Quote:
Originally Posted by zukes
Here are my thoughts, similar to many I am sure.
I was spanked as a kid, not often, but it happened. I got the belt a few times as well. I got my knuckles smacked with a wooden spoona couple times and I had a wooden badminton racket broken on my leg once.
As I got older, I remember thinking to myself that it was weird that my parents were "teaching" me to not hit my sister (among other things) by hitting me. I remember asking my mom (was too afraid to ask my dad, he hit my mom as well, who finally left him, but that's another NFL topic, sadly) why it was okay for them to hit? They said it was to "teach" me. I asked her why they only spanked me when they were mad then. Why not teach me that way when they weren't as mad?
Fast forward many years ahead. I have two kids of my own. I found that I still felt spanking was justified. Not using a belt and not with enough force to physically hurt them, but enough to get their attention.
Well, that was until I did it and felt terrible. I only did it a couple times over 3 years and each time I would feel worse. I honestly cried each time after to my wife, who agreed that the spanking was justified. The last time, I cried on the spot, enough that my almost four year old son (at the time) actually stopped crying (he was already crying for being in trouble, as I said, it was not hard at all) and asked why I was crying.
I told him right there that I would never hit him or his sister ever again. My daughter doesn;t even remember the one time I spanked her, my son remebers me telling him that I would never again, but says he doesn't remember actually being spanked.
I found that it was actually as I suspected of my parents, it was me losing control.
I have thought a lot about this and I think a lot of times parent's lose their grasp on reality. I remember back to being a kid and your whole world is made up of what your parents do for you and to you. There was nothing I loved more than playing a game with my mom, or playing or watching sports with my dad. You are their whole world when they are young and you're going to hit them? You're going to teach them that is how to deal with problems?
You what happens if you spank somebody who does something wrong as an adult? Could you imagine if your assistant at work screwed up something that they did for you and you spanked them? You go to jail! Why should that be okay within the confines of your home? It makes me very sad, and I am so glad that I learned very quickly that regardless of how little I did it, and how I know it was not done with enough force to hurt them, it was still abuse.
I am proud to say that I have learned from my parent's mistakes (from many others than this too).
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great post.
I thought i was definitely in the a small smack here and there as a tool to teach/train behavior would be part of my parenting toolset when required. Now that i have a kid i'm just not so sure. Mind you my guy is only 18 months so his mis-behaving is limited, but i just can't see how hitting him is the
onlyway to get a message across.
again, to spank or not spank debate aside, i think the line where spanking becomes child abuse has been crossed, that's without even having to define where that line actually exists. what has been described here is above and beyond the amount of force that a person of that strength needs to apply to a 4 year old under the veil of disciplinary "spanking" .