Physical punishment is child abuse. There are no arguments to make it NOT abuse or to justify it. If you hit or slap a child, that is abuse. That is not a matter of an argument. There is a clear black & white line in this particular issue. The answer to "can I hit my child to discipline him/her" is just like the answer to the question "should we make gay marriages illegal?" There is no two sides to the argument. The answer is always NO.
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Physical punishment for kids? Does it work?
- Thread starter The Futurist
- Start date
tonysidaway
Member
We've already had a warning on this thread from the mods about this kind of personal attack. The thread will be locked if it continues.
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
Right but the physical abuse did nothing. Well it spured you on to be even worse I guess. So you are in agreement that physical isnt the way?
I was spanked as a child from time to time, but I wish I could see how I would have developed without any physical punishment. I'd like to think I dodged most of the potential negative outcomes, although it might have fed into some of the tensions I have with my grandparents now (who had helped my mom with parenting duties).
It's easy to look at yourself now and think, "Yeah, I turned out just fine. Physical punishment must also be fine." However, when I think back to times that I was spanked, the instances that I remember most vividly are the times that I was spanked for something that I didn't believe was wrong, or for actions that I believed were misinterpreted. My memories of the spankings that were "justified" are much more hazy, and I don't think I remember a single "lesson" that I learned from them.
My mom has often told me stories of the physical punishment that she received as a child, I think mostly to show me how much worse she had it (she's not wrong about that). Do you think the things that stick in her mind are the valuable lessons that she learned from being smacked or spanked? Nope, every story she's ever told about being physically punished has centered around times that either she didn't understand or didn't agree with the reason for the punishment.
I don't know if this is true for everyone, but if our unjust and misunderstood punishments are the ones that have the most lasting impact, then that's too high a price to pay. 2/10 would not recommend.
It's easy to look at yourself now and think, "Yeah, I turned out just fine. Physical punishment must also be fine." However, when I think back to times that I was spanked, the instances that I remember most vividly are the times that I was spanked for something that I didn't believe was wrong, or for actions that I believed were misinterpreted. My memories of the spankings that were "justified" are much more hazy, and I don't think I remember a single "lesson" that I learned from them.
My mom has often told me stories of the physical punishment that she received as a child, I think mostly to show me how much worse she had it (she's not wrong about that). Do you think the things that stick in her mind are the valuable lessons that she learned from being smacked or spanked? Nope, every story she's ever told about being physically punished has centered around times that either she didn't understand or didn't agree with the reason for the punishment.
I don't know if this is true for everyone, but if our unjust and misunderstood punishments are the ones that have the most lasting impact, then that's too high a price to pay. 2/10 would not recommend.
It wasn't the reason I got worse. I got worse because I could. I won't lay the blame on my behavior on anything or anyone other than myself and what I did.
Well, for me, nothing worked except jail... so, I'm not sure how to even answer the question. I can say that my brother responded to light spankings, and he stopped misbehaving; whereas I obviously did not.
So, it's not black and white in my opinion. He wasn't willing to take the spankings, I was.
The water hose reference I made..
My little brother and I, we were on the trampoline play wrestling and squirting water all over the trampoline. Having a great time. Well, I did a choke hold on him with the water hose. Not really choking him. Just pretending. He was flailing around making it look real, ya know, like they do in the ring. I didn't realize he wasn't faking it. I put it a little too tight, not on purpose. My dad came out and saw it . He ran up there, grabbed the hose and tore my ass up with it. I felt so damn bad that I had hurt my brother while thinking we were just playing still. The beating with the hose wasn't even a thought in my mind.
Bullshit frankly, life is full of shades of grey rather than being black and white. There are however a few topics that it is fine to be black and white about.
In my opinion, physical violence towards children is never suitable.
I have very fluid and multifaceted views on say drugs and the legality of them for example
tonysidaway
Member
So, you're suggesting parents wait until the situation is resolved, they calm down, and then they hit the child?
I sincerely hope I'm not the only person who is creeped out by this kind of suggestion. Please don't hit your kids. I can understand, but do not condone, that a parent might lose control and lash out in the heat of the moment. But this cold-blooded and deliberate infliction of unnecessary pain is quite chilling.
Inflicting unnecessary pain on a child is child abuse. There is no need for it at all. You are inflicting pain on a defenseless child for no reason. Where is the line drawn? When does physical punishment turn into child abuse? Is it just physical punishment when a child is literally brought to tears for fear of their parents beating them? I saw that alot when I was a child.
Sometimes, it waited. Yes. My mom wouldn't do anything and just said, "we'll let your dad know what you did, and you know you're getting a spanking".
I guess they wanted me to be scared enough that I would quit doing the bad stuff. Dad gets home, he's told about what happened, and I get called into the living room. "Grab the wall..", whack whack whack. /cries cries, walks off with a FU dad attitude, I'll do this shit again.
OG Shaka Zulu
Member
Doesn't work at all. I've only reflexively hit my oldest in the hand or leg when he attacks his younger siblings. This has happened less than a handful of times and each time I have to step back and realize he is 3 and incapable of listening 100% of the time. He learns nothing from it and all it does is make him scared of me.
Its upsetting seeing your one year old catch a running dropkick to the head from their older sibling but that doesn't mean I have to respond with a hit myself.
Its upsetting seeing your one year old catch a running dropkick to the head from their older sibling but that doesn't mean I have to respond with a hit myself.
keltickennedy
Member
Sorry that happened to you OP.
Parents need to talk it out. Hitting is lazy parenting in my opinion.
You don't want a kid relating making a mistake with being hit.
Parents need to talk it out. Hitting is lazy parenting in my opinion.
You don't want a kid relating making a mistake with being hit.
That is pretty much a text book definition of how to NOT discipline your children ever, physical or not. Even ignoring the abusive part of it, you have to do the disciplining right there at the moment when it has happened, if possible. Waiting for hours, the child's brain just usually disconnects the (physical) punishment from what he/she did to "deserve" it. If there's only one parent around, he/she shouldn't go "wait till the other one comes home, then you're gonna get it!" He/she should deal it right there & then.
I think your story does sound like something where the violence just made you worse, whether you admit it or not.
I was hit, wouldn't do it to my kids. It's too easy and lazy.
Would binning their favourite toy after a couple of warnings be an ok punishment? That would probably be my thing.
By bin, I mean gone, done. Not taken away for a few days and then returned when they're behaving, they gotta find a new favourite toy.
Would binning their favourite toy after a couple of warnings be an ok punishment? That would probably be my thing.
By bin, I mean gone, done. Not taken away for a few days and then returned when they're behaving, they gotta find a new favourite toy.
QuantumZebra
Member
I play fight with my daughters all the time. Can't help it. They're my little mutants.
It HAS resulted in them being a bit more prone to level a kid if they mess with them... and yall can think I'm horrible but I'm ok with that. They don't bully other kids so w/e.
When it comes to physically spanking... that is a last-ditch measure. Usually time-out is wayyy more than enough (they HATE time out).
I found I used physical spanking when they were younger (3 y/o) because they would just go apeshit and words didn't work, but a smack on the butt does.
Now that they're 4 and 5 they are practically full-blown humans and I pretty much never need to spank them at all.
If you play it right, IMO time out is all you need. My daughters will do a backflip on command to stay out of time out.
That way you don't hit your kids and don't waste money tossing toys
95% of the time the people who say they would never use physical punishment or hit their kids, don't have kids.
Sometimes they are being violent little sociopaths (I have seen some straight up evil fucking kids at Chuck E. Cheese) and a smack on the ass is the only thing that snaps them out of it. It's just the way it is.
Same shit with those people who scoff and say they'd never feed their kids corn dogs or chicken nuggets or w/e... yea until they go on a 3 day hunger strike and you're losing your mind.
Noboru Wataya
Banned
Just because my upbringing and outlook on life disagrees with your own doesn't make it bad. I am not here to be judge jury and executioner like so many others feel the need to. I came to offer insight from my life, to what I find a tolierable level of physical discipline.
I never suggested a line of abuse started when someone is beaten bloody. I clearly implicated that I don't compare the smack on the hand/bum to be in the same ballpark as being beaten bloody (the extreme end of the spectrum) which, as per some responses here, some people seam to equate them as quite literally, one and the same.
You don't have to agree, but please don't try and undermine my opinion and insult my upbringing on an Internet forum due to a disagreement on my post.
I am here to read posts and see what the general consensus is on a very dark topic, not to tell anyone what is and isn't right. I thought it would be best to share a point of view from someone who was physically struck (albeit softly enough to not hurt) at a young age and don't agree that it's considered child abuse.
Now, I am a victim of child abuse (much later in life, in my teens) that resulted in blood and broken bones, but I know that's wrong, everyone knows that's wrong. So there was no point to post that, I posted a story about something I feel has not been made clear enough here. So yes, I may have had a poor upbringing, but I don't need people to make that call for me, nor point it out in a way to undermine me.
I am sorry you felt my post was poor and not up to your standards. This isn't an attack at you, but let's be a bit more friendly.
Edits: spelling (on mobile)
It definitely didn't make me worse. I was getting worse, period.
100% this.
I have a 2 yr old and an 8 month old. The thing is my 2 year old is far too young to understand why some of the things he does are wrong so the only effective way to prevent that behaviour is to redirect it somewhere else.
For example he is going through a drawing phase at the moment so as soon as I see he has a crayon in his hand I need to make sure he has paper to draw on otherwise the walls, cabinets etc are at risk. I treat it as a chance to try and explain that it is not something he should be drawing on. I then offer him the chance to try again on an appropriate surface and if he continues drawing on the walls I take his crayons off of him for a bit so he does realise that actions have consequences and sometimes those consequences.
Another thing to remember with very young children is that their brain is going through a lot of development and they are very impuslive so they often cannot even control their behaviour which makes spanking and time outs ineffective during the toddler years. Best solution is to just remove them from the situation or provide them with an appropriate outlet for whatever activity they are attempting to do. An example of this is my son was playing with a plug in the wall socket (UK plugs are safe so its not as dangerous as other places) so rather than let him play with that I gave him some duplo to play with as that has a similar action of putting things together and taking them apart to satisfy that impulse in a safe way while explaining that the plug sockets can be dangerous and I don't want him playing with them. Now he just goes straight for the duplo if he wants to fulfil that need rather than playing with the plugs, no hitting needed.
I also wonder how often parents are at fault for expecting a 2/3 year old kid to sit in a pushchair or to follow the parents around a shopping centre for hours without acting out, its boring as hell for me as a 32 year old so I cannot imagine how boring it is for a kid that young.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
We haven't spanked our 6.5 year old son or our 2.3 year old daughter. He is well behaved for the most part, far better behaved that his male classmates it seems. I would say that we have spanking in the tool box as a nuclear option, though it would require something really bad to trigger it and would no doubt be traumatic for all involved. But I can see a jolt to the system as being useful if things get really out of control- but again, that efficacy lessens if you go to that well too often. Our son is really sensitive so time outs and such are usually sufficient to correct behavior.
tonysidaway
Member
As parents, it's our responsibility to keep dangerous objects out of reach, but that's not always possible. In an emergency we do the minimum necessary to stop the child. Typically I would grasp the child's wrist or move the item out of reach. A verbal prompt, just "No!", should accompany the action.
I'm not sure how hitting or "flicking" as you call it, is supposed to be necessary. If you ever encounter a situation where a small child can't easily be physically restrained, however, let me know. That must be a very strong child indeed.
One Eyed Willy
Member
I have 2 kids, my parents would whack me from time to time as a kid.. and I think it was deserved and worked. Whats interesting is.. with both my 8 and 5 year olds they have never done a single thing that would ever warrant that kind of punishment. I've been super lucky, both my kids are great.
You know what they say, spare the table and spoil the child.
noomi
Member
I got it a few times as a child from both my mother and father.
Was beaten with a belt, the cord of a Nintendo controller, a wooden spoon, a shoe, and spanked a few times. I don't know why I remember these things... but I guess it must have had some sort of impact for me to remember after 25+ years. It was the norm for Polish/Slavik/Eastern European families.
I honestly probably deserved it and would never hold any resentment against my parents for it. I love them both very dearly and our relationship is very strong till this day.
Now that I am a father with a son of my own who is hitting the terrible two's age; I would never ever hit him. I have given him a light spank on the butt once or twice but never with force and never to make him upset, more so just to grab his attention and let him know that "Daddy is serious now".
Was beaten with a belt, the cord of a Nintendo controller, a wooden spoon, a shoe, and spanked a few times. I don't know why I remember these things... but I guess it must have had some sort of impact for me to remember after 25+ years. It was the norm for Polish/Slavik/Eastern European families.
I honestly probably deserved it and would never hold any resentment against my parents for it. I love them both very dearly and our relationship is very strong till this day.
Now that I am a father with a son of my own who is hitting the terrible two's age; I would never ever hit him. I have given him a light spank on the butt once or twice but never with force and never to make him upset, more so just to grab his attention and let him know that "Daddy is serious now".
Depending on age No is too vague and can mean too many things. Kids are stupid so its best to go with a specific instruction like Stop!
Same at the pool and instead of saying don't run give them an exact instruction like Walk.
Monocle
Member
It's a good way to teach resentment, which is invaluable when it comes time to fuck up your relationships and mismanage your emotions in adult life.
Generally, positive reinforcement works best. Give them some sort of non-physical punishments and maybe force them to stop playing Super Mario for the day if they misbehave, but all in all try to push them towards liking good behaviour & seeing the benefits of it vs. just learning to perhaps hide the bad stuff & lie better if they are always just punished and know their favorite toy/game can disappear forever. You know there's always the possibility you as a parent can misinterpret situations and if the children feel they were punished unjustly, that doesn't necessarily teach them much. So always just punishing isn't necessarily the best way to go around raising a child. Make them feel good when they do good as well, punish them when necessary & learn when kids are just being dumb kids instead of deliberately doing harm.
I have a 2 year old daughter and twin 6 month old boys. I cant even imagine getting to the point of wanting to give them that sort of consequence. My 2 year old is very active and gets into all sorts of things, but to think of spanking her... that only teaches her to fear me. I do not want her to fear me. The thing is that physical harm to a child reinforces the kid to be afraid of the parents. Imagine if when they are teenagers and they really need someone to come to but that built in fear stops my kids from confiding in me because they are afraid of how I will react (with physical harm). I in no way want to cultivate that type of environment.... because in the end... I had a bit of fear of my parents when I was young and felt that maybe I couldn't come to them in times of need.
This post raises an excellent point: If you allow for physical punishment you allow for a (likely significant) probability that children are being hurt when they have done nothing wrong. People who are in favour of physical punishment: Would you want a child to get hurt if it did nothing wrong? It seems twisted to me to be ok with that.
Or does someone want to argue that children who get punished always deserve it and that parents are somehow infallible? Logically it would seem to me that if you talk to your child first, the chance of unjust punishment decreases significantly. And if you're talking and getting an understanding already, where is the need to hit?
How did you determine it is a good way? Research has shown it actually is not a good way to teach consequence. In fact it is a poor way as it teaches nothing. Explaining something with words if far more effective at teaching something.
That's too easy and lazy, now a days you gotta bully them on social media and make sure all their friends see.
Make em do a whole bunch of embarrassing things growing up and use it as ammo to black mail them in their teens.
But for real,I have no idea how to effectively discipline kids, and i'm probably too much of a push over to actually follow through with anything serious.
Probably best I don't have kids, they would end up as a bunch of spoiled assholes.
Make em do a whole bunch of embarrassing things growing up and use it as ammo to black mail them in their teens.
But for real,I have no idea how to effectively discipline kids, and i'm probably too much of a push over to actually follow through with anything serious.
Probably best I don't have kids, they would end up as a bunch of spoiled assholes.
The Futurist
Member
I did not think this go would go for 20 pages.
It depends on the childs strength of character, if he is not given adequite love and attention, and also recieves physical punishment, then yes he may have skewed feelings on those subjects. But if physical punishment is used and balanced with all the other responsibilities that parents have to their children, it won't end up in hurting a childs emotional growth.
justjustin
Member
It works like any pain. Put your hand on a hot stove and you'll never do it again. But there's no moral aspect there.
Physical punishment doesn't teach you anything beyond reacting to pain. Getting slapped doesn't socialize you, much less teach you how to respect other people. Research shows physical punishment has long-term negative consequences, if any.
If you turned out fine, it's because you endured it, not because it helped you in any way. If you were hit as a kid and it didn't bother you, fine. But otherwise: Give yourself some credit. And give your parents credit for the good things they did, not violence. Parents make mistakes.
Physical punishment doesn't teach you anything beyond reacting to pain. Getting slapped doesn't socialize you, much less teach you how to respect other people. Research shows physical punishment has long-term negative consequences, if any.
If you turned out fine, it's because you endured it, not because it helped you in any way. If you were hit as a kid and it didn't bother you, fine. But otherwise: Give yourself some credit. And give your parents credit for the good things they did, not violence. Parents make mistakes.
Monocle
Member
Or better yet, leave out the physical punishment altogether and cultivate the good qualities through learning experiences. Kids will sponge up and internalize anything you throw at them, so it just might be a terrible idea to smack them around while they're still trying to understand things.
You don't learn good behavior by being hurt and confused, and mad at the parent who hit you. That promotes antisocial self-preservation strategies like lying, concealing, and avoiding. After all, the appearance of good behavior helps a kid avoid punishment just as well as actual good behavior. So why not become a better manipulator, a better liar?
tonysidaway
Member
Yes. It's a basic parenting skill to anticipate and eliminate risk. This is why I wouldn't have a deep fryer in my house, even before I was a parent. The chips may taste great but the risks of a hot spill or a fire are unacceptable. The first baby item I bought was a big fire guard that caged the gas fire in the living room, so it would be safe for the then-unborn baby when they started to learn to walk. Child-locks on all floor-level cupboards including the fridge, socket covers for all accessible mains outlets, and so on.
You can't anticipate everything, but you can substantially child-proof any room. When inevitably the child finds that one path to danger, I've never found a situation where rapidly restraining a toddler posed any difficultly.
You know what else would've worked? Just having some patience and waiting until they get tired of screaming and calm down. And yes, I've experienced this myself. Sometimes kids go apeshit and just scream-cry when you try to discipline them. At that point, you try to have a talk with them and if there was something that lead to it, just explain what was done wrong. They won't necessarily react & will continue screaming, but they hear every word. At some point they'll tire of screaming when they notice it's not getting them anywhere. And after that they'll usually behave (for awhile).
That's not because they weren't physically punished and physical punishment probably won't make it go away either if a child has grown to be such a monster.
Messofanego
Banned
Yup, hitting your kid isn't getting to the root of the problem. It's a temporary solution where the parent is more satisfied that the kid has stopped doing the problematic behaviour, but they can still continue doing it secretly.
I don't get how some posters here continue to believe in a hitting in moderation stance, seems like so much effort to calculate the severity of your hit and whether or not it leaves lasting negative effects on the child. There are other ways, always.
tonysidaway
Member
Looking at this, I think an outsider might get the impression that communication wasn't at its best in your family. Do you think that would be a fair observation?
Were you ever asked why you continued doing something? Did you ever understand why your parents thought what you were doing was wrong?
tonysidaway
Member
At that age I'd simply pick the child up and remove them from the vicinity. The worst thing that can happen is a tantrum, but I'd wait that out while soothing the child. At 3 there's not much sense trying to persuade the child to reflect on what they did, so I'd give them something interesting to do away from the other sibling.
A year or two later you can still easily pick them up but then or maybe a year later they're going to start remonstrating with you, often quite articulately, so you have to be ready with a convincing argument for your action. Explaining why kicking a sibling's head is worse than picking somebody up and spoiling their fun is an interesting activity, and some four-year-olds are up for it. That's why they started remonstrating, they want their point of view heard.
You can get these lessons in quite early, and that's good, because eventually just picking the child up is going to be too risky.
Messofanego
Banned
If they're prone to beat up some other kid, how do they not qualify as bullies?I play fight with my daughters all the time. Can't help it. They're my little mutants.
It HAS resulted in them being a bit more prone to level a kid if they mess with them... and yall can think I'm horrible but I'm ok with that. They don't bully other kids so w/e.
When it comes to physically spanking... that is a last-ditch measure. Usually time-out is wayyy more than enough (they HATE time out).
I found I used physical spanking when they were younger (3 y/o) because they would just go apeshit and words didn't work, but a smack on the butt does.
Now that they're 4 and 5 they are practically full-blown humans and I pretty much never need to spank them at all.
If you play it right, IMO time out is all you need. My daughters will do a backflip on command to stay out of time out.
That way you don't hit your kids and don't waste money tossing toys
95% of the time the people who say they would never use physical punishment or hit their kids, don't have kids.
Sometimes they are being violent little sociopaths (I have seen some straight up evil fucking kids at Chuck E. Cheese) and a smack on the ass is the only thing that snaps them out of it. It's just the way it is.
Same shit with those people who scoff and say they'd never feed their kids corn dogs or chicken nuggets or w/e... yea until they go on a 3 day hunger strike and you're losing your mind.
What does going "apeshit and words didn't work" mean, was it life-threatening? If not, I don't see reasonable justification for hitting 3 year olds. Even then, you're swatting their hands away or grabbing them rather than physical punishment which would be clear e.g. smacking the butt, slapping their face, etc.
So you're dismissing all the parents who have never hit their kids then, with an unsubstantiated figure of 95%.
QuantumZebra
Member
Ah yes, always someone that knows what you're doing better than you.
But funny enough wouldn't ya know - we tried that! And the cops showed up because of screaming bloody murder for 3 hours.
Didn't expect that eh?
Defending yourself is bullying now? Good to know.
And going "apeshit and words don't work" is when your child is screaming so hard and crying so hard you're pretty sure they're going to damage their face muscles or burst a blood vessel. And then the cops show up.
ITT: people without kids having opinions on things they've never experienced.
Theyre also dismissing all the countries where its literally illegal.
I also love that the unsubstantiated claim pulled out of their ass apparently trumps the very substantiated claim and findings of almost all research in existence and every child psychologist anyone can find.
People love hitting children. Easier to relieve stress through violence and let the children deal with it later than act rationally and deal with it properly in the moment.
tonysidaway
Member
I never did that. It sounds very cold-blooded. As I said earlier, I don't think I ever did anything either of my kids perceived as punishment. They really hated our disapproval, and would actively argue with us if they thought we were wrong. We in turn learned to listen and try to be fair. We still argue, and they're both thirtyish.
Physical punishment to children does seem a little like bullying because no one hits their kids once they can hit back. If it was an effective way of teaching people why not use it on teenagers or adults?
That said while I personally don't believe in it I have heard from so many people that it works, including friends who have raised great children, for me to completely dismiss it.
Not for me though.
That said while I personally don't believe in it I have heard from so many people that it works, including friends who have raised great children, for me to completely dismiss it.
Not for me though.
Just going off my posts, sure, fair. It wasn't bad though. They tried. They tried again. My parents, grandparents, doctors, psychiatrists, school counselors.. I was just broken. It literally took jail to make me see what I was doing.
People that knew me then, see me as a completely different person now. They way I talk, put everyone before myself, everything is different. Just because that one night in jail.
Did you ask the cops to come in? Maybe having your child see the cops and have them talk to the screaming wonder would've been better than violence, lol Forgive me if I have a hard time believing the 3 hours thing, your kid must have incredible stamina to be able to behave that way non-stop for 3 hours. I've only ever had to experience such for maybe somewhere between 1 to 1,5 hours, and even that had its luls where he gathered his strength to begin screaming more loudly again.
Even if it was 3 hours, I'd still not hit a child. But that's just me. I have nerves of steel when it comes to children crying & screaming. It's the adults who whine about inconsequential things that I find infuriating.
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
My parents hit me when needed when I was young. I understood what I did wrong and would never do it again.
One thing is a slap, another is beating the kid up. I agree with the first one.
One thing is a slap, another is beating the kid up. I agree with the first one.
Just fucking don't, ok?
Also in this thread - parents believing that because they have in fact had children they somehow were now certified and above criticism
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