Ansel12, I’m surprised at you. I believe in parents disciplining their own children without govt. or Hillary’s village interfering and I sound damaged? LOL! Besides, I got the belt, not the switch and it was on very rare occasions. I was one of those always want to please my parents type kids.
As for the switches your family used, depending on the plant material used, each switch will have its own properties. Hardwoods don’t bend. They tend not to leave marks like those on Adrian Peterson’s child unless you use tremendous force. Yet in the South, there were these special bushes. I don’t even remember what they are called. But the branches are extremely pliable and the leaves are easily removed. With just a flick of the hand a switch made from it can leave welts, even blood filled welts like the ones in the photos. And if a child was sent to get a switch and came back with a twig. They ended up getting disciplined with a switch from one of those bushes.
I have no right to judge any other parents’ method of discipline. The rules, and consequences for breaking the rules need to be up to the parents. Physical discipline can be more forgiving than the forms of mental anguish I’ve seen some parents use on their children. The sting of the switch, ruler, wooden spoon or belt don’t last forever. Even the blood filled welts will go away. Though the memory of the pain should work as a reminder not to do the offending activity again.
I mentioned the stove because it is a part of life, just like children who try to put metal into electrical sockets or run into the street. Children should learn not to do things like touch hot stoves. Some learn the easy way and some learn the hard way. If you discipline your children while they are young, they won’t have to learn the hard way.
The worse case of discipline I ever heard someone using did not deal with physical punishment at all. A woman I met who was a functional alcoholic told me this story. I’ll never forget her or her story. When she and her brother were young. They wanted certain special gifts for Christmas. They got excited as children do and waited patiently until Christmas morning. They found the very things they had asked for waiting under the tree. They were so excited, they opened the gifts and just as they began to play, their parents came took the presents away from them and marched the children outside. The parents made both children throw their gifts in the trash can. I asked her why and she said she didn’t even remember.
I barely remember the feeling of the worse physical punishment I’ve ever received, but I remember what it was for and I never did it again. That poor woman didn’t even remember what she had been punished for but the memory of being forced to throw their Christmas gifts in a garbage can have never left. Did it help her to remember not to do it again? Who knows. It helped me to realize there are some things in this world worse than physical discipline.
You shouldn’t be surprised at my reaction to two 4 year olds being left bloodied and scarred from a beating.
I am from the South, I know about switches, but your support for bloody, beaten, even scarred 4 year olds is perverted, and was not a part of our culture.
Like I said, you sound like damaged goods, it happens.