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[Izuna]

Smacking children teaches them to resolve conflict with violence. The same way taking away their toys teaches them to steal and grounding them teaches them to kidnap.

Dumbest post award

 

[rpmurphy]

Never worked for my childhood. I developed an untrusting, fearful relationship with my parents so that I would hide all the wrongs and mistakes that I would make from everyone until they blew up spectacularly, instead of seeking the help that I needed.

Mom did all the hitting: face, arms, shoulders, etc., whatever part of my body left open. Dad never laid a hand on me, but he would let it happen or restrain me so that I could take the hits. I don't respect him much. Still got a few small scars from some of those occasions.

Never felt like I learned anything about discipline through all that. They always called me a rebel, as if I had no identity of my own terms and that anything I thought or did was purely for the motive of either obeying or disobeying them. A rebel I was not, and I never acted out in school, work, or whatever. More like a coward, really. All I wanted to do was to just fucking escape.

So no, it's shit.

As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between hitting your kid and child abuse is whether the parents have enough self-control to not leave marks that will get them in trouble with the law.

 

[legend166]

People who still believe, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that physical punishment works "sometimes" are basically truthers at this point. No more rational than anti-vaxxers.

I think it's incredibly difficult to come to specific conclusions for something so broad as parenting. How do you take into account the hundreds of variables and simply come up with smacking = good, or smacking = bad? I mean, most people would probably agree that more often than not, crappy parents are going to resort to smacking as a first option rather than trying anything else, right? Those parents are probably crappy in other areas too. How do you take that into account when you're just trying to work out the results of smacking?

I have a baby at the moment so obviously haven't had to face this question yet. I hope I'll never have to even think about smacking him. But I also know that children are not adults and don't have the reasoning capabilities of adults. The approach I'm going to take is to use a smack as a last resort for repeated willful disobedience and/or violent/dangerous acts. I'll never use a utensil and I'll never do it out of anger. I'll always try and couple it with verbal communication and love. Some people will think that makes me a monster I guess.

 

[AnathemicOne]

I think it's incredibly difficult to come to specific conclusions for something so broad as parenting. How do you take into account the hundreds of variables and simply come up with smacking = good, or smacking = bad? I mean, most people would probably agree that more often than not, crappy parents are going to resort to smacking as a first option rather than trying anything else, right? Those parents are probably crappy in other areas too. How do you take that into account when you're just trying to work out the results of smacking?

I have a baby at the moment so obviously haven't had to face this question yet. I hope I'll never have to even think about smacking him. But I also know that children are not adults and don't have the reasoning capabilities of adults. The approach I'm going to take is to use a smack as a last resort for repeated willful disobedience and/or violent/dangerous acts. I'll never use a utensil and I'll never do it out of anger. I'll always try and couple it with verbal communication and love. Some people will think that makes me a monster I guess.

Yes, because there exists people who have suffered corporal punishment and has caused serious lasting/permanent emotional damage just like any sort of physical abuse onto another, the difference is that the kid/child can't fight/resist back. When a person kicks a dog (at any age) for instilling obedience we call it animal abuse. When a husband hits their wife we call it domestic violence. When a person lays a hand upon their child we call it parenting.

 

[BudokaiMR2]

I rarely got physical punishment from my mother as a child, but the times that it did happen are still very clear in my head and you can be damn sure I never did what got me in trouble again.

For our son (3 yrs old), we stick to a system of taking away rewards and privileges.
As with most kids his age, he loves stickers and stamps and we basically set a rule for a specific week or month that is tied to a progress chart thing (don't bite your nails, don't bully your little sister, etc) and if he breaks whatever promise he made he doesn't get to place a sticker for that day.

It's not full-proof and we are a bit too lenient with it, but we have gotten a few bad habits out of him this way.

If he really acts up, we take away certain privileges and such.

The only time I have seen my wife do anything close to physical punishment is when he does something bad to his little sister, who is still under a year old. For example, there was a time when he pushed her over when she grabbed one of his toys, causing her to bang her head.

He had been warned over and over about it and this time it was a pretty hard shove so my wife did the same thing to him (though softer and on our playmat-not the hardwood where the little sister fell), basically to make sure that he understood that it did hurt.

He's gotten better recently, but we still have incidents like that. It's almost always over her grabbing his toys, and I gave him a new rule last night that any time he does it after being warned we are just going to take away the toy in question and give it to his sister.

 

[tonysidaway]

I was hit with either an open hand on my ass or a belt on my ass 3-5 times between ages 6-16, and let me tell you that I deserved it every time. Of course, if other methods work - which was by and large the approach my parents took - avail yourself of that first. But sometimes the offense is so egregious, or the child's lack of verbal understanding so pronounced, or the level of recalcitrance so high, that it is warranted within reason. I don't much care who says otherwise.

Would it be rude to ask what conduct by a six-year-old deserves such a beating? I'm using your word.

I'm also a little puzzled by your reference to a child's severe "lack of verbal understanding" as grounds for a beating. Do you mean you were beaten for not understanding what people were saying, and you deserved this?

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

Lol @ asking this on GAF. Double lol @ it having 600+ replies in less than a day.

I was hit with either an open hand on my ass or a belt on my ass 3-5 times between ages 6-16, and let me tell you that I deserved it every time. Of course, if other methods work - which was by and large the approach my parents took - avail yourself of that first. But sometimes the offense is so egregious, or the child's lack of verbal understanding so pronounced, or the level of recalcitrance so high, that it is warranted within reason. I don't much care who says otherwise.

You "had" to get beat 3-5 times because it's... effective? What a convincing argument.

But what you're actually saying sounds more like angry parents on a power trip, beating your ass on more than a few occasions because you pissed them off.

But yeah, keep defending that nonsense.

 

[cwmartin]

It's never appropriate to hit a child.

 

[highrider]

If you deliberately hurt your children you failed as a parent.

IMO this is true. Hitting just seems like giving up.

 

[NHarmonic.]

I thought in this era, 21st century, we as intelligent, sentient animals have finally realized that communication without violence is the way to go for parenting.

A child needs discipline, limits, etc. Applying violence because this new human is getting a grown ass man or woman on their nerves is pathetic.You have lived more than 10 times what your son has, you've learned and you can understand stuff without using physicality.

Violence it's always the easy way out. Maybe you should do your job as a parent, educate yourself and find the way to discipline without hitting someone ffs.

 

[UserNotFound]

Children are like little psychopaths. They don't know what is bad and what is good quite yet. They learn based on a combination of factors, external and internal.

If there's science supporting that physical punishment doesn't help the child's development, then it should be honoured. However, there's folks that knew no other way of discipline. I was hit too. My parents always regretted doing it, but they were only going by the example their parents set, who by most accounts were doing their best with little income and little education.

I think you have to force yourself to find ways to punish children without physicality if you were raised in that kind of environment and for most parents, they don't know another way. Time outs and taking away Toys arent always the best solution.

 

[Cocaloch]

I'll go ahead and echo the sentiment that speaking in absolutes for a subject involving living beings that vary extremely widely in disposition, socialization, and various other factors with no actual tangible real-world experience is an easy way to ensure that nobody takes your argument seriously in this, or the previous three or so threads we've had about this subject.

And yet we say absolutely no one should beat their spouse. Why is that?

We've, as in places where this is still socially acceptable, normalized the idea that parents own their child and thus should be able to physically injure them.

Before you write something in this thread think about how it would sound to a survivor of child abuse. Even if you're sure that what you're talking about doesn't count as abuse you must realize it's at least similar enough to normalize that abuse.

 

[Skellig Gra]

We need to realize that people advocating for hitting kids are just perpetuating a cycle they did not set in place. Kids learn how to be an adult from their parents. So please try to choke down some of the bile. We like to think we are so enlightened because we wouldn’t hit a kid but it’s only because we learned that behavior either from extreme negative reinforcement (getting hit and building lifelong resentment) or you were lucky enough to have great parents.

 

[sibarraz]

That was fiction. Don't use a fucked up anime writer as a parenting coach.

Is a big problem when said show was aimed at kids, and the guys who made that content definitely were real

 

[Northeastmonk]

I was spanked with a belt, a wooden spoon, and the hand. I hated it. I broke my arm from jumping out of a swing and one day my dad went to spank me for doing something bad and I put my arm in his way(he hit my cast). He hurt himself and I laughed. My mother threw candle sticks at me after she broke them in half on the table.

I also went to a conservative Baptist school for preschool and Kindergarten and I remember one time I called the Principal's daughter the B word because she won in one of those Penny Notebook games. I was drug to his office by my arms and I wasn't spanked. But I saw the paddle in the corner of his office. I was bitten on the back by a kid on the playground and it drew blood. Well he came back to class crying and holding his butt. I assumed they spanked him.

I don't think it's as productive as what our parents thought. I still think kids need discipline, but not that kind. I resented whoever spanked me. I was filled with hatred instead.

 

[TI82]

It's awful. But so many people think it's the only way to teach children and that is such a shame.

 

[Miles X]

God no, why would you want your child to live that fear of violence?! Actually think about it for a second, even if it is 'just' a smack on the butt or the hand or w/e, it's physical violence.

 

[dab0ne]

Nah it's not needed... but it sure makes me feel better.

Spoiler

I'm kidding.

 

[CountAntonius]

Hitting children has more to do with the adult's frustrations than discipline

 

[mrkgoo]

Just because you were hit and it was effective in making you stop doing something doesn't mean it was the right way to educate or discipline.

to be fair, equating anything you should do with a child to what you would do with an adult in a similar situation is not right either, as the capcity to learn from different methods is different.

Don't hit your kids.

 

[Kuro]

I was spanked with a metal belt as a child by my mother and my father would actually punch me when he'd lose his temper and my parents wonder why I had so much trouble focusing in school while my sister who didn't get any of that abuse did just fine.

 

[san00ake]

It might - "work" as in getting your kids to behave properly in a relatively short period of time.
But by solving that problem that way you are creating a hundred more severe long term problems that will affect the rest of their lives, and their children's.
So I I'd say to you, don't do it.

 

[TacoMasters]

No, not at all.

I grew to dislike my parents more when physical punishment was used. Something as small as not washing the dishes on time will end with a physical punishment on me. There are other ways of discipline; there is no need to harm kids. Physical punishment is always used by people who can't find any alternatives, so these people lack a great deal of experience. I grew into a better person by being surrounded by other people with good intentions. The people who commit certain actions around you are the ones who will likely determine the way in which you think. Punishments that are physical usually leave negative impressions from a child.

 

[lvl99 Pixel]

"I was hit and I turned out ok"

well I didn't
why take that risk? useless parenting

 

[Loki]

Would it be rude to ask what conduct by a six-year-old deserves such a beating? I'm using your word.

I'm also a little puzzled by your reference to a child's severe "lack of verbal understanding" as grounds for a beating. Do you mean you were beaten for not understanding what people were saying, and you deserved this?

Well actually, I think the first time I got hit I was 8. If you'd like to know, my father saw me sticking my middle finger up at my mother out of anger while I thought I was hidden from view behind a tree (something I learned from an older child at summer camp). As for your latter question, no, I mean sometimes a child's mental comprehension level is such that you cannot reason with them. This does NOT mean that every time they don't understand something you spank them - I fully admit it's a judgment call. However, it should always be used sparingly, and never cross a certain line of force. I feel that reasonable people can make the proper judgments in these matters.

 

[tonysidaway]

Thanks for answering, Loki.

Well actually, I think the first time I got hit I was 8. If you'd like to know, my father saw me sticking my middle finger up at my mother out of anger while I thought I was hidden from view behind a tree (something I learned from an older child at summer camp).

Just so you know, my view of rude hand gestures is that they're pretty minor on the scale of bad behaviour. Adults are usually clever enough to match the semantic weight of such a gesture to the social context, so we can make a joke of it. Kids are still learning.

I'd certainly give my child a talk about when it's appropriate to act like that, and point out that adults don't like it when they see children do it. And I'd tell my child don't be nasty to your mother who loves you and looks after you.

As for your latter question, no, I mean sometimes a child's mental comprehension level is such that you cannot reason with them. This does NOT mean that every time they don't understand something you spank them - I fully admit it's a judgment call. However, it should always be used sparingly, and never cross a certain line of force. I feel that reasonable people can make the proper judgments in these matters.

It does sound as if you're saying that if you can't get a child to understand something is wrong, it may be time to hit them. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. If they can't even understand what they did wrong, how will hitting them help?

 

[STI]

moderate amount of punishment definitely works.

 

[jrDev]

Meh, they will get spanked if they don’t listen...

 

[Bruce Wayne1]

"I'm hitting you because I love you, see all those kids going up left and right in the streets doing god knows what? The delinquents? You think there parents care about them? You think they get punished? No, its because there parents didn't discipline them when they are bad and because they don't love there kids." rough equivalent of what I was told.

- Mexican

 

[Violet_0]

I was (mildly) physically punished by my mother, out of helpless frustration, until around the age of 12, when I was strong enough to just grab the belt, told her this was gonna stop now, and we laughed it off. She feels terrible about it nowadays

when she was a child, she received much harsher beatings by her parents. Her father was a bit of a violent alcoholic (higher-ranking army officer in Poland during the Cold War), her mother once threw a cleaver at her in a fit of rage that got stuck in the door to her room. She later never admitted to have done any such things to her. The last time her father slapped her younger sister, in public, she punched him right back and threw him off his feet, telling him to never do that again. Their relationship improved afterwards

my grandfather on my mother's side grew up in extreme poverty under harsh conditions in rural Poland and suffered brutal physical abuse on a daily basis. Once he was old enough at the age 14 or so, he ran away from home, hiked through half the country and joined the army, never looking back

with each generation, my family became less and less abusive towards their children. If I had a hypothetical kid, I'd never even dare to think to harm them because they are misbehaving in some way. I don't have the required cruelty in me. You want the absolute best for them, you want them to love you, not to fear you. Fuck this "respect your parents" nonsense, you haven't earned it if you are willing to hurt your family, or anyone really

 

[Beerman462]

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

That's all there is to it really.

 

[Cocaloch]

That's all there is to it really.

This is just stupidly reductionist. You can say that about almost anything. That doesn't mean almost anything is okay.

Don't hit your kids. Don't normalize abuse.

 

[Future]

This is just stupidly reductionist. You can say that about almost anything. That doesn't mean almost anything is okay.

Don't hit your kids. Don't normalize abuse.

I Dont hit my kids. But even I am not going to pretend that every kid reacts the same way to every punishment. I’m pretty sure that he’s right in saying that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, because not all kids are the same.

I see some kids out there that clearly do not get disciplined properly and I wonder if anyone has done a study on what happens to kids like that versus others that do get slapped on occasion.

 

[Cocaloch]

I Dont hit my kids. But even I am not going to pretend that every kid reacts the same way to every punishment.

It's not about what every kid does.

But even I am not going to pretend that every kid reacts the same way to every punishment.

I'm not pretending like that either, but I'm also not going to pretend that even if it sometimes produces useful outcomes that those useful outcomes outweigh the vast majority of the times where it doesn't or that it makes it justified in principle

I’m pretty sure that he’s right in saying that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, because not all kids are the same.

That's not germane.

I see some kids out there that clearly do not get disciplined properly and I wonder if anyone has done a study on what happens to kids like that versus others that do get slapped on occasion.

What?

Anyway, don't hit your kids. Don't normalize abuse.

 

[BlackDoomShadow]

It's weird that the most common defense of corporal punishment is "It was used on me, and I turned out okay," as if you're the best judge of your own character.

It's one of those things where the proponents know they lack any kind of actual evidence and are forced to resort entirely to unprovable anecdotes and tradition.

 

[the_darkness]

if your boss smacked you when you did something wrong at work would you learn anything from it?

I wouldn't be ok with my boss following me into the toilet to wipe my ass so I don't see the relevance.

 

[Coriolanus]

That's all there is to it really.

Survivor bias?

 

[Cocaloch]

I wouldn't be ok with my boss following me into the toilet to wipe my ass so I don't see the relevance.

Please connect the idea of watching someone wipe their butt with when you're allowed to hit people for me. Just pointing out things aren't the exact same doesn't say you can't compare them.

Don't hit your children.

 

[ThLunarian]

My stepdaughter's father and stepmom punish her by tickling. My fiancee and I hate it and wish we could stop it. We stick to time outs and removal of privileges and it works pretty well at our house.

 

[KillLaCam]

No lol. I'd always try to get the physical punishment so I wouldn't get my games or whatever taken. A spanking stops hurting after a few minutes but getting games taken for a week is horrible.

I wouldn't really use physical punishment if I had kids. But at the same time I'm glad it happened to me. It helped me dodge actual punishment

 

[jrDev]

It's not the same because a parent have authority over his child and a husband don't have authority over his spouse.
Parenting rely on authority, respect, love and caregiving, but it's not an egalitarian relationship. You're role is to educate your child. As a husband, i'm not above my wife, i don't have to educate her and anything of that sort.

.

 

[Jacob]

In the US, spanking is not defined as abuse. Because (done within reasonable limits) it isn't abuse, and is culturally acceptable besides.

If we're gonna talk about definitions, I don't see why we should privilege the United States' position on this (and I'm an American). The internationally-recognized ideal as set forth in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by almost every country on Earth (though not the United States), is that:

Article 19

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.

My emphasis. Obviously this hasn't been followed through on in most of the world. The "culturally acceptable" argument is highly suspect to me, though. Yes, child abuse is still considered acceptable by many peoples. Go back 50 years and it would be even more so. Go back 100 years and wife-beating was still legal in parts of the United States. Go back a couple hundred years and you had things like cat-burning that were completely mainstream.

At the risk of falling completely into Whig historiography, human societies have made great strides in modern times at reducing the prevalence and acceptability of violence against the vulnerable. I see no reason why we should stop pushing for such changes when it comes to the most vulnerable members of society, which are of course children. This isn't limited to physical abuse, of course. (As someone who had a physically abusive father and an emotionally abusive mother, the physical abuse left bruises that lasted for weeks but the emotional abuse has left mental scars that will probably be with me until I die, and has also indirectly lead to physical damage due to years of self-injury. I recognize that this shapes my perception of and contribution to discussions like this, and that some people's childhood experience of corporal punishment did not involve anything that left physical marks, although I also know that I got off far easier than many.) But the evidence against corporal punishment having a positive effect is so overwhelming that it's one of the most straightforward avenues for pushing back against child abuse. Emotional abuse and emotional neglect can be, to some extent, unintentional and unconscious, and so can be trickier issues to deal with. But on the physical front, just don't hit your kids. Please. It's really that simple.

 

[Cocaloch]

At the risk of falling completely into Whig historiography, human societies have made great strides in modern times at reducing the prevalence and acceptability of violence against the vulnerable.

Saying things have gotten better isn't Whiggish. Saying that they must get better by some Weltgeist moving towards freedom or that our concept of better is universal is Whiggish.

Don't hit your children.

 

[Jacob]

Saying things have gotten better isn't Whiggish. Saying that they must get better by some Weltgeist moving towards freedom or that our concept of better is universal is Whiggish.

Fair point.

 

[theofficefan99]

My mom would destroy my games, slap me, spank me, hit me with her shoe, would have violent rages, etc.


I'm gay and I don't know if I'd ever warm up to the idea of adopting, but I could literally NEVER imagine hitting my child.

 

[lucebuce12]

I plan to power bomb my children through a table whenever they cross me

Canadian Destroyer or bust.

 

[PaulloDEC]

I don't believe in physical punishment for children, nor would I do it to any theoretical children I might have, but as always there's some crazy talk in this thread.

1) Suggesting that a parent who uses physical punishment is automatically a "failure" is just stupid and insulting. I know we love to make these things black-and-white with easy measures for the heroes and the villains, but life ain't always like that.

2) When it comes to physical punishment, GAF likes to conjure up images of a trembling, tearful child cowering in a corner from a beastly guardian after they spilt a glass of milk or whatever, but that's not close to the experience a lot of us have had. Myself and many children like me got smacked on the bottom in scenarios along the lines of:

Mum: "Don't you do that thing I told you not to do!"
Me: Defiantly keeps doing it.
Mum: "I'm serious, if you don't stop that now you'll get a smack!"
Me: Defiantly keeps doing it.
Mum: "Last warning!"
Me: Defiantly keeps doing it.
*Smacked bottom time*

They're not the same thing, and I don't know what to tell you if you think they are.

 

[Cocaloch]

2) When it comes to physical punishment, GAF likes to conjure up images of a trembling, tearful child cowering in a corner from a beastly guardian after they spilt a glass of milk or whatever, but that's not close to the experience a lot of us have had.

And yet there are these children that are abused. Those trembling tearful children exist.

They're not the same thing, and I don't know what to tell you if you think they are.

They aren't the same, but they are related.

Don't hit your children.

 

[Opto]

Research literally says it doesn't work

 

[the_darkness]

And yet there are these children that are abused. Those trembling tearful children exist.

They do, and not a single person in this thread is advocating for that.