Posted on 01/09/2007 3:03:21 PM PST by presidio9
LOL sadly, too true!
I guess this is what you get when a majority of kids are raised by substitute parents getting minimum wage. Perhaps this IS a good reason to raise the minimum wage.
Daycare workers will NEVER discipline a kid. The dont want to get sued.
If parents were actually raising their kids, things would be different. But that would be Haaaarrrddd. Jeez.
I agree generally.
But all the categories of discipline styles must be assumed to be applied JUDICIOUSLY, not viciously or weakly. The problem is, today, everyone assumes "spanking" means incessant, never-ending hitting (abuse), and "time-out" is applied only when needed. I.e., they're trying to make the "mean" stuff look as mean as possible, and the "time out" as nice as can be.
As far as the old "don't be angry", I don't go for that. I'm not saying there aren't times when you aren't really that angry about something, but to me, a spanking should be when:
a) something really egregious was done
b) something immediate and intense needs to be applied
If something is egregious, it's likely to make 1 very angry. Frankly, if you are not angry when applying something, I think that's a little "mental". I'm not sure I'd be happy knowing my mom was going to hit me even if she wasn't obviously angry. If she's angry, I know a consequence might be coming!
Again, like spanking in general, people ASSUME it's "mean" and "vicious" and "cruel abuse" as a rule when they say you "can't be angry". Because they ASSUME that spanking is inherently cruel, and they ASSUME that if you're angry, you're likely to be abusive. That's not true. My parents as well as many like them have shown plenty anger as well as been totally judicious about their physical discipline. Not any abuse there at all.
I.e., spanking <> abuse, nor does anger = abuse.
--I.e., spanking <> abuse, nor does anger = abuse.--
But when there is anger, there is the increased probability for abuse, both mental and physical. Parents have to remain in control of both the kids AND themselves.
I thought we were talking about discipline, not mere punishment!
It's hard to "explain" lots of things to young children. They really don't care, and don't totally understand the language, either.
Others may start to do something dangerous, but don't listen, and a good smack is really the only thing with serious impact that will stop it immediately, as a rule. My sister in fact, is 1 with an infamous story about this when she tried to step out in a road despite Mom's verbal warning from some feet away. Mom moved fast when she obviously specifically defied her and went in the street anway. She would've been yanked away and given a smack. And that ended it. Period.
In dogs, it is pretty well known that if you simply push, the dog will resist and hence still do exactly what he wants (just as your muscle will adjust to steady pressure and it won't hurt). If you let him loose except when he "does bad/wrong", giving him a quick impactful tap, he'll notice and learn quicker what he's to do. Even Cesar Millan acknowledges this, and he's hardly "cruel". He recognizes what goes on in nature.
Understood, but not bloody likely. We've only been doing this for centuries upon centuries. You'd think everyone for those ages had been abused.
I'm sorry, I still would rather understand that you are UPSET about what I did rather than you just want to hit me. I still think it verges on "mental" anyone who really "isn't angry" when they hit someone.
Dear the OlLine Rebel,
"I thought we were talking about discipline, not mere punishment!"
That's fine, but you seemed to be complaining about those who are against hitting, not physical restraint:
"People against spanking (and I'll say HITTING,..."
I'm not sure that grabbing my kid before he rushes in front of the oncoming car is "discipline." I think it's just an emergency procedure. The discipline is what comes after I suffer a near-heart attack saving my kid's life.
And the discipline has never included any sort of hitting.
"It's hard to 'explain' lots of things to young children. They really don't care, and don't totally understand the language, either."
I think that folks think that, but I don't much agree. From even before the time they can walk, they can understand words like, "That's dangerous! Don't do that again!"
Usually, the son being scolded would then say something in turn. This might range from a simple tearful expression of sorrow to further inquiry for better understanding.
I started "explaining" to my sons pretty much from the time they came home from being born. Folks thought I was nuts. Maybe I was. It worked pretty good anyway.
"My sister in fact, is 1 with an infamous story about this when she tried to step out in a road despite Mom's verbal warning from some feet away. Mom moved fast when she obviously specifically defied her and went in the street anway. She would've been yanked away and given a smack. And that ended it. Period."
In that sort of circumstance, I've actually physically grabbed my son (both of them, in fact, as this sort of situation has happened with both). But no smack. No spanking. No hitting.
Just an after-the-incident brief, easy-to-understand exhortation and explanation, "Don't do that again! You could have been hit by the car! That could have killed you!"
Nothing more has ever been required.
"In dogs, it is pretty well known that if you simply push, the dog will resist and hence still do exactly what he wants (just as your muscle will adjust to steady pressure and it won't hurt). If you let him loose except when he 'does bad/wrong', giving him a quick impactful tap, he'll notice and learn quicker what he's to do. Even Cesar Millan acknowledges this, and he's hardly 'cruel'. He recognizes what goes on in nature."
When training my dogs, I routinely gave 'em a sharp (but mild) whack on the snout.
My sons aren't dogs.
sitetest
--Understood, but not bloody likely.--
Very likely. The parent that is angry and out of control is VERY likely to abuse the kid. The kid should know that he is being punished for what he did, not because the parent is angry.
The crux of the issue is that children no longer fear their parents.
Amen...I needed a 2 x 4 across the butt...my son needed a stern look....no two children are alike.
It's standard to dismiss comparisons between animals. But we are ALL very similar, with only minor differences.
The truth is, ALL animals instinctively PHYSICALLY (as well as "verbally") discipline their offspring.
It's not abuse. It's straight-forward and to the point.
We can all anecdote till the cows come home, but to your "I never had a problem" I can likewise say "I never WAS a problem", nor were my siblings. We were all smacked, even if it was SO long ago we don't remember it. I hardly ever remember any lectures, either, because it wasn't necessary. We were pretty free to roam because we already knew the limits and how to control ourselves (you could say we were "mature") - and we knew M&D "had the weapons and were willing to use them" - which they almost never did.
And again I'll say, the historical precedent is there. Physical discipline worked. There's no question. We have LESS control now in this country, both of children/humans, and of animals (as Cesar said, he never saw wacko dogs until he came to America). What's the correlation? Dr. Spock came along, and society changed. Not for the better.
And it's OK to think someone is insane because they're hitting you despite not being angry?
Not very likely. Sorry. Not everyone who has EVER used physical discipline (and it has HUGE precedent, unlike "time out") has been "abusive", but you can bet many were "angry".
Bingo. Some just don't need it much if at all (my dog now doesn't - she is naturally submissive and gets upset just at growling your voice). But you should be willing to pull out the guns if needed!
Dear the OlLine Rebel,
"It's standard to dismiss comparisons between animals. But we are ALL very similar, with only minor differences."
I didn't say that we don't have similarities with other mammals.
But my sons aren't dogs.
"The truth is, ALL animals instinctively PHYSICALLY (as well as 'verbally') discipline their offspring.
"It's not abuse. It's straight-forward and to the point."
In that I began my posts agreeing that spanking one's child doesn't necessarily constitute child abuse, you're arguing against a straw man.
"We can all anecdote till the cows come home, but to your 'I never had a problem' I can likewise say 'I never WAS a problem', nor were my siblings. We were all smacked,..."
That's nice. Neither was I. And I was hit, as well. I can't say that the spankings, smacks, slaps, and hits I received made me a well-behaved child. I can say that my sister and one of my brothers took the brunt of this stuff, and they didn't turn out quite as well as I did, or my other brother. The spanks-to-success ratio in my family seems inverse.
Thus, when I had my own children, I decided to try to raise them without resorting to hitting, spanking, slapping, or smacking.
It's worked out rather well. Extremely well.
My question, then, is whether it was necessary for my parents to hit me, or your parents to hit you. In both our cases, the hitting seems to have been pretty minimal, and we both seemed to have been pretty well-behaved kids. What would have happened if our parents never hit us? We don't know.
What I know, though, is that my sons are doing quite well, having never been hit, smacked, slapped, or spanked.
"And again I'll say, the historical precedent is there. Physical discipline worked. There's no question. We have LESS control now in this country, both of children/humans, and of animals (as Cesar said, he never saw wacko dogs until he came to America). What's the correlation? Dr. Spock came along, and society changed. Not for the better."
Don't mistake a lack of hitting, slapping, spanking, and slapping with a necessary lack of discipline. I know plenty of folks where that's true, but it isn't necessarily so. I also know folks who hit their kids, and their kids are still willful and troublesome.
Most folks consider my wife and I to be rather strict disciplinarians. Although we don't hit our kids, we still have always enforced discipline, and more importantly, have always maintained exceedingly high expectations of behavior and accomplishment.
Instead of hitting my kids, I've labored hard to create a household environment that reinforces good behavior and encourages high achievement. We're overrun with books, magazines, newspapers, and journals. We have chess sets, board games, construction sets, Legos, chemistry sets, science kits, microscopes, basketballs, baseballs, bats & gloves, footballs, swingsets, monkey bars, a large, flat yard in which to play, good, solid bicycles, a studio-grade piano, desks & chairs, crayons, drawing paper, canvas, paint, and other lots of really fun stuff.
However, many of our friends consider my children rather deprived because of the "austerity" of our household, in that we have no video games, no Nintendo, no Gameboy, no Wii, no Xbox, no cable TV, no iPods (although both sons have stereos in their rooms, and are free to draw on the household collection of classical music CDs), no cellphones for the young 'uns, no TVs in the room (we have one TV in the family room, and use it mostly to watch old movies), and the computer is used primarily for school and personal research, with supervision.
Thus, my two sons have preferences for reading, playing outside, drawing, creating their own games with each other, riding their bikes, writing, developing their own personal projects (my younger son is trying to teach himself a bit of nuclear physics to figure out the best way to get to Mars, the older son is focusing on teaching himself Latin, as the high school that we're considering for him has invited him to attend part-time next year, a year early, and he wants to skip Latin I and go directly to Latin II), playing chess, listening to classical music, playing the piano, and inventing bad puns (the worse the pun, the better the pun).
My focus has never been on the "don'ts" of life, but rather on all the stuff that is permitted within the boundaries of life.
I haven't yet had to hit, spank, smack, or slap either of my sons. Nowadays, I don't have to do much direct discipline, at all. When they're told they're out of line, they apologize, and endeavor not to repeat their mistakes.
At this late date, I'm not sure why I'd change things.
sitetest
I find timeouts work very well... AFTER the spanking.
You sound like you've done real well. I congratulate you.
Now, while you agree that spanking isn't abuse, your whole implication seems to be that it should never be done. Which sort of contradicts your statements that it's OK.
I'm saying, as you have seen, that it should be READY TO USE, included in the arsenal, as an option. It was not used on me frequently (which IS abusive, if you ask me - those who say they got tannings all the time), indeed, hardly ever at all. I am absolutely convinced it DOES work, especially for those who are stronger willed than some seem to be (and there ARE natural innate personality differences - it is NOT all training).
All this stuff can be used, but I don't think anyone should be afraid to pull out the big guns.
BTW, I had major enrichment, too. Dad is an engineer (as am I) and mom was a History nut (as is Dad), a teacher in that as well as math and English. Although I was allowed to have Atari - twice for Christmas, 1 after we were robbed. (Mom loved Space Invaders.) However we not only had (some) items, we went on vacations to battlefields and natural sites and the like. No beach for me. I still don't care for beaches as boring - nothing much to do or to see, even the scenery is dull and mind-numbing. I'd much rather go someplace meaningful and/or where activity is, not sitting around (although I do like being lazy alot!)!
Yellers are worthless as parents IMHO... scream and hollar and threaten, but then do nothing.... kids just sit there let em rant and then go about their business... see it time and again.
Agreed, strong and consistent discipline from birth means you don't have to really discipline them as much as they age, they understand the rules, boundaries and consequences for their violation, so you don't need to spend as much time on discipline later.
Do they still mess up? Sure... are there kids who are going to challenge authority more than others? Sure. There are no guarantees, but its been my experience, spare the rod spoil the child is an absolutely true statement.
I'd rather my kids understand from day one, you are responsible for the actions you take, and all actions have consequences, good and bad. They screw up and need punished, they understand exactly why they are being punished and know a punishment is coming even before I do. In fact, I make them repeate to me exactly why they are being punished before the punishment is laid down, because I want to make sure they fully understand what cause caused their fate, and reflect on it.
Fortunately, its worked quite well, don't need to punish them often at all, because they understand how it works.
Cool! Sounds like the Dead Poets Society, for real!
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