What's your opinion on physical punishment for kids

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timf
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27 Jun 2021, 6:55 am

We would give out children a choice of three swats on the hand with a wooden paint stirrer (low mass) or five minutes sitting on a chair. They always selected the three swats ( I suppose because it was over the quickest.)

It helps to see children not as objects upon which to vent anger, but as that which needs correction and instruction. Parenting will be frustrating unless one abandons one's responsibility to instruct and correct. Generally by age 10 (approximately) the child should have a greater ability to take correction verbally.



Texasmoneyman300
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28 Jun 2021, 2:10 am

salad wrote:
I hope to get married to my fiancee pretty soon and this is something I always think about as someone who was raised in a culture where physical violence and hitting kids was so normal it was considered strange if your parents didn't beat you up. For me my father used to belt me across the face growing up all the time, and my mother used to spank me with the wooden spoon or hit me hard with the shoe whenever she was upset at me. My stepfather used the cane on me growing up a lot whenever he believed I acted up. My martial arts teacher and sensei used to beat me with his bamboo stick whenever I went out of stance, and my Muslim instructors used to beat me up whenever I made a mistake

The sum total of all of these beatings is that despite being a naturally shy autistic kid who would otherwise be a crybaby and a softie I was molded into a tough and disciplined person who can hold his own really well in tough situations despite being autistic and naturally sensitive. My nature isn't tough, nor am I naturally resilient; my upbringing and nurturing was tough and thats what hardened me to be tough. Being autistic the yelling, hitting and beatings definitely hurt me 1000 times harder than a neurotypical dealing with it since I naturally am sensitive to pain, yet even shy autistic me eventually became inured to the pain became desensitized to said pain despite my autism predisposing me to being a lot more sensitive to pain

I was wondering given all the research that argues hitting kids is ineffective for parenting whether that's really true. Sure it was traumatizing but it made me a lot tougher and stronger than had I been raised with softness and gentleness.

Not even just me but generations ago parents used to regularly beat their kids and many turned out just fine. Generations ago people were tougher and harder, which explains why the older generation is a lot tougher and stronger than the younger generation.

I plan on spanking my kids but i would never do it when I am angry and i would always explain what they did wrong and why they are getting said spanking.I would never beat my kids but I believe in spanking.I think there is a difference.I think spanking is good as long as the kids aint too old.I dont buy the studies that say it doesnt work.



auntblabby
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28 Jun 2021, 2:18 am

it didn't work for me.



Sweetleaf
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28 Jun 2021, 2:38 am

salad wrote:
I made this thread while my brain was still messed up from gluten poisoning and feeling like an idiot from head trauma issues that are ongoing and hope to get more treatment for this Tuesday. I'm realizing now that I wasnt thinking while making this thread because I said some pretty stupid stuff

My dad beating me up made me tougher, but it also made me more bitter, angry, and out of balance and deprived of inner peace. The beatings from my instructors and martial arts teachers I dont mind actually since it genuinely turned me into a more disciplined person and they beat me out of love, but my father who used to beat me was abusive and beat me to terrorize me.

If I made any comment in this thread insinuating that my dad beating me up was beneficial I retract it. Most days because of head pain and dizziness I feel stupid so sometimes I say stuff which when I look back I realize I didnt mean

But i still dont mind the hits i took from my teachers and mom since it wasnt abusive and only meant to teach me a lesson


It is ok...I mean I have made threads/posts late at night after a couple drinks and just being so tired I should go to bed ,but still staying up and most are fine, but for sure I have certainly before posted like things in retrospect I feel it would have been better not to post. But at the end of the day I got to forgive myself and realize everyone makes a stupid or regrettable post on the internet from time to time.

Also, well your father was being abusive with what he did....doing like martial arts and having the instructor test you is not abuse, really because you are trying to learn fighting techniques and how can that work without a bit of you know actual fighting but of course in a setting where it is appropriate. LIke for sure a marital arts teacher throwing some hits at you to learn to block or you get hit kind of thing I don't think is abusive because it is what you are trying to learn. So yeah totally different context between getting a bit of a beating from a martial arts instructor that you are willingly learning from vs. someone just beating on you to take out their own issues like it sounds like is what your father did.

But yeah even though my parents like spanked me as a punishment, I still don't think it is a great approach...because seems it would teach the kid it is ok to like use angry/aggressive force when faced with something they don't like, or that they should accept harmful touch from adults because they 'deserve' it, like I could probably come up with many more potential psychological consequences but you probably get the point I just don't think it actually helps behavior of children. And if anything might inadvertently even make them like ok with abuse because they learned it was normal or what not.


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ezbzbfcg2
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28 Jun 2021, 3:56 am

My father hit me as a kid. It didn't make me tough. It made me angry, scared, confused, nervous, resentful.

OP, if you think your beatings were beneficial, then go ahead and physically punish your kids. (They say it's cyclical.) If you have reservations, then think again.

If you're uncertain of something, don't do it. You seem uncertain.



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28 Jun 2021, 6:54 am

Any kind of physical violence against children, including spanking, was forbidden by law in Sweden 1966.
As I said earlier, the parents sets the limits. If you never raise your voice against your child, unless the child has misbehaved, raising your voice will be as effective (if not more) as spanking it.
By all means, if it's legal in your country, spank away. But be aware of that you're planting a seed that says "it is ok for a stronger person to beat a weaker one".

/Mats


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salad
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28 Jun 2021, 6:55 pm

I've made up my mind. The world has enough violence as it is, and I dont want to contribute to a cycle of violence. I never want to hit or use physical violence to teach kids right from wrong. I hope dialogue, non-violent punishment, and teaching will be the tutor for growth and learning.

My mind is made up that physical violence has no place in my repertoire


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IsabellaLinton
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28 Jun 2021, 7:08 pm

I spanked my daughter once when she was a toddler, to get her attention at something dangerous. She wasn't old enough to understand language. It was an impulse and I hadn't planned on it. I didn't spank her hard, just enough to redirect her. Regardless I have never forgiven myself.

I don't think it's OK for children to associate pain / dominance / control with their closest relationships.



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28 Jun 2021, 9:17 pm

salad wrote:
I've made up my mind. The world has enough violence as it is, and I dont want to contribute to a cycle of violence. I never want to hit or use physical violence to teach kids right from wrong. I hope dialogue, non-violent punishment, and teaching will be the tutor for growth and learning.

My mind is made up that physical violence has no place in my repertoire


I think you've made the right choice.

Thanks for letting us be part of your thought process.


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Joe90
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09 Jul 2021, 2:19 am

Kids these days are brought up to be snowflakes, so smacking them is no longer allowed. Kids know this and they take advantage of it. That's why they behave bratty in supermarkets.

If a child does something naughty, the best thing for them in the long run is to smack them. Not hard enough to cause pain but enough to make them understand that they did wrong. It's called discipline. I was smacked as a child and I thank my parents for it now.

I was watching an episode of Supernanny once where a 5-year-old girl was misbehaving, and Supernanny's only way to resolve it was to sit the kid on the naughty step. While the mother was dealing with the baby, it was on the father to deal with the 5-year-old, and this kid was having a tantrum just when he had got home from a hard day's work and just wanted to eat his dinner. She got away from the naughty step multiple times and he had to keep getting up to put her back. It took about an hour and a half, and by then his remaining dinner had gone cold and he had indigestion and fatigue. All the kid really needed was a smack on the bottom and sending upstairs to her bedroom. But because smacking is no longer allowed, they had to discipline the kid the hard way.


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09 Jul 2021, 2:21 am

Joe90 wrote:
Kids these days are brought up to be snowflakes, so smacking them is no longer allowed. Kids know this and they take advantage of it. That's why they behave bratty in supermarkets. If a child does something naughty, the best thing for them in the long run is to smack them. Not hard enough to cause pain but enough to make them understand that they did wrong. It's called discipline. I was smacked as a child and I thank my parents for it now. I was watching an episode of Supernanny once where a 5-year-old girl was misbehaving, and Supernanny's only way to resolve it was to sit the kid on the naughty step. While the mother was dealing with the baby, it was on the father to deal with the 5-year-old, and this kid was having a tantrum just when he had got home from a hard day's work and just wanted to eat his dinner. She got away from the naughty step multiple times and he had to keep getting up to put her back. It took about an hour and a half, and by then his remaining dinner had gone cold and he had indigestion and fatigue. All the kid really needed was a smack on the bottom and sending upstairs to her bedroom. But because smacking is no longer allowed, they had to discipline the kid the hard way.

that is IMHO just a time filler until the kid naturally grows out of the terrible twos and can be dealt with mentally.



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09 Jul 2021, 6:22 am

My father used to have a system of corporal punishments. It was super-predictable, well-defined and relatively adequate. It didn't leave any trauma on me.
My mother used emotional blackmail and conditional love. It was traumatizing.

I don't think physicality of corporal punishments is the real problem.


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Joe90
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11 Jul 2021, 5:37 pm

My parents weren't strict, but if I was being naughty I would get a smack and sent up to my room. It hasn't traumatized me. Like most children, I just accepted it as something adults did as a way of being in charge.

There is a difference between physically abusing a child and just smacking a child. And usually a child (particularly an NT child) will know that, even if they cry after being smacked. I think it teaches children discipline and also to know that bad behaviour has consequences, and smacking is usually the best punishment a child can actually take seriously.

When I was in high school it got to a point where teachers weren't even allowed to touch children. Some of the naughty kids took advantage of that and would misbehave in classes so bad that they'd send the teacher out crying in frustration. The kids would stand on the desks and mess about, and there was nothing the teacher could do. Yes I know there were bad kids in the days schools used the cane, but I think kids these days are even more out of control, in packs, and they know they can get away with murder. That actually spoilt the rest of the children's learning. I think the teachers should at least be able to touch the children, like pull them by their arm to their desk.

This reminds me of a cartoon drawing I saw on the internet earlier. It consisted of two pictures; one was 1968 and the other was 2018. The 1968 one was of parents yelling at their kid for getting low grades. The 2018 one was of parents yelling at the teacher because their kid got low grades.


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13 Jul 2021, 2:34 pm

All evidence for smacking your child is good seems to be anecdotal.
For anecdotal evidence, I turned out ok without being smacked, my brother turned out ok. AFAIK all my classmates turned out ok.
The whole population of my country mostly ended up being ok without having been smacked.
I don't really buy the argument "I wasn't traumatized, so therefore it must be harmless".
I have raised children from 0 to 7 yo, not the same child, but I've been through all the stages.
And I see no reason for any kind of violence, mild or hard, my experience says it's enough to raise your voice if you don't usually do that to get the same effect, if not a more prominant one.
It was especially obvious when I was taking care of a 6-7 yo whose father "had to" smack her to keep her in place. I only needed to look at her sideways to get (an even) better effect.
Again, if you hit your child you plant a seed that it's ok for a stronger person to hit a weaker one.
And as a standup comedian put it, if you can't win an argument with a 5 years old, you need to work on your arguing technique.

/Mats


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13 Jul 2021, 2:43 pm

I can see why children who has been treated like that will be unresponsive to other punishments while in school, that is not an argument for physical punishment as I see it.

/Mats


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13 Jul 2021, 2:44 pm

mohsart wrote:
Again, if you hit your child you plant a seed that it's ok for a stronger person to hit a weaker one.

This is one of the main reasons why I dislike physical punishment. As an autistic person I don't feel okay with teaching kids it's fine to hit people they view as "lesser" or "weaker" than them to get them "in check". I've heard and seen too much violence directed at developmentally disabled kids and adults to be okay with that.