Parenting through corporal punishment

[Athena]

Quote by: pahl Is it right for a parent to hit his/her child when the child has done something wrong? Is it a good method? Is it needed, or are there better ways of parenting wich does not include physical punishment? I belive that hitting a child is wrong and that there are better ways of raising the child. But obviosly not everyone share this view.

Who stays home to parent a child? Our children have babysitters or in day care centers or grade schools.

Now, do we want these people who care for our children to have permission to hit them?

[brien]

Quote by: Athena Who stays home to parent a child? Our children have babysitters or in day care centers or grade schools. Now, do we want these people who care for our children to have permission to hit them?

Athena; You have swerved into a legitimate question. If those who believe in spanking would be willing to allow child care providers to spank their children? Or is this a priviledge reserved for themselves exclusively?

[Fonceai]

Holy crap.

No person other than me or my wife will ever lay hands on my child. God help them if they did.

Even if I shed my incredibly aggressive fatherly attitude towards the issue... or my parentally possessive nature of no one telling my kid what to do... I end up with a very sensible opinion that I don't trust any other person to correctly apply the necessary amount of force and other forms of reinforcement to justify the initial act of physical punishment.

I don't think it's a privilege reserved for parents... it's a responsibility reserved for parents.

[brien]

I don't think it's a privilege reserved for parents... it's a responsibility reserved for parents.

That's why I put the word priviledge in italics. You are spot on, Fonce.

[Cephus]

Quote by: brien Athena; You have swerved into a legitimate question. If those who believe in spanking would be willing to allow child care providers to spank their children? Or is this a priviledge reserved for themselves exclusively?

Absolutely, so long as they did so in moderation and only when really called for. I think society was a lot better off when the schools could apply the paddle to the backside of badly offending students. I went to religious schools and while I never got the paddle, I certainly got the ruler across the knuckles once in a while and you know something... it worked, I stopped doing what got me smacked.

[Blueangel347]

I am reading posts that agree with spanking our children and shaking my head......... I raised four of my own and three of my sister's and had three State children, I never had a need to hit. All turned out very good. But then, my family never hit me. I think we pass down a learned process.

[Athena]

Quote by: Blueangel347 I am reading posts that agree with spanking our children and shaking my head......... I raised four of my own and three of my sister's and had three State children, I never had a need to hit. All turned out very good. But then, my family never hit me. I think we pass down a learned process.

Yes, I am comfortable with spanking, and schools swattering kids. But here I think what really worked was the socialization of the child and social agreement, not the hitting. In the 1950's the social agreements were pretty clear. I vividly had a sense that my mother's idea of right and wrong, was everyone's idea of right and wrong, so being good was about being socially accepted.

If a child doesn't have good relationships, hitting will only make matters worse. Today, I am thinking it is all the good stuff, a child feeling loved, acknowledged, self confident, secure, accepted, encouraged and inspired that works.

The Virtues Project and a simular one called Assets are getting very positive results. Both are about learning to think in terms of virtues, principles, values and building healthy relationships. If anyone is hitting a child without all the good stuff, the results will not be good. And may be, all a long, it was the good stuff that was getting the good result in the first place, and setting boundaries can be done without the hitting.

[pikatore]

Really, you cant explain to a baby why taking a crap on the floor is a bad thing. i think to be honest, in the early years, spanking (when no other alternative is really present) does the job. it isnt inhuman to spank, but it is obviously bad to abuse it.

[brien]

Quote by: pikatore Really, you cant explain to a baby why taking a crap on the floor is a bad thing. i think to be honest, in the early years, spanking (when no other alternative is really present) does the job. it isnt inhuman to spank, but it is obviously bad to abuse it.

you cant explain to a baby why taking a crap on the floor is a bad thing.

While this is true, you can teach a child to use the toilet without spanking him. In fact, if you spank a child when he/she does wet or soil themselves, that child will associate toilet training with physical pain and avoidance which will hamper and retard the toilet training process.

[brien]

it worked, I stopped doing what got me smacked.

True enough for you, but it doesn't work that way for everyone. You can't take your personal experience and apply it on a universal basis and expect the same results. I have written in the past, so I will write it again, spanking and corporal punishment simply breeds avoidance and fear, even if it accomplishes the goal of conditioning. Whereas, positive reinforcement accomplishes the goal through non violent conditioning. Given the choice, non violent conditioning is always preferable over violent conditioning because it gets results without the unwanted side effects.

[brien]

Yes, I am comfortable with spanking, and schools swattering kids

Too bad because it merely instills fear and avoidance in otherwise well developed children. In less well developed children, it will only increase their anti social behavior.

[pikatore]

Well if you can bring a child up without giving him or her a whack, and have a good product, congradulations. but as you said spanking isnt for everyone, neither is trying to reason.

[Cephus]

Quote by: brien True enough for you, but it doesn't work that way for everyone.

And I've never said that it should. Spanking is a CHOICE, not an obligation. I want to give parents that CHOICE. You want to take away that CHOICE.

I have written in the past, so I will write it again, spanking and corporal punishment simply breeds avoidance and fear, even if it accomplishes the goal of conditioning.

As you said, it doesn't work that way for everyone. It taught me that actions have consequences, a lesson that far too few children learn these days. You act badly, you have negative consequences. It certainly is a much more valuable lesson to learn than "do good and get good things, do bad and have nothing happen to you".

[brien]

You want to take away that CHOICE

Cephus; You statement above is a lie. Show me one of my posts where I recommend taking away someone's choice. In fact I have written the exact opposite. You owe me an apology, or at least admit you are wrong about your statement above. Now be a man and admit you are wrong here.

From my post #180:

All of this said, I will never force anyone not to spank their kids, only try to educate them in alternative ways of behavior modification.

From post # 188

Yes, I only believe what I believe to apply to my own family. Neither am I recommending anything to you, or anyone else, Fonce. Stone age, imo, is correcting behavior through corporal punishment. With all of the alternative methods to raising children without physically correcting a child's behavior, I don't think there is any reason for corporal punishment. There is just too much information for alternative means of behavioral conditioning to use physical conditioning in today's home. But heh, if someone chooses to be physical, not my business. When / if, it escalates into physical abuse, then it will be the state's business.

Now, how does crow taste?

As for this statement by you:

It certainly is a much more valuable lesson to learn than "do good and get good things, do bad and have nothing happen to you".

Who ever said "do bad and have nothing happen to you"? is a good philosophical approach to raising children?

[Trent]

I don't think adults should hit kids
They are smaller and can't hit back to defend themselves
If we want kids to grow up defending and protecting those weaker than themselves- (their own children for instance) surely it is not a good example.

I was hit a lot when I was a kid. It makes you feel humiliated, persecuted and hated - so what is the value in it?

As you grow up, you look back and see it as a weakness in the adult that beat on you. He (or she) didn't know what else to do but use their greater physical strength to get what they wanted.

If you smack your kid, you are using fear as a weapon against them and installing in them a dilemma - do they go on being a victim - or do they become 'stronger' than whoever is doing the hitting?

Believe me. If you hit your kid regularly - he or she spends a lot of their time thinking about the fact. I never showed my foster father how terrified I was of him, but I secretly wished for the police to come and handcuff him and take him away. Being a kid seemed hard enough, without some a-hole terrorising me day in day out.

I don't understand why people need to resort to smacking even
Surely as an adult, there must be a way to educate and reason with children that comes from common sense - after all, you've got years of knowledge over them - they surely can't be that difficult to bring around to your way of doing things?

Of course, parents must make up their own minds about it - but I think more research should be done about the traumatic effects that any kind of bullying (which I believe 'inflicting pain on someone weaker than you' amounts to) has on a child. Maybe some parents don't see the extent of the damage they are doing and how in later life it could alienate them from their child.

Put it this way - if your partner hit you every time you did 'something wrong' would you feel loved and protected by them?

[Epistemologist]

Quote by: Trent I don't understand why people need to resort to smacking even Surely as an adult, there must be a way to educate and reason with children that comes from common sense - after all, you've got years of knowledge over them - they surely can't be that difficult to bring around to your way of doing things?

Keep in mind that we're encouraging it as a means of Pavlovian conditioning in the child's earliest developmental years to instill the family's values. You don't want to take any chances here, because once the child has been successfully enculturated in the early years, then they wouldn't be expected to misbehave ever again unless some other unfortunate social factor comes into play. When it's too late, even a previously good parent might just give up.

But the goal there is to not use spanking ever again. And there's a difference between spanking and beating anyway.

Quote by: Trent Put it this way - if your partner hit you every time you did 'something wrong' would you feel loved and protected by them?

Parents aren't partners; they have a different natural duty, i.e. enculturation, protection, and thus love.

[Trent]

Quote by: Epistemologist Keep in mind that we're encouraging it as a means of Pavlovian conditioning in the child's earliest developmental years to instill the family's values.

but Pavlov didn't hit dogs

[pikatore]

Quote by: Trent but Pavlov didn't hit dogs

So you want to condition the child to stop unrule behaviour by ringing a bell???

[brien]

So you want to condition the child to stop unrule behaviour by ringing a bell???

If you are familiar with Pavlov, you should understand that conditioning can be acheived through postive reinforcement.

[Fonceai]

@brien

Excluding my own methods, I was thinking about the use of only positive reinforcement.

If you consider reinforcement on a scale, say from -10 to +10, with +10 being the most positive, then isn't a 0 just as bad as a -10?

Subsequently, won't you have to bombard the child with positive praise and reinforcement on a consistent basis so that the lack of it bears punishment?

Or even worse... being used to constant positive stimulus means the child will become dependent on it?