Physical violence against children

[Griffon64]

I got the occasional spanking as a kid. And boy, did I deserve them when they occurred!

I remember thinking resentful thoughts when my mother said "This hurts me as much as it hurts you" or something like that, but those thoughts were short-lived. My mom certainly sent us for a cooling-down first - and no doubt to cool down herself, too. But she always did administer the spanking. Not in anger, I guess more to keep her word that she won't let a given action go unpunished. We always knew when we were going to be spanked, that's for sure. There was ample warning, and there was always the consequences when you kept at your misbehaviour. I'm sure that sometimes it really was hard for my mother to administer those spankings after the cool down period, and I'm sure she was often tempted to "let it slide" this once - but she never did. That's what made the lesson more powerful.

It taught me that there are lines drawn in life and that you have to bear the consequences when you cross them. And for that I'm grateful because that was a jolly handy lesson to learn, and my developing personality at the time was such that I really needed that lesson to sink in in the hardest way. A few whacks on the foundation by a mother who really did dislike having to spank her children did me the world of good as I headed into adulthood, so I appreciate the discipline I received as a kid, and I was not harmed by it. For that, of course, I have my parents to thank. The world abound with examples where spankings were not good for the kids. I'm just an example to the contrary.

With that said, it is not as if I had a perfectly smooth sailing life as late adolescent and young adult. I made my mistakes! And paid for them. And realized anew that it really is true that you better be prepared to face the consequences when you mess up.

[Frelga]

This is not directly in response to any specific post, as we are all different, same experience elicits different responses. (Some posts here elicited from me.)

Teremia is wise as always. Much of the whole punishment business comes from the desire to control children and treat them as our property and extension of ourselves.

I think there is a deal of difference between a consequence and a punishment, although it is common to call a punishment a consequence. A consequence naturally follows out of the act. A punishment is imposed by someone with a power over you because that power has decided that you have done wrong. As a teaching tool, a consequence is a lot more valuable, because it removes the intermediary between the cause and the effect. It may take a dozen slaps on the wrist to keep the child away from the hot stove or a hundred, but one touch will usually do it.

A consequence is much harder to design and sometimes a parent simply cannot let the child take a consequence of his choice, like running out into the traffic, which is why I don't have a problem with spanking as punishment for life-threatening behavior (there's a story in DH's family about his dead climbing up on a steep roof as a child). Or the consequence may be too far away in the future for the child to be impressed, like not flossing his teeth leading to cavities years later.

With all that said, I still try to consider what negative consequence my son's action carries. If the answer is "none," then I need to stop and think whether I'm facing a problem here or simply a battle of wills. And boy, do I get into those. If I didn't set hitting out of limits for myself, I am afraid to think where it would have led.

It used to be that my son wanted to watch cartoons in the morning before school. So the consequence for dawdling was easy - no cartoons until he was ready to leave. He was up, washed, dressed and fed in 15 minutes total. Now he wants to read, and short of wrestling the book from him, I am at a loss for a consequence except for letting him be late for school. He said it was important to him not to get any tardies, so today I didn't hurry him at all. He was late. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

* sigh * Nobody said it was going to be easy, did they?

[Primula Baggins]

I hope not.

I've used exactly that strategy for exactly that problem, and it did work eventually.

And I agree that an important parenting skill is picking your battles. Mr. Prim has been known to ask, "Is this the hill we want to die on?"

That also seems to have worked, so far.

[Frelga]

Well, I kinda made sure he was late today. I'm devious. It's an important parenting skill.

He was late for the first bell, but in time for the lesson. Tomorrow, he's going to be late for the lesson and get the tardie, if he doesn't hustle. That's consequence. Actually, I think I'm going to call his teacher and ask her to make sure she reinforces being on time thing with him. Yes, I think I shall.

[Maria]

I mentioned this discussion to my oldest daughter this weekend when she dropped by, and the only spanking she really remembers clearly is the one where I was using my hand & it hurt her, but she turned her head and laughed in my face like it didn't, and so I got my moccasin and walloped her bottom until she did cry.

I only have the vaguest recollection of that, but it's one of her clearest punishment memories. Why was that one more important? Perhaps she learned something like, "don't mock authority figures" that day. I dunno.

[River]

I think it was a different sort of lesson, but I'm not sure how to articulate it. It was a lesson I also learned, but through different means.

I do not remember being spanked. I remember my siblings being spanked when they were small, so it probably happened to me as well, but the punishments I remember involved push-ups. Once I even earned 50 of them. I can't remember what I did to deserve that. I also remember getting grounded and losing other privileges. The thing about the groundings my parents dished out was they were always fairly mild - we couldn't step past the end of the driveway, unless it was to walk the dog, but we could still attend after school activities, have friends over, make and take phone calls, and so forth. But when you're used to "Mom/Dad can I <fill in the blank>?" answered by a "Yes, be home for dinner," not being able to leave the property is rough. They never grounded us for more than a week either. But we felt it. We felt it good. That and my dad was especially scary when he got mad, so we'd cover for each other and keep each other in line.

Oh yeah, and a couple times, when I was a teenager, my dad tried to slap me. I say tried because I threw up a block both times and he thought better of it. You can't encourage your kids to begin and continue martial arts training and still expect to be able to hit them.

My parents, now that I think about it, had a real Machiavellian streak.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

I back deviousness over brute force in dealing with kids. Like, I mean, they aren't devious?
Once when I was snoozing in the armchair my wife caught the two of them going through my hair and examining the back of my head to find my 'North Eye' that I used to catch them out in misbehaviour.

[Primula Baggins]

I used a lot of moral judo when they were little. "Of course if you're that tired, you shouldn't have to clean your room. I'll call Eitan's mother and cancel your play date so you can rest."

Before long they got better at seeing my moves in advance. Which was fine; more chores got done, and they got their fun.

[Frelga]

Moral judo!

Yup, deviousness works so much better than violence. Done right, a parent can actually teach a lesson without appearing to do so at all. My son was very nearly late two days in a row, realized that I was not going to fight with him about it, got some reinforcement in the classroom, and was ready half an hour early yesterday. I gave him a pencil that says "I'm so proud of you!"

But that does require sticking to your guns. No, you can't finish your homework now, it's time to leave and you have to turn in whatever you have.

[solicitr]

Old age and guile will beat youth and inexperience every time

[River]

Trouble is, I also developed a Machiavellian streak. I don't employ it very often because I'm not very proud of it, but it's there. And I did outfox my parents. More than once.

I am *so* in for it when I have kids.

[Frelga]

Yes, but that's kinda the point! If I thought my son never sneaked behind my back and did things he's not supposed to, I'd be very, very worried. I mean, think about the qualities you want our children to have when they grow up. Assertive, independent, creative, persistent, self-sufficient, charismatic men and women we want them to be, right? Admirable qualities in grown-ups, aren't those? And absolutely unbearable in little kids.

Of course, he learns manipulation along the way, no doubt about it. But I want him to. I want him to learn to make friends and influence people, and he can practice on me, because it's safe. And I try to show him what doesn't work (screaming to get his way, (except very, very occasionally) ) and what does (bringing me chocolate and saying "Mommy, I think you need to take a nap so I'll just play quietly on the computer while you rest.")

It IS judo, as Prim said. You use their own momentum to guide them where you want them to go. And sometimes you let them hit the ground. It's hard to manage, and harder to watch, but I do think it's more helpful to my son than me hitting him. Cause and effect are easier to observe.

And on a very, very good day, I get it right, oh, may be half the time.

[vison]

That's it, exactly.

I remember someone saying once that the children brought up after Dr. Spock (I nearly wrote Mr. Spock ) were just what people had been hoping for: outgoing, outspoken, honest, loving, impatient of hypocrisy and not about to settle for "what everyone did". I think that someone was Garrison Keillor, but I'm not sure.

At least in part, lying to your parents is a necessary part of growing up. It is one way of many that a child seeks privacy and a separate identity.

[Frelga]

You know, I very rarely lied to my parents. There were things they just couldn't fathom, two extroverts raising an introverted child, but I knew I could trust them. My mom got all the dish on my dating (and Heaven knows what it cost her not to flip out), more than any of my girlfriends did. I think one of the reasons I never got into much trouble as a teenager was because deep down I knew that they would stand by me no matter what I did. I did not feel the need to test them or punish them.

And I think that's where spanking is counterproductive, because if the consequence of your parents finding out you did something stupid is them hitting you, why would you want to go to them and fess up?

[Primula Baggins]

Frelga, you sound like a wonderful mom. I wasn't nearly as grounded and sensible when my oldest was your son's age.

It amazes me that probably the most important work that people who choose to be parents will ever do in their lives is undertaken with little or no training and often little or no help, and not uncommonly by people who frankly have no gift for it, who find it intensely frustrating and difficult and isolating. I certainly had moments of that, and much guilt and worry over it. (My gift is not for dealing with babies and small children. I had to wait to feel like Mom of the Year: I'm pretty good with teenagers.)

Now that I'm older, I don't think any parent who's doing his/her best (and I was, from the start, in my fumbling way) should agonize over lapses. It is utterly impossible to live in this kind of intimacy with a baby/toddler/child/adolescent for eighteen or so years and never say or do a single thing you regret.

And I've struggled to accept the idea that the fact that my kids are not perfect means they are human beings, not that I failed them. We love each other and they are mostly happy, and I don't think there's much more I can ask as they launch out into life.

[JewelSong]

I have not posted in this thread, although I have been reading with interest. I did, however, have a few thoughts to share...starting from the comment about lying.

I rarely, if ever, lied to my parents. My father thought (and taught) that truthfulness and honesty is the most important thing - and we were told that no matter how badly we had screwed up, it was far, far better to tell the truth about it than to lie. And so - we mostly did this. And there were some incredible screw-ups that each of us 'fessed up to.

Of course there were consequences to the confessed deed. But the first thing we heard after our (often tearful) admission was always, "I am so glad you told me the truth!"

As far as spanking goes. I have always been confused by the feeling that if you don't hit in anger, then a spanking is okay. I mean, why else would you hit if it wasn't because you were angry? Hitting methodically as a punishment always seemed - well, kind of cold-blooded to me.

I was never "spanked" although I was hit a few times due to frustration on the part of one of my parents and always just a single slap or wallop. I never experienced the kind of measured "spanking" that people seem to mean when they talk about spankings - the kind where the kid stands there meekly holding out a hand or presenting a bottom and the parent proceeds to deliver however many blows with hand, belt or shoe.

I think that there are three reasons for this kind of punishment. One is humiliation...it is likely humiliating to have your bare bottom hit and so you would not want to repeat whatever it is you did that caused it. The other is to inflict pain. Maria's story about getting the shoe to hit her daughter when her bare hand didn't evoke the proper response is one of these times. And the third is to show parental power/authority. You're bigger and stronger and more powerful - so you can inflict this punishment when you choose. Child would do well to mind you.

But what do you do, then, if the child NEVER cries? Would you continue to hit harder and with more force until he/she showed the proper emotion? What if the humiliation aspect had no effect? Would you try to find even a more humiliating way of spanking? And if you are inflicting the punishment to show your power, what happens when the kid is suddenly bigger than you are?

I never "spanked" my children. There were times when I delivered a single smack - once when Luke, as a toddler, ran out into the middle of a busy street and GRINNED at me as a truck was barreling down on him - I grabbed him, pulled him to safety and smacked his bottom so hard my hand hurt - all in one go. He never did it again. (18 years later, he still remembers it, too!) There were a few other well-aimed bottom-smacks as the kid was being sent upstairs for a time-out in the room. But there was never a measured, calm set of blows delivered when I was simply hitting as a methodical punishment. I cannot countenance that and as I said in the beginning, I don't understand why this kind of hitting is seen as somehow "better."

[MithLuin]

Beatings tend to be administered in anger. The parent loses control, and just starts walloping the kid. The reason people stress that spankings are not given in anger is to point out that they were not out of control when they did it - no one was beating up the kid. (A single smack in a panic situation is another thing entirely, of course. Almost all parents react like that, and for good reason! ) I think it's an important distinction, and I was thankful that (sometimes) when my mom blew her top, she went outside and screamed and took a stick and beat a tree until the stick broke. Much better for the poor innocent tree to take the beating than for her to take out her aggression on us! (She did not, btw - we were never beat...I hope I'm not implying anything.) On a few occassions, she threw things, and we always remembered that, for some reason. We will never let her forget that she broke my sister's plastic Peter Rabbit plate when she threw it and it hit the stone wall.


That same sister is now married, and hopes to start a family of her own soon. Her most recent griping comment is that we were not very well supervised - we were allowed to roam all over our 20 acre farm from a young age. I think she misunderstands - other kids are allowed to roam their neighborhoods, which have scary things like cars and other people . But she does have a point - the time she came walking up the driveway at the age of 2, and had mushrooms smeared all over her face, for instance . And one of the building was called the chemical shed, because that was where my Dad kept the chemicals for spraying the apple trees. We were forbidden to go in there, and the door was padlocked, but there were these low windows.... I think part of it is that her friends are more young mothers, and are therefore much more panicked about kids wandering off. Whereas our stories are all 20 years old, and thus the panic is removed from them .


I certainly didn't like getting spanked, but I have never thought it was a bad or unfair thing that our parents did to us. To me, it seemed a very natural consequence to misbehaviour. I've always thought it was weird that some parents didn't do that, to be honest! Since I'm not a parent myself (nor even married), I don't have to make a decision about how to raise my own kids. So, I haven't really thought about it recently. But my parents certainly relied more on manipulation as we got older. I knew they were doing it, but I wasn't very good at it myself.


I always tried very hard not to lie. Sometimes that meant I refused to answer questions and just kept silent, though. For some reason, I can lie more easily now (though I am terrible at it). That should probably bother me. (What I am most likely to lie about is the amount of time I spend on the computer vs. the amount of work I get done.)

[Lily Rose]

The only time when getting spanked really bothered me was when I knew that I was innocent. That happened twice, and I remember both time very clearly. I was only about three the first time and my older sister had cut my hair. She then blamed it on me and mom believed her for some reason.
The second time wasn't much later. My sister and I were horsing around in the bathroom. My sister managed to hit her head on the vanity. She said that I pushed her. My parents believed her without even letting me give my side of the story. Boy, did I get it for that one.
I am not against spanking, if you've got a kid that will respond to nothing else. But, if there is any doubt whatsoever as to who is guilty, don't do it.

[Primula Baggins]

Jewel, if you start from the assumption that spankings are necessary—which parents in the 1950s and early 1960s were told by all the childrearing authorities was Sacred Truth—then I think you can see why parents were supposed to spank dispassionately and never strike a child "in anger." You were simply doing an unpleasant but necessary task.

You had been told from all sides that if you did not do this, your child would grow up undisciplined and wild and have a terrible life, and it would be your fault. Parents who used to say "This is for your own good" and "This hurts me more than it hurts you" meant it. But they thought they had to do it or they would be neglectful parents.

These were parents like mine, who had half a shelf of books on child development and childrearing, all from the 1950s. They would not have spanked us, ever, by their own inclination, but they thought from all the research they had done (not just based on their own experiences or the cultural standard) that they had to do it.

Going back one generation further, my dad's mother used to whack him repeatedly with anything handy, and she probably thought that was the right thing to do; she was well educated by the standards of poor immigrant families, having been the first in hers ever to graduate from high school, and she read widely.

And my dad in those days was rebellious, a constant liar, hyperactive, sarcastic, and completely uninterested in school, which he skipped on a regular basis—so my grandmother didn't lack provocation.

I hope she never thought the thwackings were what made him end up a Lutheran minister. (A thyroidectomy helped, too.)

[solicitr]

The breakdown here is not necessarily between whether physical discipline is administered (I never apply it, whereas I knew my dad's belt all too well, and neither generation seems to have been permanently warped)- but whether discipline *of any sort* is administered. My brother and his wife, God bless 'em, have always let their kids run roughshod over them- and now both little darlings are out of control, very unpleasant to be around, whining, disobedient, defiant, and too often violent, and in counselling at their principal's request.

Children need rules and boundaries. They don't have to be enforced with the cane, but they do have to be enforced, on penalty of something.