Chrome I wish you well in your attempt to be a better more loving parent than you had. My own parents seldom spanked my sister or I. My dad was a gentle person and my mom was a yeller. I will not say I didnt spank my kids but it was usually reserved for the times the ran out into traffic or tried to walk away with strangers.


That being said I agree that there has to be a better way.

As for special needs kids, any child who has suffered abuse needs to know it will never happen again. no physical punishment at all ever. it makes life more difficult for the parent, and for working parents who are also trying to raise children with special needs I think it is just too much stress, and thats why to deal with it in frustration with swats and spankings.

we were foster parents for years, mostly teen boys and any child who has been physically abused has built up a tolerance to it. They will not learn anything from it, except to try harder not to get caught.

Keep up your studying and I think you will make a good parent, one day.

Thanks

I agree with not making kids eat soap. I think that's going a fair bit overboard for a little back talk. My sister was made to not only eat a bar of soap after calling my Aunt(with whom we were living at the time) a 'bitch', but also made to drink liquid soap when it was determined that she hadn't eaten enough bar soap. She was sick for a couple of days afterward. Children shouldn't be abused for calling someone a name.

Wait, WHAT?!

Also there are people who hot sauce too. In what world is that right?

I keep wondering what kids of mine would be like .I WANT them to question authority. It's messed up when a child is TOO obedient. I think I'd rather them cuss like sailors though than do that soap thing. Ugh. Plus people rub... parts of their body with soap too. Soap is really not for human consumption.

(I'm not a parent, I'm just an observer.)

Going back to the original posting: Definitely start it at home. I don't know your kids, so I don't know which form of discipline will work. But it needs to start at home. Things learned at home will follow outside.

Fast forward now...
I personally do not approve of spanking, at all. I wasn't ever beaten or abused, but I was spanked. And I don't think it's fair in the slightest. Why? Because I was always told that fighting/hitting wasn't right, and that I needed to "use my words." Well...right back at you? And it sure as heck didn't curb my behaviors...

And the hot sauce...just...no.

I think its rather silly how a parent can give their misbehaving child a little pop on the hand or bum and people freak out

I'm posting here because I've recently become a parent myself for the first time and I'm finding the Expectations of New Parents something difficult to grasp. Okay, he's only 5 months old, but I will reel in horror if he screams in a shop, run away with embarrassment and sit in a toilet to feed him. Okay, so it's getting easier now I understand his cries more, but it's definitely my perception of what the public think that makes me behave as such.
Why I've said that is because I think that is also how we discipline our children as they and we grow older.
If you received an effective method of discipline as a child, you follow that route yourself. If not, you don't. If you were spanked, tapped, whipped or swatted (of the NON abusive kind) in public, then I'm sure you'll grow to feel that's okay and will do so to your children.

I, myself, have discovered a flaw in my own personal opinions. Before my son (and before my niece and nephew previously) I was totally against any kind of physical, hurtful contact. A child should see his Mother as nurturing, kind, warm and affectionate and his father as Strong, independent and respectful. Not to mention that a man spanking a child is beyond it - A man does not know his own strength and no man will ever hit my son.
Now, I know a tap on the hand is okay. My nephew and niece are prime examples. They touch a hot radiator after being told no, they get a tap to the hand. They pick out a knife from the kitchen drawer, they get a tap to the hand. They dislike it and have learnt not to do such things. No drawer catches, no fire guards necessary.
In my personal experience, this is a successful and effective method of discipline and intend to follow through with it myself.

Then again, kids are kids will be kids. It's when kids grow into undisciplined adults we should worry.

I'd never spank my kids. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't WANT children! But if I ever did have kids when I'm older, I wouldn't spank them (unless it was playful, of course), yeah, a firm tap, but that should be enough.

I got spanked with belts and stuff when I was younger (not hard or anything, just a lil sting.) and my dad slapped me accross the legs when I was younger but once I got to 11, they stop doing that. And I've begun to hate them more. Because, they're not physical like before, but they like playing with my feelings too much as if I'm just an experiment until I go mad or something and I'll never forgive them for that. I'd rather be physically abused than emotionally abused.

AngelOfTheFallen - I think this is precisely what I mean. Although for me, as a child, spanking was used but far more harshly than necessary. My father was an abusive man, although I was too young to remember before my Mum left him. Because of him, I was strictly against ANY violent contact (Be that abusive or disciplinary!) Even a tap to the hand or a threat of it would send me shaking into panic attacks at the age of 7! BUT I have seen it be effective in discipling and teaching a child. A tap to the hand or a spank to the butt - severity dependent on crime - doesn't hurt a child. My niece and nephew are very much loved children, and they know it.

I used to get physical punishment when I was a kid. Instead of spankings, we got whoopings. It's a spanking but with a belt, switch (a thin whip like branch), or a rod of some kind. It would be aimed at your behind but if you moved or jumped around (as kids will do when in pain) it often got anywhere from your knees to the middle of your back. It sounds harsh but it was never undeserved, and i think it had a hand in having me turn out to be an okay person.

If I haad kids in the future, I would whoop them. Spare the rod spoil the child is the old saying. It's not true for everyone, but it has worked so far.

Bless you! I agree. My teenager is the kind of kid I call "the Grandmother's Curse". You know, when your mom says to you, "Someday you're going to have a child who is just like you!" My son is that child.

He can be a real handful. He does question authority, and push limits. He is very independent, and outspoken. It's just that much of the time, I'm the authority he questions! And while I appreciate this as a developing survival skill he will need as an adult in a world full of politicians and corporate manipulation, he does still need to get his homework done on time, keep his room clean at least enough so it's safe, and be as respectful of his little sister as he expects other people to be of him. And if he questions it, he has that right, but the challenge I'm facing now is teaching him to be respectful, appropriate, and effective in that questioning. You can go through life communicating assertively without risking your job with insubordination, and you can function cooperatively and resolve conflict peacefully without being a pushover or a sheep. He still needs to find that balance. Miraculously, he is getting to the point where if I can cut through his drama, I can reason with him, and if I can get him to listen, often he does understand. He is at an age where discipline very often involves communication as much, if not more than punishment. Although taking the 3DS away and putting it in the lock box for a few days works when necessary, too.

My middle child tantrums. With her, it's a question of responding and not reacting, and of removing her from the situation of she's out of control. Somewhere between kiddie time-outs and grounding. If I let her push my buttons to the point where I lose my cool, she wins. That's the hardest with her, because she knows exactly where all those buttons are.

As far as foul language is concerned, I either ignore it, or teach them how to use it properly and appropriately! They grew up in the alternative district right in the heart of Rochester. They were going to hear words that I had no control over. I'd rather them learn to use those words in private as a personal expression of frustration, than have them flinging them at people in public, like verbal weapons.

Well we got 3 kids, the oldest will be off to university in a few months. He had to be removed from the house a couple years ago, wouldn't do anything 4 u yelling randomly and physically violent. The middle one wouldn't do wrong, does anything as asked never gets into trouble. I was somewhere in the middle as a kid, pretty close to to our middle kid I didn't cause much trouble. Our youngest just past 1 year old time will tell. FYI for those kids that don't cause trouble or question authority, it may just be they haven't seen any reason .. Yet.

I also have to echo that washing a child's mouth out with soap is just wrong, and I hate to be critical of the parent who said she does that, but it just is. As pointed out, you can't be sure what chemicals are in a soap and you could make your child seriously ill. Kids pick up bad words all the time; explaining to them why they shouldn't use that word is more effective in the long run.

I was threatened with that only once as a child- and it was by a teacher. A teacher who was physically restraining me and trying to push the soap towards my mouth. My mother was furious afterwards, but I don't think anything got done because I think the teacher claimed she was only bluffing. Still, I know I was a handful as a kid, but I am also aware that at that age I was better behaved (I had grown out of my hyperactive brat stage) and never swore intentionally. I believe I had repeated a word without understanding its meaning and got hauled off to the girl's toilets for that. I still think it was wrong that a teacher got away with manhandling me like that. I only started swearing intentionally when I was in secondary school (and seriously, people picked on me for using euphemisms!).

Not to mention, as Nephele said, forcing something into a child's mouth as a punishment is just wrong. Even if its food. My aunt force-fed me peas when I was 5 (I was a picky eater) and I almost choked. To this day, peas are the only vegetable I won't try getting down my neck for my own good (I still hate veg but I still eat it because I know my body needs it).

As for smackings. Well. My dad came from an abusive background...his father was a jerk basically. He punched the eldest son (my uncle) around, and smacked the kids and also just denied them anything for the purpose of making them unhappy or uncomfortable and just got kicks out of it. My dad ended becoming the sort of parent who couldn't say "no", and hated smacking us kids. But he did do it. He certainly didn't do it lightly, and neither did my mum (who was from a more stable background in that sense). I honestly believe any good parent who smacks/spanks/swats* does it out of neccessity, and will never take any pleasure from it. Unlike that dick-wad judge in that video who beat his teenage daughter over and over. When a parent smacks their kid on their bum, they want it over with as quickly as the kid.

(*I put smacking/spanking/swatting as the same thing because it all seems the same to me. Some people view the term smacking as harsher than spanking, but some see it the other way round. Basically, I personally feel as long as its not "beating" then its fine. We all know what is excessive force. If you leave a mark on your child, you've done it too hard).

There are methods around smacking of course, Super Nanny has done them, she feels spanks are ineffective and make both parent and child unhappy, which she's possibly right about, but I also think that its true not all kids respond to the same methods, and you can't judge someone as a bad parent because they smack their kid over the bottom when they do something bad. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean like general naughtiness. I had to be really BAD to get a smack (like hitting my brother- the two of us used to fight a lot when we were small). I didn't get a smack because I didn't pick up my toys or I was being too boisterous or something. Punishment has to fit the crime after all.

Chrome, it sounds like you suffered child abuse, and I can only extend my sympathies. But I was smacked as a child, and I was not abused. Its not as black and white as that.

So I had an interesting parenting realization the other day...I never even swatted my cats or my brothers, so how could I possibly think I could swat a kid? I have this "mom" sound I am told, one I can't even describe (something like an uh uh uh only high pitched and all mom-ish), that all I have to do is utter it and the cats go running because they know they're in trouble. I don't even have to clap my hands along with the sound anymore. Little kids look at me with this wtf? expression and immediately cease whatever it was they were doing....so maybe I'll get lucky and that'll work for me once the kidlet is older.

I still hold that each kid is different, and sometimes it's too easy to judge others' parenting. I also think that our society is too quick to point fingers, and while most are well-intentioned, most aren't well-thought out allegations. There are children out there who are abused and who do suffer, but there are many others who are well-disciplined that are not. I don't have the answers towards reforming the system, and by heavens I wish I did. Until then, I keep my nose out of others' business, unless I sense something is amiss.