Replies to 'Spanking: Useful or Cruel?'
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August 9, 2005, 5:25 pm PDT
 Quote From: cinemaven When I spoke with my mom as an adult and a parent about my childhood, she was stunned and appalled. She firmly believed that she "spanked" us. She did not recall ever "spanking" any of us in anger and she pointed to how well we all turned out as evidence of the success of her methods. I held back from letting her know that it was actually in spite of her methods. We turned out well because of the good parenting of my father and because of the positive parts of my mom's nature but the "spanking" could very well have stopped that if we'd had different natures.
Ask your children what is in their minds as you're hitting them. I don't doubt that you are in no way an abuser but I think you'd be surprised by what they think of those tactics. Take yourself back to how you felt as a child when someone so much larger and stronger was able to lash out at you. I agree with you that there are many types of abuse and, like you, I don't think a swat on the bum is abuse but I also don't think it's the best way to correct behaviour. We're bigger than they are and, fortunately, we have more life experience than they do so we should be able to use our words and set an example by our own behaviour. Since you can't remember the last time you spanked, I think it sounds like what you were doing was working well but it was more likely the fact that you listen and value your children and you obviously respect them.
My guys don't have temper tantrums ... I think that's just their nature, not an example of my good parenting. They don't slam doors except the screen door which slams on it's own and they're polite and happy but they're not Stepford kids. It's easy to be a good parent if you have good kids :) I communicate with my children often but of course my youngest is only 2 but she is learning to communicate her feelings as well. My 4 1/2 talks very well and has absolutely no problem voicing her opinions at all and yes, I do listen to my children and we discuss issues all the time. As far as the tantrums my girls are little and basically do the normal typical stuff that most toddlers/preschoolers do, (usually when they are tired) nothing big, we just deal with the issues as they come up. I believe children should have every right to express themselves but of course needs to learn to make right choices in the process. and my 4 year old has never referred to spanking as hitting, and if iit ever came up, we would definetly discuss that issue, but in all honesty, a swat on the bottom very rarely happens in my home as there are many forms of discipline that work much better but I would never put another parent down for using it consistently as long as they were resolving the issues with the discipline and communication, if not then they need to try something else. I personally know what abuse is and I know what it means to be disrespected and I can gaurentee my parenting skills do not come from my upbringing for if that were the case, my children would not be as they are today, the good natured kids that they are, for I believe that kids learn from a very early age on how their parents love and care for them. They sure the heck know a lot more then people give them credit for. and the issue in my opinion is never about whether they are spenked or not, it is all the other stuff that comes along with it, communication, praise, caring/loving, attitudes, the ability/desire on the parents part to admit when they are wrong and so forth, kids learn this from so early on in their lives and for others to look down on other parents for their parenting style just because they disagree with it is just plain wrong and I am not just talking about the spanking issue, this can be about everything. Gee! A very good friend of mine had a problem with the fact that for the longest time, my girls didn't really have a set bed time as we are night owls and we can sleep in and daddy was working wierd hours and a lot of overtime casue of the demands of the job, so it was no big deal for us and he has every right to see his kids. anyway, I was told by a couple people in fact that I was ruining my kids for life casue they will not be able to adjust to school hours and all that stuff which I think is a bunch of malarky! My girls have always gotten 10 hours sleep a night and napped 2-3 hours, well, eventually, we cut out the naps and they actually put themselves in bed at around 930 every night now, they say, night night and head off to bed. They are easy to get up no matter what time they go to bed and starting this fall, with my oldest going to preschool, they will be getting up earlier and I am sure in bed earlier, Every one is certainly entitled to their own opinions on parenting issues but it doesn't make others wrong about theirs. We all come from different backgrounds, belief systems and experiences therefore our opinions will differ in a lot of ways but we are all in the same boat as parents and really do need to respect others. Now, I know there are some here who I have offended and again, I wil say that is never my intent and we must remember, we only see words, no expressions, attitudes, personalities, nothing but words so for me personally, I don't take anything at heart that is said on these boards but I do appreciate the positive words that you gave because I personally know that I and my husband are good parents to our children (and that is the imporant thing)and it certainly shows through them, and I am not afraid to say that I am wrong about something and we have changed in some of our techniques in our home as some were just not working and in all honesty were a waste of time. This kind of parent to me is definetly not a wishy washy parent as was discussed in previous posting so hopefully I have made my self clear in what I was trying to express before but again, I guess it comes down to oopinions. |
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