YOU are the parent. THEY are the child. All that "hitting" gooblygook is nonsense. He hits you because he gets away with it. You nip that in the bud now.
Spanking should only be used for direct disobedience. It is your ace in the hole.
Learned behavior from daycare? TV? Cartoons? They immitate what they see. But it doesn't mean you should spare the rod, and rod doesn't refer to something you only strike with. A sheppards rod was used for guiding, directing.
I'm a firm believer in a hard swat on the butt for toddlers--but only if the child is flagrantly defying your authority. Anything else should be handled with time out, etc. It's very, very important that your toddler learn to respect your authority when he's small--otherwise, when he gets bigger it'll be too late. Learning to respect and accept legitimate authority is something that will help your child to be more successful in life. James Dobson has a great book on the subject. I believe it's called "Parenting isn't for Cowards." I think he has another one called "The Strong-Willed Child" also. There are reasons why the Bible says "spare the rod, spoil the child." Pain has a very purgative value on bad behavior and a bad attitude in a small child.
I had to spank my daughter on a regular basis between the ages of two and five--she was an unbelievably stubborn, contrary little girl!! After age five, I only needed to threaten her occasionally with a spanking (holding the paddle up in the air), and from then on, the possibility of a spanking was enough to cause her to accept my authority.
Sometime spanking can induce a full-fledged tantrum in a 3 year old--in which case, you dump him in his crib, close the door, and wait for him to come back to earth. Sometimes it would take my daughter 30 minutes to cry out her tantrum.
It's only been since baby boomers were children that anyone has ever questioned corporal punishment.
I don't believe in using belts, etc. Either use just a small paddle (for mom's--remember, the spanking needs to hurt, and a toddler is usually wearing thick diapers or training pants--LOL) or just the hand for dads(who don't need a paddle to make it hurt--LOL)
Having said all that, there are some children who are so sensitive that just glaring at them instantly humbles them into contrition and obedience. Those types of kids don't need to be spanked. My daughter was the other kind of kid--LOL.
Say, "Because we know the answer to that question!"
And at 3, telling him not to hit "because I said so..." is good enough. Though you could try to explain the difference between chastisement, and anger.
In Iowa, the Supreme court ruled that if the intention is to inflict pain in an act of discipline, a minor injury such as a bruise is not abuse...but that is Iowa.
You cannot reason with a 3 year old. Their attention span is too short for timeouts to be affective. Spanking is an appropriate response to correct the childs behaviour provided it is done appropriately. As a parent of 4 kids, I suggest that you try to not act angry when spanking. If you are mad, (or furious), WAIT until YOU calm down. If too much time has elapsed, however, the child may not connect the discipline with the bad behaviour.
Warn the child first. If you are mad, count to ten or twenty and remind yourself to calm down. Spank once on the bottom with an open hand. Preferrably, the spank should sound worse than it feels. If it is really bad behaviour or a repeat within a few minutes a second or third spank may be required.
Once you;ve gone past a third spank, you start going over the boundries of what some chipld protection people would consider reasonable discipline. You may want to remove the child from the situation completely.
Finally, if you do the job right at this age, the number of times you need to spank the child will decrease rapidly and be gone all together by the time the child is 6 or 7. By that age, spanking is rarely needed as the children usually know that parents mean business. Good luck and thanks for taking the responsibilty to be a parent, not a buddy. You can be buddies when your kids are adults.
It seems as though using spanking as a final punishment has not improved her behavior to date. My daughter is quite spirited as well, and seems to not have any problem breaking boundries over and over again. My wife and I discussed this and have come to the conlusion that, in our case, a different tactic may be necessary.
We had been focusing on correcting her behaviour and were often on the lookout for poor behavior. We realized that perhaps a more positive approach may be necessary. I'm no mamby-pampy liberal and don't believe in positive reinforcement! In life, you don't get rewarded for doing what you should do... you are just allowed to keep surviving. So I wouldn't call what we are doing as positive reinforcement. We just try to focus on praising good behavior WHILE keeping an eye out for the poor behavior. This has, over the course of just 1 week, improved our daughter's actions. She is still reprimanded for outbursts just as she was before, with the addition of sitting on a chair in the corner as a new punishment. We are hoping that this will lead her to a decision to behave better because of 2 positives. 1)she won't get punished 2) Mommy and Daddy are happier with her. It seems to be working so far but we know very well that our child will take a great deal of patience to correct her behavior.
My only suggestion would be that spanking be reserved for certain misbehaviors. We haven't tried this ourselves yet but I think it may help. Escelating to spanking from other punishments hasn't helped us. Like mouthing off gets a time out, continue mouthing off during time-out gets a spanking. Perhaps making a spanking the automatic punishment for the worst behavior, like hitting, may be better at the 3 year age. I don't think my daughter really understands the escalation in punishment.
Hope this helps. I think that parents should not follow a book or the advice of others in regards to punishing their children (although both may give you ideas). We should, however, have a similar opinion on what good behavior is. But, each child is different and will respond differently to various approaches. And there is only one way to figure out how to properly raise your children...
PAY ATTENTION TO THEM!
Best of luck!
I was never spanked as a child (although my Mom used to chase me around the house with a wooden spoon)and my parents always found some kind of way to get their point across.
I am in full support of anyone who chooses to discipline thier child this way (my rule of thumb for abuse is "never do anything to a child that can get you arrested or sued (legitimately) if you did it to an adult"), but I will argue that you can raise happy well adjusted and disciplined children without doing it.
Anyone who ever said "terrible twos" has NEVER had a three-year old.
Going through age three with my twins was pure HELL at times, pure joy at others. Yet we rarely resorted to anything more than a swat on the bottom (and then only when it was a logical consequence -- ie running out in the street you could get hurt -- I wanted them to associate pain with running out in the street).
Anyway -- my point being -- if you tell a child to "stop" you must also tell them how to "go." Like with hitting -- we did a lot "hitting hurts -- LOVE instead" and would gently guide their hands to a face and a gentle rub, or into a hug. Make sense?
I guess in a sense it's still redirection, but postive redirection. Also -- along these same lines -- if you take something away, you have to give them something else to do. We also did a lot of putting toys in "time-out" -- esp. when we didn't know who had it first :-)
twinzmommy
To this day, I am blessed with the two most well behaved TEENAGERS I've ever encountered. On numerous occasions after spend the night parties or outings with their friends, other parents have called me to compliment me on my children's behavior. I am so proud of them and honestly believe that we are the best of friends.
Good Luck.
Spanking (assuming it is done justly) is simply of a different moral order than hitting, or other types of violence. And children can understand this. They have an excellent sense of justice, and will have until they fall into the clutches of a Ph.D. sociologist, or a network news anchor.
If violent adults were the result of spankings, then you would expect to see violence among the adult population decrease as spanking falls out of vogue. The opposite has happened. I mean, really: how many children shoot people in their high school becasue their mom spanked them? Isn't the opposite actually so true it has become a stereotype? The kid who is neglected by his rich, bored parents doesn't learn about boundaries and so he has no sense of transgression or respect for others' bodies. So he takes a gun to school and kills people.
So it is only adults who detest distinctions who have this confusion.
I'm not saying children don't go through a short stage where they will try to USE the argument, but they will hear it from someone else before they learn it from you (IF you are spanking correctly). And they will try to use it because, well, they're kids. They try everything.
Just like we don't equate the violence of the police officer (when acting lawfully) with the violence of the mugger, there is no reason to equate the punishment of wrong with the smacking of a playmate. And one way humans reflect moral order is in their language. So my wife and I are careful to always distinguish between SPANKING and HITTING in the presence of our three year old, and I absolutely correct anyone who confuses the language in his presence. And we simply tell him, without apology, that mommy and daddy spank but he cannot hit.
(BTW, three year olds hit. They don't "learn it from spanking". They hit because it often works.)
It is only the liberal mind, with it desperate need to obliterate moral distinctions, which even thinks of melding all physical force into one fuzzy category.
Does all this work? Well, I was spanked by both parents. I was a model student and never in serious trouble at school or elsewhere. I am 45 years old, and haven't hit anyone since I was 16. I cannot ever remember thinking the thought that my parents' spankings of me had anything to do with me hitting anyone else. It simply never occurred to me. I don't remember one moment of resentment of my parents' discipline.
If anything, I've often thought they were too lax and I would be a better man if they had been tougher on me.
But you have to do all the things that everyone has said a million time:
...be scrupulously consistent...don't spank when you're temper is out of control...don't be a hypocrite...explain, explain, even when they are too young to understand the words, they will "read" the emotional content of your gentle explanation...mom and dad have to be on the same page always...as much discipline as you impose, you have to work at communicating that much and more affection, so the over-riding tone of the child's universe is loving -- if you love much, you can discipline hard. If you love lazily, no amount of discipline will be accepted inwardly by the child as justice...and so on and so forth.
Don't spank past puberty. If you need to, you failed earlier. I'm not saying discipline will never be necessary, but not physical. Not after the child has fully individuated. What is a correction at 5 is an emotional assault at 13.
BTW, I don't agree with an absolute rule that you only hit once. You have to make it hurt enough that it is unpleasant. If you use something that will sting the skin (NOT a blunt object, like a hand) you can use less force and not injure. Things like switches and belts, when used appropriately, were actually humane adoptions by our forebears, instead of the tools of torture they have been made out to be by propogandists.
You might try a little, light wooden ruler on the thigh, because a light smack with it would sting the skin enough just to say "Pay attention."
I realize all this is not PC, so some will be horrified. There ARE alot of parents out there who do it badly, but that is a feature of slovenly love, and not intrinsic to the concept of corporeal punishment.
Spanking shouldn't be something used routinely to simply reinforce a parental directive or they lose their impact. Spanking should not be used to 'encourage' a child to stop crying. Spanking should be used to get the child's attention, let the child know in no unceratin terns that they have crossed a line, and must be accompanied by verbal correction and instruction in the proper, expected behavior.
Also, never, never give swats when angry. Sometimes a parent has to count to 10 before punishing a child.
I didn't threat, count to 10, plan spankings for a later time, or any of the other actions. When they were put into a chair it was long enough for them to hate it. They weren't allowed to leave the chair/room/whatever by a mere 'I'm sorry', because those words could be too easily used.
When I was angry, my kids knew it, and when I was happy with them, they knew it too. My 4 kids were all a year apart, so there wasn't too much time for psychological niceties. When they were older, deprivation of something seemed to work. That question of authority, that always comes up, was answered by "Because it's my job."
One thing that I did do, was to admit when I was wrong and let them know it. The kids have long grown up, but they still happily come home and we are all very close, so I guess we were OK as parents.
(insert Beavis and Butthead laughter here).