Do you/will you smack your child?

Now before anyone gets up in arms let me explain.

By 'smack' I mean an open handed, light but not too light slap to the back of the legs, or on the hand.
Not beating a child.
I stand, 100 %, against beating a child.
However, I believe in smacking them if they are bad.

I am from the school of 'I was smacked as a child and it did me no harm.'

I was smacked when I was bad, I was grounded and told off.
I have turned out, IMO, to be a pretty ok guy.
I am not a violent person, I do not break the law, I have no mental problems and I am a pretty pleasant person to be around with strong family values.

I believe that most of the problems with kids today, (Stealing cars, mugging people, violent, teenage pregnancies), is because of a lack of discipline.
Parents were so scared to discipline their kids for fear of the government getting involved and taking their kids away, that they let them run riot.

The result is a generation of kids who, lets face it, need to be locked up and left there.
The parents let them get away with it but we are the ones who have to suffer with these little ******** on the streets.

So, I WILL smack my kids if it is called for.


What about you?

 

Me too. You shouldn't let them get away with anything. THAT is a reason for the government take them away. THAT is not being a good parent.

 

Only when I'm drunk.

 

C'mon.
This is a serious question.

 

I'm a firm believer in corporal punishment. I have an aunt and uncle who used the "time out" style of discipline, now their 4 year old is a spoiled brat (though I love him dearly). They are now starting to spank him, but I don't know how effective it is at this point.

 

Yes, I will.

Me and my brothers were smacked on the bum or pinched or slapped on the hand or arm as childs. Nothing wrong with it. And it got the message through.

My garndfather, he used the belt threat. He took off his belt to threat but never actually struck me with it as I'd settle down pretty damn fast. One time I didn't and it's the only time I got the belt smacked against my arse... ouchies... never did that again.

 

If I ever have children, I will do so. Things would be much better off in this world if children respected rules, parents, and society. People left to their own devices, will almost always stray from the straight and narrow. We do not have police to catch criminals. Their main duty is to keep honest people honest.

 

I will. It was how my brothers and I were raised. I've turned out just fine and, yes, I still love both my parents. I learned that if I misbehaved, there were repercussions for my behavior. I could easily deal with "timeout". They can't control what my imagination did.

I don't think that it's the end-all, but if the situation called for it, I have no problem with a "smack" (as it was called here).

 

Let me make the point that smacking is not necessarily the most effective method of punishment and there are no guaranteees that your child will learn anything from smacking - I know children who were smacked who are still brats but now they are violent brats that go around hitting anything and everything that pisses them off. Conversely, I know children who were never smacked who are angels and very discliplined but do not resort to hitting.

Punishment should be based upon the individual child and how your child responds and reacts to different punishments - smacking may work wonders for some kids but not others.

What do you do if you smack your child and he/she smacks you right back? Do you escalate the smacking? You have to be very careful as there can be a fine line between smacking as a form of punishment and smacking as a form of child abuse.

 

Yep, I definetly will. My 6 year old cousin is a nice kid, but his parents dont discipline him well, and he can be a total brat at times, and only now is my Aunt actually trying to teach him good behavior.

 

What do you do if you smack your child and he/she smacks you right back? Do you escalate the smacking? You have to be very careful as there can be a fine line between smacking as a form of punishment and smacking as a form of child abuse.

A healthy amount of fear is necessary as well. Not to the point of terrifying the child, but a good old-fashioned fear. The parents should run the household as a form of "benevolent dictatorship."

 

I totally agree. The home was not a democracy. My parents' word was final and my siblings and I knew that.

 

I am a cop. I love when kids call 911 to complain that their parents spanked them. I let them know, "Mom and dad are allowed to spank you. If I don't think they spanked you good enough the first time, I'll tell them to do it again, only better." That usually stops brats from thinking they can do whatever they want and then call 911 to get their parents in trouble for disciplining them.

Don't confuse discipline with abuse. I've snatched a few kids out of houses where there was abuse, or the living conditions were so deplorable I wouldn't let my dogs live in them.

 

The parents should run the household as a form of "benevolent dictatorship."

Yeah..I have my Qathafi costume in the wardrobe for emergency situations but you didn't answer the question: What do you do if you child smacks you back? - trust me it will happen at some point, children learn their behaviour from their parents (I know I have three )and smacking begets smacking.

 

so if you smack your child on the hand for doing something bad, you think he's gonna smack your hand?

I most definitely will smack, spank, slap and pinch my children. When they're out of line, they need to know they're out of line, just a small dose of pain is enough to let them know wrong from right.

 

I suppose I once again must stand as the voice of dissension.

I do have a child. I have never, nor will I ever, strike her. Neither will my wife. Both of us come from parents who spanked. I use my own experience as a guide. Did spankings and belts teach me not to act against my parents' wishes? No. It taught me that if I wanted someothing bad enough, I mustn't get caught. After a time, I came to realize that spankings were temporary stings, in many cases worth whatever it was that I had done.

Corporal punishment is, in my opinion, the sign of weak parenting skills. I have never known a parent to strike their child when they were not enraged at them. Physical punishment is statistically more theraputic the frustrated parent than it is a punishment for the child. And when the child grows up, chances are high that violent punishment will be a part of their parenting, too.

Corrective and consequential punishment is far more effective than pain and fear of pain. It has the element of lasting longer as well as being non-violent.

 

quit trying to blow it out of proportion... you say "striking a child" as if people are gonna punch their two year old son in the face... a smack on the back of their hands is not as violent as your making it out to be.

 

so if you smack your child on the hand for doing something bad, you think he's gonna smack your hand?

I don't really understand your point. The answer is if you smack a child and that child is upset (which is invariably the case) sooner or later the child will strike back at you - particularly if the child is having a tantrum because he/she is not getting what they want - children vent their emotions just like we do except we know what is acceptable they don't - they learn what is acceptable from us, so if they see a parent smacking in circumstances of high emotion they will also smack in those circumstances. So what do you do in those circumstances? Nobody has answered my question yet.

 

quit trying to blow it out of proportion... you say "striking a child" as if people are gonna punch their two year old son in the face... a smack on the back of their hands is not as violent as your making it out to be.

Blow what out of proportion? A strike is exactly that: a forceful physical impact on flesh, whether it be on the backside, across the facial cheek, or on top of the hand. It's a strike.

Inflicting pain upon anyone in any way is violence. I abhor such behavior, and do not condone it for any parent, regardless of the situation.

Let me put it another way. If my daughter were to hit another child, what message am I sending by spanking her for it?

 

I'm afraid I must disagree with this statement. I don't think one is a sign of weaker or stronger parenting. Will there be bad kids with any disciplary schema? Of course. I just know from my personal experience that fear of a spanking motivated my early choices for the better.

 

do as I say, not as I do?

 

I am shocked that no one in this thread has yet commented on something that seems quite obvious even to a non parent such as myself. That is that corporal punishment should to be viewed as part of a larger debate about a broader range of parenting issues.

In general I support corporal punishment (it never did me any harm), however in some cases I would support Cheveyo's position that it is a sign of weak parenting skills.

Where parents spend a significant anount of time with their children, try and teach them beween right and wrong and reward good behavour I see corporal punishment as an integral and healthy part of teaching discipline.

Where parents spend little time with their children and do not reward good behavour corporal punishment is more likely to make a bad situation worse rather than make up for the other failings of the parent.

 

Well, I have no idea how I'd ever get custody of a child, but, well, it could happen. If my sister had a baby and then she died, or something, and I had to raise hir to keep hir from being taken outside the family.

I wouldn't use spankings except when it's the only way to prevent danger. Example: 4-year-old is trying to touch a hot stove, or toddler is trying to stick things into a wall socket. Then reasoning and time-outs aren't going to be immediate enough; the child must associate (dangerous action) with something very unpleasant. Pain (NOT injury) will work most of the time. Stove = Pain = Bad = Don't Go Near It.

So I wouldn't ever smack a child as punishment, but as a deterrent, perhaps. I got spankings and beatings as punishment, dealt in anger, from early childhood until way, way too old (as in, old enough to buy my own beer) and THAT causes problems. But I see nothing wrong with giving a small child a swat so that they quickly learn certain hazardous actions are not to be done.

 

I am shocked that no one in this thread has yet commented on something that seems quite obvious even to a non parent such as myself. That is that corporal punishment should to be viewed as part of a larger debate about a broader range of parenting issues.

What precisely is the larger debate and what are the broader range of issues of which you speak?

 

Well said, DarthKarde. Too often, not enough quality time is spent with the child.

Even though my parents spanked me, afterwards (ie, 20 mins to let the effect sink in) they would come and talk to me and tell me that they loved me. I really felt loved in that sort of situation. I learned that I didn't want to do those things not only because of physical punishment, but also because I loved my parents. It was, in my opinion, a master job at discipling.