Anti-smacking laws

[WalterBush]

There are obviously factors that you are missing in your analysis. For instance, take the high school I went to in a small town of 5000 people. My school was ranked 29th on the provincial grade 12 exams the year I graduated and all but one school ahead of us was a private school. We had 75 graduating students of which there were 0 teen pregnancies, 0 cases of lethal violence (worst things that happened was a fight in the parking lot once or twice a month) and all but 2 students did some form of post secondary education. No one was smacked in that school but somehow we seemed not to turn out too many delinquents. How do you explain that?

IMO it is more a case of kids not getting any rules at home. It's been demostrated that children do not have to be smacked or spanked in order to be taught to obey rules and learn what the parent's want to teach. The problem is when parents do not enforce rules in the first place and let children have/do whatever they want. There are many ways to properly discipline and raise a child and the problem is that some parents are either too lazy or don't have the time to do any of them.

No, no, I think we're in complete agreement. The removal of spanking from public schools followed a social movement at large, not the other way around. Parents not being involved in their kids' education and (when needed) correction, is the far larger problem. The school thing was just an example.

BTW, I failed to graduate from the nation's worst school. Really. Look it up, Yuma High School, and look at the abysmal dropout statistics. It's the worst school in the worst district in the nation. Most of those kids weren't paddled, or even punished, regardless of transgression. I was amazed at what my friends got away with, in class and at home, especially since I had previously attended a private school that practiced Corporal Punishment. The difference was night and day; both because of the school, and the level of parental involvement the school demanded.

 

[ImaStupidBaby]

this thread seems to say "either you spank your child and they grow up perfectly or you don't and you get little osamas."

uh. I was never once spanked or smacked by my parents. not once. ever. but i was disciplined.

guess what I'm working towards right now? A PhD in Chemistry.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

this thread seems to say "either you spank your child and they grow up perfectly or you don't and you get little osamas."

uh. I was never once spanked or smacked by my parents. not once. ever. but i was disciplined.

guess what I'm working towards right now? A PhD in Chemistry.

That's scary... You're parents should have smacked you a long time ago.

 

[Bassic83]

Gah! There you go talking your nonsense again!

OUR CHILDREN ARE DECKALTE SNOWFLAKES!!!!!!11111111

Lawsuit! Lawsuit!

 

[ImaStupidBaby]

That's scary... You're parents should have smacked you a long time ago.

nah. my parents didn't feel that hitting me would actually teach me anything.

to be fair though, I'm not totally against spanking, but I think it should be a very rare occurance.

for instance, my friend, who is 23 has a kid. she spanks her son all the time. every time he whines, he gets a smack on the bottom. he whines and cries constantly.

my brother and his wife have never once spanked their kid. if she whines, they say "I can't understand what you're saying when you whine." she calms down and asks in a normal voice EVERY TIME. Sure, she will whine, but she'll stop pretty quickly because she knows its futile.

 

[Relic]

this thread seems to say "either you spank your child and they grow up perfectly or you don't and you get little osamas."

uh. I was never once spanked or smacked by my parents. not once. ever. but i was disciplined.

guess what I'm working towards right now? A PhD in Chemistry.

That's awesome dude good for you, but what I had said was that a parent has a variety of tools at their disposal, and a little common sense goes a long way.

Some kids may not ever need to be spanked, some will, it's a parents choice not the goverments.

 

[guy n. cognito]

I know for a fact that not all of them were smacked at home. In fact the guy with top honours in my high school class was not (he's a high school teacher now). One of my other good friends wasn't and he's in grad school right now. I guess they just happened to turn out alright without having to be spanked. The "talk-it-out" parenting crowd isn't to blame, it is parents who don't care and don't do anything about improper behaviour in children.

Maybe not all, but some, right? Did the ones that got spanked turn into to criminals? Have you done studies that prove that those who got spanked had less success in life than the one's that didn't?

 

[ImaStupidBaby]

That's awesome dude good for you, but what I had said was that a parent has a variety of tools at their disposal, and a little common sense goes a long way.

Some kids may not ever need to be spanked, some will, it's a parents choice not the goverments.

I don't disagree. I was commenting on the "all or nothing" vibe of this thread.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

my brother and his wife have never once spanked their kid. if she whines, they say "I can't understand what you're saying when you whine." she calms down and asks in a normal voice EVERY TIME. Sure, she will whine, but she'll stop pretty quickly because she knows its futile.

That's funny. That's what I tell my son when he whines (someday I'll introduce him to the man laws ). Works everytime. Once he told my wife to that he doesn't understand her because she's whining. Hilarious. We also spank him on rare occasions. That's for when my son has been really bad. Once he threw canned dog food around the kitchen because he didn't get his way... He got spanked for that... He hasn't done that since.

 

[guy n. cognito]

I don't disagree. I was commenting on the "all or nothing" vibe of this thread.

You might be the only one sensing a "all or nothing" vibe here, doc.......

 

[dlloyd]

Reread what I said above. I'm not talking about whacking a kid for every misgiving. I'm talking about corporal punishment in the most severe cases of bad behavior.

Timing out/isolating a badly behaved toddler, and more importantly praising/rewarding a well-behaved one, gets rid of any need to smack them later on.

Kids crave attention and will do whatever they can to get it... if negative attention is all they can get, then that's what they'll go for.

Dropping my kid off at nursery, I can already tell which kids are going to be the delinquents when they're teenagers, purely on how their parents act towards them. Those that pay attention to their kids only when they're misbehaving and scold/smack them for it are the parents who have kids that misbehave the worst.

 

[guy n. cognito]

Timing out/isolating a badly behaved toddler, and more importantly praising/rewarding a well-behaved one, gets rid of any need to smack them later on.

Kids crave attention and will do whatever they can to get it... if negative attention is all they can get, then that's what they'll go for.

Dropping my kid off at nursery, I can already tell which kids are going to be the delinquents when they're teenagers, purely on how their parents act towards them. Those that pay attention to their kids only when they're misbehaving and scold/smack them for it are the parents who have kids that misbehave the worst.

Well, I disagree with you there, but at least you didn't misrepresent my thoughts this time. I will tell you that what you are seeing isn't a result of spanking, but rather the result of poor parenting. Not all poor parents are spankers, and not all spankers are poor parents. It's just not as black and white as you would like it to be. Some parents can give BOTH positive encouragement and corporal punishment at the appropiate times. Amazing, isn't it?

I think I was spanked three times in my entire life. Each time, I really deserved it. I think I turned out alright, despite a total lack of therapy.

 

[dlloyd]

Well, I disagree with you there, but at least you didn't misrepresent my thoughts this time.

Well, I wasn't messing around this time.

I will tell you that what you are seeing isn't a result of spanking, but rather the result of poor parenting. Not all poor parents are spankers, and not all spankers are poor parents. It's just not as black and white as you would like it to be. Some parents can give BOTH positive encouragement and corporal punishment at the appropiate times. Amazing, isn't it?

Not especially.

I'm not completely opposed to corporal punishment... I've just never needed to use it.

 

[Bassic83]

Kids crave attention and will do whatever they can to get it... if negative attention is all they can get, then that's what they'll go for.

Dropping my kid off at nursery, I can already tell which kids are going to be the delinquents when they're teenagers, purely on how their parents act towards them. Those that pay attention to their kids only when they're misbehaving and scold/smack them for it are the parents who have kids that misbehave the worst.

So true! We've truly gone from being a "We" society to a "ME!!!" society remarkably fast. One thing that I've found in dealing with my 5-yr-old daughter (5 1/2, daddy! Get it right! Sheesh! ) is that kids not only crave attention, but also have a distinct NEED to feel useful. "Helping" with adult chores, without giving TOO much supervision, leads to a good sense of self-worth and healthy independence. One of my little girl's catch-phrases, since the age of two, has been "I got it, daddy. I got it!" And she does indeed got it...about a year ago, she was with me as I picked up a load of twelve 45-lb. bags of topsoil for my backyard. I was in the Jeep, and backed it up in the driveway, then opened the garage door and opened the back hatch. I went through the house to go open the shed, and when I came back a couple minutes later, I found 10 of the bags neatly stacked in two rows of two high, and her dragging number 11 out far enough to get her arms around it. "I got it, daddy...I got it...move, daddy." I let her put that one down, and she was going back for the last one as I grabbed it and pulled it to the back edge. Her little arms quickly wrapped around it, and she heaved it out of the Jeep and told me to close the back hatch as she put the last bag down on the other one. Keeping in mind that this little girl is 4 1/2 yrs old at this point, and each bag was about 3 lbs. heavier than she was! I was really proud of her, and she of herself! Strong kid, and very smart too! She had effectively moved 540 lbs of dirt by herself, without being asked! Not that it was a great distance, only a few feet, but DANG! She was a little sweaty afterwards, but the way she manhandled those bags that weighed at least as much as her....I can tell she'll have no problem defending herself from boys!

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Maybe not all, but some, right? Did the ones that got spanked turn into to criminals? Have you done studies that prove that those who got spanked had less success in life than the one's that didn't?

I never made any such claims so I don't see where you are going with this. I simply made the claim that it is possible to raise a child with proper discipline to be a productive and responsible adult without having to spank or smack them. I never made any claims of what smacking or spanking does or doesn't do. I certainly never claimed that it had anything to do with criminal behaviour or success in life.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

So true! We've truly gone from being a "We" society to a "ME!!!" society remarkably fast. One thing that I've found in dealing with my 5-yr-old daughter (5 1/2, daddy! Get it right! Sheesh! ) is that kids not only crave attention, but also have a distinct NEED to feel useful. "Helping" with adult chores, without giving TOO much supervision, leads to a good sense of self-worth and healthy independence. One of my little girl's catch-phrases, since the age of two, has been "I got it, daddy. I got it!" And she does indeed got it...about a year ago, she was with me as I picked up a load of twelve 45-lb. bags of topsoil for my backyard. I was in the Jeep, and backed it up in the driveway, then opened the garage door and opened the back hatch. I went through the house to go open the shed, and when I came back a couple minutes later, I found 10 of the bags neatly stacked in two rows of two high, and her dragging number 11 out far enough to get her arms around it. "I got it, daddy...I got it...move, daddy." I let her put that one down, and she was going back for the last one as I grabbed it and pulled it to the back edge. Her little arms quickly wrapped around it, and she heaved it out of the Jeep and told me to close the back hatch as she put the last bag down on the other one. Keeping in mind that this little girl is 4 1/2 yrs old at this point, and each bag was about 3 lbs. heavier than she was! I was really proud of her, and she of herself! Strong kid, and very smart too! She had effectively moved 540 lbs of dirt by herself, without being asked! Not that it was a great distance, only a few feet, but DANG! She was a little sweaty afterwards, but the way she manhandled those bags that weighed at least as much as her....I can tell she'll have no problem defending herself from boys!

That's a cool story. My son has a similar phrase. "Kaito do it." That phrase can move mountains.

 

[guy n. cognito]

I never made any such claims so I don't see where you are going with this. I simply made the claim that it is possible to raise a child with proper discipline to be a productive and responsible adult without having to spank or smack them. I never made any claims of what smacking or spanking does or doesn't do. I certainly never claimed that it had anything to do with criminal behaviour or success in life.

It is also possible to raise a child with proper discipline to be a productive and responsible adult even with the occasional, well-deserved spank. That's my point.......

It all depends on the kid. Shades of gray....

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

It is also possible to raise a child with proper discipline to be a productive and responsible adult even with the occasional, well-deserved spank. That's my point.......

It all depends on the kid. Shades of gray....

I never claimed otherwise. I disagree that it depends on the kid though.

 

[Ryan L.]

It doesn't depend on the kid?? Last I checked, mine have developed into quite the individuals. And each require a little different approach in some instances. I am not going to bother getting into specifics--I have 4 children, and this post would be two pages long.

FWIW, I *rarely* have EVER had to spank one of my children. But when it was needed, a swat on the butt was given. We have used the "time out" method, and it is usually all that is necessary. And yes, they are given praise for what they do good, also. And believe me, we give out more praise here than time outs.

But I do agree with this "all or nothing" attitude that is going on in this thread. It seems that the belief is that, if you have spanked/swatted your child on the butt or slapped fingers, you are an abusive barbarian. If you haven't, then you don't discipline at all. So, where's the middle ground??

My point in all of this is, most of us, I think, are doing the best we can to raise our kids. There is no "perfect parenting" manual that comes with them. Mistakes will be made along the way. I am learning, just like they are. And, sorry, but anyone that says that they are a perfect parent and has never made an error in some way of dealing with their child, is full of it. I'm done.

 

[Geoff St. Germaine]

It doesn't depend on the kid?? Last I checked, mine have developed into quite the individuals. And each require a little different approach in some instances. I am not going to bother getting into specifics--I have 4 children, and this post would be two pages long.

It can be done properly without it with any child if it is started right from the beginning. I would say that whether a child is spanked or not depends more on the parents deciding to do it than it is on the child "needing" it.