Your Views On 'Smacking' children.

I was spanked as a kid and so were my other 3 siblings. I was spanked with the hand, wooden spoons, an official 'spanking stick' and various other objects. I think the usual was 3 swacks, 6 if what you did was absolutely horrible. I've got no kids yet, but I do intend to spank them. It meant business. "You obey me!" and none of that "Please don't do that! You hurt mommy's feelings." But, then again, I have good parents. We were never spanked for things we didn't do, or for something that didn't warrant it. We would all freak out even if she walked towards the wooden spoons and the sound of the spoon coming out of that vase holder. The spankings were consistant. Watch what you say, respect your elders, don't hurt your siblings, etc. Then we got older and the threat of being spanked was enough to keep us in line. I was 12 when I got my last spanking (don't remember what for), but at that time I understood why I was spanked and even then agreed with it. After that, I didn't need to be spanked. "Badly done, Anna." was enough and all my parents needed to do. I'm not saying we were spanked all the time either, just those occasions when we were deliberately disobediant.

My mom told me once that her friends used to tell her to "Watch out for those terrible 2's!" when she started having kids. And that all her other friends were telling her how badly their little kids behaved and she didn't quite understand, because she said we were good children. Funny thing though. I am the oldest of my siblings and when my parents stopped spanking me, they also stopped spanking the others. While I was ready not to have to be spanked any more, I don't think my siblings were and it was evident in the way they behaved. They got worse, but they weren't punished for it.

Point:
I think spanking is necessary. Yes there is physical pain. Stinging mostly, strong enough to last a few minutes and on the butt so it doesn't damage anything. But because there is some physical pain, you remember not to do those things more than if there was no pain to reinforce it. I'd say that everyone should spank their kids, except nowadays I don't think many adults would know how to do it properly. There are a lot of crappy parents out there and if they would spank, would probably be abusive, even if accidentally.

Huge difference between spanking and abusing a child.

I was spanked because my parents set limits, I knew the limits and intentionally broke them...actually getting the spanking was relief...spanking on a butt doesn't ever hurt.

I really want to puke when I hear all these tree huggers who now have their way, and the kids have gone to sh*t like guns in school,etc disrespect,etc and they still stick by their idiotic attempt to prove they make any sense...you lose!

Originally posted by SurrealisticPillow
reply to post by InfoKartel

 

You have never raised a kid have you?
Really.
If you have, please keep them the hell away from me.

I do intend to keep my kids away from child beaters, yes.

reply to post by ALOSTSOUL


think about it, the generations that grew up without spanking, have turned into socially retarded yobs, that have no idea about how to behave. kids dont do as they are told because they respect their parents, they do as their told because they dont wanna be clipped round the ear.

spanking is essential to raise a child, as long as your not beating the crap outa your kids it should be fine, stupid nanny state telling people how to raise their kids

You people seem to believe that not spanking means absolute permissiveness, and that simply is not true. They are both excuses to not reason with your child, and justify hitting them because you were hit yourself. Let me leave this here..

1. Parents are more likely to use aversive techniques of discipline when they are angry or irritable, depressed, fatigued, and stressed. In 44% of those surveyed, corporal punishment was used $50% of the time because the parent had lost it. Approximately 85% expressed moderate to high anger, remorse, and agitation while punishing their children. These findings challenge most the notion that parents can spank in a calm, planned manner. It is best not to administer any punishments while in a state of anger.

2. Spanking of young children is highly correlated with continued spanking of school and adolescent children. More than half of 13- and 14-year-olds are still being hit an average eight times per year. Parents who have relied on spanking do not seem to shift strategies when the risks of detrimental effects increase with developmental age, as has been argued.

3. Spanking of preschool boys by fathers with whom the child identified only moderately or little resulted in increased aggressive behavior by those children.

4. Corporal punishment in two-parent, middle class families occurred weekly in 25%, was associated with the use of an object occasionally in 35% and half of the time in 17%, caused considerable pain at times in 12%, and inflicted lasting marks at times in 5%.
Thus, striking children in the abusive range is neither rare nor confined to families of lower socioeconomic class, as has been asserted.

5. Although children may view spanking as justified and symbolic of parental concern for them, they rate spanking as causing some or much pain in more than half of cases and generally experience anger at the adult as a result. Despite this, children come to accept spanking as a parent’s right at an early age, making changes in adult acceptance of spanking more difficult.

6. The more children are hit, the more anger they report as adults, the more they hit their own children when they are parents, the more likely they are to approve of hitting and to actually hittheir spouses, and the greater their marital conflict.

7. Although 93% of parents justify spanking, 85% say that they would rather not if they had an alternative in which they believed.
One study found that 54% of mothers said that spanking was the wrong thing to have done in at least half of the times they used it.
This ambivalence likely results in inconsistent use, which limits further its effectiveness as a teaching tool.

8. Although spanking has been shown to be effective as a back-up to enforce a time-out location, it was not more effective than use of a barrier as an alternative.

9. Even controlling for baseline antisocial behavior, the more 3- to 6-year-old children were hit, the worse their behavior when assessed 2 years later.

10. Actions causing pain such as spanking can acquire a positive value rather than the intended adversive value. Children who expect pain may actually seek it through escalating misbehaviors.

11. Parents who spank are more likely to use other forms of corporal punishment and a greater variety of verbal and other punitive methods. When punishment fails, parents who rely on it tend to increase the intensity of its use rather than to change strategies.

Source

I kind if see the correlation here too. People that were spanked are trying to justify it in here... And a few more:

The study compared grade 1 students from the same urban neighbourhood whose parents were mostly civil servants, professionals and merchants. Overall, the study found that with age, children exposed to a harsh punitive environment performed significantly worse than their counterparts in the non-punitive school, and as a result may be at risk for behaviour problems related to deficits in executive functioning. The study's authors say the results show children will immediately cease bad behaviour after physical punishment, but fail to internalize the morals or rules behind the punishment.

Source

Researchers examined the relationship between parental and children’s approval of cp and the relationship between children’s experience of cp and their preference for hitting to resolve interpersonal conflict. They conclude that parents who experienced frequent cp perceived it as acceptable and frequently spanked their own children. Their children, in turn, advocated spanking as a disciplinary method, and preferred aggressive conflict resolution strategies with peers and siblings.

Source

This is science people. Spanking = wrong

Cont'd below:

Continued from prior post:

Frequent use of CP (ie, mother's use of spanking more than twice in the previous month) when the child was 3 years of age was associated with increased risk for higher levels of child aggression when the child was 5 years of age even with controlling for the child's level of aggression at age 3 and potential confounding factors and key demographic features. The findings suggest that even minor forms of CP, such as spanking, increase risk for aggressive behavior and these findings cannot be attributed to possible confounding effects of other maternal parenting risk factors. The study concludes that primary prevention of violence could start with efforts to prevent use of CP by broader population-based efforts such as social marketing campaigns to strengthen the message that other discipline strategies should be used.

Source

Murray Straus is one of North America’s foremost child psychology experts. His study finds that corporal punishment slows the development of mental ability, particularly in younger children age 2 to 6. Corporal punishment was defined for the study as hitting a child, usually on the buttocks, at least 3 times a week. 93% of mothers hit their 2-4-year-olds an average of 3.6 times a week or 187 times a year. 12.8% hit their children a least 7 times a week. The more children were spanked, the more they fell behind in cognitive development.

Source not yet available online but: "Spanking may lower child’s IQ, Professor Murray Straus, University of New Hampshire, Study presented Oct 2, 2009 at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, San Diego."

People who were physically abused as children are 49% more likely to develop cancer as adults. Using survey results from 13,000 people in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and adjusting for other causes of cancer, the researchers were surprised to see that the association between abuse and cancer did not disappear. A possible explanation for the link is that abused children are more prone to abnormal levels of cortisol, the hormone that helps to deal with stressful situations.

Source

This is a concise review of one hundred years of social science research and hundreds of published studies on physical punishment by psychology, medical, education, social work and sociology professionals on the effects physical punishment has on children. It has been endorsed by American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Emergency Room Physicians, American Medical Association and the National Association of Counsel for Children. It concludes that physical punishment doesn’t improve children’s behavior in the long term, makes it more, not less, likely that children will be defiant and aggressive in the future, puts children at risk for negative outcomes, including increased antisocial behavior and mental health problems and puts children at greater risk of serious injury and physical abuse.

Source

This Montreal team, headed by Dr. Michael Meaney, McGill University, has discovered large numbers of "chemical marks” in the brains of young men who were physically or sexually abused as children and later committed suicide. These marks inhibit a key mechanism for dealing with stress. This is seen as the most convincing evidence yet that childhood abuse permanently modifies genes. The findings translate previous results from rats to humans and suggest a common effect of parental care on the epigenetic regulation of hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor expression. In humans, childhood abuse alters HPA stress responses and increases the risk of suicide.

Source

The aim of the study is to test the hypothesis that societal rates of corporal punishment of children predict societal levels of violence, using data retrieved from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample of anthropological records. These include 186 cultural groups representing diversity of language, economy, political organization, descent, and historical time. It found that more frequent use of corporal punishment was related to higher rates of inculcation of aggression in children, warfare, and interpersonal violence. The findings are consistent with theories that adult violence becomes more prevalent where cp is frequent. They held for inculcation of aggression in children and warfare after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and parenting confounds.

Source
Cont'd below....

And continued again:

This study by social work professor Grogan-Kaylor, U-M, analyzes data on more than 1800 children from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Mothers were asked about their children’s behaviour and the frequency of spanking in the past week. The study concludes that even minimal amounts of spanking can lead to increased likelihood of anti-social childhood behaviors, such as cheating, lying and bullying. Stronger statistical controls than in previous studies lend additional support for the idea that corporal punishment is not an effective or appropriate disciplinary strategy

Source

The study concludes that children of parents who use physical punishment or yelling and shouting as punitive discipline are much more likely to engage in aggressive behaviours, such as fighting, bullying and meanness to others. Children in punitive environments at age 2 to 3 years scored 39% higher on a scale of aggressive behaviour than children in non-punitive homes. Children 8 to 9 years scored 83% higher. The study shows a link between childhood aggression and poor outcomes later in life, such as delinquency, crime, poor school results and unemployment. When, however, punitive parenting changes at age 2 to 3 to non-punitive parenting, children score just as low in aggressive behaviour as those in a non-punitive environment. The study was front-page news in many Canadian papers and reinforces earlier research reaching the same conclusion.

Source: www.statcan.ca/ The Daily, Oct. 25/04.

The primary conclusion from the meta-analyses is that parental corporal punishment is associated significantly with a range of child behaviors and experiences, including short - and long-term, individual and relationship-level, and direct (physical abuse) and indirect (e.g., delinquency and antisocial behavior) constructs. Although it is related with immediate compliance, corporal punishment is associated with 10 undesirable constructs.

The following points made by the author should be noted:

• To ensure the corporal punishment considered in the meta-analyses did not include possible physical abuse, studies that grouped or compared corporal punishment with techniques that knowingly would cause severe injury to the child were excluded. For the purposes of the study, physical abuse was considered to be a potential outcome of corporal punishment and corporal punishment was distinguished from physical abuse according to the definition of physical abuse provided by the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information (2000), namely:

Physical abuse is characterized by the infliction of physical injury as a result of punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, shaking or otherwise harming a child. The parent or caretaker may not have intended to hurt the child; rather the injury may have resulted from over-discipline or physical punishment.

Source

Starting to get the idea?

Originally posted by DaveNorris
reply to post by ALOSTSOUL

 

think about it, the generations that grew up without spanking, have turned into socially retarded yobs, that have no idea about how to behave. kids dont do as they are told because they respect their parents, they do as their told because they dont wanna be clipped round the ear.

spanking is essential to raise a child, as long as your not beating the crap outa your kids it should be fine, stupid nanny state telling people how to raise their kids

Pure baseless assertion. You're simply begging the question. How do you know this? Do you have a source?

reply to post by vasaga


Just because you have a source doesn't make you or them right nor wrong. I bet I could find 50 different books on parenting and everyone of them will be different. That doesn't make them right nor wrong. The way we raising our child is entire up to US. Not the government, not your neighbor and not some man or woman who wrote a book for profit as a living.

I firmly believe the way children are raised is how they become as adults. Example, you see these shows with children in beauty pageants and dancing competitions. These young girls are catered to day in and day out because their parents (mostly their mothers) put them above everything else. When they become adults, they are now under the impression that everything will fall into their lap and they are entitled to anything and everything. Not to mention, they are all spoiled brats, even as adults. I know this first hand because my step-daughter who was a part of dance since her mother had her in it at age 4. Now she is 19 and thinks the world revolves around her and she in entitled to everything and when things don't go her way, it's a nightmare.

Now, if you raise your child to be a good hearted person and respect others, they will take that into their adults years and apply it to having a good job, family, friends, in general a good life. If you raise your children to be bullies, they will go through life bullying others into getting what they want. I teach my 2 boys to respect their mother. I know by teaching them to respect their mother they will grow to respect all women. I show them that I treat my wife with as much respect as I treat myself and there are many other lessons I teach them into being the best they can, and I give them the proper amount of discipline and sometimes that means they get a firm hand on their backside. But every time I punish them I explain why. I think explaining why they are being punished is key.

Here is another example, An abuser raises their child by abusing them with hitting, every time they do something wrong, they are beaten, not punished, until they are black and blue. That is what they now know and they will take that into their adult years thinking it's alright to do that to their children. Child service is called and they lose their children.

Another example is a child watches their father hit their mother and disgraces her every time he speaks to her. They take that into their adult years and they become a wife abuser and has no respect for women because they saw it as a child and they think it's alright. I'm not say everyone turns out this way, but statistics show children that come from a good home have successful lives as adults.

I don't have sources to share, because it's just common sense, but if you need a source... Look up Barnes & Noble, they have plenty of parenting books for sale.

reply to post by KnightFire


Well said

reply to post by DaveNorris


Thanks!

reply to post by vasaga


No sources, just experiance. Growing up in a village I knew most of the children in my school and how there parents treated them, the ones that got the odd slapped wrist and clip roiund the ear turned out to be respectable people, the ones that got 'a firm talking to' grew up to think that could get away with anything and are currently unliked by most people or in prison for various offences.

Look at the date physical punishment was banned, add 15-20 years and you get the start date of yob culture.

reply to post by DaveNorris

the ones that got 'a firm talking to' grew up to think that could get away with anything and are currently unliked by most people or in prison for various offences.

Yes, and the real world is a physical world, and those kids that feel they can get away with anything often run into someone that can show them otherwise.

When I was a Sophomore football player, and a scrawny little receiver, we had a bully, an Junior, and an arrogant SOB playing outside linebacker and weighing a good 50lbs more than me. He was a very good athlete, especially in baseball, but also a pretty good football player, but he had no class, he whined when he didn't get his way, he picked on the smaller guys, he played dirty every chance he could, he pouted a lot when he made mistakes. He was a popular kid, but he was an asshole. I was constantly having to line up against him from the practice squad, and if I happened to get a good play, he whined and moaned and made excuses, and anytime the coaches weren't looking he was grabbing my face mask, or stepping on my hands, or doing nasty stuff.

So, one day, I had had enough, and I came up off the ground with an uppercut that snapped all the brackets on his facemask, bloodied his nose, and pinned him inside his helmet. By the time the coaches got to me and pulled me off of him, he was crying. I ran gassers the rest of the practice, and he sat on the sidelines, but I started seeing a lot more playing time, and he started getting a lot more attention for his dirty play and ended up losing his starting position for a little while! He was a punk, with some athletic talent, but without class and teamwork, and with no concern for anybody but himself. But, through a hard lesson one day, he turned out to be an alright guy, and he was a very good leader for our team the following year when we won the state championship.

He learned respect and class through an organized sport with some controlled level of violence, but how many kids like him grow up with a lot of talents, but their talent is wasted because they never learn respect and teamwork?

I believe the society has also gone astray when it tried to completely eliminate bullies. Some people need to face bullies to learn coping skills, whether it be the self-confidence to face one down, or some other mechanism like humor to deflect and redirect the bullying. Some bullies need to learn hard lessons about the repercussions of their actions. When authority figures start jumping in the middle of every little right of passage and growth opportunity, we damage our children. Some things need to be worked out on their own.

reply to post by getreadyalready

Great story.
But, you should have reasoned with him.
Seriously though, that has the ring of truth to it. Consider this angle.
If you guys were not allowed to settle this, the "growth" that resulted for both of you would not have been allowed to happen either.

reply to post by SurrealisticPillow




Ya, the reasoning didn't work too well when cleats were digging into my hand or back, but the busted face seemed to work pretty well.

And you are exactly right, coaches seem to have a pretty good grasp on what level of "growth" is acceptable, and what level is extreme. They let some things work themselves out, and they put high expectations on their players, and they intervene when things get too far out of control. It is an organic type of learning, and it is really so valuable, but not all kids are exposed to it.

So, for those kids that are not participating in team sports, and also have new age parents that want everything done according to the most modern psychological theory, they are really missing a huge part of what it takes to mature and grow up. Not everyone needs a coach or a bully, but everyone needs to learn to cope with real life.

I think we have such a problem with depression, and drugs, and other societal ills, because we have been systematically removing all of the growth opportunities for kids that teach them coping skills.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Onboard2

 

I'd rather my children mind me out of love and respect and not fear.

Either one is fine with me as long as they mind. Actually, why not all three? Why not love, and respect, and fear?

Why in the world would you want someone you claim to love and care about to fear you?

How does that help them?

I can guarantee you, if I "fear" someone I don't carry love or respect in my heart for them. Meaning I don't trust them, meaning I don't have "faith" in much of what they say to me.

To those who keep using the word "spanking/smacking etc." as if it means something other than hitting, shame on you. Why don't you just be honest and say "I hit my children", as that IS what you are doing. Just because you use words which sounds less violent than the word hitting sounds, does not make it anything other than what it is.

Discipline does not = hitting and hitting does not = discipline. Hitting =s violence.

Harm NONE
Peace

reply to post by KnightFire

You can "bet" all you want, but until you can show some evidence, your claims are baseless assertions.

Originally posted by DaveNorris
reply to post by vasaga

 

No sources, just experiance. Growing up in a village I knew most of the children in my school and how there parents treated them, the ones that got the odd slapped wrist and clip roiund the ear turned out to be respectable people, the ones that got 'a firm talking to' grew up to think that could get away with anything and are currently unliked by most people or in prison for various offences.

Look at the date physical punishment was banned, add 15-20 years and you get the start date of yob culture.

Experiences are not enough. Dreams are also experiences. Doesn't make them valid in reality. Either you have sources that prove otherwise, or you don't. I've shown you over 10. If spanking is oh so good and is oh so prevalent, it shouldn't be that hard to find a few proper scientific sources on that. As long as you can't show that, there is no reason to accept your experience as true for everyone. That would be a logical fallacy called hasty generalization.

But of course.. Parents will always refuse to acknowledge that a child's actions are mirrors of their own parenting actions. So instead of looking at themselves, they'll blame the child. When you need to smack, you've failed as a parent. Period. Children look at your ACTIONS. Your words are almost meaningless when you say A but do B yourself. If you teach your child that it's wrong to use violence to get what he wants, what will he think when you spank him? That's also using violence to get what you want. That's a contradiction right there. No wonder children grow up with broken morals and confused.

And that you think "experience" trumps the list of evidence I just gave you already says a lot. No amount of evidence will convince you otherwise. Have fun with your dogma then. My point has been made.

And these are the times when I wish ATS still had an ignore list. I have no desire to read posts from people who refuse to look at reason and evidence, but only at personal preference and emotional garbage.

Do I believe in smacking my kids? Yes I do.. I'm a proud parents of 3 young boys, 12, 7, and 6. Overall they are great kids. for some reason the 12 year old I never had to spamk him.. Since I remember he is always a very good listiner. never give me a hard time. but the other 2...wow I have to keep a closer eyes on them. for example when they do something wrong I tell them and talk with them. 10 or 20 minutes latter they do it again, this time I raise my voice at them.. but when 10 or 20 minutes go by and they do it again.... I start fillming the movie roots part 2

Originally posted by ArgentumAquila
Point:
I think spanking is necessary. Yes there is physical pain. Stinging mostly, strong enough to last a few minutes and on the butt so it doesn't damage anything. But because there is some physical pain, you remember not to do those things more than if there was no pain to reinforce it. I'd say that everyone should spank their kids, except nowadays I don't think many adults would know how to do it properly. There are a lot of crappy parents out there and if they would spank, would probably be abusive, even if accidentally.

Do you teach the "why" that way? Yeah... Didn't think so..

Originally posted by guanicaPR
Do I believe in smacking my kids? Yes I do.. I'm a proud parents of 3 young boys, 12, 7, and 6. Overall they are great kids. for some reason the 12 year old I never had to spamk him.. Since I remember he is always a very good listiner. never give me a hard time. but the other 2...wow I have to keep a closer eyes on them. for example when they do something wrong I tell them and talk with them. 10 or 20 minutes latter they do it again, this time I raise my voice at them.. but when 10 or 20 minutes go by and they do it again.... I start fillming the movie roots part 2

Try going over rules before-hand and give the reasons why. Trying to lecture in the moment is a lost cause, especially when the child already has done it and has seen no negative consequence, aside from your disapproval. In the end it's about building the parent/child relationship, and the child can not understand why you're doing certain things, he will not trust you, but fear you. I don't think fear is what you want the relationship to be based on. Although at least you try a few steps before resorting to spanking, try eliminating it completely.

reply to post by vasaga

Experiences are not enough.
That is classic liberal speak right there. No offense of course.

reply to post by SurrealisticPillow

I refer you to this page as to why it's not enough.