That's a pretty tenuous connection. There'd be a whole lot less of #2 if we drowned more babies in buckets, too, should we do that? Spanking teaches kids that might is right, and where has that gotten us?
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· 11 years ago
spanking kids teaches them to respect their elders. i'm 14 and i think it's fine, i got spanked as a little kid, and i think it really actually helped me to be less of a little shit.
But I dislike the whole "respect your elders" ideal. I mean, you shouldn't be just outright rude to them or anything and you should be polite, but they don't have my respect. And I'm not going to hold my tongue if they start saying something I dislike. After all, there are tons of people who are older than me who are racist, homophobic, sexist, pedophiles, murderers, etc. and I'm supposed to respect them just because they're older? That's bullshit.
No spanking children mean that you are a failure at being a parent. You have to make your child care about being a good person. You can't spoil your child, but there are ways to do that without spanking! If you can't think of one, you fail.
Not necessarily. No matter how much you discipline your child, they can still rebel and might even do so more if you're too harsh. I'm not saying to not discipline your child, because that's just as bad, but you need to have more of a healthy balance. Teach your child "right" from "wrong" and if they stray from that, enforce some rules, but not so much that your kid feels the need to break out and get away. Of course, media and peer pressure are variables as well along with so many other things that parents have limited or no control over.
No this post is so wrong! Hitting or "disciplining" a child will make them more likely to become a gangster or rebel! They will only harbor hate against the parents and want to rebel later in life. I can't believe this website is so pro-child abuse! You guys don't know parenting
That's not really a fair comment I'm sure there are plenty of parents on here that are good parents. And when spanking was commonplace there were a lot more respectful adults that were the result of it, spanking your child isn't child abuse, punching, kicking and withholding food etc is child abuse and that is wrong but occasionally giving your child a smack on the hand when they have done something EXTREMELY bad shouldn't put you in the same category as those assholes that routinely harm their child for no reason.
I understand what you are saying, but like I said on another one of these child abuse posts( there's been a lot of them of late) it depends on the temperament of the child and the way the parent acts in everyday life as well.
If the parent is very controlling and domineering then I think the child would turn out to be an asshole.
I was spanked occasionally as a child and I am the last person that would hurt someone, in fact most people I know were and they wouldn't hurt a fly
I hear you. I was spanked and I'm a total pacifist - but I also find if difficult to back myself against people who are older than me, people in positions of authority - I want to defer to them automatically, and for the wrong reasons. I was taught to fear violence and pain. If I had been taught to measure empathy and consequence, to inject reason into my decision-making, maybe it'd be easier for me to say no to people now.
I think that if you have warned your child for their bad behavior and they don't change it you should spank them. It teaches them that their bad actions can have bad consequences. But you shouldn't use that type of discipline too often because the less you use it the more effect it has when it's really needed.
What the child learns is that someone bigger and stronger than you has the right to hurt you if you displease them.
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· 11 years ago
no it's not about the adults being bigger and stronger, and it's not about hurting you if you displease them, it's about the parents letting the kids know that what they're doing is wrong, not annoying.
What a child learns is that hitting is okay, so long as what someone is doing is wrong. As far as they're concerned, annoying them is wrong. So they learn to hit, because they were hit.
Physically hurting your children should NEVER be a part of their childhood. Sure, it MIGHT teach them to respect their elders but it might aswell teach them that hurting someone is okay. The kids might grow up to be afraid of their parents and other adults. I belive that if you can't teach your children respect without hurting them physically or mentally then you're not fit to be a parent.
If you think spanking is okay let me ask you something. Where do you draw the line between spanking and child abuse? When is it too much?
I think spanking if it is as shown on the picture it kinda leans towards abuse, but kids need a slap on the wrist from time to time. Like when a child plays with the stove and you warn him and then he does it again and you warn him again, but then he does it again, as a parent you know he is going to hurt himself, what would you do? Would you keep on warn that child until he accidentally burns himself and learns the hard way? Or would spank him because even though it will hurt him for a while, it hurts a heck of a lot less then the burn would have?
Let's say I give him a whack. He learns that behaviour A = dad whacking you. What's going to stop him when I'm not around? He doesn't understand why it's a bad idea. He has no memory bubbling up to tell him it's a bad idea, and now the only thing that stopped him before - the threat of violence - is absent.
How has anyone benefited?
Guest: I would prefer getting burnt by the stove. Sure, it probably hurts more but then it would be my choice and I would learn from my mistake. Do you think that parents should hit their kids everytime they're about to make a mistake? Shouldn't the kid be able to choose for him/herself and then take the consequences?
Someone explain to me how this is any different from bullying?
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· 11 years ago
ok , so bullying is defined as continued harassment in a power imbalance, which is intended to intimidate the victim. This is different to bullying in that spankings are usually a one-off, intended to discipline, not bully, and as long as the child is told what's going to happen- ie pinch your sister again and you will get a smack, I think it's fine. It's not so the parents can assert dominance or anything, it's so the kids can know they're serious and they're not going to get away withi pinching their sister again. It prepares them for later life, showing them that bad actions have consequence and that the people in charge are just that- in charge, and not afraid to follow through with a punishment.
Thanks for putting the time into this, mcdonaldo. I think your argument is a bit of a circle. Look:
> spankings are usually a one-off
You need the kid to know: "Hitting me is something dad is willing to do" for the threat of a smack to have any effect. Which is what you say later on about not being afraid to follow through with punishment.
> the people in charge are just that- in charge, and not afraid to follow through with a punishment
So, it's intended to intimidate. Not to learn anything - certainly not to question the legitimacy of authority - but to use fear of pain to make your behaviour comply to my standards.
Of course kids need to learn about consequences - and so do we, because whatever the intention is, whatever the motivation, the message that spanking and bullying both send is "do what I say or I'll thump you."
no, it's to make them learn. I was kinda blurry with my words- sorry :)but an insecure parent certainly should never slap their kids out of just that-insecurity. i think that anything over 1 hard smack which they were warned would happen and knew would happen is abuse. And it's not about making kids comply to their standards, it's about making them behave well. now don't get me wrong- there are some parents who really just go way over the line, and that's awful and shouldn't happen. But the way my parents disciplines me was. don't hit your sister. do it again and you'll get a slap. I hit her again, being the little shit I was, and got a slap, and you know what? there was a lot less hitting of my little sister form me, they saved her a lot of annoyance and pain, by a single small slap to my wrist
Yeah. I get it, I'm not suggesting that spanking doesn't work - the threat of violence is nothing if not effective! I'm saying that if a kid is too young to understand your good reasoning, they're going to make a whole bunch of associations that you never intended. The kid's behaviour has been modified, but at what cost?
WillFree , I don't mean this to come across as rude and you can tell me if it's none of my business but you seem to be very passionate about this topic, may I ask why? I mean obviously it's a controversial topic but idk you just seem like it means a lot more to you than the other commenters.
Hi there =) It's not just this topic. I'm terrified that people just accept information that they inherit from their parents, teachers, lawmakers, without ever challenging it. There's a lot about the world that's fucked up and if we want to change it, we can't just keep repeating ourselves, can't just do what we're told because the person telling us is wearing a uniform.
We have free will, and if we're not using it to make better decisions than our parents did, then what's the point? We can't complain that the world is violent and then inflict violence on our children. What do we think is going to change?
I find it amazing when I meet people out there like you who question things and try to change things, it's truly great to know that there are people out there who are ambitious and positive enough to change the world. So please keep being your awesome self because it is people like you who have and will continue to make the world a better place.
We live in a world where many people is constantly fighting against violence, we proclaim to be good, honorable, respectful, open minded... We proclaim to be humans, and still, some of you think that the only way to be a good person, to avoid "bad" is phisically hurting your own children. Any way of hurt isn't a good way. I don't want to learn from bad, I want to learn from good, from love. I learned to respect the elders because my parents taught me to do so, I learned that violence is not good, that women are as capable as men, that I'm not less than anyone and nobody is less than me, I learned to accept, to love everybody. And let me tell you, I've never, not once in my life, been hit by my parents. My parents gave me the respect they wanted me to give.
This is very true. I was spanked as a little child but it was because we would act like saw dust heads. They also taught me to respect my elders, from now on i have held the door open for my entire family (cause im the youngest) and even strangers, i allways say hello before anyone would say hello to me, and i try to not talk back (that one is hard). Im not allways the best at it and sometimes i forget to do it but i do and now the people i know and care for have respect for me. So even if you do get spanked its not such a BAD thing, sometimes its actually a good thing, im not saying if you slap your child its a good thing but giving them a spanking once in a while is not that bad.
Adults who do this claim it's to "teach them respect", but how on earth is hitting someone respectful in any way? How about you raise your kids to be respectful individuals by being respectful to them?
Uhm, actually you can teach kids to respect people without spanking - beating kids, whether it's as a reasonable punishment or not teaches fear, not respect. Plenty of gangster type kids were /abused/, so no, this would not be a solution.
Well not all the time the occasional spank will do good I mean my family came out great we arnt resentful or disrespectful. Of course our mom taught us to take shit from no one so yeah I think I came out fine.
If the parent is very controlling and domineering then I think the child would turn out to be an asshole.
I was spanked occasionally as a child and I am the last person that would hurt someone, in fact most people I know were and they wouldn't hurt a fly
If you think spanking is okay let me ask you something. Where do you draw the line between spanking and child abuse? When is it too much?
How has anyone benefited?
> spankings are usually a one-off
You need the kid to know: "Hitting me is something dad is willing to do" for the threat of a smack to have any effect. Which is what you say later on about not being afraid to follow through with punishment.
> the people in charge are just that- in charge, and not afraid to follow through with a punishment
So, it's intended to intimidate. Not to learn anything - certainly not to question the legitimacy of authority - but to use fear of pain to make your behaviour comply to my standards.
Of course kids need to learn about consequences - and so do we, because whatever the intention is, whatever the motivation, the message that spanking and bullying both send is "do what I say or I'll thump you."
We have free will, and if we're not using it to make better decisions than our parents did, then what's the point? We can't complain that the world is violent and then inflict violence on our children. What do we think is going to change?