Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzzard
You're joking about spanking an 18 month old to 3 year old right?
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A couple swats on a diaper is not an act of child abuse. At that age they understand that message better than "Johnny, it's not appropriate to keep pinching the dog's ear. I've told you five times today that's not appropriate and Fido is going to bite you if you don't stop. Now go to your room and play with the all the toys you have there." Reasoning with them didn't start working until after they turned three.
I figured two swats on a diaper were less harmful than letting little Johnny keep at it until the dog bit him, or he electrocuted himself from sticking metal objects into the electrical outlet or whatever.
Let's be clear here, spanking our kids meant not more that two swats, not delivered in anger, and therefore not forceful enough to even leave a red mark. Often they had a diaper on so I doubt they felt anything.We understood the the danger of spanking escalating to child abuse.
But to be frank, around the age from 18 months to 3, they can do serious harm to themselves from exploring the world around them, and at that age reasoning with them does not work. If you have raised kids and can tell me how to stop destructive behaviour in its tracks without spanking, good for you, please do so. But we found reasoning with kids that age simply didn't work, and time outs and suspension of privileges (taking away a toy) just made the kid pouty, resentful, and more likely to continue with the destructive behaviour out of spite.
Sorry, but I'd rather be thought of as a monster because I occasionally swatted them on the bum a couple times than to have had serious harm come to them because I tried to "reason" with them that their behaviour was dangerous to their health.
And, as i said in my previous post, we really didn't have to spank often, not even on a weekly basis, because the threat of a spanking was most often enough to get their attention. In fact, the threat of a spanking was the beginning of the reasoning process.