Spanking, Smacking etc. of Children

[Ragnar69]

This post was referred to in a more recent, so I wanted to chime in. When I was a kid my mom spanked me and my sister all the time, my dad never did. We definitely respected my dad far more. My mom would spank us or discipline us for stupid stuff. As has been said in this thread it was done more out of anger and frustration than trying to teach a lesson. It also became very ineffective when at about the age of 12 I could outrun, outsmart, and simply physically block any attempt at force from my mother since she is not very strong.

However, my dad is 5'11" about 200 lbs, used to play football, still worked out with weights when we were very young. The violence from my mom led my sister and to a lesser extent myself to be violent with each other. We would get into some serious fights when we were kids. When we fought my sister liked to scratch me. I would say, scratch me and I'm going to hit you. She would scratch, I would hit. She never really learned. One time I smacked her so hard I drew blood (her scratches always drew blood). My dad saw it, grabbed me by the arm, and asked me how I would like to get in a fight with him. Just the THREAT of violence from my dad was enough for me to see the point that I shouldn't use force against my younger, weaker sister. After that I tried to defuse potentially violent fights with my sister, or at the least I stopped trying to tear her head off.

[Mindy]

I think a parent that uses physical punishments as a method of educating his/her child is immoral, and should be punished by law. It is very damaging for a human being to be brought up like a horse.

children are not irrational creatures. They are creatures with developing rationality. You cannot help rationality to develop by using it's anti-thesis - obedience.

So much emphasis on obeying the rules. Why do you see it necessary to bring up a child in an environment of rules? Why do you view it as rules and not as teaching your child right and wrong?

There is nothing more damaging to a human being than obedience. Destroying your kid's ego from a young age is the worst possible damage you can do to him/her, far greater than any danger they face in life. Failing at school is nonsense compared to bringing them to a mental state of dependency and humiliation.

Now, if you have a horse, for example, and all you want is to ride on its back, then obedience is what you are looking for from a horse, and whipping and sugar cubes is the way to achieve it. But with a human being you (hopefully) have the goal of bringing him/her to be an independent person. Achieving obedience is not the method for that.

Stupid parents think that only by force they can ensure a child's success in school. In fact, what they assure is that the child will hate accomplishing things that require thinking. Because the act of thinking becomes entangled with an ego problem. The kid has to choose - to use his mind and give up his pride (for obedience), or to rebel against the authority and not make an effort in school (or thinking).

Sophia said it all very well, especially in her last post (number 16).

I happen to have a horse AND a child, and I think your attitude is thoroughly wrong on both counts.

Mindy

[determinist]

Wow. I simply cannot believe I'm reading these responses on an Ayn Rand forum instead of a Republican Christian forum. After all the talk about how the government should only initiate force against those who initiate force, people are agreeing with initiating physical force. I would have never guessed I'd find this thread. My mind is blown from this.

Edited August 26, 2010 by determinist

[Mindy]

Wow. I simply cannot believe I'm reading these responses on an Ayn Rand forum instead of a Republican Christian forum. After all the talk about how the government should only initiate force against those who initiate force, people are agreeing with initiating physical force. I would have never guessed I'd find this thread. My mind is blown from this.

Children can be reasoned with only within limits, and depending on their age, of course. Just how would you cope with a two-year-old who was set on hitting the baby? Force of some kind is absolutely necessary. The context of child-rearing is critically different from how adults may treat one another.

Mindy

[~Sophia~]

Children can be reasoned with only within limits, and depending on their age, of course. Just how would you cope with a two-year-old who was set on hitting the baby? Force of some kind is absolutely necessary. The context of child-rearing is critically different from how adults may treat one another.

Mindy

And I completely disagree with you. Hitting is never really necessary. Other forms of behavior adjustment are available even when dealing with a child in the pre-rational stage (not to mention the fact that I would pay a lot of attention to the reason why a two year old would do such a thing ... and work on eliminating the psychological reasons behind it (probably jealously issues associated with a new baby in the house - but if not whatever that may be) along with preventing/discouraging the action itself)

Ideally, good (moral) behavior shold not be driven by the fear of punishement. That is is the wrong kind of motivation - for both kids and adults.

My son will be nine in October btw so I am talking from experience. I have never hit him and I never will. I also have never had any issues with discipline and it is not because he is a special kid.

[Greebo]

Yes, good moral behavior should not be driven by fear of punishment, but as has been noted previously, there are stages in a child's life where RATIONAL comprehension of the reasons to be good cannot be understood, and children can be extremely willful. You can tell a willful 4 year old, "No, don't walk out in the street, you'll get hit by a car and be hurt badly or killed" a thousand times and they will ignore your warnings, but if they ignore you, and you say, "I told you not to do that, don't try again or you will regret it", followed (when they try again) by one sharp smack on the bottom after they willfully defy orders will make the point and is FAR better than allowing them to get hit by a car.

You cannot use reason with a person unable *OR UNWILLING* to use reason, and children are well known for their unwillingness to use reason when they're in "high dudgeon". If a child is willing to listen and think, by all means, use reason, but if a child is going to simply act out then sometimes you must deal with them in the language *they* choose.

[~Sophia~]

You can tell a willful 4 year old, "No, don't walk out in the street, you'll get hit by a car and be hurt badly or killed" a thousand times and they will ignore your warnings,

I would not do the same thing 1000 times if I saw it not working the first time.

Also if a child had a habit of ignoring parent's guidelines - I would focus there because something already went wrong.

Every time I hear a parent describe their disobedient child as "unusually willful" I think - "give them to me for few days".

A lot of early childhood care providers have no hitting policy and yet they have no issues disciplining whole groups of 3 year olds.

but if they ignore you, and you say, "I told you not to do that, don't try again or you will regret it", followed (when they try again) by one sharp smack on the bottom after they willfully defy orders will make the point and is FAR better than allowing them to get hit by a car.

You are creating false alternatives. Hitting is not the only way of getting the child to obey. It is an easy (and in my opinion wrong) way out.

Because my son was never hit - it is incomprehensible to him - a completely foreign concept even during moments of strong frustration - to push or hit anyone.

You cannot use reason with a person unable *OR UNWILLING* to use reason, and children are well known for their unwillingness to use reason when they're in "high dudgeon". If a child is willing to listen and think, by all means, use reason, but if a child is going to simply act out then sometimes you must deal with them in the language *they* choose.

First, you would be surprised just how much even very young children can comprehend when using the right approach. For example, the younger the child the less abstract the explanation the better: Warnings like "you will regret it" or "you will burn yourself" or "you will get killed" are from my experience useless because they are too abstract for a very small kid (below 3 years old I would say).

If you don't want him to touch a hot stove - make him touch it when it is not drastically hot (but hot enough). He will get "this can hurt me"- trust me. If he does it knowing full well that it will hurt badly - there are probably other issues causing it (like maybe him trying to get attention he does not otherwise get enough of). Obviously this approach won't be appropriate in every situation.

Sometimes they just have to obey - just because a parent said so. When my son was very young, although I provided the reasons in a way he could comprehend them - I expected and enforced obedience regardless of his understanding. I have done so without using physical violence. Again there is nothing special about my kid.

Have you seen any of the Super Nanny shows on TV? Those women repeatedly eliminate habitual problematic behavior in children (often very young) in a day or so (sometimes in a matter of minutes!).

Edited August 26, 2010 by ~Sophia~

[Imogen]

In my experience (with my own 5 children), children are always doing their best, putting everything they have into each pursuit and expression. They don't hold anything back for later or on reserve for something else. They are driven. Unless they have been squashed, but mine are free-thinkers, and I don't have most of the communication problems others have expressed to me when they wonder why I don't have to punish my children- ever.

They are also very rational, apparently unlike some of the descriptions of others here, which admittedly surprised me. I question whether or not the descriptor 'irrational' is misplaced, because one of the most difficult aspects of mothering my children has been their strict adherence to rationality. It is difficult because their grasp of cause and effect is near perfect. I bet that seems absurd, but in order to be rational, one need and indeed can only act according to the given or observed information or facts. Children do so with gusto: the challenges, for me at least, have been centred in providing them with adequate facts to make more wholistically rational choices.

What I mean is that (in my experience), my children act rationally according to what they know, what they have themselves observed and understood according to the context within which they made their observations. This leaves them with enormous deficits of knowledge due to their as yet very short lives, and therein I find myself clambouring to catch them up on whatever they are missing in order to act rationally, not in trying to get them to act in a way that for me, who is in more full possession of the facts would, because if they act as I would but without the whole set of facts, for them, their behaviour would be irrational.

An (admittedly incomplete) example: My six year old son came running in to ask me to give to him my 7 yr old's bow and arrow. I said that I would prefer that he not use it at that time because daddy was at work, and I would feel safer having another adult around while he uses it. He told me then that it wasn't for him, but that his brother had asked him to bring it to him for target practice. I reiterated my concern and my decision that he would have to wait until the next day, when daddy was home. He proceeded to essentially freak out- crying, wailing, stomping, etc.... I asked him why he was so upset that his brother wouldn't be using the bow and arrow, and then he told me that he was upset because his brother had asked him to get the bow and arrow for him, and he was waiting and expecting it, and now he wasn't bringing it. So, I confirmed with him that he felt responsible to the task of bringing the objects to his brother and I was preventing him from accomplishing his mission, with which he emphatically agreed and calmed down completely. Then he sat at the table with me and we discussed risk and risk analysis within the context of physical activities and he agreed without my insistence that it would be better to wait until daddy was home since I was the only adult for several kilometers in every direction and *if* something happened with the bow and arrow, it could be serious and piling all of us into the van to meet the medics half-way would be more difficult than to do so when daddy was home.

He just turned six and his brother just turned seven.

When he freaked out, some people would assume it was irrational (and give him a smack for freaking out and I said "no" right?), but he was not in full possession of the facts and neither was I when his behaviour turned into an outburst of emotions.

Children can be very, VERY emotional (as can adults) and mine are not in any way properly understood to be 'compliant'; they are self-assured and not irrational. If anything, it's their insistence on rationality that wears on me because I must spend so much time teasing out what they know from what they need to know in order *for me* to have rational discourse with them, which I do. The discussion I described above is in kind with the discussions I have with my two year old as well (he's very articulate). I act according to the evidence they give me from birth that they are reasoning and aware and that they need only be guided, shown, let into the real workings of life and not some pretend child-alternate-universe that is so common for children today (check out any mass schooling curriculum for young children, any daycare, any preschool or nursery with a few exceptions; they are scary- completely disconnected from reality).

As for 'spanking' them, I agree that in order that the hitting could be thought to be effective, we'd be relying on the same capacity for rational thought that I do when I talk to my children. Besides that, I have so many more relational and beneficial ways of communicating with my children than hitting, that even if it were the last item on my list of acceptable responses to my children, I'd never even get there: I'd have long, long earlier resolved the issue, as I have and do so presently.

Also, the idea that hitting is okay when they are old enough to 'know better' but young enough to be overpowered is an impossibility for me for even more than philosophical reasons. My just-turned seven-year-old is 4'3", 64lbs, and his just-turned six yr old brother is two inches and two pounds smaller. I honestly cannot overpower them except in controlled settings like arm-wrestling. I am not weak either, but one is long limbed too, and the other is built like a tank. I feed them very well, and they have benefitted! By the time they would fit the common (not crazy baby-training a la Ezzo) criteria for 'spanking', I'd have to garner their agreement to do it to them, but all of us would rather discuss than hit or be hit. And I've raised them to esteem themselves higher than to submit to being hit...

So, we reason together- and I am a walking encyclopaedia, facilitator, adoring mother, and human resource in the most practical sense. And it's exhausting.

Edited August 27, 2010 by Imogen

[Black Wolf]

First, you would be surprised just how much even very young children can comprehend when using the right approach. For example, the younger the child the less abstract the explanation the better: Warnings like "you will regret it" or "you will burn yourself" or "you will get killed" are from my experience useless because they are too abstract for a very small kid (below 3 years old I would say).

If you don't want him to touch a hot stove - make him touch it when it is not drastically hot (but hot enough). He will get "this can hurt me"- trust me. If he does it knowing full well that it will hurt badly - there are probably other issues causing it (like maybe him trying to get attention he does not otherwise get enough of). Obviously this approach won't be appropriate in every situation.

Sometimes they just have to obey - just because a parent said so. When my son was very young, although I provided the reasons in a way he could comprehend them - I expected and enforced obedience regardless of his understanding. I have done so without using physical violence. Again there is nothing special about my kid.

Have you seen any of the Super Nanny shows on TV? Those women repeatedly eliminate habitual problematic behavior in children (often very young) in a day or so (sometimes in a matter of minutes!).

This is all very interesting.. has there been any studies on such techniques?