Whats allowed as far as corporal punishment for your kids?

[Thinking Skins]

Hey, those of you who are against beating your kids, are you also against making your kids endure any kind of physical pain.

What about making them stand on one foot, or stay in a push-up position? Are those things considered child abuse as well?

[frankbones]

What about caning? Or Chinese water torture? Are those bad?

[Destino]

Wanting to cause you kids pain is strange IMO. My parents only used physical methods to get my attention, a hair pull when I was ignoring them at the mall or a smack if I mouthed off like a jerk. They never actually tried to hurt me.

Why do you want to hurt children?

[visionary]

Are we talking kids or detainees?

;-)

[wskin44]

You can only beat your kids for rooting for the wrong football team. All other reasons are not good enough.

[Johnny Punani2]

Spanking doesn't seem to work with my oldest Son. Taking toys away when he does something wrong is more effective IMO.

[jrockster21]

As JP said - the best discipline techniques are the removal of privileges. I think you can be a successful parent without laying a hand on your child.

[Ancalagon the Black]

I'm a bit conflicted. Sometimes I think making (older) children do exercises as punishment (such as push-ups) is OK, since it's actually good for them physically. But then I think that I wouldn't want them to get bad associations with doing exercise.

I think that causing a child physical pain with no physical benefit is wrong.

[Chopper Dave]

As someone on this board that is relatively young and not too far away from the days when this kind of thing affected me, I'll tell you right now that hitting, spanking, beating, whatever, does not work. If anything, it just pissed me off. Sure, if my mom or dad ever spanked me, I'd behave. Then I'd hold it against them. I'd use it as justification to do more stupid ****. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's what I did, and I have a feeling that many kids would have the similar mindset.

Now, when I got older (i.e. last 4-5 years), my parents obviously couldn't spank me. I was just a little smaller than my dad and ten times the size of my mom. Plus it'd be weird. But there were a couple times where since they couldn't spank me they tried to hit me. My mom has slapped me a couple of times, and I just laughed and walked away. My dad and I had a huge fight once and he pushed me through one of the kinds of closet doors that runs on a track. I knocked the door off the track and fell through into the closet. I jumped up, pinned him to the wall, and told him that if he ever touched me again I'd break every single bone in his body. He hasn't laid a finger on me since.

The moral is, when your kids are small, don't spank them. It'll just make them behave worse. When your kids are big, don't touch them. They'll beat your ass.

[DeanCollins]

And don't ever name your kid Chopper Dave :laugh:

seriously, physical punishment is the easy way out for parents. It's quick, easy, they don't have to think or communicate. If there are two parents you can play "good cop bad cop" if you want. But threats don't really work and causing pain or humiliation drives a wedge between you and your kids. My son has always been a brother to me. And I'd tell him nicely "please don't make me wear my parent hat today". Allot of times that was enough.

When they do something wrong, they know it. When they're young they are usually trying to get your attention to pay attention to them. They need allot of love and validation ("you're the greatest", "that's awesome", "you're the best", "look at you you're so smart", "you can do it", "I love you"),

not "you're bad and that's why I'm kicking your @$$".

Sit 'em down and explain to them that there is a difference between who they are, and what they do. And that you love them, but you are concerned about what they did. Then get them to tell you why what they did is wrong (they are not going to want to talk if you beat them when they are wrong , you'll just get denials) help them to understand the reasons for the rules (thier safety, the safety of others, socialy unacceptable, rude....).

I used the word Rude. I told mine that if you are rude, then no one will like you, invite you over, be you friend... gave him a real gross image of rude. Then when he was misbehaving, I'd say to him privately "hey Chris that's rude" and he'd get slightly embarassed, laugh, and quit.

On more serious matter after discussing the behavior, I'd ask him to pick the punishment (no video games for a period or something) then he'd do the time. He was the punisher not me. That introduced "self disapline".

This is good one. When they are mildly misbehaving, like touching something they are not supposed to (they're trying to get you attenttion)

look over at them an smile, start rubbing your hands together and ask them if they know what you are doing, and when the ask what, say "I warming them up for you so it won't be cold when it hits your butt! You'll both laugh like hell and he/she will forget what evil thing they were doing. After a while my Chris would tell me that I've got it wrong and that it was going to be his hand on my butt, and we'd laugh. But the important thing is that he stopped doing what I didn't want him to do, and it didn't have to get UGLY.

[Thinking Skins]

You all are funny because the same statements that you're making about physical punishment are the ones that I've heard about the psychological punishments:

A kid has to sit in Time Out and it just made him sleepy.

Or A kid loses the priveldege of one of his toys and he just borrows his friends or gets another one.

The purpose of physical punishment is to instill the fear in the child so that the child remembers the consequences of his actions. For example: when a kid in a store is acting crazy are you just going to tell him "no Nintendo!"

Places like the military and many fraternities use these physical punishments to help instill discipline and everyone I know has told me of success when it was applied to them.

I remember when I was a kid, my babysitter was my best friends grandmother, and whenever I got into trouble I had to stand on the wall. This just means that I needed to lean against the wall. Sounds simple right, well it hurt like hell. And it made me very afraid of getting caught doing bad things, and since she had eyes in the back of her head, I rarely did bad things over her house.

[CrabR]

What I did to discipline my kids

When they were young I would put them in a chair and make them watch C- SPAN

When they were older I put them in a chair and made them watch Barney or the Teletubbies

They also got restriction of various privileges, TV, computer, etc

I could never figure out why people wanted to inflict corporal punishment on their kids. Imagine if we made mistakes at work and our employers beat us.

[Pete]

Sorry folks, but a swift swat on the butt can work wonders with younger kids. I'm not talkin beating the child, but a good attantion getter when the child is out of control.

I see it as a big problem today. People scared to give a kid a swat when they need it. They try all the time out stuff, and other "modern" methods, and wind up with uncontrolable kids and teens. I went to a catholic school with Nuns. You got out of line, you got wacked. If you spoke back to one of your teachers, they would smack you down so fast, and then you would get it at home when your parents found out. We didn't have all the problems you see in schools today.

Even in high school which was public, the PE teachers would give ya a smack if you got out of line. One of them would pull off a shoe, and wack ya in the butt.

I was one of the most rotten kids out there, I took my lumps for it, and I turned out pretty good in the long run.

[Thiebear]

I make my little girls put their hands out. Then smack the back of their hands.

99% of the time all I have to say is "Put you hand out"! And i have 100% of their attention and all current activity comes to a stop...

[Taylor 36]

Beating is probably the wrong word to use. I would hope that most people wouldn't BEAT a child. Spanking, on the other hand, is IMO a form of discipline that is way UNDER used. It is amazing to me how spanking was universal for centuries and we as a race of people moved forward just fine. Now, with the anti-discipline movement, spanking is on the endangered species list and look how far down the sh!t pole we have fallen.

[endzone_dave]

Spanking is the only thing that works with my 3 year old. If I put him in a room with no toys for time out, it doesn't bother him at all, he just waits it out. Taking away a toy doesn't work, he just accepts the fact he can't use it, no big deal with him.

He hates getting spanked though. I rarely have to do it because he knows it's there. If he's acting up, all I say is "Do you want a spanking?" and he straightens right up. So he behaves himself really well. I don't have to constantly take toys away, put him in time out, yell at him or anything. He's a well behaved kid and we don't have an adversarial relationship.

It was the same way for me when I was a kid. I rarely got spanked but that's because I never acted up knowing full well if I did, I'd get a spanking.

[gchwood]

I don't think the idea is to beat your kid, one swat, not enough to leave a welt but enough to sting, is an effective tool for punishing a child. However I don't beleive in spanking in anger. Too many parents spank their kid because they are mad at them. I say cool off but let the kid know why he is being spanked. If the kid doesn't know why he is being spanked it certainly won't be effective.

[gchwood]

I do need to interject that I think that society has gone way downhill since the removal of corporal punishment from schools. now kids do whatever they want in schools with little or no consequences. I mean I had a friend shot by another student in the parking lot of the school and all the school gave him was a 5 day suspension. Now the law gave him 1 year in juvie, but the school didn't do hardly anything

[DarkLadyRaven]

Im not so sure corperal punishments always leads to better societey gchwood. The black community has a long history of usage of corperal punishment more so than whites but who has the higher crime rate overall, in therory shouldnt higher corperal punishment corrolate with lower crime in blacks but they dont.

I am just critical of "more than swatting" corperal punishment thats what my mother got and hated her father till his dying day, prevented me from seeing him and gleed at his death. At this point after two balc eyes from her plus alot more physical scars still on me at age 21 I dont think I want to see this woman agian in life but must help her due to the whole honor your parents bible command. Remeber there is also a bible command about not building resentment in your kids- one must use a fine line

[NavyDave]

Never spanked my daughter she would cry when she thought she disappointed me (got caught) or when I said go to your room.

Her mom and grandma would pop her hands I would hear about it when I came back in port.

NDjr a couple of tanning of the butt during the terrible 2s and 3s s now replaced by a higher octave in my voice.

His mom spanked him for trying to climb up the stove when she was cooking then she did the mushy I'm sorry baby hug but the following week at grandmas he discovered what a hot stove was.

Nowadays he is behaved but he does gets two steps from getting on your last nerve

[NavyDave]

Daughters manipulate while sons act out is what I've seen in our family

[stevenaa]

The best form of punishment is the one that works for the child. I have 3 kids and they all require different techniques. My 7 and 8 years olds haven't been spanked for years. It never worked on my 7 year old, so we used other techniques, and my 8 year old rarely needed it. My 2 year old has his fanny swatted when he disobeys. Now it's becoming rare when he needs a swat because he understands he will do what he is told, whether he likes it or not. Spanking should only be used for willful disobedience. If you do it when they enter their 2 year old testing phase and are constantly trying to not do what they are told, you will teach them who is in charge. Once they learn this, they become well behaved kiddos. The key to discipline is to figure out what works best for the child.

[stevenaa]

As someone on this board that is relatively young and not too far away from the days when this kind of thing affected me, I'll tell you right now that hitting, spanking, beating, whatever, does not work. If anything, it just pissed me off. Sure, if my mom or dad ever spanked me, I'd behave. Then I'd hold it against them. I'd use it as justification to do more stupid ****. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's what I did, and I have a feeling that many kids would have the similar mindset.

Now, when I got older (i.e. last 4-5 years), my parents obviously couldn't spank me. I was just a little smaller than my dad and ten times the size of my mom. Plus it'd be weird. But there were a couple times where since they couldn't spank me they tried to hit me. My mom has slapped me a couple of times, and I just laughed and walked away. My dad and I had a huge fight once and he pushed me through one of the kinds of closet doors that runs on a track. I knocked the door off the track and fell through into the closet. I jumped up, pinned him to the wall, and told him that if he ever touched me again I'd break every single bone in his body. He hasn't laid a finger on me since.

The moral is, when your kids are small, don't spank them. It'll just make them behave worse. When your kids are big, don't touch them. They'll beat your ass.

There's a lot more to you being pissed at your parents than being spanked. The anger in your words hints at something a little deeper than an occasional disciplinary swat, especially if they were trying to hit you because of your size. Whey you're big enough to fight back, your way too old for corporal punishment.

It's doubtful my 7 and 8 year olds will ever be spanked again. They get to an age where it is counterproductive.

[Kilmer17]

I spanked my son 1 time with a wooden spoon. About 5 whacks. And I had to go into my bedroom and bawl after I did it. I wont go into details about why, but it was warranted.

And since then, the mere mention of the spoon is enough to straighten his act up in a nano-second.

I hope I never have to do it again.

[Mr. Nostril]

My parents were big spankers. I think I'm better for it. It's not like you actually want to cause physical damage to the child, however, harmless physical pain(like a few swats on the ass) can do some good. It's also not like the parents are enjoying it. At least they shouldn't be.

Although, I am willingto admit, my parents may have gone overboard, different punishments work well for different children, and parents need to be in tune to these things. I'm also willing to admit I don't know the first thing about the troubles parents face, as I talk without experience, and have no choice, but to be an idealist.

Interesting addendum - I have a little brother, and my dad hasn't changed at all in his theory, but he's gotten lazy. Now, he's the great spanking threatener, but he never carries through. It's funny, because you can tell my brother doesn't take any of these threats the least bit seriously. He's going to be awful, because he really doesn't get punished for much of anything.