Spare the rod, spoil the child
I'm from El Salvador and beatings are a regular thing for us.
It's normal for us to start working at 12.
Now that's the extreme, but this whole don't hit your kids movement is an epidemic.
Now that's the extreme, but this whole don't hit your kids movement is an epidemic.
As long as it's not abusive, disproportionate, and done in the proper circumstances and for the right reasons, there's nothing wrong with that.
Please note I'm not advocating beating up your child for no reason whatsoever. It should be the last resort to educate. But just like the experience of fire is necessary to fear it, the experience of authority through a variety of means has value.
That's very absolute a statement.
"matter of calmly reminding them of their incentives, both negative and positive."
As you said YMMV. Children are different from not only different families but within the same family. Punishment that works with one is pointless with another.
@larrys Make a list of your kid's 5 favorite things. Make hitting them the sixth option. Give them authority to choose between the bad behavior or losing the items sequentially. With most kids by the time you get to item three you have compliance. No hitting required. IMHO the key is letting them choose among consequences or to pursue the behavior. Gives them independence and boundries at the same time.
However, for certain ages and situations, nothing gets the point across quite as succinctly or unambiguously as a sharp thwack or spanking.
I wouldn't, however, consider that as discipline per se--that is something that takes a larger, longer-term sort of environment and character building than fast "don't do that" punishment.
Depends on whether you're consequentialist or deontologicalist, I guess. For a consequentialist, nothing can make something okay other than that it works, and ends are the only thing that can justify any means. :)
Presumably a spouse has more intelligence, maturity, and common sense than a child and is a peer (equal) that you can speak to and don't have to resort to "spanking" or much worse.
Class C misdeameaners are handed out in extreme regularity, with the common punishment is a fine or community service. Seems to me it's an intersection between the prison companies and school companies.
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-sch...
Yeah, they do tend to get a wee bit rowdy, but I saw no violence or such in the classes I've been in. There has been the usual silliness like paper airplanes and such, but nothing that would get anybody hurt.
I've also learned that they are respectful if you respect them. Tit for tat, with the benefit of the doubt.
I think it is a part of the "pay attention to science" epidemic, like stopping smoking, and taking lead out of petrol.
I can't say that's the way it was everywhere, but they didn't need to rely on that kind of thing - if you made too much trouble they would simply expel you, something I don't think happens these days.
In fact I got in a spot of trouble in High School in 93-94 and was threatened with a paddle, so it isn't like this practice is ancient.
Hey kids, if you don't like what someone's doing, use violence. Wonder why the world's nations' military policies are the way they are?
A few years ago, the New Zealand legislature passed a law that effectively made spanking a punishable offense(^), which generated a lot of discussion about the topic. About two-thirds of everyone I talked to (classmates, etc) had be spanked as a child, and of those people, I never met anyone who considered it a bad thing or traumatic in any way. In fact, everyone recognized that they had only been spanked because they were misbehaving, and that they had 'earned' the punishment. Let me emphasise that: I have not talked to anyone who has been spanked, and who thought it was traumatic or equivalent to violence in any way.
From this, I suspect that most people who object to spanking have either never been spanked (and assume it would be tramatic), or have parents who thought 'discipline' was an acceptable excuse for abuse. Please understand that I am not defending any parent who abuses their child. Their actions are horrid and without excuse. Instead, my point is merely that spanking, done right, is not at all equivalent with child abuse.
So what makes a 'good' spank? It should be short, sharp, and clearly associated with the crime, not the person.
By short and sharp, I mean that it should hurt but I should not leave any long term effects. There should only be a single strike, the pain should not last longer than 10 seconds, and if there is a bruise then the parent has seriously stuffed up. The purpose is not to inflict pain on the child, but rather to clearly and unambiguously tell the child that certain actions are not acceptable. A baby should never be smacked, because they would not be able to understand the causality, and I would expect that once a child is over the age of 5 or 6, a verbal rebuke or simple smack on the hand should be sufficient. (Note that the smack on the hand would not be designed to cause pain, but rather to serve as a strong rebuke.)
The smack should be clearly associated with the crime, not the person. When my mother smacked me, she would call me into the bedroom, explain what the crime was, smack me once, then hold me as I cried. Also, she always told me that she still loved me.
Gnaritas: you say that the end does not justify the means. I'm not sure I agree with that. If, by being disciplined while I am a young child, I can learn to behave as a civilized member of the human race, I think this is a very good end that does justify the means. I suspect that the only people who can discipline themselves without any external discomfort (whether that's physical pain, boredom from being given a detention, or embarrassment from a boss's rebuke) are those who have been appropriately disciplined when they were young. Certainly, parents should move to the milder forms of punishment as soon as a child will respond to them. But while a child is young (3-5ish), a short sharp smack is an effective tool that doesn't need to be abusive.
I recognize that some people will read this and still thing smacking is horrid. That's okay; you're certainly allowed to form your own opinion. However, please do not make the mistake of assuming that smacking must be abusive or violent, or even that the children themselves resent it. I know I never did. I disliked the pain, but I knew that there was a very good was to avoid a smack -- stop being mean to others around me.
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^ The purpose of the bill was only to remove a legal defense from those who were 'obviously' Bad Parents, but the ambiguity about what constitutes a Bad Parent made it very controversial.
There is no such thing. Responsible parents don't hit their children, they outsmart them.
That the abused don't feel abused doesn't mean they aren't being abused. It just means they're rationalizing or denying; this is common among all kinds of abuse victims and is thus not a measure of whether something is or isn't abuse. Hitting someone at all is abuse, regardless of their age.
> From this, I suspect that most people who object to spanking have either never been spanked (and assume it would be tramatic), or have parents who thought 'discipline' was an acceptable excuse for abuse.
I think you suspect wrong. People who object to violence are objecting to violence because they've reasoned out that it's wrong rather than accept what they were taught is acceptable violence from tradition as you seem to have.
> If, by being disciplined while I am a young child, I can learn to behave as a civilized member of the human race, I think this is a very good end that does justify the means.
And that's faulty reasoning. Lots of things that aren't OK work, that doesn't make them any more acceptable. The question isn't whether it works, the question is is violence the best option, and the answer is no; there is always a better non-violent method of teaching said lesson.
> However, please do not make the mistake of assuming that smacking must be abusive or violent
Hitting someone, regardless of whether it leaves permanent marks, is violent.
> a short sharp smack is an effective tool that doesn't need to be abusive.
Whether a technique is effective or not has no relevance on whether it's wrong or not. By your reasoning, not feeding my kids for a few days (which won't do any permanent damage) is OK as a form of punishment if it works.
Hitting your child is no less wrong than hitting your spouse. You are engaging in rationalization, not logic.
> However, please do not make the mistake of assuming that smacking must be abusive or violent
Hitting someone is violent by definition. There is no assumption involved, it is violence. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of fact. You may be of the opinion that sometimes violence (spanking) is OK, but you are not allowed your own facts.
Telling people you classify as abused that they are fully incapable of speaking for themselves unless they agree with you is pretty despicable, and a kissing cousin to victim blaming.
Further, when someone is debating whether or not spanking is "violent," they are speaking in the connotation of inflicting injury and harm. They do not mean it in the sense that force, such as beating an egg, is inherently violent.
I was spanked by my parents and by a grade school teacher. I think it functioned as suitable punishment in my case, and overall I was under-disciplined. Being told that I am inherently unreliable or unable to make the determination that I was abused or not is irritating and disrespectful.
I do believe current parenting consensus is that spanking has the risk (and perhaps tendency) of causing harm, and will avoid it as a method of discipline with my children.
I understand that because it involves our parents and our children, this is a subject that evokes strong emotional responses. But the objective research is very clear, which is why spanking and other physical punishments are no longer part of any professional educational or child-care profession in the U.S.
In the past few decades there have been significant advances in understanding how the human mind and brain develops during childhood. The results of these advances are taught in academia (i.e. a newly minted kindergarten teacher will likely have learned about them), but poorly disseminated to parents.
The essential thing to understand is that a child is not a human. They are in the process of becoming human. So when a child breaks a rule it is not the same thing as when you break a rule. It represents a step in their development that must be guided. So discipline is not about punishment, it is about teaching and coaching.
What about boxing, martial arts, football? Not all hitting is abuse.
> Hitting someone is violent by definition.
That's a pretty contextual term too. Chopping wood with an axe is not particularly violent, but smashing furniture during an angry fight is.
As for whether spanking is the most effective option, the jury is still out. It wouldn't be surprising to find a correlation between spanking and slightly lower IQ or later behavioral problems, but does spanking cause either? Can scientific literature that relies on self-reporting by parents show anything useful?
Regardless of effectiveness, should one spank? Is it morally wrong? What basis do we decide the morality of it?
No one said otherwise, but causation was suggested, and hence disputed.
> All scientific theory starts with
I require no science lessons from you.
> We could say that correlation doesn't imply causation with CO2 and the climate change debate as well
There are known causal effects of C02 on the atmosphere, it's physics, the science has moved far beyond merely trying to prove causal effects and well into trying to understand them.
> Until Science disproves a lack of causation of spanking and discipline, then it's just as valid a hypothesis as any other untested hypothesis.
No one put forth a hypothesis, you're arguing against your own straw-man.
Pig fucker.