The Great Smacking Debate

[fireheart17]

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/c...006301,00.html

Basically, mum is about to get punished for smacking her 9-year-old with a wooden spoon.

So in short, is smacking OK from your point of view?

My views? There are plenty of ways to discipline chidren and I fail to see how there's a connection with "no smacking" = "violence."

[Nyoibo]

I found this an interesting post

"Section 20 of the SA Criminal law Consolidation Act. 1935 states that one of the defences to assault is "moderate chastisement of a child by parent or guardian" The assault laws were re written in 2005 and this was kept in, so its hardly old school. In black and white its perfectly legal as long as the discipline was moderate and reasonable. Now whether you agree or not is another matter."

Now we just need to work out what moderate and reasonable is.

[MergedLoki]

I was spanked, never WITH an object as a child just bare hand.

Never did me any lasting harm.

The one lady in the article says 'there's other ways to discipline a child' which, if i'm reading the article correctly the parents in question DID. they gave warnings, gave chances for the child to stop and correct their unruly behaviour and only THEN were they punished with anything physical.

Also just a lil question... Do you wanna bet the woman complaining against spanking (or 'smacking' as the article has termed it) probably HAS no children. Seems to be that way, people get up in arms about things that really have nothing to do with THEM in any way. (people complaining the movie 'blindness' offended blind people which had any of the complainers watched the movie, or you nkow read ANYTHING about it would have seen that's not the case. or the whole Tropic Thunder 'retard' complaints that were all the rage when that movie came out in theatres. none of the complainers SAW the movie or read a review or anything just heard about it through other sources and then decided 'with no real information i'm going to rant about this blaaaarg!'

[Lace Neil Singer]

Do you wanna bet the woman complaining against spanking (or 'smacking' as the article has termed it) probably HAS no children.

Well, over where I am (England) it's called "smacking"; I'll assume it's the same in Australia where the article comes from.

I will say once more that there is a huge difference between a swat on the butt and a full scale beating. The people who beat the shit out of their kids will do so regardless of how the law stands on the subject; all a law banning smacking will do is penalise the people who are just using it as a form of discipline. Violence and aggression are not instilled in children by being swatted; they already have such instincts in them.

True, being subjected to constant physical abuse would result in a child continuing its aggressive behaviour, but only a complete ignoramus would compare a parent beating a child around the head, for example and one simply delivering a smack to the legs to a child due to discipline. No-one who is pro-smacking is suggesting that it be meted out as the be all and end all; in most cases, it's a last resort, like the article stated in this particular case.

My parents hardly ever smacked myself and my brothers; only in cases of dire behaviour and in most cases, just the threat was enough to bring us in line. I don't and never have feared my parents; just had a healthy respect for them which is something that a lot of kids today just don't seem to have. I once saw a ten year old boy call his mother a bitch cuz she wouldn't buy him sweets. That's not a sign of respect. -.-

By the way, I finally found what I was looking for before being called away to catsit; my mum's computer is a lot slower than mine, but I found the following:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ed...en-394842.html

Toddlers are born with aggressive instincts rather than learning to be violent from their surroundings. What they do have to learn, however, is how to control this instinctive behaviour in the critical years before they start school, Professor Richard Tremblay of the University of Montreal said.

...

"Developmental studies show that infants aged three to four years old are more physically aggressive than adults," Professor Tremblay added. "We clearly see that the frequency of physical aggressions among children decrease substantially from the pre-school years to adolescence, except for a small group who use physical aggression most often throughout that period."

http://www.drkutner.com/parenting/ar...ggressive.html

Aggression is one of the first responses to frustration that a baby learns. Grabbing, biting, hitting, and pushing are especially common before children develop the verbal skills that allow them to talk in a sophisticated way about what they want and how they feel.

Children are often rewarded for their aggressive behavior. The child who acts out in class generally gets the most attention from the teacher. The child who breaks into the line to go down the slide at the playground sometimes gets to use the slide the most. One of the toughest problems parents and teachers face in stopping aggressive behavior is that in the short term it gets the child exactly what he wants. It's only after a few years that inappropriately aggressive children must cope with a lack of friends, bad reputations, and the other consequences of their behavior.

[BroomJockey]

I think using an object goes too far. As has been noted in other threads, using an object makes it difficult to gauge how much power you're using, and also is harder than your hand, so the blow is sharper. That makes it easier to do actual damage, which isn't supposed to be the point of spanking/smacking.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I agree with Lace. I really see no difference between "people who can't tell the difference between a disciplinary swat and a beating" and the idiots who put the kid in reform school over a freaking eating utensil.

While I wouldn not swat my kit with an object, I have on occasion swatted her on the bottom, one time and not in anger, with my hand only. Sometimes you need startling and immediate consequences and that works. I think using your hand helps you gauge how hard the swat is. I barely have to tap my kid, and I usually don't even have to do that because even if I don't do it, I've established that I will. And that is the important part.

It's more that she's indignant about it, not so much that it really hurts her. I've tapped her bottom with two fingers and gotten her attention. But then, I have an easy kid.

My parents whacked us with items, and personally, I am not comfortable with that. Not because they did any lasting damage, but because I think if they realized how hard some of those swats were, they would have backed off a bit. They were not about harming us, but when you are pissed off and hitting a kid with an object, you can inadvertantly harm them. My mom bruised me once, in a fit of anger, and when she realized what she'd done, she was stricken with shame. She had not meant to hurt me like that, and yeah, she'd done it with a wooden spoon.

My parents were much younger when they raised us than I am now raising my daughter. I think my age has given me less temper and more patience. I know they got a lot angrier than I tend to get and chalk that up to the fact that they were very, very young.

Having said that, unless there is abuse, or the parent is out of control of what they are doing, I'm not going to scream for child services if I see a parent whacking their kid on the butt with an object like a wooden spoon. However I do think that if you're hitting you kid with anything, including your hand, you have a very big responsiblity to check yourself early and often.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I should have clarified that my parents only used flat open hands to swat with. I don't think that objects should be used, for the reason Kinkoid said; you can't gauge how hard you are hitting if you use something other than your hand to smack with. But I really think that the police have better things to deal with, like actual cases of abuse, than having to take into custody a woman who smacked her daughter.

[blas87]

I was smacked with several objects as a child, the most painful being the wooden spoon and the belt.

Mom, after beating my butt to a chaffed red texture, then proceeded to throw a fit that I'd broken her wooden baking spoon. Yep, I'm the one who chose to get beaten with a spoon.

I remember getting welts from being whipped with the belt. Yes, I was whipped with it.....Dad held it a ways back and WHIIIIIIIIIIIP CRACCCCCK! I don't think I sat well for a few days after that.

I'm ok, but definetly not a fan of anything more severe than just a spank with the bare hand. I mean, what my parents did, I really cannot believe. I was a little kid in the late 80s/early 90s....and I was even spanked until I was a preteen......

[Flyndaran]

My mom used her hand, while my dad used a switch.
I much prefer the switch as I could tell that it really did hurt him more than it hurt me.
My mom swatted in anger, and all it did was piss me off. That just made me destroy things around the house to get back at her. This cycle would continue until she got bored. Stubborness runs in the family.
All violence taught me was that I had a right to be destructive back. No other lessons learned.

[Nyoibo]

Hmm, in my experience the wooden spoon hurt less than anything else.

[tropicsgoddess]

I've known some parents that used a slipper, belt or switch at the most. But that's it. I'm all for spanking, but as long as it's not to a point that it's abusive and especially if the kid receives something other than a sting or rosiness on their butt.

[blas87]

Forgive me for being blunt, but a wooden spoon is quite gentle if you tap it against your hand or your butt...even your naked butt.

However, bring it back a ways, and give it all you got as if you were playing golf or something.....and it fucking hurts. Trust me.

[Flyndaran]

Forgive me for being blunt, but a wooden spoon is quite gentle if you tap it against your hand or your butt...even your naked butt.

However, bring it back a ways, and give it all you got as if you were playing golf or something.....and it fucking hurts. Trust me.

There are alot of different types of wooden spoon. Some wide and soft, and other narrow and hard.

Either way, in most states using an object is automatically considered abuse no matter their position on hand only hitting.

I consider any physical violence toward a child bestial rather than necessary. But none of us will change the others opinion, so it's all a runaround discussion by now.

[blas87]

I think my brother and I are going to grow up to be quite different parents than ours were.

This is probably going to contradict everything Kink previously said, and I respect her opinion and her as a person, but I think the reason my parents thought beating children with spoons and belts were appropriate measures was because of the way they were raised by older people.

My mother was not raised by her parents. My grandma and grandpa got married and had my mother as older teens, and it did not work, grandma went back out east and grandpa dumped Mom with his mother while he went off to the military to try to straighten himself out and see the world (and get a new wife and more kids later on). My mom was raised by her grandparents....although Gumpa was quite a wonderful man, Nana was not the stereotypical cookies and hugs grandmother....she was more like an evil stepmother, my mother recalls. I'm sure as a child, my mother was probably paddled with spoons and other random harsh objects.

Then there's my father, the youngest of 8 children in a blended family. My grandma was already in her 40s when dad was born, grandpa in his 50s, and the next youngest child before Dad was already a teen......Dad has even told me stories of things he did as a child that got him whopped bare-assed with grandpa's enormous thick leather belt. If you think about it, that's probably just how his brothers and sister were raised and had done to them, and back in those ages, it was ok......

But interestingly enough, my brother and I think it's just awful and don't think anything beyond a smack with the bare hand is appropriate. We think it's Stone Age child abuse.

[Savannah]

I hate to say it, Lace, but both your articles support the idea that spanking leads to aggression.

Violence and aggression are not instilled in children by being swatted; they already have such instincts in them.

Sure they already have the instincts, but they have to learn to control them. Who are they going to look to for guidance? Their parents. If their parents spank them, they learn that hitting is how to deal with people, so when another child annoys them, they are more likely to react with aggression than if their parents discipline them without hitting them.

As you said, physical abuse is different from spanking, and I will admit that there are some very rare instances where spanking is the best solution. However, for the most part spanking models aggression and only stops the bad behavior temporarily.

Now, for the articles you linked, starting with http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ed...en-394842.html:

If toddlers are surrounded by adults and other children who are physically aggressive, they will probably learn that physical aggression is part of everyday social interactions, Professor Tremblay explained.

"On the other hand, if a child lives in an environment that does not tolerate physical aggression, and rewards pro-social behavior, it is likely that the child will acquire the habit of using means other than physical aggression to obtain what he or she wants, for expressing frustrations," he said.

Like I said above, having parents who model physical aggression - like spanking - teaches the child that physical aggression is an appropriate reaction.

Of course not all spanked children will be aggressive; I'm talking about overall trends.

The second article (http://www.drkutner.com/parenting/ar...ggressive.html) explicitly supports my position:

Tempting as it may be at the time, spanking these children for being aggressive often does more harm than good. It is simply modeling the very thing you don't want children to do. It teaches them that big people hit when they're angry or upset, and that is precisely the aggressive child's problem.

I found the part that you quoted to be particularly interesting, as it says that the aggressive child often gets more rewards. However, it neglects to point out that even negative attention - like spanking - is attention, which is often exactly what the child wants. Removing the child from the situation (as suggested in the article) solves both problems: the child does not get attention or whatever else s/he wants and the parent models a non-aggressive way to deal with conflict.

DISCLAIMER:
I do not have children. I do have is an almost-complete degree in psychology (graduating this spring!), with a specific focus on behavior modification.