old lady getting bullied in the school bus, by punks! i wonder what would you do to discipline those boys? give them a good talking to? makes me wonder how they were disciplined as youngsters......?

 

[Tasha]

what are you going to do if they keep writing on the walls for example? just keep having them clean it up, instead of having a punishment? theyre not going to care, as theyre thinking, "hey ill have some fun writing on the walls, and then ill clean it up and do it again!" there is no consequence! same with writing an apology card, in real life you would apologise anyway, so its not a punishment. children look for boundries. you have to enforce them, and just sitting them down and talking to them is not going to cut it. they forget at the drop of a hat, as theyre brains arent fully developed.
my mind keeps going to the old lady getting bullied in the school bus, by punks! i wonder what would you do to discipline those boys? give them a good talking to? makes me wonder how they were disciplined as youngsters......?

Firstly you felt attacked before and now you seem to be doing the same to me.

Secondly, it is a consequence. It might not be the consequence you would give but it is one. And as I said it isnt just an apology card I would do, but a chore, something nice for that person to make it up to them. For us this works right now, my daughter never drew on the wall again, other times when they have done things wrong and we talked to the chuld and gave what we believe to be a suitable punishment and they never did it again. They are only eight, almost seven and four, so it may not be that this will always work for us but right now it does. Parenting is a huge learning curve so I dont know what I would do with teenagers, because I dont have any yet, what I do know is regardless of their 'crime', I wouldnt smack them. Maybe doing stuff around the lady's home/garden for a month, I dont know because like I said I am not there yet and I would hope my children never have such disrespect for others.

 

[Tasha]

I am going to be completely honest with my stance here. I was smacked as a child, I HATED it, it was awful. To this day I resent my Dad for doing it, does he know that? No. To this day does it affect our relationship? Yes. Is he aware of that? No.

I never want my children to resent me for how I disciplined them, I never want the way I disciplined them to be a reason to affect our relationship well into adulthood, even if it would be me not knowing it was affecting it. It is great that it doesnt affect a lot of you, but it does affect some children, even if they dont show signs of it at the time. And personally I cant run the risk of affecting my child in such a negative way. I cant.

 

[deafgal]

then how do you discipline? if you dont do time outs or taking toys away etc, how do you show consequences for their actions? i see you have very young children, practically babies, so maybe you havent had to do much discipling yet. im sorry but even the greatest kids act up and test their boundries every once in awhile.

We try not to use either of those as well. Rather teach them consequences to their actions, so for instance one of my daughter's drew on the wall, and so we explained what she had done wrong and then got her to clean it. None of my children have ever hit, bit etc so I am not sure how we would handle that but probably something along the lines of a chat, them writing an apology card and doing something nice for the child they hurt. For us it is making sure the 'punishment' fits with what they have done.

what are you going to do if they keep writing on the walls for example? just keep having them clean it up, instead of having a punishment? theyre not going to care, as theyre thinking, "hey ill have some fun writing on the walls, and then ill clean it up and do it again!" there is no consequence! same with writing an apology card, in real life you would apologise anyway, so its not a punishment. children look for boundries. you have to enforce them, and just sitting them down and talking to them is not going to cut it. they forget at the drop of a hat, as theyre brains arent fully developed.
my mind keeps going to the old lady getting bullied in the school bus, by punks! i wonder what would you do to discipline those boys? give them a good talking to? makes me wonder how they were disciplined as youngsters......?

me, i have been doing that. my son kept spraying on the toilet seat, and I keep making him clean up. I have no problem with that. if he doesn't, he knows he will lose privileges. it seem to work fine for me. trust me kids do not like wasting their time cleaning up any more adults do. they will not keep doing it.

 

[Tasha]

I hope no one takes that as an attack, but plently of people here have said that being spanked/smacked hasnt affected them, so I wanted to share the flip side of that.

 

[meli1981]

i was not attacking you, i was just responding. others have said from the beginning how "wrong" we are for the ways we discipline, but when i go ahead and do the same im attacking? doesnt make sence.
i was referring to the video on youtube of the eight graders bullying a bus monitor. i doubt cleaning her garden is punishment enough. again not attacking, debating!

 

[Tasha]

i was not attacking you, i was just responding. others have said from the beginning how "wrong" we are for the ways we discipline, but when i go ahead and do the same im attacking? doesnt make sence.
i was referring to the video on youtube of the eight graders bullying a bus monitor. i doubt cleaning her garden is punishment enough. again not attacking, debating!

It was just the way it was written seemed like you were attacking.

I saw what you meant, and as I said I dont know how I would deal with that because I am not a mother of a teenager yet. So I dont know, but I DO think making things up to someone is an important part of it. To me that is almost like community service, so why is that not good enough?

 

[meli1981]

those boys were calling her unforgivable things, and threatening her. theyll be lucky if they dont get charged with assault. so no cleaning her garden to me wouldnt be good enough punishment. to be reminded these boys were in seventh or eighth grade, thats 12or 13, barely teenagers, and this is the way theyre acting? were they scared of their consequence? no! this is wat hapens to kids that have no boundries

 

[meli1981]

and im sorry if you felt attacked, wasent my intention

 

[Tasha]

those boys were calling her unforgivable things, and threatening her. theyll be lucky if they dont get charged with assault. so no cleaning her garden to me wouldnt be good enough punishment. to be reminded these boys were in seventh or eighth grade, thats 12or 13, barely teenagers, and this is the way theyre acting? were they scared of their consequence? no! this is wat hapens to kids that have no boundries

Im from England, I dont know how your grading works so didnt know they were younger

Exactly, they probably will be charged (probably wouldnt be with assault here though tbh, more likely harrassment or something along those lines) but here they wouldnt get prison for that (IMO), it would most likely be community service, but I think that they would need to personally try and make it up to her not just the community in general, does that make sense to you?

The thing is you dont know if those children have been smacked, and thought well if my parents find out all they are going to do is smack me, so I dont care. You dont know if they have things like grounding and television taken away, or so on and they just think well I will climb out of the window. Some children just dont care what the consequences are, so as much as we might think that their parents dont discipline them, they may well do.

 

[meli1981]

sorry i meant harrassment! although they were mentioning doing things to her house so im not sure. im just saying spanking worked for us. i have used other forms of discipline, and spanking as a last resort, and now all i have to do is raise my eyebrows at her, and she knows i mean business! its not fear, its respect. youre right i dont know how these kids have been disciplined, but if they were taught respect they most definately wouldnt have acted that way. all i can hope for my kids is that they know theyre loved, and that they treat people with respect. they have not been damaged

 

[deafgal]

more likely those boys were spanked. just about every Americans I know is pro-spanking. I rarely met one who didn't spank their kids. if you asked me, I think it's the stuff they see on the internet these days that influence them.

 

[JASMAK]

i was not attacking you, i was just responding. others have said from the beginning how "wrong" we are for the ways we discipline, but when i go ahead and do the same im attacking? doesnt make sence.
i was referring to the video on youtube of the eight graders bullying a bus monitor. i doubt cleaning her garden is punishment enough. again not attacking, debating!

It was just the way it was written seemed like you were attacking.

I saw what you meant, and as I said I dont know how I would deal with that because I am not a mother of a teenager yet. So I dont know, but I DO think making things up to someone is an important part of it. To me that is almost like community service, so why is that not good enough?

I agree...there doesn't have to be a pain involved for kids to learn. I think it is sad that people feel that way.

 

[Tasha]

I think children will learn WAY more from having to make it up to the person. It means that over a period of time they will be using their time, instead of being out with friends they will be doing some gardening or DIY, things that could make that persons life easier/better. I guess for me it is important that the consequence fits what they have done.

I mentioned before, that I have been damaged by being smacked but I realise that many of you havent. The thing is how do we know which children will be damaged by spanking/smacking? We cant look at a child and know that he will be fine but he wont. So is it worth the potential risk? Is it worth that it *may* damage them?

 

[nosocks]

I think the best way to teach children the right way to behave is to have reasonable expectations for their behaviour for their age- eg, little children may throw things but they may not be old enough to understand why it's not acceptable so punishing them wont help.
Then to be consistent in the way you deal with behaviours you don't like (and like) eg... Child throwing- saying 'no we don't throw'.... Then taking the thing away if they do it again..... Modelling how to use the object. And it may take 5 or 10 times before they get it- but I'm sorry it's our job as parents to invest that time in them and not just say- not working- let's just smack them instead- quick fix!
Then to just let there be a bit of time for the child to get to grips with the rules and sometimes as adults we have to look out for signals for any negative behaviour brewing.
I would also follow the 'if you write on the wall, you clean it up'
I am a teacher and if children acted up- the consequences were to fix the problem- so miss a bit of play to clean up something or to not join in a nice game if they were ruining it for others- or draw a sorry picture for someone they hit.
But modelling and consistency is the best way I think and a huge thing I learnt is to just stop and think about what might be going on in the child's head- put yourself in their shoes etc and see if you can see where their frustration or anger may come from. Try and think like a 3 year old And not as an adult and say 'smacking never did me any harm'

 

[Dragonfly]

95 % of Americans I read spank their kids. It is more than likely they where smacked. I am not saying that spanking will defiantly lead to this but it takes different personalities to form this. You could create a bully. Children seldom can give what they dont receive. It always appears to work, it does for a short time. Stops unwanted behaviour. To the parent thats it dealt with. Inside a child's head is a total different story. Children who are spanked are more likely to take it out on peers in school and teachers , away from the eyes of parents. And sure whats the worse that will happen to a child who is angry and fed up being spanked, another spanking. Its sad as parents punish for behaviour they have caused.