Spanking vs. violence. - Page 6

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

This. I was spanked according to my mom probably 2-3 times by her for running into our street (my bff lived right across the street and in my excitement I would run to her without looking or the hand of an adult, this was before the age of 4)  and then by my grandma probably 4-5 times for similar safety issues.

I don't advocate spanking.  I have spanked my dd probably 4-5 times and I feel pretty s****y about it, but i'm just a human and tomorrow I will try to do better, y'know?  I feel that way about my mom and grandma for sure.  They did the best they could and honestly my mom is pretty anti-spanking.  Her whole thing is at the younger ages kids don't have enough impulse control to not do dangerous things and if you can give them a reason to stop and think before say running in the street the next time then thats what you have to do.  Do I agree?  I dunno.  Have I spanked dd for that same reason?  Yes, once.  Do I think it worked?  Who friggin knows man.....is that even quantifiable?  I dunno that either, lol.

But I do know I don't remember being spanked AT ALL.  Ever.

But what I do remember is being grounded as a teen and I HATED that and felt very misunderstood and disrespected.  Totally non-violent with very lasting effects.

And I also kinda wish my mom would have been a stricter diciplinarian(sp? lol) I feel like she was waaaaay to loosey goosey.  And she thinks she was pretty strict herself so it's all perception isn't it?

I just don't think there IS a cut and dry answer of this is the best way for every person on the planet just typing that seems sooooo silly.  Ridiculous even.

And I am not pro spanking just to repeat myself.
 

I would not call grounding non-violent...non physical yes, non-violent, no.

Violence can come in many forms but its main objective is to squelch certain behaviors, especially those that challenge authority of the ruling class.  In the microcosm of your family, a grounding is the equivalent of a trade embargo.  Cuba has been grounded "for the rest of her life!"  for it's infractions.  A grounding is violent because it imposes arbitrary power and offers no chance for learning.  It is purely punitive and rarely linked to the crime.  I was grounded off the phone for not doing my homework. How was this related?  It was not the use of the phone that caused my homework to be unfinished.  It was my sheer boredom with the subject and everytime I tried to focus I fell asleep...how would staying off the phone help me focus on boring algebra?  Especially since I didn't need the practice to do it?  It didn't.  The only person I ever spoke to on the phone at that age was my birth mother.  It was their way of taking away my only connection to someone I loved outside of the immediate familiar unit and they knew it would bug me as much as I bugged them and hopefully it would keep me in line.

I love my dad and step mom, but these sort of tactics were, cruel, retalitory and counter productive.  It is largely due to those sort of discipline techniques that I left home at 13 to go live with my birth mother.  They will admit that now. 

Groundings are violent because they serve to oppress willfulness and rebellion and as I mentioned upthread are the adolescent equivalent of a spanking.  When children are small, we smack them because we can and because they incite fear of our loved ones (and ONLY refuge of safety and protection and provider of all basic needs) being angry enough or disappointed enough to cause us pain which is scary enough to figure out what we are supposed to, even if it means utter and total paralysis of action.  Just because grounding doesn't involve hands doesn't make it any more respectful than a smack on the hiney.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

I just think it's kind of self important to assume or believe that what you think is the best or only way would be right for other people....I may hav ideas about what is good or right but I certainly don't believe that I hold the answers for others.

Not using violence of the phyiscal or passive kind IS better.  Maybe that is self-important, or maybe it is just my belief or maybe it is actually proven to get better results.   Maybe all of the above.  Check out the CNVC, Ghandi, Martin Luthur King Jr., and a plethora of non-violent trainers, speakers and promoters and you will read about the success they have had with non-violence.

I cannot say for certain that spanking is bad and I am sure, as SB pointed out, there isn't much conclusive evidence that it is, but I CAN say without a shadow of a hint of a doubt, that non-violent techniques give children the skills they need to make good choices and meet their needs in non-violent ways rather than merely avoid bad choices and have fewer tools for meeting their needs with non-violent techniques.  It may mean having a more difficult job when they are younger, but it will pay off in the long run.  I know of not ONE adult or older child who has been raised in a truly non-violent communication home (I do not mean one who merely didn't hit or ground, or who was not involved in their discipline, but those who implemented NVC techniques to resolve and transform conflicts rather than squlech them) who has violent tendencies or problems with agression or who harbor resentment of their parents.  The success rate is 100%.  The success rate of violent discipline is 50% at best as far as I can tell.
 

It works for everyone because it is individually catered with a variety of skills and outlooks and tools to meet everyone's needs, build respect and foster love and self-confidence. Try it out.  You might like it!  Money back guaranteed!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

I agree that spanking a 10 year old would be a far less desirable an action to talking and reasoning.

And I, also have spent a lot of time with Alzheimer's patients.  My experience was as a child volunteering at the nursing home my mom worked at.  I do remember the nurses sternly grabbing patients hands to get their attention in the same way my grandmother would sternly grab my arm and sink a little bit of nail into my flesh to get my attention.  Is that violent? 

Sink a little bit of nail into the flesh?  I would pull my gran out of a home that did that to my gran.  I would be livid if anyone ever did that to my child.

YES!  That is excessively violent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

Oh this is just digusting.  Correlating GANG RAPE to a smack on the hiney?  You have been really pushing the limit in this conversation as far as what you have compared spanking to but this just crosses the line.  Get a grip, lady.
 

And how is that sort of outlandish argument going to get this conversation anywhere?
 

She wasn't comparing the two, she was discussing moral relativity completely as an aside. 

I understand, that as someone who has spanked their child you need to make it okay.  I get that.  It was a mistake and you own that.  You're human, we all are.  I have shouted and raised my voice and shut my kid in his room or shoved him off of me when he was being too rough because mommy needed a break or she was going to go postal.  But it's not okay...it's can't be a mistake if it's also okay.  I cannot say I am sorry if it happened and then justify that it might not have been such a bad thing I did afterall, or can I? I don't feel like I can.

Violence of all kinds is still violence and the sole purpose of violence is to oppress.  I refuse to believe any mother wants to oppress their child.  I believe that we participate in the oppression of our children because we have been led to believe it is the right and socially appropriate way to train them how to belong in society, but if what we want for our children is a happier life than we had, participating in systems that oppress their natural drive for freedom and individuality is NOT okay. Not for anyone. 

I highly recommend reading Identity Skin Blood Heart by Minnie Bruce Pratt (I have a copy if you are interest PM me with your e-mail) and writings by Peggy McIntosh, Mark Ethan Smith and also checking out readings by ML King and Marshall Rosenberg.  These people have made some very interesting observations about the ways that our social systems are inherently violent and how we participate often unwillingly in their perpetuation because we are trained to be oblivious to the damage they cause and indeed embrace and glorify the damage as valuable entities of our own oppression.  Both the oppressor and the opressed are damaged infinitely and permanantly by these systems.  For me to consider myself a good parent and a good teacher I feel it is vital for me to expose these systemic degrees of oppression and do everything in my power to counteract and destroy that which contributes to the oppression of my children and my students.  I do not believe that we are hard wired to discipline our chuildren towards the authority of patriarchal systems we now live in.  I believe that we can get back to our pre-historic roots of being a global society of matriarchal values of peace and protection and community, but we cannot do that by participating in or giving any credence at all to values that contradict our hearts.

I do not believe that any healthy, mentally fit mother's heart would ever tell them to inflict pain on their child on purpose. 

[Gucci&Granola]

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

Oh this is just digusting.  Correlating GANG RAPE to a smack on the hiney?  You have been really pushing the limit in this conversation as far as what you have compared spanking to but this just crosses the line.  Get a grip, lady.
 

I am glad that it has been pointed out that my examples were directed at the secondary debate taking place regarding moral relativism.  I missed your admission earlier about spanking your daughter.  I was in no way trying to compare your actions with gang rape or brutality of a similar nature and I  apologize if my statements came across that way.

For the record I was hit by both of my parents though they strove for a home grounded in non-violence.  I also witnessed them physically fight.  They were wonderful parents and I have good relationships with them as an adult.  However, their resort to violence (yes VIOLENCE) though clearly the result of their own traumatic upbringings and the stress of being poor does not justify those actions.  When I say that spanking is an act of violence I do not mean to further imply that all parents who make that mistake are horrible people and bad parents.  I believe that yelling is also problematic.  I have yelled at my spouse.  I am not proud of it and it's something that I strive not to do.   We all make mistakes.  The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and take responsibility for our own choices and actions as adults (especially with our children as they're stuck with us).

Edited by Gucci&Granola - 6/9/11 at 12:52pm

[sosurreal09]

I guess it does seem weird but I did grow up in a very "religious" environment and about 90% of the parents spanked. I was SEVERELY abused as a child BUT I am completely normal and healthy and I think successful. I am an amazing SAHM and married to the love of my life. I graduated high school after being forced to quit and living on my own since I was 16. I was homeless for quite some time too. So do I think a child who grew up loved but spanked and was afraid of their parents for spanking could grow up to be normal? YUP

Originally Posted by dauphinette 

I'm sorry, I did misread your comments.  But after reading it I have to say it still strikes me as preposterous.  I know thats inflamatory but I can't think of a better way to say it.  I mean are you contending that you knew a whole bunch of families growing up and they all acted, in this regard, the same way and in this regard got the same result of children being secretly afraid of their parents but in spite of their abusive upbringing went on to all become success stories?  That just seems so unlikely....

[sosurreal09]

For the person who commented with their grandma digging her nails into them, yeah I would say that is violence. I would also say the people you saw doing that at the nursing home were very very wrong. I specialized in Alzheimer's care for 5 years and never laid a hand on any of them unless it was a loving pat or hug. Did I go insane sometimes?! yup. I got kicked in the stomach 3x by a severely delusional patient while I was pregnant and by myself. (night shift and the other aide was on break) All I did was make sure she was safe and walk away. That's one example...I have been hit, kicked, punched (in the face by a large man and had a black eye), tackled, bit, had my face spit on...you name it I have experienced it.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by hakeber 

A grounding is violent because it imposes arbitrary power and offers no chance for learning.  It is purely punitive and rarely linked to the crime. 

This depends largely on the household. I got grounded a few times in high school. Every grounding was for being out past curfew, without calling home to let my mom know where i was. While one can still argue with grounding, it was absolutely linked to the "crime" in ourfamily. I've grounded ds1 once or twice - thought it was twice, but I can't actually remember the second one, so maybe it was just once. He didn't come home after school, didn't call, and didn't get back until after 7:30 (school was dismissed at 2:30). He was 12.

OTOH, I do know what you mean. One of ds1's friends has been grounded at least three dozen times (my best guess is that it's closer to 70) in the five years of high school. I can't recall a single time that the grounding had anything to do with his "crime". He got grounded for forgetting to take his ADHD medication, for not eating his lunch, for mouthing off his stepmom, etc. etc. It made no sense to me, I have to admit.

When children are small, we smack them because we can and because they incite fear of our loved ones (and ONLY refuge of safety and protection and provider of all basic needs) being angry enough or disappointed enough to cause us pain which is scary enough to figure out what we are supposed to, even if it means utter and total paralysis of action.  Just because grounding doesn't involve hands doesn't make it any more respectful than a smack on the hiney.

This is interesting. I was spanked a few times as a kid. I don't remember ever being afraid of being spanked. I was always afraid of disappointing my mom, though. We talked about it a few years ago, when we overheard my sister talking to her oldest in a similar way to the way mom used to talk to us sometimes. Mom realized that my sister was using the same conversational tone that she used to use, and her response was "I wish I could take it back - I didn't realize". She was never intending to make us feel as if we'd disappionted her - that was just the way it came across. I was terrified of getting that tone, and would have many times rather had a smack on the butt.

Not using violence of the phyiscal or passive kind IS better.  Maybe that is self-important, or maybe it is just my belief or maybe it is actually proven to get better results.   Maybe all of the above.  Check out the CNVC, Ghandi, Martin Luthur King Jr., and a plethora of non-violent trainers, speakers and promoters and you will read about the success they have had with non-violence.

That kind of thing depends on a certain level of reasonableness from the people you're dealing with, though. There have been plenty of regimes who would have gunned down Ghandi without a second thought. I think non-violence can be effective, but it does have its limits.

I cannot say for certain that spanking is bad and I am sure, as SB pointed out, there isn't much conclusive evidence that it is, but I CAN say without a shadow of a hint of a doubt, that non-violent techniques give children the skills they need to make good choices and meet their needs in non-violent ways rather than merely avoid bad choices and have fewer tools for meeting their needs with non-violent techniques.  It may mean having a more difficult job when they are younger, but it will pay off in the long run.  I know of not ONE adult or older child who has been raised in a truly non-violent communication home (I do not mean one who merely didn't hit or ground, or who was not involved in their discipline, but those who implemented NVC techniques to resolve and transform conflicts rather than squlech them) who has violent tendencies or problems with agression or who harbor resentment of their parents.  The success rate is 100%.  The success rate of violent discipline is 50% at best as far as I can tell.
 

Once again, this doesn't allow for the other side of the equation. I try non-violent techniques. But, my kids are all different, and ds2 is like a stone wall. I have no idea what's going on his head most of the time, and no idea how to effectively discipline him. None. We're as respectful as we can be. We're totally willing to try to brainstorm techniques and approaches and problem solve. We just end up back in the space where everything is going fine, and I"m in the kitchen washing a pan, and dd1 screams "ds2 punched me in the mouth!". There's not even usually any build-up, and when there is, it's often of the "they exchanged two hostile sentences first" type. He literally walked up to her yesterday, and punched her in the eye...no argument, no anything - just a random act of violence. We have resorted to grounding (although I try not to frame it that way, as he's still young) because sometimes he just can't play safely with the other kids. But, if he grows up to be aggressive, or have violent tendencies, it's a reach (imo) to say that it's because of my parenting.

Violence of all kinds is still violence and the sole purpose of violence is to oppress. 

Hmm...I screwed up once and smacked dd1. I wasn't trying to oppress her. It wasn't even a parenting decision, as such. She was two, and she walked up while I was nursing ds2, and he was just falling asleep and yanked his hair - hard. I smacked her without even thinking, because someone had just walked up and hurt my baby. I didn't hit her as hard as I would have, because my brain managed to click into "OMG - that's 'my baby, too!" before I made contact. But, nobody was trying to oppress anybody. I was trying to protect my baby. And, the one time I smacked ds2, I didn't even know I'd done it, until he told me. He'd slammed me in the head so hard that I couldn't see and went kind of blank with the pain. I was leaning over his bed, crying and he started screaming and yelled, "you hit me!!". His cheek was red, so I obviously had, but I still don't even remember doing it. I wasn't trying to oppress anybody in that situation, either. I was trying to defend myself. Violence isn't for the sole purpose of trying to oppress...sometimes, it's trying to protect. And, neither of these were even spankings - they were both full-out smacks in the face.

I believe that we can get back to our pre-historic roots of being a global society of matriarchal values of peace and protection and community, but we cannot do that by participating in or giving any credence at all to values that contradict our hearts.

You know, I'm pretty sure our pre-historic roots of protection would have involved a fair bit of violence. I doubt pre-historic humans fended of predators, for instance, by sending them good vibes and singing Kumbaya. We're veering from violence towards children into violence, in general, here, but I don't think women are inherently non-violent (less so than men? Maybe - we have less testosterone).

[jezebelle]

To me, if a parenting decision that I can make has been correlated to countless negative effects, I am going to choose an alternate route, whether there is causation or not.  This is because if there is even a hint of evidence that spanking might be the cause, why bother with it?  Especially when, as Gucci pointed out so eloquently, many of the negative effects--that are plenty of evidence for me, if not for you--are observable at the time of the spanking.  For example, how can any logical person expect their child not to hit others when they are being hit?  How can they be expected not to fear the parent who strikes them?  How can they be expected to trust adults to make decisions for them when these decisions sometimes result in physical pain?  These areas don't need studies, as far as I am concerned.

I look to studies more for the long-term effects of a parenting decision, and I have read tons of them.  I don't have a bookmarked list, so you got the first ones I could find in a Google search.  And it's easy to dig on them when you haven't even read the articles I linked to, or taken the time to go through the studies they are reporting on.  And to the person who mentioned the Swedish study, one study contesting the findings of hundreds of others is not enough for me, sorry.  Like I mentioned before, Murray Straus's body of work is enough evidence for me, personally, and I don't think at this point anything could change my mind back to spanking (I have never spanked, but it's what I was taught growing up).  Some of these studies do eliminate other factors, so causation is evident.  Many do include occasional light spanking, not "beatings."  Though, again, as I mentioned earlier, most of them show that it's a matter of degree.  A spanking with a hand on a clothed bottom might be very different from a beating on bare skin with a leather belt, but what the studies show is that the worse the violence is, the more severe the negative outcome is.

And I totally agree that some things are just wrong, period.  It is a basic human rights issue.  I believe all humans have the right to freedom, equality, and safety, unless they attempt to prohibit another from these same rights.  This includes children.  Slavery, rape, discrimination, and violence are examples of violations of basic human rights, which, to me, makes them undeniably and indisputably wrong.  And I think we've already established that I am in the spanking = hitting = violence camp...

[2xy]

Originally Posted by hakeber 

I do not believe that any healthy, mentally fit mother's heart would ever tell them to inflict pain on their child on purpose. 

I think it's a stretch to say that all parents who spank are mentally dysfunctional.

[sosurreal09]

I would say more often than not people spank in a moment of frustration and out of anger. If you take the time to methodically punish your child with a spanking I would think a rational person would decide against it....

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by 2xy 
 

I think it's a stretch to say that all parents who spank are mentally dysfunctional.

I didn't say that.  I said, they were not listening to their hearts, because the heart of a healthy mother would not instinctively resort to violence.  I do not believe that it would.
 

[2xy]

Originally Posted by hakeber 

I didn't say that.  I said, they were not listening to their hearts, because the heart of a healthy mother would not instinctively resort to violence.  I do not believe that it would.
 

Well, I don't know about you, but I think and feel with my brain. My heart pumps blood.....it doesn't tell me how to behave.

And to be honest, I think human beings are instinctively violent animals who have to work at non-violence. Doesn't the state of the world make that obvious? There hasn't been a non-violent period in human history, AFAIK.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by jezebelle 

For example, how can any logical person expect their child not to hit others when they are being hit? 

I was spanked as a child. I never hit anybody until I went into completely wingnut PMS mode during puberty. I'm not sure why people assume a correlation here. Most of the kids I knew never hit anyone at all, and they were all spanked.

How can they be expected not to fear the parent who strikes them? 

I wasn't afraid of my mom, any more than I was afraid of my dad (and dad never hit us in any way). That just wasn't an issue.

How can they be expected to trust adults to make decisions for them when these decisions sometimes result in physical pain?

Make what decisions? The decisions my mom made for us were pretty basic, and I can't recall trusting her to make them ever being an issue. When she decided whether or not we could join Brownies or go swimming, or whather or not we were going for a long walk in the canyon that day, I can't recall spanking having anything to do with my reaction. I guess I just don't get what you even mean here, to be honest.

These areas don't need studies, as far as I am concerned.

I think they do, because I frequently see assertions about spanking, such as the "children can't trust parents who hurt them" or "kids are afraid of parents who spank" or "children who spank will hit other kids" or whatever, that simply don't match up to my experiences as a child who got spankings.

I look to studies more for the long-term effects of a parenting decision, and I have read tons of them.  I don't have a bookmarked list, so you got the first ones I could find in a Google search.  And it's easy to dig on them when you haven't even read the articles I linked to, or taken the time to go through the studies they are reporting on. 

As I said, I'll do so. It was simply late last night, and I couldn't follow them. As I was then up most of the night with dd2, I'm not functioning well enough today to read them, either. Maybe you actually have found studies with some meat that don't conflate spanking and beating. My whole point last night was that I was addressing the idea that if you're on this site, you obviously have the information you need to have about spanking. That's simply not true. I will try again, because I'm curious what real info there is out there. It's just that over the last few years at MDC, I've been sent to several articles and studies that purport to prove this or that about spanking, and not one of them actually did so.

And to the person who mentioned the Swedish study, one study contesting the findings of hundreds of others is not enough for me, sorry.  Like I mentioned before, Murray Straus's body of work is enough evidence for me, personally, and I don't think at this point anything could change my mind back to spanking (I have never spanked, but it's what I was taught growing up).  Some of these studies do eliminate other factors, so causation is evident.  Many do include occasional light spanking, not "beatings."  Though, again, as I mentioned earlier, most of them show that it's a matter of degree.  A spanking with a hand on a clothed bottom might be very different from a beating on bare skin with a leather belt, but what the studies show is that the worse the violence is, the more severe the negative outcome is.

I'll have to read these ones, for sure. However, eliminating other factors doesn't necessarily mean causation is evident. It necessarily means correlation is evident.

And I totally agree that some things are just wrong, period.  It is a basic human rights issue.  I believe all humans have the right to freedom, equality, and safety, unless they attempt to prohibit another from these same rights.  This includes children.  Slavery, rape, discrimination, and violence are examples of violations of basic human rights, which, to me, makes them undeniably and indisputably wrong.  And I think we've already established that I am in the spanking = hitting = violence camp...

By this logic, it was perfectly okay for me to smack dd1 and/or ds2 when I did so. If children are just like adults in this regard, then protecting myself and/or my other children from violence is the priority, right? I don't happen to agree with this, but I also have issues with this line of reasoning. The parent/child relationship is very different from other ones, rigth down to the legal aspects of it. If dh is in a nasty mood and taking verbal swipes at me all day (okay - he doesn't, but as an example), let alone physically hitting me, I have every legal right to walk out the door and leave him by himself. If ds2 spends the whole day hitting his sisters, hitting me, etc. I have no legal right to walk out the door. In fact, I could be charged and have him taken from me if I did so!  Children and adults aren't the same, and I'm not legally (or morally) expected to just take it when anybody else beats on me. And, no - that's not to say that I think it's okay to spank. It just means there are differences between dealing with children and dealing with adults. If ds2 were an adult in my life and treating me or my other chldren the way he does, he'd have been gone at least two years ago. I don't think anybody would think that was acceptable, either. So, let's not pretend that the parent/child relationship is just like any other interaction, because it's not.

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by 2xy 

Well, I don't know about you, but I think and feel with my brain. My heart pumps blood.....it doesn't tell me how to behave.

And to be honest, I think human beings are instinctively violent animals who have to work at non-violence. Doesn't the state of the world make that obvious? There hasn't been a non-violent period in human history, AFAIK.

The state of the world throughout our known history has been the records of patriarchy.  I find this a dubious source. 

I do not think with my heart (that is oxymoronic really) but it is a dead metaphor to say we feel and listen to our hearts (I did not think I'd have to explain that it is a metaphor, but there you go)  it means that we listen to the part of our inner psyche that is connected to our most base instincts and free of social and cultural manipulation.  I believe this is the root of non-violence.  I think we NOW have to work at this because since the world's story has been written down (which does not mean all of our past only those parts that have been recorded by men for the benefit of men) we have been ruled by patriarchal systems that connect aggression and violence and oppression of weaker individuals with social success.  I do not think this is nature, I believe it is nurture.  My evidence is purely anecdoteal, but it is mine.

[hakeber]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

This depends largely on the household. I got grounded a few times in high school. Every grounding was for being out past curfew, without calling home to let my mom know where i was. While one can still argue with grounding, it was absolutely linked to the "crime" in ourfamily. I've grounded ds1 once or twice - thought it was twice, but I can't actually remember the second one, so maybe it was just once. He didn't come home after school, didn't call, and didn't get back until after 7:30 (school was dismissed at 2:30). He was 12.

OTOH, I do know what you mean. One of ds1's friends has been grounded at least three dozen times (my best guess is that it's closer to 70) in the five years of high school. I can't recall a single time that the grounding had anything to do with his "crime". He got grounded for forgetting to take his ADHD medication, for not eating his lunch, for mouthing off his stepmom, etc. etc. It made no sense to me, I have to admit.

Well, yes, mostly I was thinking of the other kind of illogical consequence.  I am not a big fan of grounding as a punishment in and of itself, I suppose in the way you described it might make sense but being out was not the reason they didn't come home.  I would be interested in finding out why he went out before I took away DS's right to.  I would be asking what he felt he needed, and what his thinking was...I believe in restorative justice over punitive justice and I would be asking him to make up the pain and hurt he caused by disappearing.  I would also work with him to find ways to meet his need for autonomy while also respecting my need to know he is safe.  Grounding might be a part of that, but only if DS agreed that it seemed like a fair and appropriate consequence for his actions...but that's me.  For example (/he's only 6) he had a really hard time getting ready for school yesterday and was being really very rude to his dad and on the bus I said "So what was that about?"  and he finally said he was up all night playing Ben Ten in his head and so he couldn't sleep well, and I suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to take a break from ben 10 and he agreed and he's now on a break from the TV show...essentially he is grounded, but he is grounding himself and when he feels ready to handle it, he'll watch it again. 

And before you roll your eyes and tell me how he's an easy kid and I don't understand what it's like to have a difficult kid...we've BTDT, and I am sure we will be going through tough spots again and again, but each time he learns more and more skills of how to make choices and how to self-regulate...it's a lengthy and arduous process.

 

This is interesting. I was spanked a few times as a kid. I don't remember ever being afraid of being spanked. I was always afraid of disappointing my mom, though. We talked about it a few years ago, when we overheard my sister talking to her oldest in a similar way to the way mom used to talk to us sometimes. Mom realized that my sister was using the same conversational tone that she used to use, and her response was "I wish I could take it back - I didn't realize". She was never intending to make us feel as if we'd disappionted her - that was just the way it came across. I was terrified of getting that tone, and would have many times rather had a smack on the butt.

I should clarify here and when I say smacked I merely mean forces of violence against kids...this could easily be replced with shaming, yelling, shouting, or any method to make a kid feel small, powerless, or voiceless in thier home.  I was the same.  One look from my dad and I was a puddle of tears.  I wouldn't have preferred being smacked, I don't think, but I didn't like disappointing them much either...pain can be caused emotionally, too. It's still pain.

That kind of thing depends on a certain level of reasonableness from the people you're dealing with, though. There have been plenty of regimes who would have gunned down Ghandi without a second thought. I think non-violence can be effective, but it does have its limits.

They could have, but they didn't...why?  There would have been a million people standing in line to take his place, his disciples.  Jesus was non-violent and his disciples took on his mission after his execution.  Same with ML King.  It only takes a brave person to break the cycle and make a change.  It only takes one spark.
 

Once again, this doesn't allow for the other side of the equation. I try non-violent techniques. But, my kids are all different, and ds2 is like a stone wall. I have no idea what's going on his head most of the time, and no idea how to effectively discipline him. None. We're as respectful as we can be. We're totally willing to try to brainstorm techniques and approaches and problem solve. We just end up back in the space where everything is going fine, and I"m in the kitchen washing a pan, and dd1 screams "ds2 punched me in the mouth!". There's not even usually any build-up, and when there is, it's often of the "they exchanged two hostile sentences first" type. He literally walked up to her yesterday, and punched her in the eye...no argument, no anything - just a random act of violence. We have resorted to grounding (although I try not to frame it that way, as he's still young) because sometimes he just can't play safely with the other kids. But, if he grows up to be aggressive, or have violent tendencies, it's a reach (imo) to say that it's because of my parenting.

Would any of them be better off getting a spanking?  Dop genuinely believe that or are you merely trying to say it can't work for me.  It does work.  It takes patience and time and a lot of energy, but it does work because the whole point is to find the need and meet it.  Teaching communication skills is not easy but it can work over time. 

Hmm...I screwed up once and smacked dd1. I wasn't trying to oppress her. It wasn't even a parenting decision, as such. She was two, and she walked up while I was nursing ds2, and he was just falling asleep and yanked his hair - hard. I smacked her without even thinking, because someone had just walked up and hurt my baby. I didn't hit her as hard as I would have, because my brain managed to click into "OMG - that's 'my baby, too!" before I made contact. But, nobody was trying to oppress anybody. I was trying to protect my baby. And, the one time I smacked ds2, I didn't even know I'd done it, until he told me. He'd slammed me in the head so hard that I couldn't see and went kind of blank with the pain. I was leaning over his bed, crying and he started screaming and yelled, "you hit me!!". His cheek was red, so I obviously had, but I still don't even remember doing it. I wasn't trying to oppress anybody in that situation, either. I was trying to defend myself. Violence isn't for the sole purpose of trying to oppress...sometimes, it's trying to protect. And, neither of these were even spankings - they were both full-out smacks in the face.

We do not always willingly or knowingly participate in opressive systems...it is ingrained in us from a lifetime of living in patriarchal dog eat dog world in which we must be violent to be heard and the greater your violence the greater your power and success.  It wasn't intentional from you, but the action was to oppress the needs of the older child to inflict pain on the smaller child.  And you didn't do the wrong thing by protecting the child, but how did you protect the smaller child by hitting the older child...now you just have two hurt kids, ya know?  OBVIOUSLY it would have been better to prevent the hurt from happening by keeping a closer eye on them....unfortunate but true. You cannot say it was to protect...it was retribution. 

You know, I'm pretty sure our pre-historic roots of protection would have involved a fair bit of violence. I doubt pre-historic humans fended of predators, for instance, by sending them good vibes and singing Kumbaya. We're veering from violence towards children into violence, in general, here, but I don't think women are inherently non-violent (less so than men? Maybe - we have less testosterone). 

Well, I disagree.  I do think women are inherently less violent.  If we weren't I do not think it would have been so easy to socially enslave us for so many generations.  but that is an argument for another day.

[jezebelle]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

Originally Posted by jezebelle 

For example, how can any logical person expect their child not to hit others when they are being hit? 

I was spanked as a child. I never hit anybody until I went into completely wingnut PMS mode during puberty. I'm not sure why people assume a correlation here. Most of the kids I knew never hit anyone at all, and they were all spanked.

How can they be expected not to fear the parent who strikes them? 

I wasn't afraid of my mom, any more than I was afraid of my dad (and dad never hit us in any way). That just wasn't an issue.

How can they be expected to trust adults to make decisions for them when these decisions sometimes result in physical pain?

Make what decisions? The decisions my mom made for us were pretty basic, and I can't recall trusting her to make them ever being an issue. When she decided whether or not we could join Brownies or go swimming, or whather or not we were going for a long walk in the canyon that day, I can't recall spanking having anything to do with my reaction. I guess I just don't get what you even mean here, to be honest.

These areas don't need studies, as far as I am concerned.

I think they do, because I frequently see assertions about spanking, such as the "children can't trust parents who hurt them" or "kids are afraid of parents who spank" or "children who spank will hit other kids" or whatever, that simply don't match up to my experiences as a child who got spankings.

I look to studies more for the long-term effects of a parenting decision, and I have read tons of them.  I don't have a bookmarked list, so you got the first ones I could find in a Google search.  And it's easy to dig on them when you haven't even read the articles I linked to, or taken the time to go through the studies they are reporting on. 

As I said, I'll do so. It was simply late last night, and I couldn't follow them. As I was then up most of the night with dd2, I'm not functioning well enough today to read them, either. Maybe you actually have found studies with some meat that don't conflate spanking and beating. My whole point last night was that I was addressing the idea that if you're on this site, you obviously have the information you need to have about spanking. That's simply not true. I will try again, because I'm curious what real info there is out there. It's just that over the last few years at MDC, I've been sent to several articles and studies that purport to prove this or that about spanking, and not one of them actually did so.

And to the person who mentioned the Swedish study, one study contesting the findings of hundreds of others is not enough for me, sorry.  Like I mentioned before, Murray Straus's body of work is enough evidence for me, personally, and I don't think at this point anything could change my mind back to spanking (I have never spanked, but it's what I was taught growing up).  Some of these studies do eliminate other factors, so causation is evident.  Many do include occasional light spanking, not "beatings."  Though, again, as I mentioned earlier, most of them show that it's a matter of degree.  A spanking with a hand on a clothed bottom might be very different from a beating on bare skin with a leather belt, but what the studies show is that the worse the violence is, the more severe the negative outcome is.

I'll have to read these ones, for sure. However, eliminating other factors doesn't necessarily mean causation is evident. It necessarily means correlation is evident.

And I totally agree that some things are just wrong, period.  It is a basic human rights issue.  I believe all humans have the right to freedom, equality, and safety, unless they attempt to prohibit another from these same rights.  This includes children.  Slavery, rape, discrimination, and violence are examples of violations of basic human rights, which, to me, makes them undeniably and indisputably wrong.  And I think we've already established that I am in the spanking = hitting = violence camp...

By this logic, it was perfectly okay for me to smack dd1 and/or ds2 when I did so. If children are just like adults in this regard, then protecting myself and/or my other children from violence is the priority, right? I don't happen to agree with this, but I also have issues with this line of reasoning. The parent/child relationship is very different from other ones, rigth down to the legal aspects of it. If dh is in a nasty mood and taking verbal swipes at me all day (okay - he doesn't, but as an example), let alone physically hitting me, I have every legal right to walk out the door and leave him by himself. If ds2 spends the whole day hitting his sisters, hitting me, etc. I have no legal right to walk out the door. In fact, I could be charged and have him taken from me if I did so!  Children and adults aren't the same, and I'm not legally (or morally) expected to just take it when anybody else beats on me. And, no - that's not to say that I think it's okay to spank. It just means there are differences between dealing with children and dealing with adults. If ds2 were an adult in my life and treating me or my other chldren the way he does, he'd have been gone at least two years ago. I don't think anybody would think that was acceptable, either. So, let's not pretend that the parent/child relationship is just like any other interaction, because it's not.

I am not sure if you are purposefully misunderstanding me, or we are just so far out of sync that it's impossible for us to be on the same page, but somehow every single one of my points was lost in the translation...

I didn't say that if you hit your child, you child will hit others.  My point is that if you hit your child, and your child then hits others, you have no defense, because telling the child that "hitting is wrong" is hypocritical.

I didn't say that if you hit your child, your child will be scared of you (though I do believe that).  I said that you can't expect them not to be scared of being hit.

And I am sure your mother made countless decisions each day, as you do for your child.  What to feed you, how to dress you, what your plans for each day and evening were.  What I am saying is that I don't trust the decisions of people who hit me, because sometimes their logic leads them down a path that results in pain for me.

It is not surprising to me that you often find misleading statistics in studies, as you seemed to read everything I said incorrectly.  No offense, but perhaps these studies aren't saying "children who are spanked will hit other kids" at all, as I certanly wasn't and yet you still read it that way.

Finally, I was not saying that if someone attempts to relinquish the freedom, equality, or safety of another, they should be met with violence, rape, discrimination, etc.  I am saying that if a person tries to murder someone else, perhaps their freedom should be removed.  If they try to rape someone else, perhaps they should not longer be given equal rights.  If they try to imprison you in a basement, you can hit them to escape.  That's what my caveat was intended to mean, not that if your little girl hits your other little girl, you can then hit her.  How you are expected to act toward your children is not the same as what basic human rights they are entitled to.  I believe that each human is entitled to a violence-free life, regardless of their age, social situation, or other factors.  Exceptions to this can be found above, and do not include the mood and/or philosophy of their parent.

[umsami]

I'm the one who mentioned the Swedish study--it's not one study debunking research, it's a paper published in a law journal looking at the effects of anti-spanking legislation in Sweden in terms of a drastic increase in crime.  http://www.uakron.edu/dotAsset/1820605.pdf

I think he draws a lot from this list of studies, though http://ches.okstate.edu/facultystaff/Larzelere/nztabconts.47.pdf  (which are pages of studies--not just one).  It's interesting reading--and does support what many here are saying.  They point out that there are differences...and many of the spanking studies are contaminated (not my words) by overly severe methods of physical punishment (such as face slapping, beating, etc.)  :shrug:

I want to know why there has been a 6x increase in child abuse in Sweden since 1981.  It's worrisome especially for those of us who advocate a spanking ban here.  Are they linked?  Is it just better reporting/more awareness?  Has criminilizing spanking somehow led parents not to react or use GD techniques and then over-react at some point?  Or is it not-related?  

Edited by umsami - 6/9/11 at 1:14pm

[dauphinette]

Originally Posted by Gucci&Granola 

 However, the application of that line of thinking is really only acceptable when you are the only person being effected by your actions.  Your "smack your child on the bottom" that you may find completely morally sound is another person's "smack my wife in the face". 

I still do not see the comparison.  First of all I will once again say that I am against spanking.  But to me a parents role is vastly different to a spouses role.  A child is a parents responsibility a spouse is an equal.  I do look at my child as equal to me as far as we are both human beings and I do have boatloads of respect for her, but the long and short of it is I see my responsibility for as broken up into a few catagories:

education

safety

nourishment

socialization

At each age and stage my responsibility and approach change and grow.  I will do whatever it takes to meet her needs in those areas.  Period.  She is not my equal intellectually, yet.  And I have to make decisions for her and about her based on what she needs what I can do and what will work.  I am not above trying different things until I get it right.  I feel like for some children in some circumstances and in some families spanking is a tool in the tool belt and it can OF COURSE be used inappropriately and conversly can be used appropriately in my opinion.  My humble opinion. And I would not tell you to try it or pressure you to do it ever.

But to compare an apples and oranges of relationship like that of husband and wife.  That's like saying marrying a woman and marrying a little girl are the same thing..........

[dauphinette]

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

I guess it does seem weird but I did grow up in a very "religious" environment and about 90% of the parents spanked. I was SEVERELY abused as a child BUT I am completely normal and healthy and I think successful. I am an amazing SAHM and married to the love of my life. I graduated high school after being forced to quit and living on my own since I was 16. I was homeless for quite some time too. So do I think a child who grew up loved but spanked and was afraid of their parents for spanking could grow up to be normal? YUP

What seems so unlikely to me, and I apologize if it wasn't clear earlier, is that they alllllll did the same thing and allllll got the same result.  I know so many people and not realy any of them did the saaaaame thing and not really any of them got identical results.  Some of them did similar stuff but none of them got identical results.  Seems very unlikely.

 

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by hakeber 

Well, yes, mostly I was thinking of the other kind of illogical consequence.  I am not a big fan of grounding as a punishment in and of itself, I suppose in the way you described it might make sense but being out was not the reason they didn't come home.  I would be interested in finding out why he went out before I took away DS's right to.  I would be asking what he felt he needed, and what his thinking was...I believe in restorative justice over punitive justice and I would be asking him to make up the pain and hurt he caused by disappearing.  I would also work with him to find ways to meet his need for autonomy while also respecting my need to know he is safe.  Grounding might be a part of that, but only if DS agreed that it seemed like a fair and appropriate consequence for his actions...but that's me.  For example (/he's only 6) he had a really hard time getting ready for school yesterday and was being really very rude to his dad and on the bus I said "So what was that about?"  and he finally said he was up all night playing Ben Ten in his head and so he couldn't sleep well, and I suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to take a break from ben 10 and he agreed and he's now on a break from the TV show...essentially he is grounded, but he is grounding himself and when he feels ready to handle it, he'll watch it again. 

It was a peer thing, and I knew exactly what was going on. The single most logical thing I could have done would have been to have banned him from hanging out with that particular friend at all, but it's a strategy I don't believe in at all. He was getting something out of that friendship. I never figured out what, and I'm not sure ds1 did, either, and that friendship thankfully died a natural death a couple of years later. He basically didn't want to say "no" to someone, in the context of a very dysfunctional frienship. (This was quite common with this particular young man, and ds1 wasn't the only child who went through this with him, although they were "best friends", so it was a little more severe with him.)

And before you roll your eyes and tell me how he's an easy kid and I don't understand what it's like to have a difficult kid...we've BTDT, and I am sure we will be going through tough spots again and again, but each time he learns more and more skills of how to make choices and how to self-regulate...it's a lengthy and arduous process.

Excuse me? What made you think I was going to roll my eyes?

I should clarify here and when I say smacked I merely mean forces of violence against kids...this could easily be replced with shaming, yelling, shouting, or any method to make a kid feel small, powerless, or voiceless in thier home.  I was the same.  One look from my dad and I was a puddle of tears.  I wouldn't have preferred being smacked, I don't think, but I didn't like disappointing them much either...pain can be caused emotionally, too. It's still pain.

Well, I absolutely did prefer being smacked, but they weren't the same thing, in any case. It wasn't about an attempt to shame. Mostly, I think it was about an attempt to get our attention, when everything else had failed.

They could have, but they didn't...why?  There would have been a million people standing in line to take his place, his disciples.  Jesus was non-violent and his disciples took on his mission after his execution.  Same with ML King.  It only takes a brave person to break the cycle and make a change.  It only takes one spark.
 

Why? It didn't fit their own views of how to handle the situation. And, if they had been of the mind to just gun him down in the street, they would have happily gunned down a huge number of those million disciples, too. That doesn't mean what he did was meaningless, but the success of it had a lot to do with the particular people he used that strategy with, as well.

Would any of them be better off getting a spanking?  Dop genuinely believe that or are you merely trying to say it can't work for me.  It does work.  It takes patience and time and a lot of energy, but it does work because the whole point is to find the need and meet it.  Teaching communication skills is not easy but it can work over time. 

Of course they'd be better off. That's why I spank him all the time. (Oh, wait - no, I don't. I thnk he'd be better off, but I don't do it, because I don't want him to be better off...or something). That question doesn't even make sense to me, in the context of the fact that I don't spank him. And, maybe it does work, but I will say that after four years of trying to find the need and meet it, I still have no idea what's going on with him, and he can't tell me.

We do not always willingly or knowingly participate in opressive systems...it is ingrained in us from a lifetime of living in patriarchal dog eat dog world in which we must be violent to be heard and the greater your violence the greater your power and success.  It wasn't intentional from you, but the action was to oppress the needs of the older child to inflict pain on the smaller child.  And you didn't do the wrong thing by protecting the child, but how did you protect the smaller child by hitting the older child...now you just have two hurt kids, ya know?  OBVIOUSLY it would have been better to prevent the hurt from happening by keeping a closer eye on them....unfortunate but true. You cannot say it was to protect...it was retribution. 

I hit the older child, to get her to let go of her brother's hair, which she did. So, yes - I had two hurt kids, but she also wasn't yanking the crap out of his head, anymore, which was the intent behind hitting the person yanking on my baby's hair. I don't think that instinct has squat to do with a patriarchal dog eat dog world. I think it has a lot to do with the "mama bear" that people on MDC actually refer to quite a bit. As to keeping a closer eye on them...when dd1 pulled his hair, he was in my lap nursing, and she'd been standing beside us for several minutes, talking to me. And, when I hit him, I'd been trying to hold him down, because he was on a rampage and destroying his room and hitting his siblings. There was no way I could have been keeping a closer eye on him, but trying to hold down a flailing 60 pound child who is using every single body part to try to get loose and/or hurt you is a difficult task and I lost track of his head for a minute, while he was trying to claw out my eye. And, it wasn't retribution, as far as I can tell (as I said, i don't actually remember hitting him at all). I believe it was an attempt to get the person who was hurting me the hell off.

Well, I disagree.  I do think women are inherently less violent.  If we weren't I do not think it would have been so easy to socially enslave us for so many generations.  but that is an argument for another day.

I never said that I don't think women are inherently less violent. I said I don't believe that women are inherently non-violent. That's not the same thing. However, I also disagree that it would have been difficult to socially enslave us if we weren't less violent. Pregnancy is a very vulnerable time, and being less violent doesn't necessarily protect us from pregnancy. Look at how many women have found themselves in relationships that turn physically abusive, once she's already physically limited by pregnancy. While that vulnerabilty may or may not be why the man takes the step of turning physical, it definitely affects the woman's ability to protect herself. Besides all that, even being less violent doesn't mean a person can't or won't fight to protect themselves, so even a "less violent" woman could fight back if she felt she was enslaved.

[Gucci&Granola]

"By this logic, it was perfectly okay for me to smack dd1 and/or ds2 when I did so. If children are just like adults in this regard, then protecting myself and/or my other children from violence is the priority, right? I don't happen to agree with this, but I also have issues with this line of reasoning. The parent/child relationship is very different from other ones, rigth down to the legal aspects of it." - StormBride

First of all, this is simply inapplicable to all countries.  In many places around the world men are allowed to physically punish their wives for 'poor behavior'.  The reasoning behind this cultural norm is that women are subservient to men.  Because they are considered the weaker sex, men are entrusted with the care taking, protecting, and even disciplining of their wives.  In many western countries similar reasoning is applied to children as a way to dehumanize them.  When someone is somehow lesser (less strong, less intelligent, less in control) justifying violence against them becomes easier.

"If dh is in a nasty mood and taking verbal swipes at me all day (okay - he doesn't, but as an example), let alone physically hitting me, I have every legal right to walk out the door and leave him by himself. If ds2 spends the whole day hitting his sisters, hitting me, etc. I have no legal right to walk out the door. In fact, I could be charged and have him taken from me if I did so!  Children and adults aren't the same, and I'm not legally (or morally) expected to just take it when anybody else beats on me. And, no - that's not to say that I think it's okay to spank. It just means there are differences between dealing with children and dealing with adults. If ds2 were an adult in my life and treating me or my other chldren the way he does, he'd have been gone at least two years ago. I don't think anybody would think that was acceptable, either. So, let's not pretend that the parent/child relationship is just like any other interaction, because it's not." - StormBride

Of course the relationships between children and their parents contain nuance not found in any other relationships.  For starters, as minors they cannot leave you if you choose to hit them.  Also, aside from arranged marriage partnership is a choice.  The only choice in the relationship between a child and their parent is that the parent CHOSE to have them.  The child did not make a choice.  If someone feels that it is impossible to raise a child in a method that does not resort to physical violence against them maybe parenthood was not a good decision.  That is not to say that every parent who makes a mistake is a lost cause, just that if one feels that it is truly impossible to raise children without hitting them something is very wrong and I'm betting it isn't the kid.

Not sure why it wouldn't let me quote properly.  Oh well.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by jezebelle 

I am not sure if you are purposefully misunderstanding me, or we are just so far out of sync that it's impossible for us to be on the same page, but somehow every single one of my points was lost in the translation...

I didn't say that if you hit your child, you child will hit others.  My point is that if you hit your child, and your child then hits others, you have no defense, because telling the child that "hitting is wrong" is hypocritical.

I didn't say that if you hit your child, your child will be scared of you (though I do believe that).  I said that you can't expect them not to be scared of being hit.

And I am sure your mother made countless decisions each day, as you do for your child.  What to feed you, how to dress you, what your plans for each day and evening were.  What I am saying is that I don't trust the decisions of people who hit me, because sometimes their logic leads them down a path that results in pain for me.

It is not surprising to me that you often find misleading statistics in studies, as you seemed to read everything I said incorrectly.  No offense, but perhaps these studies aren't saying "children who are spanked will hit other kids" at all, as I certanly wasn't and yet you still read it that way.

Finally, I was not saying that if someone attempts to relinquish the freedom, equality, or safety of another, they should be met with violence, rape, discrimination, etc.  I am saying that if a person tries to murder someone else, perhaps their freedom should be removed.  If they try to rape someone else, perhaps they should not longer be given equal rights.  If they try to imprison you in a basement, you can hit them to escape.  That's what my caveat was intended to mean, not that if your little girl hits your other little girl, you can then hit her.  How you are expected to act toward your children is not the same as what basic human rights they are entitled to.  I believe that each human is entitled to a violence-free life, regardless of their age, social situation, or other factors.  Exceptions to this can be found above, and do not include the mood and/or philosophy of their parent.

I'm not purposefully misunderstanding you. I've never purposefully misunderstood anyone in my life, and I'm not sure what the point of even having a discussion would be if I were going to do that.

We're out of sync. Nothing you've just said clarifies anything in my head, and I don't get the feeling you understood anything I said.

As for children hitting others, I'm not sure what "having a defense" even means. My son hits people. I don't think in terms of what kind of defense I have, because I'm not making it happen, and I have no freaking idea why he does it. And, fwiw - he was my most bonded, attached, AP'd baby of the entire bunch, because he responded best to it. I never had to figure out anything with him. I just did what came naturally - breastfed, bed shared, baby wore, etc. - and he was the happiest, easiest, most content baby I've ever met. After two years, he responded to a loving, attached, calm, secure home by...throwing things, destroying things and hitting people. And, I don't happen to think that he has a human right to beat up everyone he meets.

Edited by Storm Bride - 6/9/11 at 1:50pm