Is spanking the best way to educate kids? How were you educated?

[JCM]

Today I had a pretty interesting talk with some members of the family and it seemed a consensus among them that spanking is the best way to educate a kid. However, I grew up with the silent treatment, where my mother would ignore me to the level of me grovelling and asking her to beat me instead, and my siblings grew up with the punishment/reward system (something like a new Nintendo DS/PSP if you get first in school, no tv/computer if you fail a subject) but it seems among my family, we're the only ones that dont beat the kids.

Anyway, its one thing to help out with educating the siblings, another for me to educate my own kid, so Im curious to know, how were you educated?

And how do you educate your kids?

 

[ThatGrinningIdiot!]

Heh. Education? Wrong word to describe spanking.

 

[General Specific]

My parents used spankings as punishment. It was a bit subjective, though. If we broke something and lied about it, we'd get spanked. If we told the truth and apologized, we did not. Stuff like that.

 

[Hailey Knight]

Mostly my parents saved spanking for when we really fucked up, except when they were arguing with each other, and then anything might set it off.

With my cousins, it was basically last resort, if they keep misbehaving despite losing toys, dessert, timeouts... and then it was mainly to make a point, NOT to harm.

It's not educational; it's punishment. Using it often loses its impact. At some point, it stopped affecting me. My mom whipped out the wooden spoon (big salad serving thing) and whacked me with it, and I didn't react, cry, anything. She never spanked me again, because it just didn't work at that point.

 

[Dave]

My kids knew if I said they would get a spanking they would. I would NEVER say they were going to and then not. Their mom did that and they ran roughshod over her.

Here's how I did it.

I would have them come over to me and stand why I told them why they were getting the swat. Then they had to lay across my lap and not struggle. If they struggled they got 2. (This was because when Zach was little he struggled and instead of making the loud *pop* noise on his diaper I ended up swatting his back. I felt very, very guilty and vowed never to do that again.)

You can ask my son or daughter how often I had to resort to the swat. It was very seldom. They are both extremely polite and well mannered and if they weren't they'd hear about it.

 

[Shegokigo]

I grew up in a stronghanded Catholic home, so yeah, we were all spanked.

 

[phil]

With me growing up, punishments were more creative and usually pretty effective, though I was a pretty good kid anyway so it never came up that often. Usually misbehavior was met with the loss of privilege such as watching tv, playing games, earlier bed times and so on. Usually the punishment would try to fit the crime too, in a manner of speaking that is. If we had failing grades, we would lose some set of privileges until an official report from the school said otherwise. If I didn't clean my room for long enough, some of my things would just get tossed out.

I don't think I'd ever spank my kids. I admit it would probably be a good deterrent but only for so long and would probably do more harm than good. The way I see it, is that kids are going to mess up no matter how you treat them, so threatening them with physical violence just means that when they do mess up they're going to do everything in their power to make sure they aren't caught or at least aren't blamed.

I'd say the 2nd reason I wouldn't spank my kids is because there's such a fine line between punishment and child abuse. Is one hard swat ok, but 3 medium ones too much? How many is breaking the lamp worth, vs say, making an F? They say not to spank your kids while you're angry to avoid going overboard, but doesn't that defeat the purpose? If my kids did something wrong, and I sent them to their room for 10 minutes while I cooled down about the fact THEN came in and beat them it would seem like so much after the fact that I wouldn't see the point really. So honestly I'd say just avoid whole thing and find some other form of punishment.


also, in before the lock. I'm guessing 3 pages tops.

 

[Vagabond]

I was never spanked growing up.

And I turned out horrible.

 

[North_Ranger]

I wasn't spanked, and I believe the same applied to my siblings (can't really say; I was the family evenstar/runt of the litter, 10-14 years younger than everybody else). I guess I was born with a hyperactive conscience, since I usually went to great lengths to hide if I had done something wrong or apologize immediately because it felt so bad. You know, little stuff like breaking glasses and such... If anything, I was too kind a child, since I basically ended up being the collective doormat in elementary school and was actually told to toughen up. If I did do something wrong and got caught without apologizing first, it usually meant losing certain privileges for the night... like no computer and such.

The only form of physical punishment I've witnessed in my family circle have been what in Finnish are called "bone button" and "hairing", used by my sister to her children. The first is giving a sharp flick with your index finger to the temple (the name comes from it being lesser than a "bone fiver", aka a knuckle sandwich), which smarts nicely but doesn't actually hurt. The latter is getting a firm hold of the child's hair, right down to the scalp. No pulling or twisting, just holding her (more likely since boys' hair is usually short-cropped) still to listen. Once given, usually a threat thereof has been sufficient. "Stop running around or Momma's gonna hair ya!", that kinda thing.

 

[Rob King]

If I was spanked ten times my entire time growing up, I would think that's a lot. That said, spanking was on the table as a punishment. I feel like it is a tactic which I would employ, if needed.

That said, when I was spanked, it was only ever by my mother. If I was bad, got spanked, and kept on misbehaving, the warning was "Wait until your father gets home." I honestly thought my dad was a motherfucking god when I was a kid, sort of on the same level as Thor. Needless to say, it never became necessary for my father to spank.

 

[RealBigNuke]

Physical punishment can work as an extreme deterrent and last resort, but I think it's much more effective to show a kid how they messed up practically as their punishment. IE, taking away their allowance if they get an F because, boy, you better learn to be poor if yer not gonna try in school, and so forth.

If you just hit your kid when they do something wrong(or just when they piss you off) it doesn't teach them anything but to endeavor to lie to you when they do the wrong thing so they don't get hit. It also shows them that violence is always a valid solution if you're too damn stupid to think of anything else. Resentment and deceit is all I learned from frequent physical punishment, anyway.

 

[rabbitgod]

Dave's description is basically how I was 'educated.' (which makes sense since he's in his mid 70s...ha ha) Minus the whole two parents thing.

My mom spanked me all of three times. I remember all three. When she said "Do 'X' or you'll get a spanking" she meant it. It was rare though because she made it abundantly clear what the rules are.

Also I was never punished for getting an F in a class since that wasn't an option.

 

[blotsfan]

Generally just loss of privileges. I was never really "spanked" but I was hit from time to time until my mom felt bad and stopped. I can't say I blame her for having done it though, I was a little shit.

 

[Philosopher B.]

While I shan't be so presumptuous as to say what will ultimately transpire should I ever become a parent (perish the thought), I've always hoped to avoid spanking. It just seems as though there are other options.

Personally, I was sent to my room a lot when I got mad as a kid. I could stomp around and let off steam, think about things until I was ready to come back out and act rationally.

My parents did employ spanking, though. I remember my little sister getting whacked. I don't think it accomplished shit. She was crazy when she was little; she just needed to outgrow that shit. Smacking her ass didn't accomplish that. Of course, my parents did far worse things regarding my sister's 'education' than they ever did to her physically.

 

[CynicismKills]

Spanking worked on me, happened maybe twice.

My brother got spanked once. He started laughing so my parents had to come up with something new.

 

[Shegokigo]

If your kid laughs when you hit them, you're not really hitting them.

 

[Tinwhistler]

Well, when I was a toddler, I wandered out in the garage. To teach me that the garage was dangrous, my father fired up the ol' soldering iron and stuck it to the bridge of my nose. To this day, I have no actual bones in my nose, but instead, it's all cartilage. Oftentimes, it's a little off-kilter, and when someone asks me if I've had my nose broken before, I just say 'yeah'.

I'm pretty sure I won't be doing that to my son.

 

[Philosopher B.]

 

[Hailey Knight]

...Um.

...

Um.

 

[Alucard]

If I got in trouble. It was usually spanking or some other form of punishment.
Like one of my favorite toys would be taken away as a kid, or grounded from video games for a week or t.v.
Something along those lines.

But yeah if the kid is out of control I say give him a good swat or two. A little physical pain for the kid is good for him.

 

[@Li3n]

The only thing spanking taught me is that one shouldn't get caught (my grandfather did it when i too stuff from his tool cabinet, never stopped me from doing it again)... not a bad lesson though.

Best thing i heard was from a girl in high school, her parents didn't even punish her much, they just made her feel bad about doing whatever it was.

Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't use spanking at all, sometimes a little physical punishment can drive the point home, just save it for the more serious stuff, certainly not F's in school or any crap like that, i know plenty of people that either learned to hide it or once the threat of beatings was gone stopped caring.


Oh, and don't go overboard with arguments about who's right like you do here, especially when you're not so much right as annoyed by the kids behaviour, or you risk him/her loosing respect for you.

I grew up in a stronghanded Catholic home, so yeah, we were all spanked.

SPANKING MAKES YOU GAY, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

 

[Math242]

i got spanked a few dozen times while growing up. However, looking back i see how it was always deserved and there were warnings before it.

It must have been difficult for them to keep their composure as much as they did.

My father would always say : STOP and do as you're told after arguments or me acting retarded... Right there, if i didn't stop, i was going to get one across the face. Yeah, i learned. And to this day, my father is easily the person i love the most and have utmost respect for.

 

[Troll]

I didn't get spanked often as a child. It was reserved for extremely bad behavior, usually when I did not show remorse or was displaying some other type of bad behavior.

I remember the last time I got spanked, too. I was four or five, and at my grandparents' house. My grandmother gave me some new markers, and then a few hours later my brother got some too. I said "those are just like mine!" in an excited voice, but my parents misheard me. They thought I said "and where the hell are mine?" or some nonsense. Whatever it was, they demanded I apologize right away. I refused, because I knew I didn't do anything wrong. My dad kept threatening me, then he took me to the back and said he would spank me until I went out and apologized. At this point I was totally confused, but I stuck to my guns and said I wouldn't apologize for something I didn't do. He began hitting me on the behind, harder and harder until I agreed to apologize. I never did, and he finally gave up. I was left alone in the room, crying, refusing to talk to him. A few minutes later he returned, and he had talked to my brother. My brother confirmed my side of the story, and my dad apologized. Still, I was *pissed*.

So the moral of the story is that you must absolutely make sure that you have all the facts straight before punishing your child. Spanking, or any form of punishment for that matter, will fail if the kid doesn't understand why it's happening.

I don't think I'll spank my kids. I would rather find alternative forms of punishment.

 

[Enresshou]

My mom spanked me/whapped me in the back of the head. Sometimes I deserved it, more often I didn't, and I still hold a bit of a grudge against her for that.

My dad spanked/hit me a grand total of three times when I was a kid, and once when I was in middle school. Every time I deserved it; and when it was in middle school--when I was flunking out of my classes because I was simply lazy, and I'd lied that I was doing perfectly well for the past eight months--he grabbed me by the throat, slammed me into the roof of the truck, and explained very slowly that I wouldn't need to worry about my future if I didn't do better in school.

The difference between my parents was that, whenever my dad thought I deserved physical punishment, I KNEW I did.

 

[Koko]

Physical punishment can work as an extreme deterrent and last resort, but I think it's much more effective to show a kid how they messed up practically as their punishment. IE, taking away their allowance if they get an F because, boy, you better learn to be poor if yer not gonna try in school, and so forth.

If you just hit your kid when they do something wrong(or just when they piss you off) it doesn't teach them anything but to endeavor to lie to you when they do the wrong thing so they don't get hit. It also shows them that violence is always a valid solution if you're too damn stupid to think of anything else. Resentment and deceit is all I learned from frequent physical punishment, anyway.

Couldn't have said it any better than that.

 

[Silver Jelly]

Best thing i heard was from a girl in high school, her parents didn't even punish her much, they just made her feel bad about doing whatever it was.

It was mainly like this for me too.

They are still doing it, actually.

 

[Iaculus]

Education by spanking? What, do you tap out trigonometric theory on their backside via Morse code?

 

[Wahad]

I wasn't spanked, nor was my sis - as far as I can remember anyway, maybe we were when we were under four years old. My mom was very strict but not overly so, and we were generally submissive kids. We got a stern talking to when we did something wrong and that usually just made us feel so guilty we didn't do it again.

 

[redapples]

I'll quote my mum, "Not the head! Not the head!".

Not to say my dad beat me all the time but I remember him picking up my brother and throwing him into a book case when we were a bit slow cleaning our room. I was kicked down stairs a couple of times.

I have once slapped my daughter's hand, the guilt I felt has prevented me from repeating this. I find calm talking, time outs and removal of priveliges works for me.

 

[MindDetective]

I think JCM meant learning and behavioral modification rather than formal education. I doubt spanking screws anybody up at all but whether it works to actually modify behavior as desired, I would say that most of the time it doesn't. The times where it does work, it would need to be applied right away and it would need to produce the desired behavior as a direct result of the spanking (and not just as an abstract punishment).

 

[Seraphyn]

What RealBigNuke said.

I used to get spanked quite often as a kid, because I too was a little shit. In time, I just started to lie about stuff to ensure I didn't get a spanking. When they found out the lie I made, I'd get a harder spanking, so after that I made sure my lies were fabricated better. So while it can work as a deterrent, it can also have some very unwanted side effects.

 

[Tinwhistler]

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/01/is_spanking_children_ok_calvin.html

a Calvin College psychology professor says her research shows corporal punishment forms more well-adjusted people later in life.

Marjorie Gunnoe says the study finds children who remember being spanked on the backside with an open hand do better in school, perform more volunteer work and are more optimistic than others who were not physically disciplined.

 

[Chibibar]

I got spanked because I deserve it. My parents set the rules and abide by it. They don't ever violate the rule (we all follow it) which helps a lot for us. We were "educated" in a sense that if you do something really bad, you could get spanked. (of course no one spanked my parents but you get the idea) Spanking is usually left as a last resort, there are many other type of punishment before we reach spanking. The only exception is lying. I lied once to my parents about grades and well.... I don't ever lie to my parents again. Omission, yes, but not a straight out lie (even at 37 I still get scare mentally. physically my parents doesn't have prowess to spank me, but it is the ideal behind it I guess)

 

[fade]

Purely anecdotal:

There are six kids in my family, grouped in threes (my parents took a break). The older were spanked and generally treated more harshly. Status: Older sister completed an AS degree, has successful home business, I have Ph.D., younger sister has a decent NCO rank in the Navy. Younger siblings? Unemployed (until recently), underemployed (has a BS with a 4.0 GPA, but refuses to take entry level work), unemployed. I suspect it has to do with the permissiveness overall, but spanking was definitely a big part of it.

 

[Espy]

Yes, it was never so bad that it didn't stop hurting after a few minutes and we knew we had REALLY been bad if we got spanked and it was always accompanied with time outs/loss of privileges. It was a last resort and never done in anger by my parents. I got no problem with that.