[endthematrix]

As a new parent, I just had a recent talk with my 4 yr old. I’ve said before a spank, “this hurts me more than it hurts you.” And to his bewilderment, “HOW?”

But he does know HIS behavior has consequence and that I love him and demand GOOD behavior.

[Darkwolf377]

Good luck with your son. My best friend and his wife are bringing up a 3 year old and a 6 year old, both girls.

I don't have kids but work with kids with mental, emotional and drug issues. While I don't believe health workers like myself should have the right to discipline kids--we don't, thankfully--I do believe parents have that right.

At the same time, I think it's foolish to deny that in some cases, parents go too far. There's just too much history.

In the case of this study, I don't think it's ridiculous to believe that SOME children are affected by even lesser amounts of physical discipline, and am bemused by those who apparently think all kids react the same way to the same discipline. That makes no sense. I've gone through things in my youth that I rarely even think about; kids I see have gone through far less and are deeply disturbed by it. Many kids have gone through far MORE than I did--by leaps and bounds--and have come out perfectly OK.

The troubling truth is that kids aren't robots. That's why parenting is such a hard job, and why we don't have hard and fast rules for bringing up kids.

[chuckles]

This is the problem with universal spanking. You did it right to explain the punishment, Many parent spank in anger and beat the child and call it spanking. How do you "regulate" spanking? We have some that don't want any spanking, and others that believe anything is OK as long as they don't end up in the ER.

I think as long as they are warned that a spanking is coming for certain behaviors, and then the spanking is given as punishment instead of some sort of revenge, then the child will learn boundaries. How you regulate parents that are out of their freakin minds is beyond me, but not allowing corporal punishment gets you the brats we have today.

[Impy]

Whenever psychically disciplined I would get the urge to beat up my little brothers. Maybe that’s just me.

[panthermom]

17 years ago when I had my first child and 11 months later my second came along. My husband and I were on our own, we did not live near any family. While pregnant and just after the birth of my son I thought I would be the enlightned parent and read all the books and magazines. My boys were never going to be spanked and they would not watch violent shows like the Power Rangers Then came toddlerhood. Time out? For my oldest that was a joke. He’d do whatever he wanted and then put himself in time out. While they didn’t watch the Power Rangers, they were alway physical. As time went by, I quit listening and reading about what these “psychologist” and “parenting experts” had to say and just used common sense. Did I spank? I could NEVER beat a child but a few swats on the behind, heck yeah. They are now typical teenagers but by typical I mean that in a good way. They have great peer relationships, are polite and respectful to others, they are not morose and angry like I see some of the kids around. And we as a family have a great relationship, they’ve never rebelled in any “I’ll show you” way.

I hate that I went on and on about this but I think most of these studies are stupid and cast doubts in parents minds. As parents you need to be consistant and make the boundries pretty clear. Most people are not child abusers, these spanking article really don’t apply to them. They are in a class by themselves, with serious mental problems. These articles are aimed towards the good parents. Common sense is the best parenting approach. You know your kids better than anyone.