[phathui5]

I am having such a hard time with my 3 1/2 year old ds lately. There are a couple different problems. The first one is that I think when I read that Trip to the Woodshed site and some of that mindset affected me. The idea of having them obey the first time, every time, I must admit is very appealing. That lady says she hardly every has to spank her kids and she doesn't have trouble from them.

Logically, I know that kids aren't puppies and we don't have to train them to obey our "commands." They're people like we are and they deserve to be treated with love and respect.

But it's so hard to take loads of time to work with with him on every little issue when I could try their way and see if I'll get an obedient kid out of it. There's this little voice in the back of my head going "If you would just switch/spank/pinch... him you wouldn't have to deal with the whining/disobedience..."

Help me out here. Talk me out of it I guess. Remind me why I want to be a gentle mama.

 

[iamama]

You may not have to "deal" with the disobidience- only having children that think placing physical harm on someone is an affective way to control somebody! You want to be the type of person who wants to TEACH not smack!!! Smacking slaping switching its bad bad bad.

Hope this helps!!!!!!

Don't fuse over each thing pick your battles and don't lose.

 

[Mothernature]

From someone who has to remind herself daily, here goes. We aren't trying to raise children that are obedient little followers, we want our children to learn to make good decisions on their own. We want them to respect us, not resent/fear us. We want to impart our values on our children by living by them and being a good example. We're parenting for the big picture not the here and now. If we remember to keep in mind what kind of person we want to raise it helps put it in perspective. Did that help?

 

[LoveBeads]

When you feel ambivalent, remember this:

Do you want your kids to cooperate with you out of fear or out of love?

It doesn't shock me that a kid who is spanked listens to their parents. But at what price?

Remember this too: your DS will one day be raising your grandchildren. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he decided to use gentle discipline instead of believing that spanking isn't so bad? You'll be affecting generations of people by the decisions you make today.

Good luck and please come back for support ANYTIME.

 

[KingsDaughter76]

Your doing sooo good mama! You do not want to start spanking...trust me on this...I tried it after lots of "advice" and insistence from family and I can tell you it does NOT work. Spanking will make you feel guilty and yucky inside...because you KNOW it is not the way to go...I went from a kind and paitent mommy to a annoyed irritated mommy that seemed to only notice the bad behavior that I needed to correct..instead of seeing my children as KIDS...I started to veiw them in a more negative way...it is weird but spanking just mucks up the whole parent child relationship IMO...it just brings such negativity into the realtionship. Yes, if you start to spank you might get a completly quiet and "obediant" child....for a time...but once the novelty wears off , your child will end up worse than before unless you intensify the spankings and become more harsh, because all spanking does is stop the immediate behavior by pain or fear instead of instilling a true lesson...I know this from personal expierence...and I am thankful that I have this board to remind me of what I believe and how I want to raise my kids...long term..not just short term...I was starting to get lost with all my family's "advice" .....Stay strong mama...it will be worth it in the end!

 

[Fianna]

I was a very, very "good" kid as a child because I was scared not to be. I spent years of my life fearing my father, and he only hit me three times in my whole life. But he used the threat of it and just gave off the "you don't want to cross me" menacing attitude. I missed years and years of having a healthy relationship with him because of it. And I spent much of my life sneaking around and lying because I didn't want to disappoint or anger him. So I looked like the perfect child from the outside. My parents always told me how much they loved me, how beautiful I was, how smart I was, how I could be anything I wanted to be, etc. All of those things that we know we should tell our children. But by my teens the inner dialogue I had with myself was, "Well, if they really knew me, really knew the things I had done, then they wouldn't think I was so wonderful." That negative inner voice drowned out so much of the positive message they were trying to give me.

Hitting, threatening, being menacing does often produce obedient children, just not happy, healthy ones.

 

[Juliacat]

Well, for starters, you can remember that ANYONE can make ANYONE do ANYTHING if enough physical pain is involved. Corporal punishment is cheating, really. You may be right in wanting your son to behave in a certain way, but using physical power to enforce your wishes only shows that you're bigger and stronger, nothing else.

Besides, unless you're planning on exercising total control over everything your son sees, hears, and does, for the rest of his life (like the lady at the Woodshed does with her kids), punishing him isn't going to work in the long run. He'll grow big enough that it will no longer be a deterrent, and then where will you be? With a kid who's big enough to fight back and is probably brimming from years of resentment.

Maybe it would help to work on communicating with your son so that obedience becomes less of an issue. There are lots of books on the topic.