Spare the rod and spoil the child?

If hitting a child is oh so effective then why is it that parents who do so have to continue to hit their child day after day, a lot of times for the same exact thing they hit them for before?


You all say children behave better for people who aren't their parents but how does that make sense? You all say your children respect you more because you're not afraid to hit them. Yet my niece and nephew KNOW i won't hit them, no matter what they do, so wouldn't that mean they would actually act out more around me because they don't have to ever fear being hit?

My sister constantly complains about her 4 year old daughter being out of control and her having to hit her sometimes(though she swore up and down she would never hit her kids) yet when I have the kid(and let me tell you i have her kids A LOT, i've actually helped raised them) she doesn't act out and when she does do something bad all i have to do is give her a serious look, tell her to knock it off and she stops dead in her tracks and doesn't do that crap again.

there are so many better ways to raise a kid then Hitting them, it's a shame people are still stuck in their barbaric ways.

Well this is about to go over about like a turd in a punch bowl but here it is

We spank in my house when necessary and its very rare. When my kids misbehave (talking back, being rude, ignoring my requests over and over) i make my kids clean toilets, sweep and mop the floor, scoop dog poop, bag of leaves, and other forms of manual labor.

Sometimes we do push-ups or they have to stand on the wall. I am a screamer and it DOES NOT work for my kids. I have 2 very well behaved kids I am am very proud of them. However just like adults they can be buttheads. The difference between them is they are children and need to be taught what is appropriate and what isnt. I dont think you should ever spank your kids out of anger and excessive spanking is not cool. It shouldnt have to happen that often. If you are constantly spanking your kids then there is obviously another problem and it aint working, lets move on and check out other things possibly their diet. I know if i let my kids have sodas and junk they are completely different kids. I want to punch myself in the face for letting them have it. Its my own fault.

Kids will test the limits and the best thing to do is stay consistent. I can honestly tell you in MY personal life i have some friends that are the "by the book" or "time out" method parents and I would rather get a freaking colonoscopy then have their kids over. I have heard my daughters friends YELL at their parents IN FRONT OF of me and they did NOTHING. I wanted to slap the **** out of the parent for not dealing with that. Um excuse me you scream at ME like that and you will be dealt with. I am the parent and my kids DO NOT run MY home. There are rules and being respectful to others is one of them. And in my extended family if one of our kids gets out of line, who ever is closest to that kid has permission to discipline our kids and vice versa.

I rarely got spanked as a kid. I didnt need it because i knew early on what my mom would and wouldnt put up with. With that said, I may or may not have gotten my mouth popped for running it to my mom before. I deserved EVERY SINGLE SMACK I GOT.

But what works in my home may not work in yours.

Well this is about to go over about like a turd in a punch bowl but here it is

We spank in my house when necessary and its very rare. When my kids misbehave (talking back, being rude, ignoring my requests over and over) i make my kids clean toilets, sweep and mop the floor, scoop dog poop, bag of leaves, and other forms of manual labor.

Sometimes we do push-ups or they have to stand on the wall. I am a screamer and it DOES NOT work for my kids. I have 2 very well behaved kids I am am very proud of them. However just like adults they can be buttheads. The difference between them is they are children and need to be taught what is appropriate and what isnt. I dont think you should ever spank your kids out of anger and excessive spanking is not cool. It shouldnt have to happen that often. If you are constantly spanking your kids then there is obviously another problem and it aint working, lets move on and check out other things possibly their diet. I know if i let my kids have sodas and junk they are completely different kids. I want to punch myself in the face for letting them have it. Its my own fault.

Kids will test the limits and the best thing to do is stay consistent. I can honestly tell you in MY personal life i have some friends that are the "by the book" or "time out" method parents and I would rather get a freaking colonoscopy then have their kids over. I have heard my daughters friends YELL at their parents IN FRONT OF of me and they did NOTHING. I wanted to slap the **** out of the parent for not dealing with that. Um excuse me you scream at ME like that and you will be dealt with. I am the parent and my kids DO NOT run MY home. There are rules and being respectful to others is one of them. And in my extended family if one of our kids gets out of line, who ever is closest to that kid has permission to discipline our kids and vice versa.

I rarely got spanked as a kid. I didnt need it because i knew early on what my mom would and wouldnt put up with. With that said, I may or may not have gotten my mouth popped for running it to my mom before. I deserved EVERY SINGLE SMACK I GOT.

But what works in my home may not work in yours.

My parents didn't just spank me, they whipped my butt with belts, switches from trees, fly-swatters, etc. And not once did I ever think they didn't love me or that I was being abused, nor was I ever afraid of them. Every "spanking" was accompanied with an explanation about what I had done wrong and why I was being punished. It was never done in anger ... in fact, my dad cried every time he had to do it.

I completely understand that each parent has to do what they feel is best for their own kids, and as long as a parent has found an effective way to control their kids' behavior, I would never criticize their choice to NOT spank their kids. But it really irks me to hear people suggest that corporal punishment turns kids toward violence. There is a HUGE difference between physical discipline and physical abuse.

Agree 100%

I'm a single mother of an African American young man.
I rather be the one doing the disciplining than the police.

If hitting a child is oh so effective then why is it that parents who do so have to continue to hit their child day after day, a lot of times for the same exact thing they hit them for before?


You all say children behave better for people who aren't their parents but how does that make sense? You all say your children respect you more because you're not afraid to hit them. Yet my niece and nephew KNOW i won't hit them, no matter what they do, so wouldn't that mean they would actually act out more around me because they don't have to ever fear being hit?

My sister constantly complains about her 4 year old daughter being out of control and her having to hit her sometimes(though she swore up and down she would never hit her kids) yet when I have the kid(and let me tell you i have her kids A LOT, i've actually helped raised them) she doesn't act out and when she does do something bad all i have to do is give her a serious look, tell her to knock it off and she stops dead in her tracks and doesn't do that crap again.

there are so many better ways to raise a kid then Hitting them, it's a shame people are still stuck in their barbaric ways.

Big difference. You're their aunt, not their parent. Who said that parents who spank do so "day after day"? There was a recent study done (read Brene Brown's books on Shame vs. Guilt) and what she discovered was adults who were well disciplined as a child (including spanking) were proud of their parents. They sat around in small groups to discuss it. They would "one up" each other with, "Oh, yeah, well my dad would...." etc. The adults who did not speak up, and who were actually embarrassed were those raised by parents wo did not discipline, or who took the "Let's sit down and discuss why you shouldn't have done that" approach.

I believe there are times for physical punishment but i mainly make my son do pushups, jumping jacks & run in place when he has issues.

That's great...I might have to try those I do believe in spanking but not for everything. I don't believe it makes for violent kids / adults. Those that have issues with violence, usually had some extreme abuse as a child...not a smack on the butt.

As a PE teacher I get rather upset with parents that do this for their punishment. You are teaching your kid that fitness is bad and something that do when they do something wrong. I am all for parents finding what works best to punish their kid. However, fitness should be something fun not a form of punishment. In my class if a kid does something wrong the have to sit out and watch everyone else play. It is way more effective than to make them do push ups (even if they aren't my kid).

To answer the question about spanking though...I do believe in spanking when it is needed but not as normal form of punishment. My son is 9 and I think I have spanked him 3 times. I always explain why the situation happened and he then has to explain back to me what was wrong about what he did. Normally time out or taking away video games/toys/tv works best in our house.

There's nothing fun about the way fitness is taught in schools. I am quite a naturally fit person, but I spent 15 years of school (from 3-18) absolutely HATING PE with every fibre of my being. I would come up with any excuse to avoid it, even though I was also rowing 6 days a week, and doing weight training, and was one of the fittest people in my year, of either sex.

If we're going to talk science and research (which we should, everything else in this thread is just anecdotal evidence and has little meaning) let's link to the actual studies and not just quote from memory.

Because if you do look at the research, from non-biased sources, you won't read anything like that. "People who were never spanked were embarrassed of their parents".. you should be embarrassed to have posted that.

http://www.parentingscience.com/spanking-children.html <-- link to actual studies by phd scientists studying the affects of spanking on children around the world.

I'm not embarrassed that I posted it. I attended a seminar with the lady who did the study. She traveled around the country and got the same results.

I am sure there are studies out there to back up the sky is green.

Point being, there are documented studies to back up every single opinion and idea, nothing is "un biased"

If hitting a child is oh so effective then why is it that parents who do so have to continue to hit their child day after day, a lot of times for the same exact thing they hit them for before?


You all say children behave better for people who aren't their parents but how does that make sense? You all say your children respect you more because you're not afraid to hit them. Yet my niece and nephew KNOW i won't hit them, no matter what they do, so wouldn't that mean they would actually act out more around me because they don't have to ever fear being hit?

My sister constantly complains about her 4 year old daughter being out of control and her having to hit her sometimes(though she swore up and down she would never hit her kids) yet when I have the kid(and let me tell you i have her kids A LOT, i've actually helped raised them) she doesn't act out and when she does do something bad all i have to do is give her a serious look, tell her to knock it off and she stops dead in her tracks and doesn't do that crap again.

there are so many better ways to raise a kid then Hitting them, it's a shame people are still stuck in their barbaric ways.

Big difference. You're their aunt, not their parent. Who said that parents who spank do so "day after day"? There was a recent study done (read Brene Brown's books on Shame vs. Guilt) and what she discovered was adults who were well disciplined as a child (including spanking) were proud of their parents. They sat around in small groups to discuss it. They would "one up" each other with, "Oh, yeah, well my dad would...." etc. The adults who did not speak up, and who were actually embarrassed were those raised by parents wo did not discipline, or who took the "Let's sit down and discuss why you shouldn't have done that" approach.

seriously? you think that's good that people sitting around high fiving and one upping each other with stories about how their parents hit them? good lord, yea if that doesn't bring happy childhood memories to my mind then i don't know what does!

You guys keep talking about how kids act better with people who aren't their parents and that just goes to prove my point. The children act out around the people who hit them, so what does that tell you?

I grew up getting spanked as well and I gotta tell you I don't sit around telling my friends about what a bang up job my dad did when he got out the belt and hit his 6 children. I don't sit around saying oh yea i totally respected my parents for hitting me, they were so great! As a matter of fact when those stories do come out between my friends they are always filled with hate and disdain for our parents for thinking that hitting us with a belt was a good punishment.

I guess lucky for me I had a mother who always told me the circle of abuse has to be stopped, she's no saint but at least she got that part right.

I sleep well at night knowing my niece and nephew are always happiest when they're with me and I also lose sleep at night knowing how unhappy they are when they talk about how their father hits them.

but i'm done with this debate

I'm going to guess that you are more of a friend to them than an adult. I'd like to know how much you let them get away with and how much you stick to your guns with whatever kind of discipline you use. Kids don't need friends, they need parents.

But, I was spanked as a child and it didn't make me violent or teach me it was ok to hit at all. That being said it was always a big deal to get spanked, it wasn't done on the fly. It was almost a ritual both proceeded and follow-uped with a "this is what you did, this why it was wrong, and there are consequences" type of speech.

If we're going to talk science and research (which we should, everything else in this thread is just anecdotal evidence and has little meaning) let's link to the actual studies and not just quote from memory.

Because if you do look at the research, from non-biased sources, you won't read anything like that. "People who were never spanked were embarrassed of their parents".. you should be embarrassed to have posted that.

http://www.parentingscience.com/spanking-children.html <-- link to actual studies by phd scientists studying the affects of spanking on children around the world.

I'm not embarrassed that I posted it. I attended a seminar with the lady who did the study. She traveled around the country and got the same results.

Since I don't know who the lady was or anything about her research methods or studies I can safely say I'll stick with the evidence found by scientists studying the matter. You can verify the findings and all the research by clicking the link I provided. All you're giving me is your opinion and a story about a "lady".

I didn't just give a story about some "lady". I have her name and her books and offered them as a reading guide.

My old dad was talking about this the other day. He spanked me once only and said "When I saw the red mark on the back of your little legs I knew I'd never do it again. Spanking only benefits the angry parent, not the child."

Hilarious that there are non-parents on this thread claiming that because kids act perfectly for people who aren't their parents, they don't need to be discplined.

Please. My nephew (almost 2 years old) is an angel when he's around me or his grandparents. When he's around Momy and Daddy, he pushes the limits to see what they will and won't spank him for. This has been happening since the dawn of time.

No kids and frankly, I go back and forth on the whole thing. I see arguments both ways and guess I won't know how I really think unless I have kids.

But, I was spanked as a child and it didn't make me violent or teach me it was ok to hit at all. That being said it was always a big deal to get spanked, it wasn't done on the fly. It was almost a ritual both proceeded and follow-uped with a "this is what you did, this why it was wrong, and there are consequences" type of speech.

I didn't just give a story about some "lady". I have her name and her books and offered them as a reading guide.

Then I apologize Patti as I must have missed the post where you named her. Busy thread and all...