Spare the rod, spoil the child

[billvon]

There is NEVER a reason for a parent to strike a child - period.

I was spanked once as a child, when I threw my then-six-month-old sister in the fireplace (with a fire there.) I was around 3 years old. She wasn't hurt (fortunately!) and I never did it again. If I had, she might have been killed.

A good call on my parents parts, I think.

I weigh 200 pounds, run 10 miles a day, hold an advanced black belt in Taekwon Do, spent many years in the ring and in power lifting. I am extremely strong, often accidentally break things inadvertently, former NRA with a carry permit and I always go armed. ...and you think that I should hit a little child with my bare hands?

If you are unable to control yourself - then definitely not!

yet you figure that it would be OK if I just expressed my anger and frustration by taking it out on them?

Again, if you consider spanking a child to "express your anger or frustration" then you definitely should not do it.

 

[billvon]

Yes, when they are emotionally and intellectually neglected by their parents and caretakers.

You really think that a child who has a messy room was "emotionally and intellectually neglected?" They just have messy rooms.

I find it bizzare how ready adults are to believe that children are bad or even evil.

And you really think a lazy person is "bad" or "evil?" They're just lazy. A great many people are.

 

[yaracuy]

.

There is NEVER a reason for a parent to strike a child - period.

I weigh 200 pounds, run 10 miles a day, hold an advanced black belt in Taekwon Do, spent many years in the ring and in power lifting. I am extremely strong, often accidentally break things inadvertently, former NRA with a carry permit and I always go armed.



So you are a Superman to the kid


...and you think that I should hit a little child with my bare hands? The same hands that I used to break through 7 inches of pine boards and slabs of concrete? Hit them with a stick or a belt? I could easily kill them if I did that, and that would ruin MY life as well as ending theirs....and this is my child, my treasure, my dearest person - yet you figure that it would be OK if I just expressed my anger and frustration by taking it out on them?


When you punish a child you don't have to use your superpower were you would use your irrational emotion. You been a rational being , apply the belt proportional to its size and its age,

 

[spidergoat]

Republicans are the children who want to benefit from an advanced society, but don't want to pay for it. They think everything was granted to them magically by an invocation of the American flag and appeal to God. It's up to the adults to fix it.

 

[wynn]

Pain is the most basic teacher of all; every intelligent organism seeks behaviors that avoid pain.

That does definitely NOT mean it is the best means of achieving compliance, and indeed it is a last resort. But if the alternative is having your child die when he runs out in traffic again, it may be the best of two bad choices.

I don't find it likely that a child would be well-behaved in all situations except when it comes to crossing the street.
There is probably a history of inefficient parenting behind children running into traffic.

 

[wynn]

You really think that a child who has a messy room was "emotionally and intellectually neglected?" They just have messy rooms.

I was commenting to your saying "Children will do as little work as possible to achieve what they desire."

Children can be very conscientious workers and be willing to put in a lot of effort, and gladly so. They do need a positive relationship with adults to do so, though.

And you really think a lazy person is "bad" or "evil?" They're just lazy. A great many people are.

I don't believe there is such a thing as "laziness".

I was spanked once as a child, when I threw my then-six-month-old sister in the fireplace (with a fire there.) I was around 3 years old. She wasn't hurt (fortunately!) and I never did it again. If I had, she might have been killed.

A good call on my parents parts, I think.

I wouldn't be so sure that it was only the spanking that constrained your future behavior.
I would compare how your parents treated you before the incident, and how afterwards.
Chances are they payed more attention to you afterwards, made up for having neglected you when your sister arrived.


My cousin when he was about five, poured ground black pepper into the nose of his infant brother. The reaction was serious, he was brought to the hospital.
Such incidents are not rare when a second child arrives into a family.
Nor do they often turn into a horrifying scenario like in the film The Good Son.

 

[chimpkin]

Again, if you consider spanking a child to "express your anger or frustration" then you definitely should not do it.

If I should adopt, foster or whatever, I will never hit.
I will find other ways to make them appropriately miserable when they get out of line.

 

[billvon]

I don't find it likely that a child would be well-behaved in all situations except when it comes to crossing the street.

Depends on the kid and the age. Before age 5 or so there's not much thought behind what they do. But yes, in general such things go together at later ages.

I was commenting to your saying "Children will do as little work as possible to achieve what they desire." Children can be very conscientious workers and be willing to put in a lot of effort, and gladly so. They do need a positive relationship with adults to do so, though.

Yep. But left to themselves they will shun unpleasant or boring tasks and engage in more fun ones. That's human nature, not a sign of neglect.

I don't believe there is such a thing as "laziness".

Hmm. You are unlike most people, then; most people recognize laziness in both themselves and others.

I wouldn't be so sure that it was only the spanking that constrained your future behavior.

I don't know, since I have no memory of it.

Chances are they payed more attention to you afterwards, made up for having neglected you when your sister arrived.

I very much doubt it. They were pretty good parents overall, and good parents do not reward such behavior.

 

[wynn]

I very much doubt it. They were pretty good parents overall, and good parents do not reward such behavior.

I find it strange that you would think paying more attention to you afterwards would be a "reward" for you trying to harm your sister.

When an older sibling harms the new infant, it can simply be because the older/first one feels threatened or in fact has been neglected by the parents and wants their attention and affection back.
When parents get a second child, they don't always make sure that their first child won't feel threatened or excluded.

 

[wynn]

How about a culture where we don't abuse each other at all?

Absence of all aggression may well lead to a kind of island tameness or ecological naïvete.

 

[Michael]

I'm sorry to hear of some of these horrible stories. I was lucky and, as those few lucky trailer park trash, became my alcoholic mothers center of the universe. Lots of I love you and you are great and wonderful. Never a spanking once.


That aside, I opened this thread really thinking about society, not individuals in said society. That, perhaps, though Progressive ideas seem virtuous (that's actually not the adjective I'm thinking of, but I just can't think of the word, too tired...) anyway, we strayed to far to the left in someways and too far to the right in others and if we want to get things back to normal, we're going to have to make huge structural changes to society - including cutting a lot of social services.

This chicken's come home to roost....

 

[chimpkin]

Well we do have this whole problem of people wanting bennies from the government...but nobody wants to pay for them.

 

[wynn]

That, perhaps, though Progressive ideas seem virtuous ...

... the effects of acting on them may not be virtuous.

I agree.

I don't think beating children is the solution.

I do think that the solution is, first of all, for people to be more careful about bringing children to the world at all. Some statistics say that about half of the current population was born unplanned. Meaning they were born to parents who did not really want them or at a time when they were not really wanted. I think that such parents tend to have attitudes toward their children that negatively affect both the parents as well as the children. There may be a lot of direct or subtle rejection (making sure that a child has great material comforts is not the same as love, for example, and can be another way to reject the child).

 

[Stoniphi]

The next time you see a parent hit a child at the grocery store, take a good look at the parents face. You will see anger and frustration.

Most incidence of adults striking children are due to exasperation and frustration of the adult in the moment. The assault is immediately effective much of the time due to "punishment rewards the punisher", but it costs the parent far more than it benefits them in the long run.

Believe it or not, there are other ways to raise a child without focusing on punishment. "Intermittent reward is the most effective means of reinforcing a behavior". If there is something that you want a child to do, use reward to reinforce that behavior - not punishment.

Look - a child will imitate the parent if that parent has not put up barriers between themselves and the child. The parent has successfully reached adulthood and reproduced, so there are powerful evolutionary forces at play which get the kid to imitate the parents success. Those mirror neurons are there for a purpose and they start doing that as soon as those little eyes stay open for more than a few minutes. They will continue to do that job until that little birdie flies away from the nest.

If the parent engages with the child and sees to it that all of the child's needs are met, the child will not 'misbehave'. My son - now 19 years old - threw a temper tantrum once after staying up too late and not getting enough sleep when he was about 2 y.o.. His 'punishment' was a 5 minute "time out" sitting on the basement steps. He recalls that to this day, it was the only time he was ever punished for anything. By all contemporary evaluations he is a very well behaved successful young man, just about to enter his second year of university. I am very pleased with the results of "low stress parenting".

It is not too surprising to those of us with an educational background on this topic that 100% of the inmates on Indiana's death row were found to have readily discernible organic brain damage from severe and repeated childhood abuse. While it may be correlational rather than causational, it should give those of you who enjoy hitting children something to think about. Do you really want to create another Jeffry Dahlmer?

When you get angry enough to start hitting your child, how long will it take for you to regain your self control? How much damage will you have done before you get to that point?

A Detroit father just got arrested for beating his 20+ year old daughter to death with a baseball bat...because she had 'misbehaved'. He made sure she will never 'misbehave' again though, didn't he?

 

[Michael]

Ahh, I see the disconnect now.

FMPOV I was just using the phrase Spare the rod, spoil the child in reference to the way we treat ADULTS in society. IOWs we've built to many Progressive institutions that are actually harming the very people they're meant to help.

While I don't have kids running around, I don't think I'd ever hit kids. I mean, I wasn't hit and I turned out fine. I may have did stupid things, I might have died a few times, but, as luck would have it, I didn't.

 

[billvon]

I find it strange that you would think paying more attention to you afterwards would be a "reward" for you trying to harm your sister.

Children aren't stupid. If they feel neglected before they do something, and receive attention after they do something, they will realize that their action resulted in more attention. The behavior will thus be reinforced.

This is true of a great many situations. If a child throws a tantrum, and the parent responds by paying more attention to them, giving them treats, changing their plans etc the child will realize that he can use tantrums to get his way. If tantrums result in either no reaction or a negative outcome (i.e. they can no longer go to the store with mom) then they will eventually give up on them as an attention-getting tool.

When an older sibling harms the new infant, it can simply be because the older/first one feels threatened or in fact has been neglected by the parents and wants their attention and affection back.

Agreed. And I think the absolute worst thing to teach them is that harming a sibling DOES result in increased attention and afffection.

When parents get a second child, they don't always make sure that their first child won't feel threatened or excluded.

And even if ideal parents make sure their first child is not denied attention, some children feel that the newer child is "competition for affection."

 

[billvon]

When you get angry enough to start hitting your child, how long will it take for you to regain your self control? How much damage will you have done before you get to that point?

While corporal punishment can indeed work in some situations, no parent should ever hit their child out of anger alone.

 

[Shogun]

I think a more effective method of punishment is psychological, and making kids feel guilty. I know personally that it really stings when my mom says something like this:

"I love you but I am really disappointed in you"

To me, the disappointment hurts more then any corporal punishment could ever hurt.

 

[visceral_instinct]

Absence of all aggression may well lead to a kind of island tameness or ecological naïvete.

Aggression is one thing when used appropriately. Not the same as abuse.

 

[Stoniphi]

You are right in that, Shogun. When my son was still young he did something that was a bit off track. I raised my eyebrow at him and he burst into tears noting my disapproval.

We did gentle "corrections" rather than "punishment". Much nicer way to live, IMHO.