Spanking your kids

Alright that is the topic right now... Because I just had this really weird dream. Alright this is what I think of spanking your kids. I think it's physical and sexual abuse. Also, when you tell your kids not to hit and then right after you spank them for it then your basically being a hypocrite. You tell your kids not to do one thing then you do it right afterwards. What's spanking your kids going to do? I know that when I was little I got spanked and it didn't help me much I grew up thinking how painful it was and grew up thinking that I have been hit and abused. Their are other ways to discipline your kids rather then hitting them. Their are other ways to resolve the situation. When I was younger I told my councellor that my dad use to spank my sister, brother and I and she said it was physical abuse. Yes I think it's a form of physical and sexual abuse. For one thing they are touching your private parts by hitting your ass and it's physical abuse and that's pretty self- explanitory.

 

I don't think I'll be hitting any of my children. I don't even like squashing insects.

 

Pretty much agree with you guys

Used to get slapped as a child, don't think it worked though. Can't remember it ever doing a fat lot of good.
I'm probably not a total fuck up because of it. But it's time to find a better way.
Can't see how I could truly love, protect and respect a child by treating them like that.

Don't see how it's sexual abuse, that's a whole area (in various ways). Although spanking, in certain contexts, is kinky of course. Never seen the appeal of it though. Probably as my only experience has been from a pissed off parent. So to me it's not erotic, just painful and humiliating.

 

i grew up in italy, with the most italian parents you could ever have.. and spanking is very common there.. i agree with it, as long as you don't leave a mark.. if you do, then you know you've been spanking too hard

 

all i know is that when my cousin Faith (who turns one on Feb. 11th and who I watch every week day) hit my daughter (six months, 14 days), after I tried to repeatedly move her away, I grabbed her little hand and gave it a smack...not too hard, but not too soft either. I immediately felt both ashamed and hypocritical. How can I smack a child for smacking a child??? It's lazy and ridiculous. There ARE better ways...but it takes more effort.

 

I totally agree with you. I mean when you spank your child for hitting your contradicting yourself. I have figured out a few different ways to discipline a child without having to be a hypocrit. talking to them and explaining why their actions are wrong, tell them to treat others as they want to be treated.

 

the thing is most spankers do it because they were spanked themselves, they don't know any other way, they don't realize they're doing more harm than good, it's tradition

 

It's a generation thing. 50 years ago, most parents spanked their children with belts. 40 years ago, switches were popular. 30 years ago, pattles were in. When I was growing up, parents usually just spanked you with their hands. Now, a lot of parents are opposed to spanking and use other forms of discipline. But that doesn't mean that every parent who ever spanked their kid was immoral and didn't love their kid. It means that society has changed. Society does that sometimes.

 

Here is a thread with a lot of hitting attitudes and comments.


My grandmother (dad's mom) was born in 1902, only a few years after her parents emigrated from Italy, she had a bunch of kids, and never hit them. She didn't belieive in it. I only remember my father (the Italian) hitting me once in my life (and I don't remember what it was for, but it was one of the only times I was afraid of him ever.) I'm Italian and I don't hit, and a lot of the mothers in my LLL group are also Mediteranean and they don't hit either. I don't think it's fair to say Italians like to hit their kids, or hit more than other Nationalites. My Celtic/Irish side of the family (my mother's side) is MUCH more violent towards their children than my Italian side. But I don't think it is because they are Irish, I think it is due to the matriarchs (my mother and her sisters) growing up in an alcoholic, abusive home, which also has nothing to do with their being Irish.

A lot of people hit their kids, and I never agree with it. But I don't see how it is attached to Nationality. JMO. I know you didn't mean anything by it, people often attribute family traits to Nationality, but I just wanted to interject that the stereotype of Italians being violent people is not always true. No hard feelings, I hope.

 

ok. If you spank your kids, it doesnt necessarily qualify as child abuse. Sometimes they just get out of line and thats soemtimes what people do, whether others agree with it or not. Now, unless your like one of those people constantly beating your poor kids with paddles, switches, or just your hands, slapping your kid wont do much damage if you did it a few times.

 

Historically, most cultures in the world did not spank their kids. As far as I know, no stone age cultures that were egalitarianally (sp?) organized into bands did.

Most American Indian cultures didn't - and they often had very formal cultures and religions. Inuit didn't, most Pacific Island cultures didn't. "Bushmen" in Africa didn't, in fact they controlled their kids the least of any culture I know of and had the least gender roles of any culture I know of. (I kind of like to read about anthropology)

It seems like the only cultures that hit kids were the "civilizations" - you know, the ones with war, the death penalty, subjugation of women, central government, accumulation of wealth, serfdom, slavery, murder, very organized relgion, abuse of animals for entertainment, etc. Think Europe (middle ages, slightly before middle ages), the Middle East (think taliban, the Old Testament, the middle ages), Asia (samurai age Japan, ancient China, also peaceful cultures like Tibet and India that still had caste systems and subjugation of women really bad), Mesoamerican civilization (Aztec sacrifices, war, slavery).

So the "generational thing" is limited. If you go back 4000 years, in pagan stone age matriarchal Europe, which is basically hippyland, people with beards and long hair, naked, carrying stone goddess figures like the Venus of Willendorf, there is no child hitting or wife beating or anything in their culture. (There is ritual fertility related whipping, which is found in other egalitarian cultures, which is a whole other weird story, because it's basically evidence that BDSM spanking is older than discipline spanking)

 

WHO does and how do you draw the line between a "beating" and a "spanking." Most psychologcial experts beleive that any hitting is QUITE damaging to children (yes most parents occasionally slip, but a child knows when you tell them you were wrong and apologise, this is really different than lording your physical violence over them.)

I do. So do many. It is just TOO easy to slip from a "spanking" to a beating, and who is keeping track? Better not to hit at all. People can and DO raise good kids without hitting (and let's call it what is is I hate the word "Spanking" it sounds so cutesy and nonthreatening.)

I find a lot of young kids who were HIT as children, and haven't come to the realzation that their parents were WRONG tend to blindly give an "OK" to "spanking." Learn from your parents mistakes, before you have your own. Most of us have.

Again, read this thread:
http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62396

There is some GOOD proven data about the dangers of HITTING, which is what is it, HITTING.

Good insight, Incense! I do think there are links between cultures which subjegate and belitting womyn, and those who abuse children and call it cute names. (like "spanking" for HITTING.) Remeber "Home Correction" and the "Rule of Thumb?" It was European law that men could HIT disobedient wives, and that the stick they used had to be no thicker than the man's thumb. How caring.............

 

well have you noticed today that people can be so stuck up about things like spanking your kids, music, tv, pretty much anything. If you slap your kid once in a while when they step out of line its not child abuse. Some psychologists today put out complete bullshit about that kind of stuff. thats like automatically saying if you spank your kids thats child abuse and they will grow up thinking they were abused and have many psychological problems. If someone would spank their kids from time to time when theyre younger than who cares. its not going to be damaging to the kid. I wouldnt ever hit my children, but then again I dont even want any.

 

people thinking spanking kids will damage them-one of the many things I cannot stand about people, especially the ones who want to shelter their kids so they dont know anything about the real world.

 

i still remember the terror of waiting til my dad came home to be spanked for something, and the awfulness of the spanking itself.but i still did the things i was spanked for, i just got slyer about it. my daughter also didn't learn from the spankings i gave her, she learned in other ways. same with all the other kids i see and know.

 

Same here. Just shows how much good that did.

What is this real world anyway?
You mean outside the home. Well out there it isn't okay for bigger people to intimidate smaller people with violence. Which is the exact opposite of what hitting teaches.
The only people in my whole life who have ever hit me are my parents. No one else is legally or socially allowed to do such a thing.
So hitting obviously has no place in the 'real world'.

(by bigger and smaller I mean those with greater power/dominance and those they dominate. Not always to do with size or age)

 

If you hit, it teaches that might is the ruling factor rather than reasoning.

I have hit one of my children once, he was 3 and I have regretted it as I did it out of fear.....not logical but hitting is not logical either.

My children are now 9 and 10.....

I forgive me......hope he does as it was fear that made it happen....not his, mine. I have no idea if he even remembers as I have not ever asked him. I hope with all my being that he does not, even though it was on smack on the butt as I can not even to this day justify it with any measure of fair in me.

Hitting or spanking is abuse.....it is all dependant on what you personally call abuse....a bruise or a red spot. It is still abuse.

 

Parents slip, don't beat yourself up if you smacked your kid's butt one time cause they ran into the street or something when they were three. The point is to know about and use other forms of discipline to raise your children, not be superhuman.

"people thinking spanking kids will damage them-one of the many things I cannot stand about people, especially the ones who want to shelter their kids so they dont know anything about the real world."

Sometimes it does damage kids, my parents had to stop spanking me because I started hitting kids at school when they did something I told them not to. It's not that much of a stretch for kids to get messed up by being hit by the people who are supposed to be your refuge in this world.
And now I know someone just said something about this, but yea, in the real world you're not allowed to hit. I couldn't even hit the bastard I know that beat up his wife (my husband unfortunately, has to work at the same company) so why on earth would I think it was ok to hit my puffy marshmallow boy? Lets see, I can't hit some piece of shit who deserves it but I can hit my little child? That doesn't even make any sense

 

I do not have a problem with spanking as long as it used as a preventative measure to top bad behavior..but only as a limited measure

 

WHO is to determing what is "a limited measure" one person's "limited measure" is an other 's beating. Which is one of the reasons that many civilized European countries have outlawed the practice. (Hmmm the same ones which don't start wars, have low domestic violence and rape and no death penalty. While in the US..........)

I don't think not wanting to perpertrate violence against little children is "Stuck up" (What are we, in 7th grade?) I think it is deplorable behavior. Nuthin to do with being "Stuck up" just by thinking our children need better behavior from their parents than being physically harmed.