Yes, anyone should be allowed to spank children in their care.
11% (13 votes)
Yes, but only coming from parents. Daycare workers/teachers/other caregivers should not be allowed to spank children.
67% (80 votes)
No, spanking is child abuse.
22% (26 votes)
Total votes: 119
I hate to play devils advocate, but in general I use to believe that spanking was not an acceptable form of child abuse, because it leaves so many long term scars on children. I still somewhat feel the same, but find from time to time you have to spank, to show children who are in charge. I have a teenager who is completely rebellious, and does not listen to anything I tell her. With that in mind I have resorted to spanking her, this is truly the only way she will listen to me, and stop doing what she is doing.
What scars would that be? There's a difference between spanking and abuse. Abuse leaves scars, spanking doesn't.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I'm only taking a guess, but I'm assuming she was talking about mental scars. My mother spanked me, but I feel like it was unnecessary to instill respect in that manner. For a long time, I lived in total fear she was going to hit me over the smallest things. It's a difficult mindset to get rid of.
Honestly, this poll is an oversimplification of child-rearing psychology. A parent's relationship with a child should set the standard about whether spanking is acceptable or not. If the kid is only mildly rebellious, spanking is probably an overload, and the same goes for if there is strong communication between parent and child. (Surprisingly enough, those two things aren't really utopian ideas. I feel like they are achievable and ideal.) However, if you have a child to where you have to resort to spanking because it's a last resort, that there is no possible way to make the child mind, then spanking is justified.
Spanking shouldn't be the first resort--it should be more of an intervention strategy.
Cheers from Union Jane
"I have only ever made one prayer a very short one: "God, make my enemies ridiculous." And God made it so." --Voltaire
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt
I agree with your mindset, in that parenting is far more complex than anything discussed here and the poll is massively oversimplified. Even the blog I wrote on the subject of punishments, which ended up something like four pages (single-spaced) in length, was very, very simplified and uncovered a number of complexities that I thought of as I wrote it, and even more after I had posted it.
I don't necessarily agree that spanking causes emotional scarring. Can it create "respect" through fear? Yes. However, I think it would take a lot to be emotionally scarred by spanking. Perhaps I'm slightly biased from being emotionally abused as a child, so spanking was the least of my worries, but I'd rather see a parent spank their child when they're acting up, than allowing them to get away with misbehaving because they're against spanking and nothing else works with the child.
People always say things about how kids have no respect and whatnot. To that I say, who taught them their lack of respect? It all starts with the parents. It's okay to not want to use physical punishment, but there may be times where spanking is necessary. The key is to recognize what punishment is appropriate and effective.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I completely agree with you in the fact that many of the misbehaviors of children is a direct reflection of the lack of discipline from parents. On the case of emotional scarring, however, it's a two-fisted beast. One of hand, you have the anger of the parent scaring the kid. Typically, parents have to be extremely frustrated to spank a kid (it isn't done lightly, usually), and that frustration is expressed in tone of voice, facial expression, and roughness. It's enough to strike fear into an adult, let alone a child who prefers an acquiescing parent. The other part about spanking is, of course, the pain and shock of getting hit. Maybe a child can become desensitized to it after a while, but I can see it scaring a child long after the blow was done. Fear is a case of balance in discipline--and when it's too much, that results in emotional scarring.
I liked what you said about recognizing what punishment is appropiate and effective. Why aren't the right parents reading these blogs?
Cheers from Union Jane
"I have only ever made one prayer a very short one: "God, make my enemies ridiculous." And God made it so." --Voltaire
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt
being fearful on a daily basis! thats abuse........as a child, though it might be hard to "get real"....you know when you deserve a spanking......
Spanking your child lets them understand that behavioral mistakes are not well recieved in the "real world", there has to be consequences for actions, because when you grow up, and fuck up, its the worlds turn to spank that ass......I.E. Don Imus, Michael Vick......
When I was younger my father would occasionally spank me when I deserved it. Afterwards he would always talk to me about why he resorted to corporal punishment. Its a tried and true methood of discipline, to tear down then build up....
for those who have played competitive team sports or are in the military, they will tell you. It made them who they are.
"my first name must be, "He aint sh@t", cause everytime I come through, yall be like "He aint sh@t"!....I'll be dat" --Redman
"Anything that can go wrong, Will go wrong"----Murphy's Law
Whoa, that changed my perspective on spanking. I had never considered athletes or the military before this...Or any need to be hardened to corporal punishment (or in reality, pain). Perhaps it's naive--but I always thought that they found reserves in personal discipline. I suppose that success requires more than personal reserves, though.
I don't think kids have good enough judgment to know why they deserved to get spanked. At the point they do realize it, they don't need to be spanked. There are other ways to instill sense into them.
Cheers from Union Jane
"I have only ever made one prayer a very short one: "God, make my enemies ridiculous." And God made it so." --Voltaire
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt
my guess is that if you lived in fear, you WERE abused.
Spanking you kids is not abuse, hitting you kids is.
And yes there is a difference. spanking is an act to show that child that they did something wrong, since reasoning with most 4year olds is mission impossible, however, hitting your children is abuse.
Spanking the children too hard can also be considered abuse, but the government should have no say so in how a child is punished, just so long as that child is not being abused.
Generally when the spanking debate comes up it is assumed we are talking about pre-pubescent children. Spanking teenagers enters into a totally different realm of discussion. Any sort of "spanking' you could do to a teenager is
a) totally humiliating and an inappropriate assertion of "who is in charge" of HER body. Are we not trying to teach young girls that their bodies belong to them and no one else?
and b) potentially physically abusive. If this "spanking' is enough to inflict pain upon an adolescent than it is too forceful.
c) dangerous, in that a teenager is old enough and "rebellious" enough that a physical struggle could ensue, potentially injuring someone involved, resulting in potential criminal charges of not only child abuse on the part of the parent, but also assault on the part of the child.
It worked on me.
--Mike
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All I remember was the pain on my backside after I got spanked once when I was little. I don't even remember what I had done wrong, therefore I find it not so affective. I never really did anything that bad later on in life so it never happened to me again, but I just think there are other ways to get the point across to your children.
If you never really did anything that bad again the your spanking had the desired effect.
I never feared punishment via spanking after that this is true but it was because my parent's were also horrified at the spanking as well. It happened once but I really feel it ceased for other reasons
Spanking's effectiveness lies in the way it's delivered. You have to make sure the child understands WHY they're being spanked, and that they knew beforehand that what they did was a no-no. Many a time when I was little, I was spanked for doing something wrong, but I didn't know what I had done that was bad. And so I ended up doing it again, and thus, got spanked again. There has to be communication, or there will be rebelliousness as a result. Lots and lots of rebelliousness. And possibly, like in my case, much violence toward siblings...I was an awful little kid...
But overall, I feel spanking can and should be avoided for most children. Sometimes it is the most effective form of discipline, but not all children need to be spanked to be taught not to do wrong.
And that's comin' at ya' from yer local redneck hippie.
I think that spanking is ok to a point. There is a huge difference between spanking and beating your kid to a pulp, there is also the slight tap that parents give to little kids. I don't see that as spanking,I see that as a way to say to kids who doesn't really understand verbal reasoning as to when they're doing somethng wrong. However, I oppose beating kids up, especially by those parents who come home and hit their kids when they don't immediately do what they want or just because they are short tempered and had a nasty day.
I believe that a tap or pat that has a firm punishment with it, like time-out, is okay from parents only. One time my friends mom spanked my brother and my mom was really upset about it. You don't do that to other peoples kids. I don't think wacking a kid in the bum with all your strength is right, but a pat or tap here and there seems okay to me.
Après la pluie le beau temps. ♥
This is the way I see it: young children are kind of like puppies. With puppies, you need to catch them in the act of wrongdoing and quickly provide some negative reinforcement so the puppy knows what s/he did was wrong. If you wait a few minutes and then punish the puppy it has NO idea what it is being punished for. The same is similar with children. You catch them doing something wrong, a quick spanking at the time of the wrongdoing, lesson learned. You put a kid in time out and the child sits there, forget why s/he is even in time out, and just builds up anger at the parent because all the child is taking in at this point is that the adult is preventing them from play. I have seen far too many children come out of time out angry and even more upset than before than a child who was quickly spanked and allowed to move on with acceptable play.
I was spanked as a child and I do not feel in any way, shape, or form that I was abused by being spanked. Not only did I learn my lesson, but I also learned that adults were the authority figures and not equals to me. Time out only shows a child that they have an opportunity to talk their way out of punishment with leads to manipulation. You do something wrong, you get punished, end of story.
Time outs can also be effective, if used properly. The key is to be consistent and immediate about disciplining or redirecting children (and puppies).
At the daycare I work at, children are not allowed to be on the folding chairs, which belong to the church who's building we use. There is a child I'll call "Max" in the one-year-old class, who used to climb on the folding chairs every time he was any where near them. We tried to redirect him to play with something he's allowed to have, but he always went back to the folding chairs as soon as we looked away.
Since simple redirection wasn't working we started putting him in time out for climbing on the chairs. Every time we saw Max on or about to climb onto a chair we said "no chairs" and sat him on his bottom. If he tried to get up we sat him back down and would not let him play for 30 seconds to a minute. After he sat a little bit we would let him get up say "no more chairs" and encourage him play with one of the toys.
The time outs worked, and Max stopped climbing on the chairs. Spanking might have worked just as well, but we aren't allowed to spank children at the center.
"Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible."
I'll agree with you up to a point on your analogy of puppies to children. My mother is a veterinarian, and not a day goes by that she doesn't have to give a behavior consultation on disciplining dogs. (I have heard her spiel many times while working with her.) You're right in saying that you're supposed to punish dogs immediately following the wrong, so that the dog understands what it did was wrong. (This is if the situation is where the dog has already committed the wrong.)
But it gets more complicated than how you phrased it. In reality, you're supposed to catch the dog (or puppy) before it does the wrong, not after. You can honestly watch the cogs turning when a pet considers doing something wrong before it does it, and as the owner and leader, you're supposed to step in there. There's no need to overload on the harshness of punishing dogs either, otherwise they'll just pull the same stunt when you aren't around.
Here is where the analogy gets complicated. Kids think with more complexity than dogs. Not only will they premeditate a wrong act, but they will try to get around a disciplinarian in any manner possible to dodge punishment, and they will be repeat offenders vastly more often than pets. (Even for deeply-ingrained vices in dogs.)
As a disciplinarian for children, you have to experiment and figure out which method works best. If a kid forgets why they're in time out, then they've probably spent too long in there. When I had to send my little brother to time out, I make sure that he knows what he did wrong, and why he shouldn't do it again. It's reinforcing the lesson and establishing communication. Kids usually wear their feelings on their sleeves, and it's the post-punishment communication where you try to help them get over their resentment.
Cheers from Union Jane
"I have only ever made one prayer a very short one: "God, make my enemies ridiculous." And God made it so." --Voltaire
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." --Eleanor Roosevelt
Spanking worked for me. I knew what I had done was wrong and that I needed to heed my parents' rules. I am now an intelligent, humble, and respectful woman. There are several children I have met in the malls and grocery stores that have never been spanked and obviously really need it. I remember many occasions when my parents were complimented by waitresses and the like on how well-behaved their children were.
You're exactly right. There are a lot of factors involved when it comes to spanking. I was terrified of being hit, too, and took it out on my brothers, even though it resulted in more spanking. But with one of my brothers, spanking was the most effective strategy, and he turned out fine.
And that's comin' at ya' from yer local redneck hippie.
I was never spanked as a child, but my brother was. I am a little more spoiled than him, but I don't think it is a good punishment. There are other ways to give an appropriate punishment. I think in the heat of the moment, the parent could end up hurting the child more than they want to. It shouldn't be allowed in schools etc., because it's not the person's child their punishing and it's seen as more of child abuse.
Same with me. I was older too, so I think he was a bit more of a trouble maker. Well, I know actually. He even got a wooden spoon once, the best part was it did NOT phase him. But as soon as my mom sent him to his room, all hell broke loose. Odd child.
Après la pluie le beau temps. ♥
My parents never took me on their knee and smacked me with a hand or wooden mallet. And look how i turned out...
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Can there PLEASE be a fourth option? I voted that it's child abuse, but I don't believe it's child abuse. I think it's inappropriate, not necessarily ABUSE.
yeah i agree, but to a certain extent i think it could be.
I remember the days when i was spanked as a child. I think that it is a necessary part of growing up. It gives the child a sense of consequence. For every action, there is a reaction and if they choose to behave poorly and are spanked, then they will associate it negatively. I know I am taking a semi-psychological approach but I think it works. I turned out fine..... I think.
Were you such a stupid child that you were incapable of understanding any consequence but physical pain?
Actually, I think some of the brightest kids are the ones that need spanked the most. It doesn't have much to do with their intelligence more than the fact that a smart child is more likely to manipulate their way out of certain punishments or find ways to sort of rationalize and subsequently defeat the purpose of the punishment, especially if they don't respect their parents. The respect has to be established, and for some kids, it's done so through spanking.
As a young child there is a point where physical pain is about all they can understand. And when done right, there's no pain that lasts for more than five or ten minutes.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Raise them to respect their parents and they will. Raies your kids right and there's no reason you should have to resort to using physical punishment.
Raies your kids right...
And that's exactly the issue here. Some of us feel that, at least under some circumstances, spanking is part of raising kids right.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I think people greatly underestimate children. Would you advocate spanking an adult in order to discipline or teach him or her? There's no need to use violence to teach anyone. Children are quite capable of learning in alternative ways.
And I believe you overgeneralize a little too much. While I do support the use of "alternative" punishments, I am an advocate of using appropriate punishment, as the parent deems it. In some cases, it can be spanking, because I don't underestimate children. I know what I was like as a kid, and I know my kids (when I have them) have the potential to be as bad as I was. I think what many people don't consider is just how complicated the matter really is. It's not as black and white as "to spank or not to spank." It depends entirely on the kid and how s/he responds to various forms of punishment.
Would you advocate spanking an adult in order to discipline or teach him or her?
An adult and a child are two different things, and the punishments an adult can incur are far harsher than a stinging smack on the buttocks (getting the crap kicked out of him for starting a fight, losing his job for insubordination, losing her reputation in the community for stealing, etc). Like I've been saying all along, it's what's considered appropriate by the authority figure. In an adult world, spanking is not appropriate because it does not "hit them where it hurts," so to speak, anymore. In an adult world, it's employability and the wallet where it hurts the most, and therefore, more appropriate action would threaten that.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I still don't think violence is necessary to raise any child, but I doubt I'd get very far with this argument, so I'll simply agree to disagree. :)
Thats a little harsh, but I am just saying in general that physical pain may be the limit of what young children understand at that point in their life. No child is the same. And for the record, I was not a stupid child :P
I feel the daycare worker should have some rights but not corporal punishment. We don't need any whacko teachers or daycare workers beating on children simply because they're allowed to.
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As a child I was beat if I said the wrong thing. A spanking is different than abuse in that parents who abuse use anything and everything to hurt their child. There were household products that were used that would surprise anyone. Now, back then I had no idea, i thought that was just a spanking. I was a mischevious little girl. But now, I realize that it was borderline. If parents were to do that now to a child, which plenty probably do, then they would be behind bars. Even though I have had a bad childhood experience when it came to discipline, i will definitely spank my children to keep them in line. I will not spank them to the extremes of how I was spanked. However, i will put the fear and respect into them, and help them to determine what is right and wrong. I don't think its bad to spank. All children need conditioning.
Now some parents use "the corner" process, or "go to your room" process, however, some kids do not react positively in terms of discipline. And if the child grows up to think that he can get away with anything it'll be too late. My sisters and I have grown to have respect of our elders and to know whats good and whats bad. Unfortunately it couldve be done in another way. I have to admit that each and everyone of us has experienced depression and two of us have actually had an attempt at suicide. So does it leave an emotional or mental scar? Yes. Can people get over it? Yes. I know I did.
Jasmin Muniz
I generally disagree with spanking...but there are most certainly instances where spanking is needed. If for some reason, your child is in a dangerous public place (Parking lot, mall, store, etc) where they could be injured, or kidnapped and the child is not listening (wandering, not staying with you, running) then sometimes the only way to get them to listen at that moment is to hit them. If your kid is running in front of cars, there is not time to sit down with them and discuss the dangers of not listening. (Bad behaviors shouldn't be ignored when they are occuring..however bad an example it may be, it's just like training a dog...you can't punish a dog for going to the bathroom in the house an hour after the fact- they won't know what you're yelling about, so you have to catch them in the act so to speak)
In my general opinion, spanking shouldn't be overused. Just like swearing: if your parent continually swears, there is no impact when they are actually mad at you. If you are continually spanked, it will have a negative impact when you actually need spanked. (The child won't CARE that they are being spanked for running in front of a car, and in return they may end up getting hit by a car)
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I don't necessarily think that spanking is abuse, but I believe that there are other ways to teach a child. Why does pain have to be an aspect in learning to do something? I think that if a child obeys a parent who has spanked them, then they are only doing it out of fear. Fear of pain. Children should learn to respect when a parent says no. They should also learn why they aren't aloud to do something other than getting spanked. In situations where an immediate action needs to occur, I think a parent who has been firm with their child without verbal and physical abuse will be able to control that situation with a firm, "NO." Hopefully, by then, the parent has been able to establish that when the child disobeys, they get some sort of punishment like a time out or loss of privileges. That way the parent can explain later why they said no. I don't think that parents who spank their children are abusing them. They just have a different way of looking at it than I do.
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