non-spanking punishments that can be more harmful?

[MergedLoki]

Alright just because in the past lil while there's been a few posts about 'for or against' spanking (or smacking) and all that.

Just thought I'd throw this into the soup mix.

I knew a girl in college who was SHOCKED that i'd been spanked a very few times as a child. (she was a friend of a friend from a verrrrry religious christian background).

anyways so i asked her what happened when she got in trouble for say... swearing.

she got the classic 'mouth cleaned out with soap' treatment. which ok never happened to me but i know people it happened to plenty of times not so bad fairly common.

AND (this is the part that made me think wtf) was made to stand in a corner, facing the corner. on ONE leg.. for whatever period of time her mother (or father) determined appropiate.. and if she moved she had to START OVER at the beginnign of the time. (so if it was an hour that she had to stand there, and yes she told me at times it was an hour or MORE, and at say... 30 minutes switched legs she had to start back again at 0 minutes and stand for another hour). I can't possibly imagine what this girl ever did that made her parents 'think' she was misbehaving as at the age of 20 she was one of the most parent controlled closed minded 'everything mommy says is correct and everything she says is bad IS bad and evil' people i ever met.

nice enough and very poilte but didn't have a single thought that wasn't drilled into her by her parents.

now that in my mind screamed like abuse and torture over a swat on the ass.

[Flyndaran]

Humans are complex fragile creatures. There is a near limitless number of ways to screw one up, especially as a child.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Oh god. I think I'd choose a smack over that. O_o

I remember someone telling me that if they misbehaved as a child, they had to sit completely still at the table, with their arms flat on it. Not allowed to move, not allowed to speak and they had to sit there for as long as their parents decreed, whether it be ten minutes or half an hour. Plus, if she did anything dangerous, her parents used to sit her down and lecture her for ages about how dangerous her actions were and how much they affected her and others. Honestly, if my parents had done that every time I misbehaved, I would have switched off and it would not have affected me at all.

[MaggieTheCat]

No quite a punishment, but I think it goes along the same lines...

My mom knew a couple girls when she was a kid who had very strict parents. They followed a very rigorous schedule...to the point that the girls had to go to the bathroom at the appointed times. And they HAD to go at those times, even if they really couldn't. For example, I dunno what the schedule was, but say at 1:00 they were supposed to go. They had to go then, and if they couldn't, they had to sit in the bathroom until they could.

Yeah, I think stuff like that is more messed up than spanking.

[blas87]

Wow, and I thought my parents were Quakers!

Besides the spoons and the belt I've already spoke of in another thread, both my brother and I got the soap treatment (there's a reason I absolutely despise Irish Spring), and I mean literally, soap in the mouth.......

I spent nearly all of my childhood and teenage years grounded......when friends and coworkers and I chat about childhood and adolescence, a lot of them scoff and laugh and say "You got grounded? Haw Haw Haw!" Even my boyfriend says that. I especially love the ones who say "Yeah, my parents tried that with me, it didn't work."

I got the soap in the mouth, one time my mother made my brother and I both write several hundred times "I will not say pee and poop" (yes, because we said pee and poop), kind of like a teacher, sometimes she'd sit us down and make us write x many times "I will not do/say this", sitting in the corner staring at the wall, being banished to the bedroom and only allowed out to go potty, bathe, eat, go to school/work....yes, there were times when I was 16-18 when I could NOT leave my room if I wasn't at school or work....I was even grounded when I was 19 years old.

There are so many creative crazy things my mother came up with when we were kids to punish us (but mostly me....when we were kids it was equal but as we got older, brother got all the leeway and he STILL does) and I can't even think of them all. Some of them like raking neighbors' leaves or cleaning up dog poop or baking for neighbors were just things she'd think of us to do if we ever dared complain of being bored.

The best part of all was looking for sympathy when I was younger and hearing other kids' parents call my mother a genius.

[Giggle Goose]

I spent nearly all of my childhood and teenage years grounded......when friends and coworkers and I chat about childhood and adolescence, a lot of them scoff and laugh and say "You got grounded? Haw Haw Haw!" Even my boyfriend says that. I especially love the ones who say "Yeah, my parents tried that with me, it didn't work."

My bf and I's roommate is one of his old friends from high school. Whenever some of their old friends come over and they start reminiscing, our roommate L always says: "I was probably grounded when that happened." So basically he has no fun memories of being wild and crazy in high school. That's why I believe it can happen!

[blas87]

My fondest memories are the ones I had right before I got caught

[DrFaroohk]

I always thought spanking was better than a lot of other mind-fucking punishments because it was something a kid could understand. A 5 year old can't understand the concept of motor vehicles and physics and hospitals and morgues and funerals and grief, so when you try to explain to him why he can't run off and play in the street, it's going to fall on deaf ears. He just won't get it. However, if he knows that playing in the street = smack on the ass, that's a much simpler and easier to understand message isn't it?

Of course, some kids are just plain stubborn and the more you punish the harder they fight, so no matter what you do, from timeouts to spanking to weird psycho torture, it won't make a damn bit of difference.

[Flyndaran]

I always thought spanking was better than a lot of other mind-fucking punishments because it was something a kid could understand. A 5 year old can't understand the concept of motor vehicles and physics and hospitals and morgues and funerals and grief, so when you try to explain to him why he can't run off and play in the street, it's going to fall on deaf ears. He just won't get it. However, if he knows that playing in the street = smack on the ass, that's a much simpler and easier to understand message isn't it?

Of course, some kids are just plain stubborn and the more you punish the harder they fight, so no matter what you do, from timeouts to spanking to weird psycho torture, it won't make a damn bit of difference.

Explanations worked on me, while physical punishment just pissed me off.

[HYHYBT]

That's dangerous, using spanking *instead* of teaching your child that something is dangerous. Danger can be explained in a way the child understands, but punishment without reason just teaches them to play in the street only when you're not looking.

[Lace Neil Singer]

That's all well and good once the child's mind has developed enough for them to understand reasoning and to look to the future. A toddler's mind has not; they understand now, not future events. So sitting them down and lecturing them on how dangerous it is to play in the road, cuz they might end up being killed, is as effective as trying to reason with a puppy as to why it shouldn't wee on the rug.

Once kids reach a certain age, they shouldn't be smacked. Once I reached the age of nine, my parents introduced other punishments, like not watching a favourite programme, or pocked money being docked. I could understand that at nine, but at two, probably not.

[Flyndaran]

The more I read and talk to people, the more I realize that my family is very unusual.
I was under 2 months of age when I realized that crying got attention. So from my crib, I would cry, and then wait a moment listening for the sound of footsteps. If I heard them I would lay back down. If not, I would cry again.
I understood logical consequences, and even made jokes before I could talk.

On the other hand, I had a temper with a high pain threshold, so spanking would piss me off. I would wait and later destroy something in the house. My mom was the same as a toddler.

[Boozy]

I was under 2 months of age when I realized that crying got attention. So from my crib, I would cry, and then wait a moment listening for the sound of footsteps. If I heard them I would lay back down. If not, I would cry again.
I understood logical consequences, and even made jokes before I could talk.

I don't know what is more remarkable: That your brain developed the ability to store long-term memory before 8 weeks, or that you were able to sit up before then ("I would lay back down"). Your parents must have had to beat away a ton of doctors wanting to write you up in medical journals.

Unless, perhaps, you are exaggerating a bit?

Incidentally, there is nothing remarkable about babies understanding that they need to cry for attention. Babies only a few days old can grasp basic cause-and-effect.

[Flyndaran]

I don't know what is more remarkable: That your brain developed the ability to store long-term memory before 8 weeks, or that you were able to sit up before then ("I would lay back down"). Your parents must have had to beat away a ton of doctors wanting to write you up in medical journals.

Unless, perhaps, you are exaggerating a bit?

....

Nope. I could pick up mt head on the day I was born. This might in part be due to the fact that I gestated for almost 10 months. My mom was at the hospital to get labor induced when she went into labor naturally.

[violetyoshi]

That's dangerous, using spanking *instead* of teaching your child that something is dangerous. Danger can be explained in a way the child understands, but punishment without reason just teaches them to play in the street only when you're not looking.

Which furthers my view that parents who spank, are taking the lazy way out of raising their child.