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About spanking - I'm not judging...


amynicole21 wrote: I am not writing this to start a debate, but this has always bothered me. I have read that if you spank, you should never do it when you are angry. How on earth can you spank your child when you aren't angry? I have done it a few times out of total anger sleep.gif I feel guilty about it the second I do it. I just can't imagine looking at my child and calmly saying, "OK, I'm going to beat you now." unsure.gif If you have time to calm down, wouldn't you figure out another way to punish them?

Then again, I guess I also have the ability to not lose total control and actually hurt them... I imagine losing control is what happens to most people in child abuse cases. sad.gif

lisar replied: I agree and understand your point. If Lexi is going to get spanked. I tell her to go to her room and wait for me to come in there. Then it will give me a few minutes to calm down and then do it. But yes I see your point.

amynicole21 replied: Maybe it's just stemming from my childhood - I was ONLY spanked when my mom was in a fit of rage. I guess I just associate the two things - Spanking = Rage. I know that this isn't the case with most families, though. sad.gif

mom2my2cuties replied: Well if I plan to spank my children for XYZ behavior. It is something I have decided before hand, that XYZ behavior warrants a spanking. And usually I will tell them, and they know what is expected if they do XYZ. And I wont let XYZ get to me, I will simply stop whatever we are doing, calmly spank them, and then move on. I don't let them get me angry to the point to where I spank them and it's inappropriate.

Such as - my kids know that they are to ONLY color on paper. Well I let Andrea color one day and got up to use the restroom and I told her, Andrea if you color anywhere BUT on the paper, you are getting a spanking and no more warnings about it. We have had MANY MANY episodes of her coloring on the wall. So I get up and go head and use the restroom and I come back and there are three huge blue marks on the wall that she was in the process of making as I walked in. And all she did was look at me and say "look I colored" and I took the crayon away, swatted her bottom a couple of times (through the diaper) and then put the crayons and colors away and told her that until she can learn to not color on the wall she can not use the colors.

I think that is what they are saying. If you let something just go and go and go and make no attempts to correct it, and just finally loose your cool bigtime and then start just beating your children, that is where that saying comes in I think.

ETA - Growing up, my mother was similar to yours...And she would always go overboard with it. There were a few occasions to where my sister and I both had to go to the hospital as a result of her "spankings." Mine were mostly because of infections due to what she would use to spank us with and my sister on 2 occasions that I can remember had to get stitches because of what my mom used.

PrairieMom replied: I reason with Ben. Its usually for something that he knows he isn't supposed to do , but continually does, like crawling on the counter or something like that. I will take him down, look him in the eye and let him know that he is NOT to be doing that, and if he does it again, he will get a spanking. Then I make him repeat it back to me, so I know he heard me. What will happen if you crawl up there again? " I get a spankin"
Then when he does it again, I take him down, and say, I'm sorry you did that, now you earned a spanking. Then he gets a swat. So, I don't usually spank in anger.

redchief replied: Actually, Amy, the question you're asking is exactly why I stopped. I spanked my son one night, in anger, and though I left no marks I realized what I COULD have done to him had I been just a LITTLE bit angrier. It scared the daylights out of me. From then on I vowed to find other ways in which to discipline.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: i have spanked in anger... but i usually don't. In all honesty, my kids, my dh and the people who know me best would say that at my most angry, I'm the picture of calm. The quieter I get, the angrier I am. So although I'm always pretty much yelling at my kids about something, they know that if I use "that voice" and tell them to go to their room right NOW, they GO! emlaugh.gif

It's convenient in stores and around other people. wink.gif

I can relate to hoe someone could lose control... see my post in the ppd forum in the andrea yates thred, so i don't have to repost it all... emlaugh.gif

DansMom replied: Like you, Amy, I associate spanking with rage, and can't imagine a calm approach to spanking. I haven't spanked, but I've been that angry and walked away. I'm capable of rageful verbiage, and am more afraid I would say something cruel and unnecessary, or swear at my child. I think I'm lucky in not having a high-needs child who pushes my buttons---Daniel is very easy-going and well-adjusted. Also in not having more than one child I don't have as much stress as some parents. I also balance my time between work and home, so am not parenting all day long---this gives me some perspective.

mckayleesmom replied: I only spank after repeated warnings.....If Im super angry...I don't spank because I would probably go overboard....Usually when McKaylee or Russell does something really overboard I send them to their room until I calm down. Im like Rocky though....Usually Im calmer seeming when Im really angry or have just had it.....I usually calmly tell Mckaylee that I am very upset with her and she needs to go sit in her room until I come get her.

msoulz replied:
Similarly, I have never spanked my kids because as a teenager I smacked our dog around for getting on the table and eating my brother's birthday cake, in essence for doing what a dog does, and i realized right there what a horrible thing that was when I saw the fear in the dog's eyes. It still makes me cry when I sit here. I don't EVER want to see that look in a human's eyes, especially my children. Anger is a horrible thing when it gets out of control.

boyohboyohboy replied: My husband does the spanking, and only after we have no other alternatives, and only if the offense was life threatening or could injure someone else.
also usually we wait till he gets home from work, and then he has a talk with caleb, and then they discuss the spanking...
i think the idea of waiting all day for dad to get home and spank him worries him straight more then the spanking.
but he never gets more then one swat on the butt. and its never in anger.

Kirstenmumof3 replied: sleep.gif I have to hang my head down in shame here! Emily was spanked A LOT and for everything! I was pregnant with Spencer by the time she was 14mths old and I guess hormones and then a new baby! I feel so awful, everytime I think about it. Spencer has rarely ever been spanked and Claudia has never been spanked. I look at the way Emily has turned out, she has much more respect for us and a better appreciation of things. Don't think it's related to the spanking. Spencer is so gready and expects things all the time! Emily will go to the store and bring you back the change. Spencer will pocket his milk money and eat his cereal dry (we sometimes send those snack pack cereals to school)! Claudia is very well behaved, but very busy. I don't know after how I felt and still feel about what I did to Emily, I don't think I could ever spank another child! sleep.gif

mckayleesmom replied: I have to add that usually Mckaylee doesn't get a spanking after I send her to her room.....It kind of defeats the purpose in my opinion...Usually it takes a while for me to calm down and by that time...she has usually either forgoten why she was sent there or behaving...Also...when you open her door and she is all chipper and happy....I can't do it then rolling_smile.gif

Boys r us replied: Amy, that's exactly my viewpoint on this and precisely why I don't spank. Again, not judging anyone who does..just stating my views on it.

The only time spanking my kids would be anywhere close to an option for me would be if I was boiling mad and just temporarily lost my mind or something in a fit of anger. Otherwise, if I had to walk away and spank them when I wasn't mad anymore..then no way..I mean, I could NEVER imagine hitting my kids in a calm, collected state of mind..I would have to just totally lose my cool and do it in an angry state of mind. I'm way too soft hearted to spank!

skinkybaby replied: Growing up when I did something worthy of a spanking my parents would send me to my room to wait for my talking to and my spanking. After about 15 minutes they'd come in, we'd talk about what I had done wrong and why it was wrong to do it and I'd get my spanking. It didn't hurt, but the waiting and then talking to them and knowing I had let them down would make me start bawling as soon as I got a swat on the butt. The main thing with the waiting was for me to think everything over and to ponder on what was about to happen. I'm sure it also gave my parents time to calm down if they needed to. I don't EVER remember my parents hitting me in anger. Ever.


For me, there is a BIG difference between a spanking and a beating. A spanking should never be done with anything but your hand and should never cause your child to be sore afterwards. A beating usually involved a belt, or a switch, or something along those lines and the kid can't sit down afterwards. I condone spanking, but never beating.

cameragirl21 replied: in principle, i'm very against spanking but i must say that a few Christmases ago, i took my godson to the bookstore and he started yanking books off the shelf and throwing them across the store. hard. like he was Sandy Koufax or something.
and he was throwing them faster than i could pick them up and put them back so i took him out of the book store and foolishly took him to the Disney store where he managed to completely (and i am so not exaggerating here) trash the place within a few minutes...the employees were staring at us as if we were aliens so i picked him to carry him out and he was still grabbing at stuff and throwing it around while in my arms so i smacked him on the hand. not very hard, he didn't even flinch and i couldn't believe what i had just done but i was so frustrated that nothing else got him to stop it.
so what i mean to say here is that while i'm anti-spanking, i CAN see situations where a person has no choice or at least feels as if s/he has no choice.
as long as it's not done in rage and not extreme like a beating then i suppose once in a blue moon, like if a child is really out of control, is not a big deal.

Boo&BugsMom replied:
This is what we usually do too. Tanner hasn't gotten many spankings, but the times he has gotten them he can tell you what they were for. smile.gif He's pretty easy to reason with, but, he is a persistant little booger sometimes. smile.gif

luvmykids replied: I rarely spank, but when it's called for I send them to their room and tell them to wait. I take as much time as I need to calm down. Once I've calmed down I could find other means of discipline but in some instances, IMHO, a spank is what is called for. We have a long talk about the behavior and why I have to spank them, etc. After the spank it's lots of hugs and kisses.

I have spanked the twins out of anger at one time or another too, Amy, and still feel bad myself hug.gif I changed my idea of what I wanted that specific manner of discipline to accomplish and that's what has made the difference for me.

coasterqueen replied: I could never understand that either, Amy. I was always spanked out of rage by my mother and sometimes by my father. My father would spank me when I got home if my mother told him I was bad and he wasn't in a rage at those times. Never understood how he could do it. How was spanking me later on really going to do anything. I never learned, therefore I always got spanked. I never understood it as a child. I must have been dumb, since it seems many on here say their child was spanked once and never again in fear of getting spanked again. blush.gif

My2Beauties replied: I've tried all sort of different methods and spanking really doesn't work any better than any other one. The sad thing is, I can't see how someone could spank if they weren't already angry, I don't understand. Hanna gets "swats" on her butt like if she bites, smacks, hits, or yells really loudly at someone and calls them a name, very seldom do I get so fired up that she gets a full blown spanking, it's only happened once or twice and DH and I feel awful afterwards. We are probably horrible because we threaten with a spanking more than she gets them, I always say Hey You want a whoopin'? Fully knowing that 99% of the time I won't follow through, I'm horrible about being consistent, absolutely positively horrible. I just "yell" a lot at Hanna and I feel awful about that too. With the new one coming I've really started to notice how I act lately when she does push my buttons and I've been trying other ways around, diverting her attention, focusing on positives every day that she does instead of focusing on only the negatives. I think this is the best so far, when I praise her for the simplest things she does good, she continues to do them and it makes me feel good that I've made her feel good, KWIM! It puts a smile on her face when I say oh you did such a good job or oh that is beautiful, you're such a big girl, etc... she eats it up and positive behavior tends to follow. When I react negatively to even one thing she does, the negative behavior follows suit. I've noticed a lot of times ignoring her whining or pouting or tantrums also works, she gets over it real fast when she figures out no one is paying attention! So, I'm trying to change my ways of discipline lately.

amynicole21 replied:

That's exactly my point. I can't see how you can hurt someone UNLESS you were out of control. sad.gif

Kentuckychick replied: This is why in our house we always had offenses that were "spankable offenses" and that way we always knew what sorts of things we'd get spankings for. We do the same for my godson (per his mother who spanks) and I do the same with the children I babysit (per their mother who spanks)-- though I've only had to spank her children twice in the 6 years I've babysat for them.

Spankable offenses are things like biting, lying, backtalking, or disobeying that causes danger (ie: going in the street without holding a hand) etc... and these are not things that I get so angry about that I would ever be spanking out of rage. They are given a stern warning and if they don't straighten up immediatedly then they get a firm swat on the backside. I've never had a child cry for more than a few seconds, I've NEVER left a mark on a child and there have been many, many times when I've been angry, so angry that I would liked to have spanked a child (I've been kicked in the stomach, spit at, had my hair pulled, and any number of other painful things) those are the moments when I take the child to their room, shut the door and let them scream as loudly as they wish (I don't care as long as they stay in there). Then I walk away... I go and calm down, I wait for them to calm down and usually, within five minutes all is well and we talk it out.

So no, spanking doesn't have to be cruel, it doesn't have to be in rage or anger, and it honestly doesn't even have to really hurt (I find that it hurts the pride a little more than the hiney).

Edited to add: I would like to say that I don't agree that any person should spank a child out of anger. This does happen far to often and this is when people cause their children harm. It's called self control... if you are angry you walk away and cool off, you are so much more powerful than you can imagine when you are. It's like my mother said, every individual has the potential to be an abusive person... it's all about being able to control yourself.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: The times I'ce spanked my children, they knew better than to cry about it. laugh.gif

Nah, I remember being spanked by my dad very well. And it was over anything he'd catch me doing. But he was wayyy overboard... I remember once he made me recopy my whole math book, becuase my 5s looked like 'S's instead of '5's....

and once, he trashed my room, literally dumped out all the drawers, toss everything from the closet onto the floor, dumpe dall my toys, crayons, etc etc etc on the floor... because I hadn't picked up my room toh is liking. I was 6.

I remember not being able to go to school for almost a whole week because he'd hit me across the face for playing too loudly. He had a headache from drinking too much...and I guess my singing in my room was too much for him to handle.

I remember having to stand out in the front yard with my forehead and nose touching the laundry pole, with my arms crossed... and having to stand there until my legs buckled. It was about 3 hours long.

I remember him chasing me around the house with his belt, whipping it at me, missing, getting angrier... finally, when he did catch up to me, boy did I get it. I would have likely needed stitches if my mother would have dared take me to the ER...but she didn't for fear of getting his wrath on her. I can't say I blame her... I was about 10 at that time.

Let me just say that I would have much much much rathered a few spankings from a calm parent than the horrible things I have experienced.

PrairieMom replied:
hug.gif


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