This is the problem .. if you were raised by parents who spanked you, in the heat of the moment (and believe me, raising kids is ALL ABOUT living in the heat of the moment) what do you do INSTEAD?

We learn our parenting strategies from our parents very early .. like before-we-can-even-speak early, and we are required to deal with our own children's issues when they happen, not when we've had time to plan.

So saying "it's bad to hit your child, so don't" is like saying "it's bad to use gas, so don't" without coming up with an alternative first.

Parent education. Parent education. Parent education. It is important ... this is one of this situations where you can't use a "Just say no" approach.

positivediscipline.com

askdrsears.com

Educate yourself before you get into a situation. Learn how to self-calm and reason out better ways to treat your child with the goal of teaching them better behavior, so that you dont' have to keep telling them what to do and then punishing htem when they don't. Choose the ideas that work best between you and your children.

I have plenty more info where that came from if you want more.

Any discipline done "in the heat of the moment" will not be effective and won't give you the long term results you want. I don't think that beating your child will benefit either one you but saying that spanking should never be used and is always abuse, is equally ridiculous.

Any good parent will agree with me that they will sometimes have to pull out their entire bag of tricks to deal with some situations. One method all the time will rarely work properly.

When I've found spanking to work is when the child is completely irrational. A wack on the butt gets their attention and let's them know you are serious. At that point, hopefully, their attention is focused on you and you can talk to them about the situation.

What I thought was hilarious about the article is that the author came at the issue with the idea that parents that spank essentially wack on their child for a while and then the discipline is over.

Let's look at the other side of the story. Since the PC police have been advocating "time outs" and saying that all spanking equals abuse, children in general are more disrespectful and feel that they are more entitled. What ever happened to ma'am and sir? Are you saying that 50 years ago all children were severely abused and their spirits "broken"?

Danam, spot on.

For me, it's not that spanking is or is not good or not good. It's that by making something illegal or even "shameful" to do makes me, as a parent, feel guilty about any little thing I do to discipline my child.

We are told that we should "choose our battles" and not say "no" that often. Try to be more positive. But that's such "wishy washy" advice without actual real world practice that you could wind up like I did. I chose my battles, and still tried to enact boundaries, but either I was doing it wrong or it didn't work on my children due to personality, or both. Probably both. For example, my kids kind of took over the house, toys everywhere, played in every room. Other kids their age that come over to play do the same thing. Nothing is sacred. Everything belongs to them. Why? Because you picked your battles but maybe you picked the wrong ones. How are you to know which ones are the good one and which ones are the bad ones?

It seems to me that the "old fashioned" way of dealing with kids is the best place to start from and then you can tweak it from there. In other words, allow less freedom first and see what your kid can handle and then give more and more as time goes on.

Does that make any sense?

I just remember that I really didn't start talking back to my parents until I was like 7 or 8, maybe 9. But my kids are 4 1/2 and almost 6 and they're talking to me sometimes like they are 8 or even (Heaven help us!) 13! I get the feeling that somehow my parents and generations before that (my parents are not Baby Boomers, but whatever that lost generation is that came right before) somehow knew how to "act" like a parent such that they could give the "look" and that would almost be enough. There was "authority". Not "authoritarianism", just "authority". Kids nowadays don't respect their teachers, the police or any other form of authority, mostly because I think, they know that our society has become such "advocates" for children, that we think they can do no wrong and so when the child cries "abuse", they must be telling the truth and CPS is called, etc.

In the old days, the neighbors could tell your kid off for bad behavior and your kid didn't come home and tell you because he'd get it worse from you. Today, parents are tongue-tied when they see another child misbehave in front of them - if they say something, they're labeled as awful or horrible or whatever and in some extreme circumstances, might find themselves sued. Same with teachers. Then they enact "zero tolerance" rules which are just ridiculous and cause more problems than they solve. Mostly because the schools are afraid of getting sued. That's just ridiculous!

In other words, there is that magical place that adults can be in, where they are neither frightening nor weak, but authoritative and loving and nuturing. I feel like my parents had that knack naturally, but somehow many of us have lost that ability and I wonder if it's because of the PC attitude that has been taken with children. And my mother spanked me about a handful of times and had no problem telling me "no". Perhaps she could have picked battles, too, but I wonder if that type of thinking is better used when the kids are older when you know their personality better, than when they are toddlers and really, IMHO, need more structure and boundaries.

I remember the old cartoons (like Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry) and they had the bratty kid causing havoc. I think it was Bugs Bunny. And at the end, Bugs or somebody grabs the "Child Psychology" book, opens it and inside there's a brush and Bugs uses it to spank the child. And those Bugs Bunny cartoons are from what, like the 40s and 50s and 60s. I remember also a movie with Jimmy Stewart where he takes his family on vacation and his older daughter and her husband are there with their child and he's misbehaving and she's doing nothing and when Jimmy tries to discipline the boy, he's told that the "experts" are saying that children shouldn't be told "no".

Of course, I'm sure there is hyperbole there, but that movie was also from the mid-60s, so this new way of thinking is not that new.

Perhaps a mix of the old and the new is the right way to go.

I think the spanking issue is more about how "strict" each side thinks they need to be. Some feel that outlawing spanking really means not being "strict" enough, not being authoritative enough. Knowing they can't get spanked, will kids push and push even harder to see how they can break us? I know my kids probably would. That's just the way they are. But knowing that they can get spanked, that parents will take out the whole bag of tricks, may just put kids on their guard and make them watch their Ps and Qs.

Just my take.

Sorry that was long. Stream of consciousness.

Cheers.

"Since the PC police ..."

Right on.

But I think 50 years ago kids didn't have the brain candy/horrible crap of TV and video games to deal with. Now, my little brother and I did (okay, not in the minivan on long trips), but the reason we traversed that minefield with any aplomb is because our parents were very conscientious to limit our time in front of the tube and talk to us about commercials, etc.

I think it really comes down to parents being engaged. 50 years ago, a FT mom had that sort of opportunity, not that it was always easy or what she necessarily would have preferred, given options. And not that there weren't abusers.

It's real easy these days to be worn out from your job when you have to interact with your kid. And there are a lot of distractions now that certainly didn't exist 100 years ago.

Also, a lot of people have kids when they just plain old aren't cut out for it.

It's all about the parents.

What's an "FT mom"? Never seen that term before.

Full Time mom, i would think. although my mom was a teacher, and i don't know how anyone could then proceed to call her a part time mom. that's insulting. and not true. and the whole "full time mom" term, suggesting that my mom - or any other working moms - are somehow automatically inadequate, really really makes me mad. i remember as a kid thinking that my mom was better than anyone else's mom BECAUSE she had a job, i thought it must mean that she was smart and all the other ones were stupid. anyway. i digress.

what's with this "never tell your child no" thing? personally i think that's one of the more important words for kids to hear....i'm only being slightly facetious....if they never hear "no" as a kid, what's going to happen when they don't get into harvard? or don't get the job they want? or they ask a girl out and she says - you guessed it - no? that's ridiculous. i asked my dad for a horse for my birthday every year until i was 12. always got the same answer, no. because, he told me, horses are expensive, and we didn't have the money. that was always a perfectly good explanation for me. never held it against him. "no" without reason was also perfectly acceptable. (more often, the reason was "because i said so", which is completely logical) i am not scarred, for life or otherwise.

I have to completely disagree. I've worked with American kids in several different places (and different age ranges and backgrounds, too!), and almost every single one of them has been respectful and fun to be around. I'm not sure where all the mouthy, rowdy kind I keep hearing about are, but after working with thousands of children and teens, I can say that I'm pretty optimistic about America's future.

Maybe it is the fact that the schools push this agenda of "your parents can't touch you" on the children early. The threat of "authority", in this case the "supreme authority of your parents", is that they are supposed to be able to do with you as they will (at least in the child's mind). The rest of us adults in society then interact with them and decide if they are pushing the limits and need to back down or are full-out abusing the child and need pushiment of their own.

You can't have "authority" if you have no authority to use. You should not abuse, but if it gets to the point of a Cosby skit "my dad said 'Son I brought you into this world, and so help me God, I'll take you OUT'", then the kid should be rightfully afraid/respectful (two very closely related emotions). When kids pop off with the "Nah, nyah, you can't touch me", it should be met with the derisive laugh and the "Oh yeah? Watch this!" The parent has supreme authority in the house.

But the whole idea of a child thinking "Nya, nya, you can't touch me!" is predicated on the assumption that the parent would *want* to inflict pain on the child. In a household that doesn't use the infliction of pain as a form of discipline, the argument doesn't even make sense.

Children don't say "Nya, nya, you can't starve me!" or "Nya, nya you can't kill me!" because it just woiuldn't come up in a non-abusive household. And parents, in turn, wouldn't react with "Oh, yeah? Watch this!" In any case, that sort of reaction is *way* too immature for someone who's supposed to be raising a child. It's the reaction of an seven-year-old on the playground, not a fully grown adult in a caretaker role.

When kids pop off with the "Nah, nyah, you can't touch me", it should be met with the derisive laugh and the "Oh yeah? Watch this!" The parent has supreme authority in the house.

That's the kind of thing another child says to a smaller child. That's not what a mature adult says or does.

Argh! Literalists with no humor. Of course that is what little kids say to each other. That is how they think! If you can't get past the humor to see that the child must believe that the adult has supreme authority to punish misdeads without limitation, you just aren't reading. Kids think that limitations give some sort of control mechanism over the adult, one which they can exploit. Bah! Jump on a single line instead of understanding the context of the discussion. You guys must work for media outlets.

My dad was just talking about one of his (male) friends who said that his 9 yo son called the police and said that dad was physically abusing him. He pissed his son off somehow and this is how he responded. My dad's stance was that it was BS and that the police shouldn't bother researching the problem. My sister in law and I disagreed. The police have to do their job and make sure that it's not a real abuse situation before disregarding. But if I was that parent . . . after the police verify that the kid was just making up stories, I would push to have my son arrested for filing a false police report. Or whatever the punishment should be, I'm sure the police would be more than happy to help.

I said that the parents helped to create this monster by showing that they don't have the balls to let their child know who is boss. Not by beating them but by being the authoritative figure they should be.

My neighbor has a demon child in designer clothing. He was riding his pocket rocket (is that what it's called, the small motorized motorcycle that is only about 2 ft high?) and almost knocked down a woman, pushing her stroller and walking her dog. She went home and called the police. My husband was in the yard when the police showed up at their door and the mom stuck up for him and poo pooed the police officer.

I could go on all day with my frustration with some of these parenting (non-parenting?) methods that people are using and declaring themselves superior parents of nasty children.

My husbands sister (my SIL) and her husband ignore their children and their behavior, especially in public places. She laughs at me when I say we have to leave early because of my 3yo's bed time. Her response? I never let my kids dictate where we go and what we do. I used to think that hey, they are her kids to deal with but they are now my family and spending time with my kids. I just can't stand back any more.

We were at a bar and grill type of place. A little more casual environment so the kids can play a bit. There was a pin ball machine smashed up against a table with people trying to eat. My nephew was trying to squeeze around the chairs to play with this game, I told him to go play elsewhere. He kept ignoring me and bothering these people. I walked over to him and put my arms around him and whispered in his ear, "When I tell you to knock it off, you better listen. Now go!" The whole time his parents were off in the corner talking to each other and completely oblivious to what is going on.

I laugh when I see a parent with their 2yo saying "Now Johnnie, that wasn't very nice and you hurt my feelings when you kicked me. If you want to get that toy you will have to say please and promise you won't kick mommy anymore." All the while the kid is throwing a complete shit fit and the parent gets the toy anyway to shut the kid up so others won't think that they are a bad parent.

No I dont' need any more answers .. mine are all grown and gone ...

I'm just saying ....setting up the dictum "don't spank your kids" is a pretty poor idea if you don't help people with an alternative plan.

I don't think there really is a catch-all alternate plan, though. As long as you discipline with love and the child's best interest at heart, can it really be called wrong? And for all of those who will now jump on the "how is spanking in their best interest?" bandwagon, if you don't get it, it's not worth arguing about.

No matter if you start beating your child out of frustration, or belittle him/her with only words and actions, those are not done to make them a better person and are abuse.