[interbaoui]

Should parents be allowed to physically punish their children?

How can you punish a kid these days?

If you send them to their room, they just play with whatever games are in there, watch TV or listen to music.

If you take all of their gadgets away, they'll just go to sleep, hoping the parent forgets all about it.

If you ground them, they don't care.

If you try talking to them nicely without raising your voice, they will tell you to 'f*** off'...

*My 11 year old niece said this to my mother when the niece asked if her friend could come over for a while and my mother simply said: "you know that's against house rules on schooldays and thus I cannot allow it"...

Her parents (my brother and sister in law were working late and my mother was babysitting the bitch)...

In the end, she invited her friend over anyway (I don't know why she even bothered asking 'permission')....my mother told my brother what happened and he yelled at my niece...then she put on huge 'crocodile tears' and went to her mother (my sister-in-law) with 'daddy is being mean to me'....then my sister in law and brother had this huge fight while my niece was hiding behind her mother laughing and poking her tongue out at her grandmother (my mother)*

If it was me, I would have pulled her pants down, put her over my knee and smacked her arse red raw...

...but no, that's 'sexual abuse' nowdays...back in my day, it was only 'humiliation' and nothing more.
We did not associate smacking children on the bum with getting 'frisky' with them....whatever sicko thought that up needs help...bad...

Yet, Social Services sees it this way and the first thing a child learns now is:
"If you even raise a finger against me, I'll go and tell the police and say really bad stuff".

I have smacked my kids a few times when they were younger....of course they still resent me for that....but seeing as how they have grown up to be respectful, polite, clean-living young adults, I don't really care.
I did what needed to be done and they knew just how far they could 'push the envelope' with me.

Now, if kids are drug addicts, criminals, vandals etc, society is all too quick to blame the parents for that...
What can parents actually DO though?

If a kid decides he/she is going to be an arsehole, he/she is going to be an arsehole regardless of any attempt the parent makes to try and instill morals/virtues into that child. In many cases, parents cannot be blamed.

If I was younger and just getting married, I would make the conscious choice not to have any children (it would probably be part of a pre-nup and I would rather not get married at all).

What I see in shopping centres and in public places totally disgusts me (9-12 year old kids laying down on the floor and throwing tantrums and all that....behaviour you would expect to see from a two year old).

Please discuss.

[art_fan_12]

Should parents be allowed to physically punish their children?

How can you punish a kid these days?

If you send them to their room, they just play with whatever games are in there, watch TV or listen to music.

If you take all of their gadgets away, they'll just go to sleep, hoping the parent forgets all about it.

If you ground them, they don't care.

If you try talking to them nicely without raising your voice, they will tell you to 'f*** off'...

*My 11 year old niece said this to my mother when the niece asked if her friend could come over for a while and my mother simply said: "you know that's against house rules on schooldays and thus I cannot allow it"...

Her parents (my brother and sister in law were working late and my mother was babysitting the bitch)...

In the end, she invited her friend over anyway (I don't know why she even bothered asking 'permission')....my mother told my brother what happened and he yelled at my niece...then she put on huge 'crocodile tears' and went to her mother (my sister-in-law) with 'daddy is being mean to me'....then my sister in law and brother had this huge fight while my niece was hiding behind her mother laughing and poking her tongue out at her grandmother (my mother)*

If it was me, I would have pulled her pants down, put her over my knee and smacked her arse red raw...

...but no, that's 'sexual abuse' nowdays...back in my day, it was only 'humiliation' and nothing more.
We did not associate smacking children on the bum with getting 'frisky' with them....whatever sicko thought that up needs help...bad...

Yet, Social Services sees it this way and the first thing a child learns now is:
"If you even raise a finger against me, I'll go and tell the police and say really bad stuff".

I have smacked my kids a few times when they were younger....of course they still resent me for that....but seeing as how they have grown up to be respectful, polite, clean-living young adults, I don't really care.
I did what needed to be done and they knew just how far they could 'push the envelope' with me.

Now, if kids are drug addicts, criminals, vandals etc, society is all too quick to blame the parents for that...
What can parents actually DO though?

If a kid decides he/she is going to be an arsehole, he/she is going to be an arsehole regardless of any attempt the parent makes to try and instill morals/virtues into that child. In many cases, parents cannot be blamed.

If I was younger and just getting married, I would make the conscious choice not to have any children (it would probably be part of a pre-nup and I would rather not get married at all).

What I see in shopping centres and in public places totally disgusts me (9-12 year old kids laying down on the floor and throwing tantrums and all that....behaviour you would expect to see from a two year old).

Please discuss.

tbh i think they should be able to give em a smack, obv not it excess coz thats abuse lol, but like slap on the wrist on a smacked bottom every now and again...didnt do any harm to me, so why would it them. children have got it too easy these days..its either you smack em and they go into care or you dont and they run your lives, think people should be a little less caring about how the child feels and more on how its gonna affect them when they grow up...the more they care about how "hitting" a child is wrong and shouldnt be done. the more the child is gonna grow up being spoiled and maybe even thinking they can do what they want...ending up in prison and what not.....people need to learn that hitting a child isnt totally wrong, aslong as its not in excess obv and it teaches them that what they have done is wrong...and if they do it again the same thing will happen, unltil the learn not to do it.

[majestictwelve]

Considering my age and how I was brought up if a kid in my family mouthed off they'd be lucky if they could sit after the belt was used! Or a good slap to set them in their place was always effective! Nowadays though with society being so lax and raising their little demon spawns to be total social ingrates with the intelligence of Jerry Springer guests I'd say were heading for a complete breakdown in society to the point the USA's youth will bring anarchy in a few decades if we don't do something as a whole to knock some friggin respect into their dumbass parents b4 anymore of them wind up in jail or dead!

Just saiyan!

[prearpaccew]

My arguement is that kids smacking kids isn't the answer. I'm sure that most things could be worked out if you talk to them.
Not every kid will tell you to **** off, they act like **** because they want to be heard.

[alexbookhyip]

Short answer; yes. Long answer; no. And that's all violence is; the short answer.

The idea behind it is to belittle the child and show them you have power over them. Smacking is just a form of that. If you're any good at being a parent, you should be able to teach them that "No" means "Bad" and "Bad" is a bad thing. They will then choose to be good of their own means. I have been brought up in a brilliant way. Sometimes I would get hit, but I'd never come out with a black eye or anything; just general punishment you'd give to a child.

I came out fine. Better than most.

YJ

[Lidawka]

Not all kids are like this I dont think All kids need it but if they do that idk

---------- Post added November 19th, 2010 at 11:46 PM ----------

I realy dont think it is Right their should be other ways

[ultimda horaf]

Well, depends on what you mean by "smacking kids". If your talking about smacking a kid in the mouth, then I say that's wrong. But, if your talking about smacking them on the rump, i.e. "whooping them", then I say yes, it's needed.

The reason I think so, is that it seem's the most effective method of teaching a child right from wrong, as long as it's not abusive. I know what your probally thinking, how is it possible for hitting a child NOT to be abusive? Well...if you use an open palm compared to a fist....um, that's not abuse in my opinion. I know that I personally was given physical discipline when I was a child and I turned out okay, for the most part. I know everytime I got whooped, I deserved it. And everytime I was disciplined, I can definetlly remember it. Afterwards, I knew what I did was wrong and I knew not to do it again.


I don't believe that's the only method, or the right method for all, of teaching a child right from wrong; but I do believe it is very effective.

[Brareevor]

i think kids should be punished, but not with hitting. more like endurance test, my dad was old fashioned and had us stand in the corner with our arms wide open, up one leg, and stand there for quite some time without talking. and mom just agreed with it. there was no opening for weakness in their punishments. no way to pit them against each other.

[AbeldeldepBug]

i think kids should be punished, but not with hitting. more like endurance test, my dad was old fashioned and had us stand in the corner with our arms wide open, up one leg, and stand there for quite some time without talking. and mom just agreed with it. there was no opening for weakness in their punishments. no way to pit them against each other.

That's a form of physical torture. Same thing, only the person doing it is denying themselves the guilt. Which, IMO, is worse, because they are unaware of the pain they are causing. When you hit the child, you are concious of what you're doing could harm them.

YJ

[rengerts]

So, pretty much you are generalizing basing on your own few experiences and anecdotal evidence disregarding all the other hundreds of millions of other children.

Your kids turning out right means nothing. My friends grand father smoked about 4 packs of cigarettes a week (I've seen him do it) and he lived till 93. Does this make smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a week okay?

Operant Conditioning, popularized by B.F Skinner, is more than ample evidence to prove that corporal punishment doesn't work. There are two types of punishment, negative and positive. Both of them are used to attempt to make certain behavior go away. There are several studies which show corporal, or positive punishment, is when you hit the child to make a certain behaviour go away. The problem with this is that the punishment doesn't come immediately after and loses its purpose. For example, if your dog takes a piss on your carpet and when you get home he is lying down and you swat it with your newspaper, guess what is going to happen? He is going to stop lying down because that was what he was doing when punished. Same thing applies to children. You can go on and on about the differences between dogs and humans, but we learn the same way. Also, when you're punishing your child, you're not in the perfect state of mind. More likely than not, you will be angry. And anyone intending to hit someone when angry isn't a good thing.

On the other hand, negative conditioning works a lot better. You said the children will just go to sleep, tell me, how long can you sleep for? If your teenager is up past curfew, take away the TV, Video Games, Cell Phone, driving privileges for a week. No one can sleep for an entire week, they will be bored out of their mind. It works, its proven. They know what they did wrong and they don't want to relive that experience.

You talked about sending kids to their room, your fault. You're doing it wrong. The right way to terminate behaviour efficiently is through negative punishment. Sending them to their safe haven is really gonna work, riiiiiiiiight?

If your kid is already acting like that you failed before hand. You use positive reinforcement and give your kids a reward when they do something right, a reward doesn't have to be candy or anything either, a simple thank you after washing the dishes works fine. You can further use intermittent scheduling of rewards with better rewards (like a dollar) to make sure the behaviour doesn't go extinct. This is done by giving your child a dollar, on average, every third or fourth time they wash the dishes. This way the behaviour will become automatic and they will start doing it themselves.

Finally, your whole idea of "blame the kids not the parents" is also wrong. If you tell me a kid, whose parents bring him up right, make sure he gets an education and doesn't do anything bad, will become a crack addict and a kid whose parents neglect him, don't care for him, and don't bother doing anything for him at all won't become a crack addict, you are sadly wrong. It is proven both nature and nurture determine a kids behaviour. As famously said by John B. Watson:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

This just shows that how a child is brought up and their behaviour is 100% affected by their parents.


To Summarize: Your kids that you didn't bring up right don't account for everyone. Your one case of anecdotal evidence isn't enough either. Decades of research have shown the opposite of what you say to be true and it is more than fact.

[JanetMorris]

Do you mean simple spanking with a paddle? So long as it's just that and not too hard then I have no problem. Plenty of people were spanked; they have no problem with it and even agree with it. It's more effective in getting rid of bratitudes over "teaching and reasoning" with a childish and immature brat.

But of course, it's wrong here to do that. Let us BS this issue to death with every excuse because we are sensitive and over-react. Spanking with a paddle? Torture, I say! Let us use arguments to demonize spanking that can easily be turned right back on us.

Besides, everyone here has kids and knows how unreasonable naughty brats can be, riiiight?

Come, let us reason together.

[SergeyMaikov]

i think kids should be punished, but not with hitting. more like endurance test, my dad was old fashioned and had us stand in the corner with our arms wide open, up one leg, and stand there for quite some time without talking. and mom just agreed with it. there was no opening for weakness in their punishments. no way to pit them against each other.

So your dad and mom was abusive?

So, pretty much you are generalizing basing on your own few experiences and anecdotal evidence disregarding all the other hundreds of millions of other children.

Your kids turning out right means nothing. My friends grand father smoked about 4 packs of cigarettes a week (I've seen him do it) and he lived till 93. Does this make smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a week okay?

Operant Conditioning, popularized by B.F Skinner, is more than ample evidence to prove that corporal punishment doesn't work. There are two types of punishment, negative and positive. Both of them are used to attempt to make certain behavior go away. There are several studies which show corporal, or positive punishment, is when you hit the child to make a certain behaviour go away. The problem with this is that the punishment doesn't come immediately after and loses its purpose. For example, if your dog takes a piss on your carpet and when you get home he is lying down and you swat it with your newspaper, guess what is going to happen? He is going to stop lying down because that was what he was doing when punished. Same thing applies to children. You can go on and on about the differences between dogs and humans, but we learn the same way. Also, when you're punishing your child, you're not in the perfect state of mind. More likely than not, you will be angry. And anyone intending to hit someone when angry isn't a good thing.

On the other hand, negative conditioning works a lot better. You said the children will just go to sleep, tell me, how long can you sleep for? If your teenager is up past curfew, take away the TV, Video Games, Cell Phone, driving privileges for a week. No one can sleep for an entire week, they will be bored out of their mind. It works, its proven. They know what they did wrong and they don't want to relive that experience.

You talked about sending kids to their room, your fault. You're doing it wrong. The right way to terminate behaviour efficiently is through negative punishment. Sending them to their safe haven is really gonna work, riiiiiiiiight?

If your kid is already acting like that you failed before hand. You use positive reinforcement and give your kids a reward when they do something right, a reward doesn't have to be candy or anything either, a simple thank you after washing the dishes works fine. You can further use intermittent scheduling of rewards with better rewards (like a dollar) to make sure the behaviour doesn't go extinct. This is done by giving your child a dollar, on average, every third or fourth time they wash the dishes. This way the behaviour will become automatic and they will start doing it themselves.

Finally, your whole idea of "blame the kids not the parents" is also wrong. If you tell me a kid, whose parents bring him up right, make sure he gets an education and doesn't do anything bad, will become a crack addict and a kid whose parents neglect him, don't care for him, and don't bother doing anything for him at all won't become a crack addict, you are sadly wrong. It is proven both nature and nurture determine a kids behaviour. As famously said by John B. Watson:



This just shows that how a child is brought up and their behaviour is 100% affected by their parents.


To Summarize: Your kids that you didn't bring up right don't account for everyone. Your one case of anecdotal evidence isn't enough either. Decades of research have shown the opposite of what you say to be true and it is more than fact.

this

[doctorzlo]

Besides, everyone here has kids and knows how unreasonable naughty brats can be, riiiight?

Sorry to get off topic here, but, I believe most people here are kid's, lol. I base that off a pole I took recentlly in GD. According to it, %49.12 of people here are sixteen to twenty. So...I would say the majority of the people at this site DON'T have kid's.

But I see your point and agree with everything you said....which I deleted out of your quote for convenience of discussion, lol.

[kHy87gPC]

My mom worked at a school for ten years and me AND her babysat for years. Kids are total spoiled, unappreciative, wise, rude brats. and their parents SUCK at their job.

You do something bad you get a 'whuppin. you do something good you get rewarded.

I remember in The Boondocks when Grandad was in the grocery store and a kid was being a brat, and the mom said "i just don't know what to do with him anymore" and grandad nonchalantly says "You ever try whoopin his a**?" and he hands her his belt.

Classic.

[asypecresty]

[FONT=Century Gothic][COLOR=royalblue]Sorry to get off topic here, but, I believe most people here are kid's, lol. I base that off a pole I took recentlly in GD. According to it, %49.12 of people here are sixteen to twenty. So...I would say the majority of the people at this site DON'T have kid's.

Teenage Pregnancy is a bitch

[timgillmoreeztf]

So your dad and mom was abusive?


this

not abusive...kind of just military style

[Adeniinteme]

Right now, I'm in a dilema of having to help raise my cousins. They were spoiled rotten their entire lives, but now they can't afford that so I'm trying to get them out of that habbit. Whenever they do something stupid I WANT to hit them because I was hit every now and then if I did something bad and I turned out as a straight A, polite, and out-going and positive person. But NO, my mother who is also assisting in the raising insists that hitting will only bring problems(i.e they will resent us, Social Services, blah blah) so I have to ask nicely. So my new policy is I will ask nicely 2-3 times, if that doesn't work I hit. It seems fair, does it not?

[warrgazur]

My mom worked at a school for ten years and me AND her babysat for years. Kids are total spoiled, unappreciative, wise, rude brats. and their parents SUCK at their job.

You do something bad you get a 'whuppin. you do something good you get rewarded.

I remember in The Boondocks when Grandad was in the grocery store and a kid was being a brat, and the mom said "i just don't know what to do with him anymore" and grandad nonchalantly says "You ever try whoopin his a**?" and he hands her his belt.

Classic.

This is the point of my previous post on here!

[deermealec]

over "teaching and reasoning" with a childish and immature brat.

If you teach them well in the first place, they won't be an immature brat.

YJ

[FredderiK]

If you teach them well in the first place, they won't be an immature brat.

YJ

True, but the question here is, how do you deal with the ones that have already turned into immature brats and how to properly deal with them? The first time I posted to this I was hurried, so I wasn't able to post what I wanted to. Now that I have a little more time, I'll try to explain my own personal view of this subject a little better for those willing to "listen".

Well, back years ago, it was normal for children to get spankings or whooping from their parents as a form of discipline; I know I did. Times have changed however. Many people today argue that it is not necessary to physically discipline children and that "time outs" or taking away toys or privileges work just as well or better. Many parents disagree with that.

Thing is that today's parents discipline their children in many different ways. Some feel that physical discipline is just wrong and abusive while many believe that if it is done the right way that it is not as damaging as many think.

Here are three "what if" situations I offer.
Spoiler:
1.)A three year old boy gets a hold of a butter knife and attempts to stick it in the wall electrical socket. Mother catches him and stops him and slaps his hand. She feels that it's better that he know how a slapped hand feels than the feeling of getting a shock and being thrown across the room. Mother explains the best she can to her son why she slapped his hand and just what the consequences would have been had he succeeded in placing the knife all the way into the socket. She runs to the store and purchased eight packs of wall socket covers. Was the mother's method of discipline in that instance inappropriate?

2.) Father catches his thirteen year old son smoking a joint behind the garage. He removes his leather belt and gives the boy about five or six good, hard slaps on his ass. Father has a no tolerance view on the use of drugs and sends a clear message to his son that if he smokes marijuana that he will get a beating. Father tells his son that he will NOT have a "pot head" in his house and he will be out on his ass with it kicked if he ever catches or hears of marijuana use again. Was the father's method of discipline in that instance inappropriate?

3.) A fourteen year old girl who looks like she's nineteen sneaked out of the window and ner Mom noticed that she was gone. She waits for her daughter to get home and she comes stumbling in drunk at about 3am. Mom takes her daughter by the shirt and slams her up against the wall (hard enough to scare her but didn't hurt her daughter) telling her that if she ever comes home like that again or sneaks out she will be sorry. Mother will not tolerate drinking in her home or going out and coming home way past curfew. Too many bad things can happen to a young and pretty girl when alcohol is involved. After the fourteen year old sobers up, mother tells her daughter that she was worried sick about her and wondering what had happened and that she almost called the police and tells her daughter to please take into consideration how her actions affect other people who love them. Was the mother's method of discipline in that instance in appropriate?
Some people feel that physical discipline is wrong and abusive but most agree that when it is done that there is a right and wrong way to do it. Thing is that when a child is physically disciplined with a belt, or a switch, the parent cannot properly judge or determine the level of force being applied to the child. Using a belt or a switch is no different from using a whip. Would you use a whip on your child? Furthermore the use of any tool (wooden spoon, stick, ruler, etc) is inappropriate as you cannot determine the level of force that the child will feel.
Here are my opinions of the three situations.
Spoiler:
1.) In the three year old boy scenario, in my opinion, the mother's method of discipline was appropriate. She conveyed to her son that the result from playing with an electrical socket was pain. The pain that she administered to the boy was far less than the pain and damage that would have resulted had he got that butter knife all the way in the socket. Afterwards, mother explained the best she could to the boy that she was worried about his safety and told him just what could have happened. She then ran to the local hardware store and bought outlet covers for every open outlet in her home.

2.) In the thirteen year old son scenario, in my opinion, the father's method of discipline was inappropriate. He used a belt to hit is son that in my eyes is not much different in using a whip. It is likely that the son had welts on him. Afterwards, the father threatened his son with more violence and threatened to render him homeless if he ever smoked pot again. The son fears his father and is more likely to rebel against his father and do it again.

3.) In the fourteen year old girl scenario. In my opinion, the mother's method of discipline was appropriate. With a child that age unless you really hurt them, a physical method of discipline isn't effective. Mother chose to use a display of force and power that did not hurt her daughter but woke her up so to speak. Afterwards, mother explained to her daughter why she disciplined her daughter and conveyed to her daughter that she was scared and that she cares and loves her daughter.
Some people feel that "time outs" and the removal of toys, games, activities or privileges is just as effective as physical discipline but fact is that every child is different. Some children are very easy to discipline and they comply very easily, others will challenge you more. But if you must physically discipline, never use a tool (belt, spoon, etc) and never leave bruises or welts. In my opinion, the use of anything other than the parent's bare hand is abuse.