paintedlady said:

How is deliberately shaming or humiliating your child NOT a form of abuse?

There must be a way to teach a young child boundaries without spanking or humiliating. Millions of parents seem to manage just fine without that.

Flowers2 said:

You didn't answer my question. I'm not talking about beating, I'm talking about spanking and other so-called light uses of force. Since parents are allowed to do it, why can't other authority figures do it anymore? Why draw a line?

meow85 said:

Then tell us please. Many parents teach shame to their children in order to get their kids to stop bad behavior.
For example....
Little boy pulls out his penis and pees right on your shoe... what do you do?

meow85 said:

cops do beat downs meow.. and the law is behind them (no line drawn there), it's not right, but I think a loving parent spanking their kid is better than the cop beating them down later on in life.....

paintedlady said:

Tell him to knock it off and point him towards the toilet. Or offer to put him back in diapers if he can't pee in the proper place. What the fuck is a smack on the butt supposed to do?

BTW, Here's a list of countries that have fully outlawed the use of physical punishment against children, and the year they did so:

Sweden 1979
Finland 1983
Norway 1987
Austria 1989
Cyprus 1994
Denmark 1997
Latvia 1998
Croatia 1999
Bulgaria 2000
Israel 2000
Germany 2000
Iceland 2003
Romania 2004
Ukraine 2004
Hungary 2005
Greece 2006
Taiwan 2006
Chile 2007
Netherlands 2007
New Zealand 2007
Portugal 2007
Spain 2007
Uruguay 2007
Venezuela 2007
Costa Rica 2008

That's quite the hefty list of countries alowing their children to have no sense of boundaries, morals, or respect for authority. It should be noted that Sweden and Finland, the two first countries to ban physical punishment, also have some of the lowest crime rates in the western world. If these kids are so obviously not being taught proper fear and respect for authority, shouldn't the crime rates be much higher?

Flowers2 said:

I meant hitting a kid, not another adult. Answer the question, please. Why can a 10 year old be hit by their parents, but not their teacher? If a spanking is what instills proper respect for authority, why doesn't the teacher get afforded that same opportunity for respect? Like I said, I'm not being facetious. I'm honestly curious why there's a difference.

Flowers2 said:

I meant hitting a kid, not another adult. Answer the question, please. Why can a 10 year old be hit by their parents, but not their teacher? If a spanking is what instills proper respect for authority, why doesn't the teacher get afforded that same opportunity for respect? Like I said, I'm not being facetious. I'm honestly curious why there's a difference.

meow85 said:

With some children that works, with others it doesn't. Spankings aren't the only solution, but sometimes they are necessary with certain children. IMO.

meow85 said:

I never said that children NEED to be spanked in order to be taught morals, I said that spanking can be used as well as other methods. Not always necessary, but sometimes a useful teaching tool, just like other methods if used properly. You are taking this to the left Meow.

And nobody spanks in these countries? Nobody at all? OK

meow85 said:

cops do beat downs meow.. and the law is behind them (no line drawn there), it's not right, but I think a loving parent spanking their kid is better than the cop beating them down later on in life.....

meow85 said:

Meow? .. parents birth their own kids? why should another adult raise other people's kids?... it's the parents job, not teachers... a parent teaches their kid at home about respect... that kid goes into society and behaves... but what do you do with a kid who has no respect for their parents? .. they don't respect their parents, well they won't respect any other form of authority elsewhere..

paintedlady said:

If that is true, then would you argue that spanking an adult with Down's Syndrome or dementia was acceptable, assuming they did not respond to anything else?

meow85 said:

That's easy... because the force of which someone may hit you is different with each individual. Some people hit hard, others do not. Its a proven fact that if you do not love a child that it is more likely for you to hurt that child. Step-parents should never hit children, because the probability o them hitting way too hard is high. Same thing goes for a teacher.

paintedlady said:

If it were a necessary or proven useful tool, even for some children, why would any country ban its use? Why would organizations who work with children and mental health call spanking at best ineffective and at worst, abuse? For fun?

I can't say for sure that no one spanks in these countries. But it is a punishable offense if caught, and the earlier countries to adopt anti-spanking laws also have stingent child welfare safety nets. There's nothing to stop a child reporting his being hit to a teacher or relative, who can notify police.

meow85 said:

Apples and oranges... no spankings would not be effective on them since the level of understanding is different. Even with average healthy children, not all kids need to be spanked, some never have to be at all.

Is more of a personality thing, some kids are never spanked and are abusers, some are and grow up to be well adjusted adults. My friend was never spanked and she is abusive (verbally) to her kids.

Flowers2 said:

Would you hit an adult with Down's Syndrome or dementia? If not, why not? They don't understand reason on the same level as an average adult.

meow85 said:

Because people beat children and not SPANK them, there is a difference. You would have to see me in action, everyone that witnesses the spankings say "OK, but not everyone hits soft like that...you didn't HIT him." This is why if I have to spank, I take a time out first. My mother beat me... I don't beat my kids. Those laws are in place for preventing physical abuse because many are just too lazy and too angry to learn the difference. I've seen physical abuse called "spankings". Beat downs are not what I am referring to.

meow85 said:

Meow.. of course you don't.... we're talking about mischievousness.. kids who are 'wise' .. not all children need heavy discipline.. you have sweet angels that will do everything the parent says.. (please Lord give me this type child when I have one lol) ... and you have other children, who have their 'own little rules' and rebel.. some of them are highly intelligent, straight A students.. they just need alittle bit more discipline than the others..

paintedlady said:

But that's assuming biological parents do all love their children. I don't think any of us has to look far to find examples that contradict that assumption. Many of us can think of several. And even if parental love is considered into the equation, like you said some people hit harder than others. Loving Mom and Dear Old Dad might just hit harder than a sunday school teacher might.

So why is there a line drawn between a parent and a non-parent on this issue? And who decides, and how, what constitutes hitting too hard?

Kind of long--complaining post.

When my kids were babies, I thought I had it so hard. Danny was 4, and Adam was one when I had Naiema. I can remember basically getting no sleep on some nights with one kid getting up at night after another. I had no social life and went practically everywhere with my kids. One in the shopping cart seat, one in the back of the cart and one holding my hand. I couldn't keep my job. Day care was too expensive. My husband was pretty much never home.

A few years ago, my daughter loved everything Disney, still gave me spontaneous hugs and let me braid her hair every day. She wore what I picked out for her and talked to me all the time.

My boys would sneak up at night to play video games. Create costumes based off their favorite anime characters and play sword fight in the yard. My main complaint was the constant wrestling and flipping around the house.

Now my oldest son is 15, my middle son turns 13 on Friday and my daughter will be 12 in December. Now I cry at night sometimes, not out of frustration or fatigue, but because my oldest is heading in the wrong direction. He actually hurts my feelings some times with the things he says and does. He's so inconsiderate and ungrateful.

He has to get up at 5:30 a.m. to catch the high school bus at 6:15. Lights out is 10 p.m. Not to mention he shares a room with his brother who daily tells me nearly falls asleep on the bus in the afternoon. So last night around 10:10, the lights and TV are still on, and I go in to say good night, and tell them it's lights out time. My son is looking at a skate catalog and tells me no. I turn the light out anyway and he actually threw the catalog at me and it hit me in my chest port (where I used to get chemo). I took the book and shut his door. He then rips open the door to confront me about my attitude. I slapped him in his face. He continued to try to get in my face. I was trying so hard not to push him, which I didn't do. I ended it by telling him I was going to get his Dad in there. I felt bad about slapping him, but all he had to do was put the magazine down and leave it at that. I can't have him thinking he can bully me. He was actually confrontational with me. I told him to get in the bed, and he says crap like, "no. I want to know what your problem is," about two feet from my face. What the hell????!!!!!

He's like that all the time now. Never wants to listen. Argues about everything. Failing his classes (doesn't turn work in, even though he knows how to do it). Sneaks around and smokes cigarettes. Has a girlfriend that has some emotional problems (cuts herself and takes pills). The music he listens to is that horrible sounding screaming, heavy sounding music. He calls it black-metal or death-metal. I'm just at my wits end with him.

My daughter is only concerned about her friends and boys. If I go in her room, she'll say to her friend on the phone, "hold on my mom's in here." She won't let me fix her hair anymore and hates all the clothes I pick out for her. She doesn't even say "good night, I love you," anymore to me.

I can't complain about my middle son except for his grades. He does what he's told, helps out without being asked, is getting into playing drums and guitar with his dad and is generally good natured.

I guess what I'm trying to say with all this is that babies and little kids are no where near as hard to deal with as pre-teen and teens. I never thought my kids would break my heart.

paintedlady said:

Ah! But the justification given for spanking any child is that children don't have the same cognitive functioning as normal healthy adults, and so cannot respond to reason or logic. But neither do adults with certain disorders or diseases respond the way a normal adult would to reason or logic, like I mentioned. How is this not similar? Where does "apples and oranges" come in? If a lack of ability to reason in children justifies using physical force on some, why doesn't it justify using it on child-like adults?

meow85 said:

That right there is the heart of he matter... it is better to stop spankings all together if people do not even know how to spank a child to where the child is in pain.
But there is a dark side to that coin, any adult rearing a child (biological or otherwise) will abuse a child other ways if it is in their nature to do so.
Spankings are not the cause of abuse, just a method to carry out abuse, the same can be said for time-outs, deprivation of toys or grounding, and especially in simple conversation. I have been witness to "nice" mommies say the ugliest shit to innocent children. Abuse can happen in all forms. So I spank because I know how, and its not abuse the way I carry out any form of discipline to my kids.

Its tough though, sometimes I get so angry I can't even think of spanking the kids at all even if I felt that form of discipline would be appropriate. If I am stressed, I can not spank at all.
Thank goodness they are older now... 6, 8 and 17. Spankings are a rare thing in my home, and the older a child gets the less of a need for that sort of discipline.

meow85 said:

Usually if a person with limited capacity of understanding can repeat behavior because they just can't learn beyond that. It is not a teaching tool, so its not effective, hitting a person like that would only be done because of a lack of patience and understanding on the caretakers part.
A child that is spanked has to learn a lesson from the event, just as they would with being grounded or getting privileges revoked. People that are child-like are not children they are adults that can not learn. What they have learned, and what they do know then you have to go from there, adjust to their behavior, because they are adults. They will not change that behavior.

This is different from a child learning right from wrong.

paintedlady said:

And for the sake of this argument, I'm not referring to beat downs either. My personal opinion differs, but as long as you insist on drawing a distinction, I'm willing to play along and call them seperate things.

Why won't either of you even try to touch this?: If several well known and respected child welfare and mental health organizations have spoken out against physical punishment, and have used empirically testable studies to back up their positions, why would they do so unless there was something to their claims? Political gain? Fun?