Physical violence against children

[Maria]

I slapped one of my kids in the face once. It felt immensely wrong and horrible and I never did it again. It wasn't even hard enough to leave a mark, but it was just *bad*.

Ya don't want to make a kid head shy. Or a dog or a horse, for that matter. Never hit the face.

My older daughter got hit in the face once in school and that instigated her one and only fight in school. She did a foot sweep on him, and then dragged him into the next room where the teacher was, bristling with outrage. For some reason, when the school called my husband, the person was more amused than anything else by the fact that a girl had gotten the better of a bigger boy. She didn't even get into trouble, despite the fact that official school policy is that both participants are equally guilty in any fight, self defense or not.

Emotional abuse is far more damaging than pain, in my opinion. Pain comes and goes and is soon forgotten, but emotional scars can mess you up for the rest of your life, if you let them.

[WampusCat]

And who am I to talk—only one of my kids is still a kid. My second son turns 18 on Sunday.

And my only son (and only child) turns 18 on Monday.

The one thing I have made a point of doing that my parents never, ever did with me is that I apologize to my son. If I lose my temper and yell at him or say things I regret, I do not hesitate to say, "I'm sorry. I overreacted. Here's why you shouldn't do such-and-such. When you did, it upset me and scared me and made me furious because I love you and want you to have a good life. But I'm sorry I lost control."

The result is that (1) he knows he is loved and that it wasn't a permanent breach of our relationship, (2) he knows why I was so angry and what his action was that provoked it, (3) he knows that even authority figures make mistakes, but that it is right to try to repair the damage and demonstrate calm, yet honest, discipline.

An added bonus is that if he upsets me or becomes really angry with me, he always apologizes -- on his own, without prompting. And then he tells me how he understands why what he did was wrong or why he overreacted.

I don't know many teenage boys who would do that.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

God almighty, nel!
Some children have to go through an awful lot of mess as they grow up. It's so unfair it makes me rage. One can only hope the children when they grow up learn truths from it and lead their lives differently as people here have done. Not all do.
Like Alatar I spanked my children a bit when they were young. Never hard and I didn't like doing it and disliked myself for doing so. I think in part because younger children respond to body language rather than words. Particular instances that stick in my mind were when my daughter, 2 or 3 years old perhaps, ran away towards a busy road; another time when she kicked me on the shins. The smack that she got made her little brother cry and that made me feel worse. I always feigned anger rather than losing my temper. I am not someone who loses their temper much. If I raised my voice I always tried to talk normally soon afterwards in order to normalise matters and I always talked to the kids in an adult way right from when they were babies and I always tried to make my kids feel good about themselves even if I told them off about behaviour. I loathe the denigration of children.

[vison]

Well, whatever my faults as a parent, I can honestly say I never humiliated my kids or threatened to humiliate them, or belittled them, or threatened to withdraw my love or that sort of thing. I honestly think those are worse things than hitting (and that's not saying I think hitting is OK). Emotional abuse threatens the child's sense of worth, and a lot of kids who are treated that way will have no sense of their own value. I perfectly understand Alatar's wish to sock the other dad in the eye for saying he's going to tell about the pacifier, I would feel the same way. Let's have his wife threaten to tell everyone what little "issues" the guy has in bed, and watch his face. But then, he was probably treated that way himself, as a kid.

The other thing I think is harmful is capriciousness. Consistency might be the hobgoblin of little minds, but it's sure as hell important when you're dealing with children. If you talk about a consequence, make sure you follow through. And that means, your consequence better be one you can perform: don't threaten to cut the kid's arm off and beat him over the head with the wet end. Tell him if he does X then Y will happen and make sure Y is something you can actually do.

It is REALLY hard to follow through, sometimes, though. Tay was told if he didn't do his chores one Saturday he wasn't going paintballing the next Sunday, a week later. He didn't do the chores, got really snotty about it, and his answer was, "I don't care" and rather than fight I just said, "Remember, next week no paintball." By the following week he'd forgotten all about the "not caring" and I nearly gave in. But you can't. You have to stick to it. And I think he really did learn. I hope!

That was one thing about my Mum and Dad. When they said "No" they meant no and they stuck to it. Dad said, later on when I was a Mum myself, "There were times when we thought afterward that maybe we'd been too strict, when we could have said Yes as easily as No, but we always thought it was best to stick to your guns" and my Dad was absolutely right.

[Faramond]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds!

[Primula Baggins]

Wampus, I apologize to my kids when I'm wrong, too—I always have, and Mr. Prim as well. And our result was the same as yours: our kids apologize to us. Having met adults who can't admit to being wrong and can't apologize, and having seen how it limits their lives and hurts their relationships, I'm grateful for our kids' sake that we got that much right.

vison, I agree that consistency is painful but oh so important, starting right when they're tiny. I think being inconsistent hurts trust—if you promise a penalty and don't deliver, are you going to make pleasant promises and not deliver, either?

[vison]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds!

But consistency is not foolish with kids, which is why I left off the word "foolish".

[Jnyusa]

Hobby, your last long post was really great! Just wanted to say that.

nel, wow. Is it common? More common than you'd guess, probably, but the aggregation you describe is really over the top.

Jn

[Faramond]

sorry, bad post of mine deleted

[Frelga]

I think the MOST harmful thing a parent can do to a child is to make them see that they are unwanted, unloved, that a parent doesn't care about them. That's probably why so many people who have been spanked don't hold punishment against their parents - they know that the parents did love them and did the best they knew. My parents weren't perfect, but every day of my life I knew that they would always be there for me, no matter what I did.

I'm not perfect, either, but I make sure my son knows I love him, enjoy him (most of the time) and very glad I have him. Which I do and am.

What was done to nel and her sis is... my blood just boils.

In the interest of full disclosure - yes, I had on one occasion resorted to three hard slaps on the bottom for one of those life-endangering situations. Just once, and I had an effect BECAUSE it was the only time. But that was because I was not in the position to either remove Lufu from the dangerous object or to watch him all the time.

And while I don't think a slap on the wrist is all that horrible, I never found it necessary to resort to it. I did it once, in exasperation, when Lufu was about 1, and he looked at me with his trusting eyes and extended his other hand for me to slap. And I still break into tears when I remember that.

In most situations, just removing the toddler from the dangerous/fragile object seemed enough, although I admit that my son was fairly compliant as toddlers go, that's his personality and nothing to do with me. But still, repeatedly, endlessly, while saying "Danger/Fragile" (my code words). Little kids don't come with remote controls.

As I said, I understand spanking in a life-and-death situation. What I often see, though, is a parent babbling away with friends while the toddler wanders around. The parent looks up at some point, sees the toddler toddling out into the traffic, and SMACK! And I just want to go over there and the parent repeatedly while saying, "Watching children means WATCHING them! No fair punishing the child because YOU were careless." Not talking about Tosh, of course - sometimes you just CAN'T watch every second, especially with more than one child.

There is just no algorithm for raising perfect kids.

[MithLuin]

Yes, carelessness, while not meant to be malicious, can do awful things.

This mom seems to have accidentally killed her newborn, but can't be sure, because she was too drunk to remember what happened.


On a lighter note... Anita Renfroe's comedy routine - Momsense.
I'm not sure how long this will be up on YouTube. Silly copyright.....

[Teremia]

Mith, I kind of wish you hadn't mentioned that horrible story! Ordinarily I suppose I could handle it, but somehow I woke up a little fragile around the edges this morning. (Don't think I'm criticizing you, Mith -- just observing my own reactions today....)

As far as watching kids goes, my husband and I have found that the most dangerous situations tend to arise when we're BOTH at, say, the park with the kids, because then we're not as clear in our own heads as to who's "on duty" for which kid. But now, of course, we're pretty much past the worst of that, since all the kids are way past the toddler stage.

What I wanted to say in the context of this discussion is that we all have a role to play in reducing the stresses on parents and the abuse that results. When I had various babies of my own, I developed a much better understanding for how the stress of parenting builds up in you -- and how much what Other People say can affect that!

Example: My kid behaving like a Wild Demon Raised By Wolves at the end of the nursery school day -- I'm trying to get her to come out of the classroom, get into the car. She: absolutely not having any of it. Throwing a huge & terrible tantrum. I: at my wit's ends. Then one of the nursery school teachers sticks her head of the room and gives me a big understanding smile:

"You are the best mom," she said. "You are doing so great!"

And the huge panicking stress inside me just melted away. I felt like a member of the adult team again, emphasis on "team." I remembered kids just wig out sometimes, and we just have to hang in there and keep our senses of humor about it.

And I also realized how powerful our fear of being judged by others is.

It's awful when you have a few toddlers with you in a plane (my case -- 2 at a time), and someone turns to give you the scowl of doom, when in fact they've been doing pretty well, for kids of their age. The scowl says: everything your kids do is YOUR FAULT. You can control yourself: why can't you control your kids?

Well, yes, there's something to that, in theory. BUT it's also the deadliest of misunderstandings, because our kids are not us; they are themselves. They come into this world not as tabulae rasae, but as some early version of themselves, already with certain parts of the personalities kind of wired into position. We CAN'T control them "as if they were ourselves"! And if we think we MUST, then we will be filled with terrible rage sometimes, because they will NOT comply with our every wish and command (they can't: they are not us).

I honestly think that a great percentage of terrible child abuse probably starts with some man saying, "Why can't you control those kids???" to some woman. And she just sinks into panic and rage and loses it.

Moral: Be kind to parents, especially when their children are being absolutely awful.

[Lily Rose]

Indeed. There is nothing more humiliating than people calling YOU down in public for a child's bad behavior.
I think that everyone has been to the grocery store with a child that is grabbing stuff off of the shelves, is whining for candy or donuts and pretty much anything else that they can do to be disruptive. I've had all three of mine at once behaving like that despite my best efforts.
You just want to smack judgmental people over the head.

On the flip side of this, there are parents who will do things like leave there children in the toy section of a department store while they do their shopping. That happened fairly often when I worked at Walmart several years ago. Then the kids would , of course, make a horrendous mess, and then they would all leave. Now, I am the last person to judge another parent, but that drove me to distraction.

[Rowanberry]

This is interesting, that so many people see a slap on the face as less extreme than a spanking. (...) I'm sure it must be a matter of culture.

I think the MOST harmful thing a parent can do to a child is to make them see that they are unwanted, unloved, that a parent doesn't care about them. That's probably why so many people who have been spanked don't hold punishment against their parents - they know that the parents did love them and did the best they knew.

That's it, basically - here, a spanking is regarded as more humiliating than a slap, although a slap isn't acceptable, either.

[narya]

I was spanked, but not excessively -- and certainly never slapped or hit with an object. The spankings only made me angry and resentful, not remorseful. I clearly remember that they lowered my opinion of my mother, who was the only parent who did it. My gentle father could stop any action of mine with one word of disapproval, largely because of my respect for him. I wanted to be like him, not like my mother.

I was spanked, slapped, and hit with objects. In one terrifying instance, I ran into my room and locked the door, but my dad broke down the door and hit me repeatedly as I cowered in the corner. I don't recall a single reason why I was "disciplined". I only knew that despite having a personality similar to my dad's (I got outraged, too) and despite the fact that he often accused me unjustly, I knew that I had to be perfect to avoid setting him off. Sadly, I was not perfect enough. Eventually I figured out that he was just looking for an excuse, and of course, that meant the "rules of the game" were changed daily by him, and he would find that excuse, and he would hurt me. It really didn't have that much to do with my actions. I was terrified of him when he raged, yet there were good times in between. It was so conflicting. It took me thirty years before I could buy those Father's Day cards that everyone else takes for granted and bestows so lightly. The ones that say "You're a great dad".

When I was younger, my mom would spank me with a ping pong paddle. I don't remember what she was punishing me for, but she only did it a few times because it upset her so much to do it.

So when someone says "I think hitting a child is a good way to teach him a lesson" I have to wonder - does it actually work for some kids? It certainly didn't work for me.

[MithLuin]

I'm sorry, Teremia. It really is an awful story. I considered not linking it, but then thought that the warning might be sufficient. I probably guessed wrong.

We tended to be very well behaved in public and saved our hooligan behaviour for home. I don't know why that is, I just remember that everywhere my Mom went, people told her what wonderful children she had. Multiple times in the same shopping trip. And so, to be helpful, I responded to one of these people by saying "We know." Probably ruined whatever good impression we had made.

But even such children as my sisters and I were had bad days. We certainly broke things in stores occasionally, or would hide in clothes racks while my Mom was trying to shop. Tired, hungry children are always cranky. I know my Mom still feels that all of our actions reflect back on her, even though she knows full well we are separate people who make our own choices.

I once had a summer job with an hour long commute. My car (my first car! woot!) didn't have a radio, and it was summer time, and I'm not a morning person....so that first week I was nodding off while driving to work. There were mack trucks coming at me in the other lane (not a divided highway). After snapping awake a few times and seeing that I was drifting into that, I was very panicked and upset. When I got to work, I called home crying saying that I had to quit my job. After verifying that I had not been molested, my Mom tried to figure out what had happened to me. I told her, and concluded with "so I have to quit my job." Her first reaction was, "but how will that make me look when I tell people my daughter had to quit her job?" I probably told her that I didn't much care, atm, but afterwards, I realized she was just trying to inject some perspective into the situation. After I calmed down, I realized that buying a radio for the car was probably a more reasonable solution. And I didn't even the lose the job after showing up late and tear-stained . But I know that that is there - my Mom feels that her childrens' successes and failures reflect back on her, positively or negatively. And I have to imagine that that is at least in part due to so many years of judgemental remarks and looks. I know she heard "Are those all yours?" many times, and that wasn't even meant maliciously most of the time.


I think hitting can work. I don't like pain at all, so spankings were certainly a deterent for me. And I'm very, very stubborn, so I'm sure other methods didn't always work. My mom's 'temper tantrums' were scary, and I agree that we kids didn't know what we had done wrong. But if my dad spanked us, he only ever used his hand, and he never did it in anger. I don't remember specific instances, but my impression is that it was always for something we had specifically been told not to do. What I hated from my dad is when he would tell me not to cry - I had this awful hiccupy cry, and I honestly couldn't stop it. Or maybe trying to stop made it worse? I don't know. I suppose he thought it was histronics. It doesn't help that whenever he would try to have a serious 'talk' with me, I tended to end up crying. Still do, actually.... . I guess I care a lot about what my dad thinks of me.

The last time I was spanked by my father was when I was old enough to defiantly refuse to turn around when he told me to. I don't recall how old I was...possibly middle school. Spankings left the skin warm, but no more than that.

My mother did use stuff to hit us, but just because she had arthritis and it hurt her hands otherwise. Mostly it was wooden spoons, but they eventually all got broken. I think we gave her some for Christmas when we got older.... Sometimes a brush would work instead. Again, she didn't hit us that hard. It hurt, but it didn't leave marks or anything. But she was more likely to slap hands when she wasn't angry. When my brothers were toddlers, she kept a flyswatter in the car so she could keep them from climbing out of their carseats in the back. Obviously, getting hit with a flyswatter isn't meant to hurt!

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

Don't worry Frelga, I didn't take it personally and anyway it is extraordinarily difficult to offend me. We all bring our personal stories to this discussion.
As for parent stress, if I see a toddler throwing a tantrum in a shop and the parent isn't going ape themselves I lean over and say, 'I often feel like doing that myself.'

[MithLuin]

I think the MOST harmful thing a parent can do to a child is to make them see that they are unwanted, unloved, that a parent doesn't care about them. That's probably why so many people who have been spanked don't hold punishment against their parents - they know that the parents did love them and did the best they knew. My parents weren't perfect, but every day of my life I knew that they would always be there for me, no matter what I did.

I completely agree with this. Love covers a multitude of shortcomings.



And for some reason, when I hear awful stories, I feel the need to share them. Please don't feel the need to follow this link though. It's a very tragic story of abuse: Melanie's story

[narya]

Mithluin, you'd probably like David Pelzer's autobiography. I was not strong enough to read the first one - "A Child Called 'It' - One Child's Courage to Survive" about his early childhood with a psycho-mom. The second one - in which he is taken from his mom and goes into the foster care system - "The Lost Boy - A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family" - was hard enough to read. One of these days I'll read the third in the series - "A Man Named Dave - A Story of Triumph and Forgiveness".

[Maria]

I read "A Child Called It" and it still gives me shudders to think about it. I haven't read the sequels, the first was too harsh.

So when someone says "I think hitting a child is a good way to teach him a lesson" I have to wonder - does it actually work for some kids? It certainly didn't work for me.

It worked fine on my older two. My youngest had a pinched nerve or something from the way her toes turned in, and I don't think she could feel my spankings before the chiropractor got her legs straightened up at about age 5. Even as a toddler, when being spanked she'd just turn and look at me like I was weird. It wasn't until she got it that I was mad at her and that was why she was being spanked that the spanking bothered her at all. She'd wail, because she'd seen her siblings do that, but you could tell it wasn't real.

She's given us 2-3 times as much grief growing up as her brother and sister combined. We didn't get our bluff in soon enough. I remember one of the first spankings I had to give her after a few months of chiropractic treatment and her feet were finally pointing straight (most of the manipulations were done to her hips). I spanked her for something ( I don't remember what, of course) and she was shocked and really cried for the first time over one.

She is the most likely of my kids to go seriously wrong with her life- but much of that is due to her personality type. And some is due to the numb butt that cancelled out her early spankings.