Donnmathan

Very good - you've actually managed to devolve this completely into name-calling, without answering any of the arguements I made. However, when I accused you of calling me a pedophile, you didn't respond...

I refuse to be dragged down to your level, JGL - when you can actually give me a rational response, I will respond in kind. Until then, I guess my participation in our little disagreement is over.

JGL53

Praise jebus for small favors.

Donnmathan

Well, since you put it that way...after all, one should not give someone who is behaving badly what they want.

Once more: You are ignoring the rational, scientific basis for spanking. It acts on that most basic human drive, self-preservation, by equating a negatively-perceved action with a threat to that instinct. Boiled down, it makes that action seem unhealthy on the most instinctive level. This opens the use of spanking to a wide variety of areas, including both punishment and as a warning to avoid more extreme harms. Is not a swat on the rear preferable to actually letting them touch the stove burner, yet delevering the same message?

As the child grows older and begins to be able to try to fit themselves into a social construct, the lessons learned in this manner can be applied. Essentially, the child begins to understand the 'why' of the punishment, and thus to arrive at a correct perception of proper social behavior.

This idea need not be exclusive to spanking, but can be applied to any punishment that is used properly. The whole idea is that some punishments will not work on some children, depending on personality, or in some situations (hard to threaten extra chores when you are on a week-long vacation). Personality of the child and parent are VERY important to punishment; a child who has no real love of television is not going to see the removal of same as a punishment, nor is one who is generally neat going to see cleaning their room as bad. An example of an effective spanking was my cousin, who liked to bite people when he was young. He was sent to his room, given extra chores, had his TV privliges removed, and a host of other things, yet he persisted. Finally, unable to think of anything else to do, my aunt actually spanked him the next time he bit someone, and he never did it again! Two swats on the rear, problem solved.

JGL53

?

Donnmathan

I'm not certain that I understand (?) as any kind of rational response to the position I stated. Please rephrase this in a more rational format, that it may be responded to properly.

Claudia

My rational reponse (not the one of JLG): I prefer positive conditionning to negative one. When applied consistently from birth, it is effective, and you obtain children you can trust from a very young age, which are not afraid of telling their wrong doing to find with the parents possibilities of reparation.

Donnmathan

A position I have a great deal of respect for, even if I think it is overlooking something. To me, any punishment is a negative response, spanking, scolding, or whatever; negative reiforcement applied to a negative act, positive reinforcements for positive acts. I would NEVER advocate the absence of the latter, as I am sure that would cause irrepairable harm. By the same token, omitting the punishment for negative acts leaves the child with the idea that negative actions have no consiquences, which is just as harmful.

Then again, I might be total misunderstanding your position. Therefore, I must ask what you consider positive conditioning to be; if we aren't using the same definition, let us straighten it out before we cause a massive tangle.

Claudia

This is where we differ. As I have already told, I ama against punishment in general (allowing possible very rare exceptions) and against painful punishment,but I make the difference between a punishment (you have done something bad, you deserve something bad in answer) and immediate answer to prevent a bad behaviour to go on.
As much as possible, for these immediate answers, I have several possibilities: physical restraint (oblige the kid to hold the hand when he does not want to, for example), scolding (which must be immediate and less humiliating as possible), brief isolation (which ends by the kids decision), diverting their attention to something else... and probably some others I do not think of just now, because it had been a long time since I didn't need to use it. As I also told, I am not perfect, and I had occasionnal (and rare) cases when my hand went off before I had time to realise what I was doing. Sometimes the result was a swat on the butt, sometimes I had time to slow down and I just touch them as soft as a pamper (but as they understood the initial intention, they didn consider it as a pamper). Then when the wrong doing had stopped, I had to consider the consequences. If it had none, it was forgotten after the scolding. If it had some, we tried to find together a way of reparation. Which was not a punishment but "when someone does somtehing bad, he repairs", reparation being unpleasant or not it depends on the case. They quickly learned that immediate reparations were often less unpleasant (hence "if you do something wrong, tell it immediately, scolding is softer and reparation easiest").
Also takes as example my reactions in front of lies. I tell them that there are several ways not to tell the truth: as a joke, as a (sometimes nice) story, or as a lie. When I felt that they were trying to lie (which was usually obvious when they were young) I immediately tried to let them telling it as a joke or as a story (without trying to make me believe). So I let them time to change their mind, they were able to tell me the truth rather quickly and without humiliation of seing their lie unmasked. As a result, once they have grown they are very truthful, very responsible, they know that they are allowed to have secrets but they tell me the important things, they are allowed to try to convince me that I take wrong decisions about them but I have the ultimate choice (not so much for my daughter wo has reached her majority, but still depends on me to finance her studies-living).

I very much tried not to let them find ways to control me (or at least not let them know it), and I think that when parents use negative conditionning it is a sign that the kids control the parents, most of time.

Donnmathan

Let me first say this - your position is, in my opinion, both well thought-out and admirably intentioned. That it has worked for you is a credit to you and, in my opinion, your level of commitment to parenting.

That said, I also feel I must point out a few things. First, that apparently you have resorted, on "rare occasions" (no sarcasm, just quoting), to actual punishment. Not that I believe this is any sort of negative reflection on you - far from it! But it is not something that, it seems, can be universally avoided. Out of curiousity: have your children ever had any trouble adjusting to the ready hand of negative consiquence in, for instance, school? It sounds like you are far less ready to even raise the possibility of punishment (or of negative consiquence) than any public school or employer would be, and I wondered if they ever had a negative reation to this. (Hey, one must ask these questions if one is to contemplate attempting a change of philosophy!)

Second, and something I neglected to point out before: no system of punishments and/or rewards works without consistancy. I would hazard to guess that at least part of the success of your method might be due to the fact that your children could rely on it's consistancy. While my parents (and myself) believe in a system that involes a bit more deterance by the threat of punishment, it is/was no less consistant. When punishment is delivered, it is consistant to both the seriousness of the transgression and the level of previous punishments for similar wrong-doing.

All-in-all, I can't say I really disagree with you, but I rather think we are on opposite sides of a justifiable scale...

dk

Generally I think you make good sense. But we disagree on the virtue of humility. For example, its humiliating to play on football team that looses 60-0, and kids without humility will sulk and blame others with the loss, because of false pride. Its humiliating to make a fool of yourself trying learn something new skill, but a person with humility isn't afraid of humiliation. An arrogant kid will scoff at constructive criticism that could be invaluable, whereas a kid with humility welcomes constructive criticism. I vehemently disagree about peer pressure. An arrogant kid can be goaded, dared and coerced by peers fearing humiliation, where a kid with humility will tell them to go scratch without giving it another thought.