Hiya'. This is gonna' ramble a bit. So, er, okay then.
I read through all of these posts and I can't say that I think that there's an absolute right or wrong to this.
I have four children, (got two for one last time around), and I have on occasion spanked them. When it's finished with and they've had a few minutes to stew, we talk it over and explain why it happened and what they've got to do to make sure it doesn't happen again.
It is never to hurt them and always after other forms of discipline have failed.
I'll admit to the occasional yelling too. Typically, the yelling is composed of just two words repeated at ever increasing volume - "Be nice!" It sounds odd to say that but that's one of the things that I say rather than making them feel like crap on top of being in trouble by calling them names or belittling them. This is usually delivered at the point where they've started trying to physically harm each other.
Anyone who has siblings near their own age probably is familiar with this phenomenon.
Anyway, with four kids, I think I've experienced a pretty diverse group of behaviors so far. The few spankings I've had to give have resolved the problem outright. As the kids have gotten older, the necessity for spanking has disappeared.
I spend a great deal of time trying to build my kids up, teach them positive behaviors, and just...spend time with them. I NEVER call them names or reference them as being a bad person, rather I focus on the behavior and how it was a bad decision that got them in trouble.
I think, (and of course this is all just my perspective which has about as much cash value as an airborne fart), that it just depends on what works for the parent and the kids being parented.
Two of my kids have been fairly well behaved from the get go and two of them present challenges to me as a parent regularly. Even though I recognize this, I spend extra time trying to AVOID reaching the point where I have to spank them. I firmly believe that the person they'll ultimately come is only PARTIALLY dependent on the nature/nurture process. Some of the things they'll encounter or do, completely independent of my parenting, will alter who they will eventually become. Some of the personality traits my kids show have been evident almost since birth...of course, that's just how I see it.
At some point when the child repeatedly tries to put everything from cat turds to liquid bleach in their mouth and every other option has failed to stop this behavior, a dramatic response is required.
...and by the way, the turd/bleach scenario isn't an imagined example.
I think that spanking is just like any other tool a parent can use in raising their children and if used properly and in a reasonable manner is perfectly acceptable. When you screw up in real life, repeatedly, the consequences escalate. It is not unreasonable to see how this plays out in a parenting situation. Yelling, again in a reasonable manner, (although that sounds unreasonable in the first place), serves it's purpose too. If the point of it is to prevent the kids from stabbing each other with forks or prevent them from putting the cat in the blender...I think that's just fine.
...and the fork stabbing/cat blender IS an imagined situation.
Finally, I had a very unique situation as a child for an example of how to parent. Just skip this part if you don't want to read the blabbering tale of my childhood. REALLY.
It boils down to, at some point, accepting responsibility for choosing to be the sort of parent/person YOU want to be and NOT blaming your crappy parent(s) for your shortcomings.
{begin skip}
I lived with my father who had some let's say unique extra-curricular activities that wound up leading to some felony convictions involving controlled substances. I met a great number of somewhat odd individuals who probably shouldn't have been around children, let alone other humans. Dad was a happy fellow who wasted no time in doing things such as kicking me in the balls when I didn't brush my teeth in order to get to school on time or kicking me in the ass and into a wall because I wasn't walking fast enough. He was also particularly fond of making me feel that I had the value of burnt toast with an endless stream of insults, put downs, and just general meanness. When I was 15 for some unknown reason, (to this day), I came home from school and my father kicked the snot out of me for about two hours and then tried to strangle me to death. I was literally saved by the bell. Turned out that my father's stepfather was hospitalized that same evening and he was called to the hospital in the middle of my strangulation. He departed after the call but not before the final shot of slamming the back of my head into the floor a half dozen times before leaving. I was taken away by child protective services, right out of school, the next day. Oddly, due to the time that this happened in, my father wasn't prosecuted for this. Not long after this, he broke my stepbrother's arm. Again, no prosecution. The good old days.
My sister lived with my mother. My mother is about as close to June Cleaver as you can get. However, she had her own issues that mostly dealt with the fallout from spending the years living with and being married to my father. Only once in all the years she lived in the same house with me or when I went for the regular visitations did she ever strike me. She slapped me right across the face when I was being a complete asterisk - and I deserved it. Turns out it was not long after the situation with dear old Dad went down.
What does this all mean? Not a damned thing. In the end, I took responsibility for being a different person than these people and appreciating the things, if any, that they taught me.{end skip}I hope I've contributed somethin' valuable to this...but if not, well, that's nothing new.
My apologies for throwin' my sob story into it.
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Topic: How do you do this to your kids? (Read 15976 times)
