Posted on 12/31/2009 9:19:58 AM PST by Arec Barrwin
New Research: Why Never Spanking Might Be Worse for Kids Than Spanking Them
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:00 AM By Po Bronson
In NurtureShock, we described some extensive cross-ethnic and international research on spanking by Drs. Jennifer Lansford and Ken Dodge.
Their data suggested that if a culture views spanking as the normal consequence for bad behavior, kids aren’t damaged by its occasional use.
To explain this shocker, the scholars suggested that in cultures or communities where spanking is common, parents are less agitated when administering spankings. Spanking almost never when combined with losing your temper can be worse than spanking frequently.*
But what about the third option: not spanking them at all?
Unfortunately, there’s been little study of this, because children who’ve never been spanked aren’t easy to find. Most kids receive physical discipline at least once in their life. But times are changing, and parents today have numerous alternatives to spanking. The result is that kids are spanked less often overall, and kids who’ve never been spanked are becoming a bigger slice of the pie in long-term population studies.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
Don’t ever have kids you are too stupid!
My now 32 year old son can attest when he was at that "Age of Infinite Wisdom" (16) he as well said something extremely profane (called his mother the c-word) at the dinner table under his breath.
He will attest he neither knew dad had cat like reflexes and enough strength to lift him off the floor by the throat in about one second.
To this day he will tell you that moment changed his life because he figured out maybe he wasn't the hot shot he thought he was. If his dad could have him by the throat and off the floor before he even realized it, maybe he needed to learn a few more things about life.
Nonsense. I got the strap a couple of times when I was past the point where a smack on my ass would do anything but make me laugh.
I harbored no ill will toward my Dad for getting what I deserved and I never had to use the strap on either of my daughters.
My bro and I were wrassling in the living room one day, knocking the furniture around. My Mom tried hollering, then the brush end of a toy broom (we laughed at her, bad bad mistake). She returned with a full sized broom and whopped us both several times with the handle. Stopped us laughing. Got us to stop and pay attention.
That was not really unusual as we were "active" children.
I highly and strongly recommend this book on Biblical child training:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Bible-About-Child-Training/dp/1889700134/
Never hit a child with your hands (hands are for protecting and loving). Only hit on the buttocks and only with the rod (a flexible, thin tree branch), and only give your child the rod for rebellion.
If the child knows the action is forbidden, and continues to do it, that is rebellion. Apply the rod with age-appropriate force and quantity in sessions until the child agrees that s/he was wrong and that you are right. Allow enough time between sessions for you to cool down, and to give your child the time to change his/her mind and come out of his/her room and agree with you before the next session.
Never apply the rod in anger. Never.
If you’re determined and disciplined, this method can defeat rebellion in even the most rebellious child.
Buy the book.
I rarely got a spanking that I did not deserve and there were quite a few.
Some I could just look at to get them to behave..
Some I had to whack litely.. or even less than litely..
Sometimes a whack and jail time in their rooms was needed..
Basically whatever worked was the rule..
If the kid did not/does not respect you as a threat, nothing worked..
What I learned was a kid NEEDS to know, you can go this far, and no further.. they need limits..
The wisdom is that that NEED limits.. its not optional..
Even so the kid will test his limits.. periodically.. even more often if the limits are nebulous (to the kid)(not to you)..
My dad (who was a career naval officer) rarely hit us. He would usually advance at us slowly, speaking in a very low, slow menacing voice:
DAD: “What...did...I...tell...you...about...hitting...your...sister?” (As we backed up and he advanced, he would cock his hand so that it was nearly hovering in front of his left shoulder, knuckles out. As this entire exchange takes place, my dad would slowly and inexorably back us into a corner or other area with no escape)
US: “...not to do it...” (haltingly)
DAD: “You dumb bunny...don’t you understand english?”
US: “...yes...” (timidly)
DAD: “Yes WHAT?” (voice rising slightly)
US: “...yes SIR...”
DAD: “Apologize to your sister, and if I hear any more of this, you are going to regret it.”
US: “Yes Sir.”
At this point, he would back out of the way, and it was clear you were expected to walk by him out of the trap you were in.
This was the most dangerous spot which we all dreaded. As you passed, his hand, which had been cocked the whole time, would give you a short whack to the occipital bone on the back of your skull. His heavy gold Holy Cross ring with the big red stone, would put a small, stinging dent there as his wrist flicked at the end.
We feared his voice and his Holy Cross ring. But this was what he did when we were in our mid-teens.
When we were younger, and my mother had had too much of our misbehavoir, she would send us up to our rooms. As my dad entered the front door, we could hear them talking in low, uninintelligible voices.
As my father mounted the stairs, mixed in with his heavy footfalls, we would hear the metal clink of the belt buckle and the swoosh of the belt as he pulled it out with a flourish.
Then, like a hangman testing the trapdoor for his gallows, my father would fold the dreaded belt double, holding in in both hands and vigorously snap it several times.
Upon hearing this, we would quail and back away from the door...he would enter, using the same voice and flail at us with the belt. We would cry and squirm, but...the belt never hurt. It was all show. There was nothing behind his poorly aimed swings at your legs, and the ones that did hit didn’t hurt at all. But we got the point...
However, we feared my mother.
The belt was her tool of choice, and with her Italian and Armenian heritage, she wielded it with righteous anger and a wild excess of emotion and power, shrieking like a banshee at us as she did it.
She left red welts on our legs, and we always realized that my three brothers and two sisters had pushed her too far when my dad was out at sea in the Navy. For many years, she had to handle the six of us by herself, and for our deliberate tortures, she was justified in delivering the belt.
Well, at least that is what we think TODAY...:)
It took them this long to figure this out? Only 30 years too late now that they have sicked their brats on the world. I only remember a few times being spanked but the fear of it happening again kept me in line! I remember ebing in the basement once and was about 8yo just sassing away at my Mom. I didn’t hear Dad’s car pull in the garage and he caught me mid sass. I remember getting the ping pong paddle on my behind all the way up the steps.
In my house, minor infractions earn a lecture and/or extra chores. Second minor infraction moves up to either grounding (from electronics is most effective) or push-ups (my son can do more pushups than anyone in his class). Third minor infractions and any Major infractions get the belt (first time, every time)
ROTFLMAO! That is somehting my dad would have said!
I was spanked a lot, often on my bare behind, sometimes with an implement. My dad stopped just short of what would be called a beating today. That stopped about age ten, when I refused to cry one spanking, no matter how hard he hit.
At about age eleven or twelve my dad back-handed me into a wall, bloodying my nose and breaking my tailbone when I fell to the floor.
When I was 16 I got a full-blown beating with a frying pan which left my behind green and purple for a couple of months.
Keep in mind I was a girl and small for my age, we were an upper-middle class intact family, and no alcohol was involved. None of this was considered unusual for the times, except maybe the last beating. And it was the last, believe me.
I vowed never to spank my kids, so I ended up spanking them just the right amount of times. Usually a single, open-handed whack on a toddler’s diapered rear, just enough to make a nice sharp sound.
I never used anything other than my hand with my son, and I only ever had to fan his behind a few times. (And I never punished him merely for making a mistake.)
My children got a whack for two reasons, for safety rminders and for exceeding the limits set for them. It seemed to work fine.
Hey pal just because I spank your wife a certain way doesn’t mean that a kid would like it the same way.
Well, except for me, my brothers and sister. My folks about had to use a club just to get our attention. My bro and I were wrassling in the living room one day, knocking the furniture around. My Mom tried hollering, then the brush end of a toy broom (we laughed at her, bad bad mistake). She returned with a full sized broom and whopped us both several times with the handle. Stopped us laughing. Got us to stop and pay attention.
*snickering* I nailed my mother once in a similar scenario. My younger brother decided to get me into a rasslin' match in the living room, which was a definite no-no in our home. Mom reached for the broom. From my angle on the floor, she looked just too comical to resist. So I nailed her with a crack I'd just heard in a Looney Tunes cartoon: Aaaaaaaaaaaah---ya mother rides a vacuum cleaner! As it happened, my maternal grandmother had just gotten a new Electrolux (which wasn't exactly an upright), and I guess the line plus that image broke my mother up laughing.
There were times when a well-timed wisecrack could get you out of trouble in my house. My mother may have had the patience of a piranha at feeding time with her children and may have been the weapon-wielder between my parents (as I noted to another poster, my father never believed in the strap so long as he was alive---he died when I was ten), but at least my parents did have a certain sense of humour.
If you remember Bill Cosby's routine, "The Grandparents," that was as close to what it was like growing up with my mother as it got. When he came to this portion, I got nailed with the shock of recognition:
"Make me sick! My mother was sick four hundred and eighty seven times a day---"I'm sick of this and I'm sick of you, so sick I don't know what to do with myself! Now I'm just sick and tired"---"And tired" always followed "sick." Worst beating I ever got in my life, my mother said, "I'm just sick---" I said "and tired!"
Happened to me, too!
Congrats on having well-behaved children - but also consider yourself lucky as not everyone else shares your good fortune.
Children are different. I've had kids that shape up after being given a stern look. And I also have one who seems to revel in the battle of the wills. Give him a stern look and he'll more often then not give it back to you (to his mom especially).
Previosly written:
Proper discipline of children involves defining his boundaries and then holding them RESPONSIBLE if/when the boundary is breached. What this means is that the child gets an EXPLANATION about the seriousness of their infraction. And perhaps a spanking is warranted and perhaps not.
It is really no different than in real life; you get caught speeding, the cop pulls you over and hands you a ticket. He (normally) doesn't berate you - or rant at you. And if you go and stand before a judge, they will define the verdict and proscribe the penalty. There might be a stern admonition - but typically no yelling is required.
When a child has crossed the line of expected behavior, and spanking is KNOWN by the child (because the parent has MADE IT KNOWN BEFOREHAND) to be the penalty, then the parent can administer the spanking - telling the child exactly how many spanks he will receive - just like a judge passes out a sentence using the proscribed guidelines.
This doesn't involve anger on the parents part - if it does then the parent is in the wrong and needs to cool down beforehand. And just like the article noted, when this system of discipline is in place, and the child knows what is expected of him - and what to expect if the rules are broken, then you have a well-functioning family and community.
Otherwise, imagine what our society would look like if what we did with our law breakers was to simply give them a stern warning - and then let them go (or give them a 'short' timeout). What? We ARE doing that? Well that explains a lot...
My children got a whack for two reasons, for safety rminders and for exceeding the limits set for them. It seemed to work fine.I was more likely to fan my son's behind over exceeding limits, talking disrespectfully to his mother or myself, and lying. Regarding safety reminders, I didn't have a problem there at all---my son was so safety conscious he could drive you nuts reminding you about safety stuff, which I thought was pretty clever of him.
Even though his mother and I divorced two years ago, he's held up very well. He came to town for the holidays (his mother and grandmother came to spend the holidays with her sister on the other side of town) and we spent a boatload of time together. And he remembered, to the woman with whom I now share my life, how it was curtains if I'd ever caught him lying.
But he also remembered what happened when he got into a spot of trouble at school and, when I picked him up later in the day, he came right out and told me what happened without trying to flinch or hide---and how I told him he wasn't about to get into more trouble because he'd told me the truth.
That meant the world to me.
I had the pleasure of having him sit in twice while I did my weekly radio show. (I'm on a Las Vegas station Monday nights at nine PST, doing a comedy show the old-time way, complete with sound setting scenes and, I hope, humour between your ears and not between your legs.) I even put him on the air, wrote a couple of lines in each week's script for him, and he handled them like a pro. That's something he'll remember the rest of his life, not to mention getting bragging rights on his friends back home.
He nailed me on the phone last night, though. "Hey, Dad, where'd you get those jokes?" I told him I wrote them myself. "You wrote those jokes? Hey, those are funny!"
The dear boy . . .
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