Rebellious behavior generally arises because adults have *no respect* for the reality of a child’s values or for their hierarchy of values.
*coughbullshitcough*
So far Maximus has appealed to authority, emotion and ad hominem.
I’m on his side.
So far Maximus has appealed to authority, emotion and ad hominem.
You forgot his Granny.
When I was growing up, my mom hit us every now and then, but our dad did not. If I adjust for other factors – like time spent together – I still don’t think one approach made us follow instructions better than the other. If anything, while they were tied in terms of short-term compliance, my dad’s approach probably worked better for ongoing compliance. Candidly, hitting was more about my mother being angry and frustrated rather than about some rational plan about how best to get us kids to comply.
When I was in school, teachers hit kids quite regularly. Here too, in retrospect, there was no correlation between the hitters and the compliance they got. In the younger classes, hitters got compliance, but other teachers did as well. I think some teachers who could not control their classes, would end up going the hitting route, because they could not learn how to get the respect that was commanded by the non-hitters who still managed to control their classes. Basically, just poor teachers. I remember this one teacher who moved from teaching middle schoolers to teaching high-schoolers. We were in grade 12 and some of us remembered him hitting us when we were in 6th and 7th grade. We made sure his 12 th grade classroom was bedlam…he walked out so many times and we managed to almost bring him to tears.
With that said, I don’t think spanking (and ours was more than an occasional smack on the bottom) is a recipe for a troubled psyche, at least not in general terms. In specific terms, if it crosses over a certain amount of small-time smacking, it might temporarily affect the child’s relationship with that parent. I know that in my case, when I was too old for my mom to hit me, I despised her for her previous hitting, but even that was not long term. One grows up, forgives one’s parents for their stupidity, and move on.
And, with that said, of course, if beating goes beyond a certain point, it should be criminal. However, where we are now in the U.S., parents need more discretion in how they bring up their kids, rather than less.
And… with all that said… my wife and I have never spanked or smacked our boy. He’s 11 now and opportunity is running out 
Because of this, he is one of the most obedient kids around. So, that’s my little contribution to the argument from authority. 
Taking a child to school naked is *not* allowing that child to see the consequences of their actions. Not taking them to school because they haven’t gotten dressed, is.
No offense, but back then if my parents ahd kept me from school for doing something I’d have kept doing it. Surely I’d have regretted it years later, but not at the time.
No offense, but back then if my parents ahd kept me from school for doing something I’d have kept doing it. Surely I’d have regretted it years later, but not at the time.
If your kids *hate* going to school, you shouldn’t be *sending* them to school, because this is indicative of a serious ongoing problem. I hated school but I still got myself up in the morning and went because it was more of a hassle *not* to go. My parents would always assume I was “faking” when I said I was sick (which I NEVER DID EVEN ONCE) to the extent that they sent me to school for THREE MONTHS with CHRONIC BRONCHITIS. The teachers were getting annoyed with me because I would interrupt class with my coughing up entire mouthfuls of phlegm. Finally when something like twenty students were out with the same thing I managed to convince my mother to take me to see the doctor.
Most parents do enough good to make up for the incidental bad episodes. Mine did not, and from the way I see a lot of people raise their kids, it’s an *accident* that they don’t, either. They’re decent parents not because they’ve made a conscious decision to be so and work at it but because their kids don’t manage to push their buttons *all* the time.
Raising kids is one of the most long-term and complicated tasks anyone will ever engage in. I don’t see why people let themselves get bogged down in stupid minutiae like “how do I get this kid to put her socks on?” and turn it into some sort of contest of wills. They’re just socks, and if YOU can’t see that and have some perspective about the problem, how do you ever expect your KIDS to do it? Even better, when they get older and their own value-judgments extend, they’ll think that YOU are the concrete-bound nitwit because you started a war over SOCKS. Or a letter opener. Or garbage. Or whatever.
Just about the only value my life has had up until now and for the foreseeable future is of a walking cautionary tale of What Not To Do. I try to give people the benefit of my experiences and people scoff at me like I’m making it up. What’s the difference between saying “it’s okay because I only hit them a little” and “it’s okay because we’ll only tax them a little”? Principles cannot be applied only part way. Yes, you may get away without any harm and even maintain a good relationship with your kids. That doesn’t make it the right way to behave any more than the fact that some people get away with robbing banks makes *that* the right way to behave.
If your kids *hate* going to school, you shouldn’t be *sending* them to school, because this is indicative of a serious ongoing problem. I hated school but I still got myself up in the morning and went because it was more of a hassle *not* to go.
I ahted going to school because I dind’t do well, I loatherd homework and I was bullied every day. But not going simply wasn’t an option. Just changing schools took me years to accomplish.
And… with all that said… my wife and I have never spanked or smacked our boy. He’s 11 now and opportunity is running out
That’s a terrific achievement.
I do think, though, that beating does cause psychological damage.
Pride is a very basic state thing for humans. Even very small kids have it, before they even have many concepts developed. Beating up a child, demanding obedience goes against one’s pride. It does, and I’ve seen it, cause problems with self esteem when a child concedes his pride because of fear of physical punishment. It is an ugly process of destroying a human being’s pride. I think every parent who does this regularly, and especially for reasons other than the child’s safety (such as venting anger or demanding obedience for the sake of obedience) is despicable.
I’ve had neighbors across the street who had the I.Q. of chimpanzees. The couple had 7 boys, and the husband-baboon would beat up his kids often (and even publically). Surprise, surprise, his kids grew up to be a psychological mess. They would feel humiliated, like a second-rate human beings. They wouldn’t look people in the eye, they were hateful of everyone who has good things (one of them actually broke into our house occasionally, pick up some stuff and threw them in a nearby field), they delighted in bullying weaker kids.
The evidence is the size of a mountain that beating up kids does cause psychological damage.
Even in cases when it is done to “restrain” kids (so called “educational purposes” - what does it “educate” them to do? to sit quietly like monkeys?) it has the same effect in lower doses than the freak of a neighbor I brought as an example.
I just can’t stay calm on this topic, it infuriates me when someone thinks they have a right to sabotage a life so that they can have some “peace of mind” or feel supreme because they have obedience from their child. If what you want is peace of mind don’t bring a human being to this world. If you do, do so with the value of your child’s life as a top value.
I do think, though, that beating does cause psychological damage.
Of course beating does, but that is not what we are talking about here.
And… with all that said… my wife and I have never spanked or smacked our boy. He’s 11 now and opportunity is running out
Argument from experience, you mean. That’s quite different.
And… with all that said… my wife and I have never spanked or smacked our boy. He’s 11 now and opportunity is running out
And another thought: it makes perfect sense that this is how he acts. He knows that his parents value and love him, they are on his side. He knows he can trust them to only look out for his best interest and also their love becomes a very very important value. On the other end, when a parent uses physical violence against his child, the child remembers and resents it, and he (or she) will not trust the parent and may even come to not value the parent’s love at all. It becomes a matter of how to avoid physical pain and get away with what the child wants.
I’ve found several of the comments on this thread to be highly rationalistic and I suspect that there’s a strong correlation between that issue and not having children. Deriving whether corporal punishment is moral or not from Ayn Rand’s theory of individual rights is not helpful because they’re wildly different issues. I can assure you that there is a great chasm of experience between what you think about raising a child prior to having any and after having some: it has been a real eye-opener for me. There’s a credibility that comes from having some skin in the game, so to speak.
I have spanked my four children at various times in their short lives (all are under 6). It generally occurred at the point of successive willful disobedience. For example, a daughter plays loudly at bedtime or goes wandering upstairs after a cat and is told to get back to bed. She repeats the behavior or a variant again and I tell her that next time she is going to have the cat taken away. She continues and I say that next time she will get a spanking. She continues again so I administer one to her rear. She cries and stops, falling to sleep shortly after that.
She’s only done that sequence once and every other time stops after the first reminder. The spank, as I see it, was an emphasis–letting her know that this was the end of the line for this set of behaviors. I didn’t enjoy it and she knew the consequence in advance. She (and her siblings) has suffered no ill effects that I can see and is no door mat to authority.
Where children lose respect is when this becomes the go-to move or is applied capriciously. When punishments aren’t objectively applied, then a minor version of learned helplessness and associated resentment ensue. In the thick of heavy emotions or impulsive behavior, calm reasoning can fail–children lack the self-control that we adults can have.
I view the parental role as imposing control, foresight, and empathy until they are able to exercise it on their own. I do this through objective rules, timeouts, and explanation. As the children age, they will internalize the rules and explanations and I can phase out the timeouts.
Bill
Even though I am a “non-spanking” parent, I agree that arguing from politics to kids is the wrong approach.
For example, a daughter plays loudly at bedtime or goes wandering upstairs after a cat and is told to get back to bed. She repeats the behavior or a variant again and I tell her that next time she is going to have the cat taken away.
Does taking away the cat or taking away her music not stop her? Or, is the second event on another day?
And another thought: it makes perfect sense that this is how he acts. He knows that his parents value and love him, they are on his side. He knows he can trust them to only look out for his best interest and also their love becomes a very very important value. On the other end, when a parent uses physical violence against his child, the child remembers and resents it, and he (or she) will not trust the parent and may even come to not value the parent’s love at all. It becomes a matter of how to avoid physical pain and get away with what the child wants.
I was spanked as a child, and I deserved it. I do not resent my parents, I trust them implicitly and highly value their love. That disproves your theory right there. If it were so, it would apply in all cases. My children love and respect me, my oldest, after he joined the Navy, even apologized for his behavior as a teenager.
Does taking away the cat or taking away her music not stop her? Or, is the second event on another day?
No, this was a progression.
Bill
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.
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
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.
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
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.