JonathanChance

Makes me glad that my parents never raised me that way. I mean, beating your kid even if they don't do their chores "cheerfully"? That's just plain abusive, man. And keep beating them if they refuse to assume a submissive position so that they can be beaten? That's crossing the line in my book. I don't even want to think about the issues that any person would have later on down the road if they were raised that way.




<Totally bizzare, weird and off-topic tangent>

Is there a connection between people who were spanked as children and people who enjoy either spanking or being spanked during sex as adults?

</Totally bizzare, weird and off-topic tangent>

Jackalope

Breaking an object across a kid definitely qualifies as "child abuse" under California law. In fact, when I worked on a hotline, things we had to report to Child Protective Services were: 1) closed fist, 2) leaves a lasting mark, bruise or raised welt, 3) using an object to strike, like a belt, hairbrush or wooden stick, 4) hitting anywhere on the head area, 5) breaks the skin. There were others, but those all qualify as things that some people think of as "normal" discipline.

And in fact, he advocates something here that would definitely get the offending parent reported to CPS:
Welts are definitely one of the red flags we were told to listen for in descriptions. I remember fine idiots cursing us out and telling us things like "I hope you burn in hell" when we told them we must report. Even though they'd be warned earlier. They were so convinced in their own rightness that the warning went right past them.

Mochaloca

This is too true. As a public defender, I am appointed to represent these type of parents after they get reported to CPS. I once represented a parent who was given the dowel and instructed on how to use it to "discipline" her two children. The parent had the children removed after the three year old was found to have been beaten black & blue.

The parent had psychological problems which inhibited common sense. I think it's been mentioned in other threads that some people who are drawn to extreme fundamentalism have psychological problems. That is the inherent danger in teaching this type of parenting. While this particular case was extreme, this type of abuse is not rare. And it is interesting to note that no action was ever taken against the church by any authority, AFAIK.

The worst part for me, though, is that I had to listen to this parent spout fundamentalist beliefs without being able to say anything, as it would have interfered with my effective representation. (Note: I am trying to be as careful as I can so as not to breach confidentiality).

I have been told that my opinions on use of corporal punishment do not carry any weight because I don't have children of my own. I can only say that if people could see the adverse effects of even "mildly" abused children later in life, they might change their minds about this type of discipline. I would say a good 80%, if not higher, of very young children who end up in the foster care system because of abusive corporal punishment also end up in the juvenile deliquency system as adolescents.


ab

Calzaer

Does spanking NEVER have a place in discipline?

happyboy

i could never ever understand the concept "you must beat the hell out of your child to instill morality in them."

gotta love that Old Testament God: always ready with a helpful dose of ritualized abuse.....

happyboy, who's glad his parents are lapsed christians

spurly

There is a BIG difference between paddling and child abuse. I was paddled as a child, but I was never beaten. It was always done in love, and always resulted in a hug fest after the paddling was over.

Do some parents beat their children? Yes, and this is 100% wrong. However, a swat on the behind is not child abuse.

Kevin

Mochaloca

Personally, my philosphy is that it's very confusing to teach children that it's not okay for them to hit others, but it's okay for their parents to hit them. However, even if I believed that "paddling" was okay, I don't think you can just say that there's a big difference between the two. I believe it is more along the lines of a continuum. At some point, paddling could be considered abuse.

The problem I see is that the parents who go too far by general society standards almost always use the defense of "the bible tells me so." And I always hear church officials say, well we just advocate "paddling," not abuse! I think that if church officials were held as responsible as the parents when abuse occurs as a direct result of their advocacy of corporal punishment, they might be more careful in how they advocate this style of parenting.

ab

beth

I don't advocate all of what Dobson teaches, but he did help me somewhat in trying to figure out how to discipline my kids.(Although they still best me.) He also does state that if a parent is unable to show restraint and spank with love and self-discipline, the parent shouldn't. His book, The Strong Willed Child, helped me to see that my kids were normal and not evil little hellions like my father-in-law kept telling me. I rarely spank my kids, but I do use some of his other methods. The reason why I rarely spank is the fact that my kids infuriate me so much that I would hurt them if I did not escape them. I have never hurt them, but it is a fear because I was raised by a very abusive mother.

Also, he advocates never using a hand, which is readily available, and easy to use in order to strike in anger. It takes a few seconds, at least, to get a paddle or a rubber-sole slipper to use to discipline with. By then the anger is usually defused. That is, unless one has kids like mine. Anyone else get murals drawn on the walls in permanant ink? Or have a kid who take over a thousand dollars of your jewelry to school to get school pictures taken with them on?

happyboy

you know, my parents never once came even remotely close to beating me or paddling me, yet somehow i managed to learn morality and "right and wrong" just fine without getting my ass beaten on.

it seems odd, but very few of my friends were paddled as children, yet THEY are moral and decent folk, too.

hmmmmm......maybe you DON'T need to beat a child with a paddle on his or her ass in order to instill right behavior!!!! good God, no! what is the world coming to???

a very distraught happyboy, confused as to why the word of God can be so easily denied and yet still produce moral children

nermal

Yep, if we've learned anything it's that you shouldn't use corporal punishment to discipline a child. You should reason with him and nag him into obedience. That's why children today are generally so much more well behaved, less prone to violence, more likely to be productive and self sufficient than they were two generations ago when they had so many problems with school shootings, gang violence sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, and continued dependence on parental support well into adulthood...oh, wait...

Ed