Spanking

"Get off the road NOW!" needs to work now. Not after an explantion.

Oh, absolutely, I just don't feel that when he DOES get out of the road, you smacking his behind would do any good, do you? If he's running from you, when he finally comes back to you, if you spanked him, what would he learn? Not to come to you. Remind anyone else of dog training? [] But what makes it different is you CAN explain to a kid why he can't be in the road. You don't do it WHILE he's in the road, you do it when he comes back to you. You can't explain that to a dog. "Because I said so" works on a dog (in the form of do what I say and get a click and treat, or do what I say and your butt won't get whacked, whatever methods you use), but I don't think it works on kids. JMO again.
 

i thought baby talking to babies was silly and would inhibit their speaking skills, little did i know baby talking is the best thing for babies,

 
You're gonna have to define baby talk here. [] If you mean imitating their sounds before they speak, then yeah, I agree. But if you mean not using normal words, making words up, or using cutesy words (i.e. ba-ba for bottle), I sure don't think you're doing the kid any favors, and in fact I'm pretty sure that's harmful.

No I don't think smacking him would help matters.  In fact I wouldn't even bother with a punishment if he did not already know what he was doing was wrong.  

Seems to me the gov't is barely paying enough attention to child abuse/beatings as it is... what makes them think they can define spanking?  Most of what Gina has said rings true for me.  In my personal experience, the folks I've encountered who feel vehemently that nobody should ever spank their kids, are admittedly hobbled by their own lack of self-control.  (again, MY own encounters) They fear they'd spank in anger, lose focus, etc.  I am not opposed to spanking on some moral front.  I presume there are times and places and children and situations where varying discipline actions could be considered, and I personally just pray I do the most right and the least wrong by my child.  Whether that includes controlled physical correction or not.

"Because I said so" works on a dog (in the form of do what I say and get a click and treat, or do what I say and your butt won't get whacked, whatever methods you use), but I don't think it works on kids. JMO again.
 
That is where experience comes in useful...eliminating the "I think" and "what if' sort of thing...[] 
 

That is where experience comes in useful...eliminating the "I think" and "what if' sort of thing...

 
I hope you're not getting at all offended by what I'm saying.
 
I'm not totally inexperienced, like I said, I've been watching this kid full-time since she was 2 months old, and she'll be 4 in April. She and her mother also lived with us for almost a year and a half. Sure, it's not the same as having my own kids, but it's "experience", is it not? Limited, perhaps, but experience nonetheless.
 
What I should have said was "In my experience, it doesn't work with kids." The "I think" wasn't "this might be my opinion" it was "this is what I believe." []

What I have learned most about having kids, and I have several besides my own two, if you count the ones I have helped to raise, is that you have to learn to be flexible.  You have to learn to bend your own beliefs to suit the child.  What works for one child does not always work for another.

ORIGINAL: huskymom

What I have learned most about having kids, and I have several besides my own two, if you count the ones I have helped to raise, is that you have to learn to be flexible.  You have to learn to bend your own beliefs to suit the child.  What works for one child does not always work for another.

 
I agree with this.  "Because I said so" NEVER worked for me when my Mom said it.  In fact, the very words actually drove me to do whatever it was.  For my kids, it works with one of them who is very respectful of rules and of authority.  He doesn't necessarily want to know why.  He just wants to know what the rules are so he can go about his business!  lol  The other one.. Wow.  He questions EVERYTHING and resists EVERYTHING (exactly like his father).  Not only do I have to provide a legitimate reason for not doing whatever, I also have to disclose the punishment up front!  
 
Spanking.. eh.  I just don't think it's a sustainable solution.  I understand it's use in a life or death scenario, but not in terms of everyday punishment.  I just think it's short sighted and "the easy way out" if you will.  It is MUCH harder to keep your cool, have a talk, administer an appropriate consequence for a behavior, than it is to spank.  JMHO

I must say, I'm very impressed with how cordial this thread is staying!!! And now I must add my two cents.

I am a very strong believer in spankings, I recieved them growing up (along with other forms of discipline) and I believe that for a lot of kids spanking is very useful. Now, I know there are some kids that respond better to other forms of discipline and I have worked with some of these kids,,but for the majority I think spanking is the best way to get your point across. My mom always used a ping pong paddle to spank us with and she did this for a couple reasons. First, she kept it in the kitchen so when she had to spank it took some time to get it and gave her time to make sure she was no longer mad and therefore was able to spank in the right frame of mind. And second, it's very effective to tell the child "go get the paddle and meet me in the bathroom" believe me as a kid that was the hardest thing to do, because you knew that you were essentially enabling your mom to punish you. Now when we were little my mom would use her hand because young children forget so quickly, but once we were of the age to remember for ten minutes exactly what we did and why it was wrong she upgraded to using the paddle. I am probably one of few people who actually agree with "spanking" very young children, and by spanking I'm usually talking a slight slap on the hand or something like that. A one year old may not understand that I dont want them throwing food on the floor because it makes clean up that much harder and I have a million other things to get done, but he does understand that when he throws food on the floor he gets a slap on the hand that hurts just enough to make him realize he's done something wrong. And if a slap on the hand is enough to stop the behaviour that I dont want, then a slap on the hand he is going to get. I think the main thing with spanking is to make sure you never spank so hard that after a minute the pain is still there, and that you NEVER give the child a reason to be afraid of you,,,,yes the child should respect you and have a certain amount of fear that you can and will spank them if they misbehave, but the child should never, never, never be scared of their parents because of a spanking.

ORIGINAL: huskymom

What I have learned most about having kids, and I have several besides my own two, if you count the ones I have helped to raise, is that you have to learn to be flexible.  You have to learn to bend your own beliefs to suit the child.  What works for one child does not always work for another.

AMEN!!!!!! It's amazing how different siblings can be, usually they are complete opposites and therefore need different forms of punishment and praise.

As I said at the beginning...spanking is a tool in the box...and a tool everyone likes to fixate on to the point that it becomes in their mind "the only tool" they think anyone who does it...uses. Not much any parent can do about that...just like they cannot control how people feel about them when their kid has a public meltdown...what can you do? In your own heart you know what you are...a good parent or a bad parent...and at the end of the day you deal with your own reality....they don't.

ORIGINAL: barngirl

but the child should never, never, never be scared of their parents because of a spanking.

 
I agree, i was never fearful of my parents, even when they spanked me i was still loving them and hugging them any other day
 
Thats the difference with spanking and beating up, by spanking you know you did something wrong and you will get your punishment (spanking), you almost are accepting that your parents are right about what they are about to do, you dont like it of course but you accept it "ok they told me not to do it and i did it". Of course when is a beating is different, you are afraid to do anything that could look remotely wrong because you are afraid that your parents will think about that as something bad, you decide not to do almost anything and thats not a good way to live indeed
 
When my teacher used to put me in time outs i didnt care at all, i just let my imagination fly away even when i was facing a wall, i was not thinking about what i did and i was just "playing" on the wall, kids get distracted really easy, maybe you think they are thinking about what they did bad but actually they are already mentally in another "world" and they forgot about it already
 
I dont know if it was just me but when my teacher was sitting me down to explain what i did wrong and why thats bad i was just inside my mind "yes, yes, whatever you say", but when my mom was spaking me i can tell you that what i did was really making sense and i knew i deserved it, i knew that what my mom was doing was right because they told me not to do it and i still did it
 

espencer that was totally my experience as a child.
My spankings never made me fearful beyond that instant that I knew I did wrong, and I don't know that it was even fear so much as disappointment that I got caught lol...and yes I knew and I always agreed that I did something wrong...because the punishment was always just.
 
Why be afraid of someone who gives punishment only when it is just  to do so? I too love my Mom...no spanking she ever gave me altered that or made me fearful to come to her embrace or seek her comfort when I was sad or confused.
 
I also did the same thing when being "talked at" by people who weren't my parent, and I'd even do it to my parent if the talk went on too long...lol! "la la la la la...."

ORIGINAL: rwbeagles

espencer that was totally my experience as a child.
My spankings never made me fearful beyond that instant that I knew I did wrong, and I don't know that it was even fear so much as disappointment that I got caught lol...and yes I knew and I always agreed that I did something wrong...because the punishment was always just.
 
Why be afraid of someone who gives punishment only when it is just  to do so? I too love my Mom...no spanking she ever gave me altered that or made me fearful to come to her embrace or seek her comfort when I was sad or confused.
 
I also did the same thing when being "talked at" by people who weren't my parent, and I'd even do it to my parent if the talk went on too long...lol! "la la la la la...."

Totally, i knew that i could still come to them for comfort and advice, spanking taught me that there is concequences to my bad actions, you can put me in time out, you can take my toys away but i always had my imagination, my imagination was a way to demonstrate that i could "fight back" the punishment, that they were not able to prove their point, that i still was under control of what i wanted to think about "ah you put me in time out? well i wont think about what i did anyways, take that"

When my mom spanked me my imagination was just a piece of trash that could not help me at all at that moment hehe []

Like i posted in another thread:

This is why time outs sometimes dont work (very well explained by the kid actually) []:

[linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ltU0YOzmI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ltU0YOzmI[/link]