Surreal

"do you beat your kids" misses the point, and considering that a parent can twist and torture a child without touching.

Also one-size-fits-all children approaches don't work well either. When dealing with young children, I think there are times when a swot or 5 on the butt is the best approach for some children for some errors.

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Envoy Costagravas

Had I kids, I have no doubt I'd discipline without striking them. I can remember only one time a parent raised a hand to me: I did something non-good, and Dad was tasked with spanking me. Even though I was worried, I could tell he didn't actually want to do it. He gave some kind of attempt, it stung a bit, and I went into my room to cry. Within a couple minutes, he came in and said "How about some ice cream?" Off we went to Dairy Queen.

I turned out just fine, and I wasn't beat up as a child.

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"When Men differ in Opinion, both Sides ought equally to have the Advantage of being heard by the Publick;
and that when Truth and Error have fair Play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter."
~ Benjamin Franklin

Siyu Suen

I think that's the bottom line, all kids are different. I needed a swat because it wasn't the first time I'd done it, and it wasn't going to be the last. She could tell me it was dangerous all she wanted but if I didn't see a creepy man in a black cape with a curly mustache hiding behind a bush I just didn't believe her. I wish I had been as reasonable as your little girl, my brother certainly was, but you just have to work around personality. As Sansarya said, there are some kids where you could punch them in the nose and they'd ignore it, but if you offer to make them their favorite dinner they turn into putty.

Just have to adapt

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"Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever" -Baron Munchausen

I'm attempting to bring about the end of the world to usher in a new era of mask wielding overlords. This is how!

Ann Launay

I only remember being spanked once as a child and it only occurred after all other methods failed. My mother sold Tupperware and, when I was 6 or 7, I apparently took all of her sales money (several hundred dollars) and was carrying it around town in my little Minnie Mouse purse. We had a conversation about why stealing was bad and I guess I made the appropriate noises, because she considered it resolved. A few days later, I helped myself to some money from my stepfather's wallet. Time out, grounding, another conversation. About a week after that, I took my uncle's cashed paycheck...that was when the spanking occurred. The funny thing is, I still remember it, not because it hurt so badly - it didn't - but because I was so embarrassed.

We did get occasional swats though; on the bottom when we were younger and the back of the hands as we got older.

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Lucifer Baphomet

We still had corporal punishment at school when I was a kid....

In Scottish schools they used "the belt" more correctly called a tawse...

A leather strap with 2 or more "tails" on it..







You'd get hit on the hands with it alternating between hands, supporting the hand to be struck with the other.

If a teacher knew how to use it.. the fucker stung like hell.

(We had a teacher who was crap at giving it and deliberately wound her up so she'd give out the belt, until she wised up to what we were doing and got the deputy head to deal with us)

A few years after I left school, corporal punishment in schools was banned in the UK..

And frankly, schoolkids became far more unruly...

Educational standards have dropped...

Interestingly, the child who's mother took the issue to the European coursts (because her precious Danny was a GOOD BOY HAHAHA) came from Clydebank, and has spent much of his adult life in police custody.

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Eboni Khan

There are so many things you can take away from a child now to completely wreck their little worlds, there is no reason to get your hands dirty.

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Surreal

OK.. real life story.

Grandmother raising 3 grandchildren, one of whom is a 8-year old boy. As a bit of background, they are very poor, black, inner-city, and the parents are completely absent.

The boy has been setting fires. Most recently, a fire he set gutted one of the rooms in the house - at night while they were sleeping. The grandmother has tried pretty much everything she can think of and finally as a last resort, after the bedroom fire, deliberately burns the child's palms.

Opinion?

Surreal

The kid has to have something you can take away. Some parents are so focused on the stick that there is nothing to take away. Those are the same parent who are beating their kids (as opposed to spanking).

Summer

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Summer time is a nice time.

Eirik

It teaches him that fire hurts. Good.

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Isabeau Imako

I used to wander off too, when I was little. On a boat trip, my parents 'walked'
me on a body-harnessed leash so that I wouldn't accidentally jump overboard.
I have a picture (no I ain't sharing), and you can see my three brothers laughing.
Oh, the embarressment... If it wasn't for the picture, I wouldn't have remembered.
I think I blocked it off.

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Aaachou!

Kyllie Wylie

I think I spanked my kids one or twice at the most and then it would have been a single swat... time outs, sending them to thier room or taking away privledges worked well with them....

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Lucifer Baphomet

Too much....

And where the fuck were social work before it got to that stage?

Eirik

When has social work ever been where it was really needed?

Instead, they show up in cases where there's nothing wrong, and claim that taking the kids out of a healthy (if not politically correct) household will improve them as humans. Because we all know fostercare makes for great humans.

Ann Launay

My Mom bit my brother fairly hard when he was around two because he kept biting his playmates and nothing she did convinced him to stop. She was quite a young mother at the time and she still feels horrible about it, even though he's a 45 year old man at this point, but it worked...he never bit anyone else again.

Burning though... Too difficult to control the effects, at the very least.

Lucifer Baphomet

I've seen social work in the right place at the right time on several occassions.

I don't know about Belgium.. but it's actually a remit of Social Work in the UK to try to keep families together.

Fostercare, or care homes are only an extreme last resort.

Eirik

Yay for fire play.

Not sure if it's SFW, so linking to be sure.

Eirik

Well, I won't say all the people in social work are bad. Most of them seem to be genuinely caring people.

But the organisation I'm familiar with is burdened by politics, bureacracy, and people in charge who make judgements based only on reading a paper in their ivory tower.

Lucifer Baphomet

In what way are you familiar with them Eirik....

If its's through the media, remember, much like the police, a social worker doing their job properly isn't newsworthy.

Isabeau Imako

I don't think kids misbehave because they weren't spanked enough (or burned), but because other forms of parenting were lacking.



I wouldn't want my nieces to grow up thinking it's okay to be hit by a loved one - that's it's just a form of someone looking out for their best. I also wouldn't want my nephew (and nieces) to settle disagreements with fists instead of words.

My brother once hit his daughter after she had been 'lippy' (10 yrs old?), and he started to cry afterwards and apologized. He told her that what he did was wrong, that no one had a right to ever hit her. She started to cry, too. She then proceeded to console him...

Siobhan OFlynn

My parents used to beat the hell out of my sister and I. My mother's favorite thing to use was a hairbrush, my father loved his belt. I think they went overboard on many occasions, using my sister and I as punching bags to relieve their frustration and stress. I knew that I would not "beat" my children, no matter what. It's painful and demeaning. I also think it teaches kids to do whatever they can not to get caught, which can lead to even worse behavior.

I have spanked my daughter, but only when she'd done something that could have put her life at risk (like the time I caught her about to stick a fork in an electrical outlet or when she pulled away from me in a busy parking lot and took off running) and I only used my hand, flat, not balled up into a fist. Spanking hurts the spanker, too. More than once, I broke blood vessels up the side of my hand which hurt like hell. Keeps you from hitting them to excess, when your hand is exploding in pain after two smacks on a bony little arse. I didn't even spank that hard, either. One or two sharp smacks and that was the end of the spanking. I never spanked her once she was over 6 either. There wasn't a need for it anymore, since other consequences were much more effective. No tv for a weekend, early bedtimes for a week, time outs, taking away favorite toys or computer priveleges are all much more effective for an older kid in my opinion. Of course, if my kid acted out like that kid in the YouTube video after his parents cancelled his WOW account, I'd rethink my position on not using a belt or baseball bat on his sorry ass!

I sound like a monster now! But my daughter has come out and said to me that she has every intention of using spanking the way I did. She looks at kids misbehaving in the grocery store and she'll say to me "That kid needs a trip to the ladies room for an 'attitude readjustment.'"

As for the question Surreal raised about the kid setting fires? I don't think burning his hands is the proper punishment. Nor do I think it's appropriate. A child who's setting fires has more going on than just needing to be punished. Pyromania is a psychological disorder. That kid needs professional help.

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Eirik

Combination of the media and experiences of people close to me, friends who have actually gone through foster 'care'.

Misty Harley

The thing is though, she's not a reasonable child. Neither one of my kids are. (that's one of my biggest pet peeves, the thought that people have "easy" children.) They push boundries all the time and that's what they are supposed to do. It's up to me to figure out how to teach them about pushing some boundries that can be very dangerous for them. I'm not saying spanking a child is the evil of all parenting but I do think ALL kids can be raised without spanking and ALL children CAN learn just as well about dangers and proper behavior without it as well.

You do have to take a child's personality into consideration and that's were creative thinking comes in. It's not above my parenting skills to 'trick' my children into realizing dangers and have done it before. We let our oldest wander a mall whens he was younger (she's 12 now) when she walked away from us. We were there with her, a bit behind her where we could see her at all times. But she *thought* she was alone and panicked when someone approached her. That's how SHE learned not to wander away from us.

Taking childrens personality into the parenting equation is a must. Using that as a reason to spank, is not. What's wrong with "I spank because as a parent, *I* feel it's proper parenting" versus "I spank because that's the only way my child will learn, they are difficult!" Aren't ALL kids difficult in some degree?

Siggy

hehe back when I was in school we had 'the cane' - '6 of the best' was the max you could get... unfortunately it sort of became a badge of honor to piss the teacher off enough to get em

I still remember my History teacher saying on a regular basis 'Well well young man - celebrity you want, you're going to be on the hit parade!'

There's also a difference between getting a smack on the arse and 'abuse' - and I won't hold it against anyone who gives thier lil one a swift kick in the backside... there's a diff between the two, and its friggin obvious.

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And as it was in the beginning, so too shall it be in the end. That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names.

Surreal

I included the background so that you'd know that there were no external resources. No money for counseling, no overworked social worker available. Pretty much the grandmother's only option at this point would be to send the child to juvenile detention.

Consider this - the boy set fire to the house where an elderly woman and two younger children were asleep. They were unbelievably fortunate to escape with only one gutted room. (considering fire dept response times in inner cities)

At the time I heard about the situation, it had been several months with no more fires set - long-term, I don't know if it stuck.

I wouldn't advocate burning a child under normal circumstances, but I think in this situation, it may have been the only choice left that didn't involve a cage.