Canadian Medical Journal - Outlaw Spanking

[ExCatholic]

*gets out the popcorn*

I too would like to know why people so vehemently defend spanking. If there is an option available that isn't hitting your beloved child, why not take it? I don't have kids yet, but the thought of laying my hands on even an imaginary son or daughter makes me feel ill. If you don't have to spank, if no one has a gun to your head forcing you to do it, why do it? Even if your kid is one of the lucky ones who ends up not traumatized, why even take that risk?

In the interest of disclosure I was not spanked. My parents explained what I did wrong, then I explained back to them why what I did was wrong and what I would do differently in the future. Sometimes there were essays. Long, boring, and terribly effective.

[Austin]

Spanking is very lazy parenting. End of story.

[hoipolloi]

Once again, we have the spanking fetishists coming here to tell us how to do it right.

Spanking is hitting and hitting a child is abuse. End of story.

If you people can't see that it's because: (1) you like hitting babies & children; or (2) you're too ignorant, lazy & immature to learn better parenting techniques, 'cause they're harder & require you to actually work at being a parent.

[Witsec7]

And really, sometimes the quick easy method is the best, to make a child put down something dangerous for instance. With situations like that there's no time to reason with the child.

Yup first you deny it's the quick and easy way and then you say yea the quick and easy way is best. If you child has something in their hand that is dangerous you weren't doing your job in the first place. Why discipline them for your own lack of oversight?

[emmiedahl]

Yup first you deny it's the quick and easy way and then you say yea the quick and easy way is best. If you child has something in their hand that is dangerous you weren't doing your job in the first place. Why discipline them for your own lack of oversight?

If my child had something dangerous, my first thought would be to take it away from them, not to hit them until they dropped it.

[2xx1xy1JD]

It's illegal to hit another adult because you do not have authority over their body. But a parent does have some authority over their children's bodies - parents decide to vaccinate, parents decide what medical treatment to go for, parents decide what foods to feed their kids. They don't decide that for other adults. Therefore if spanking as a discipline method works for the parents and the children, then parents should have the right to choose that just like they choose the aforementioned things. Yes, children are dependent on their parents (but not always small - and I do think a minimum age for spanking should be set, from 3 or so or when the child is fully verbal and cognisant of disobedience and discipline) but this includes discipline. Parents have a duty to ensure they discipline their kids properly, and for some this means spanking. And really, sometimes the quick easy method is the best, to make a child put down something dangerous for instance. With situations like that there's no time to reason with the child.

Once and for all, can we get rid of the notion that the only alternative to spanking is endlessly reasoning with a child who may not be capable of reasoning, and not taking any action?

If your child is grabbing for something dangerous - you grab the hand and take them out of the way.

If your child is doing or about to do something dangerous with an object (like bonk the baby on the head) - you swiftly grab the object out of their hand and give a firm "NO".

If your child is about to bolt into the street - you grab them and give a loud, firm "NO".

If your child is fighting with another child - you swoop in an swiftly pick them up and remove them.

All of these things are faster and more effective than spanking.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I was spanked pretty regularly from 5 to about 12ish? And I really don't remember any of the incidents specifically. They had no impact beyond immediate discipline. I'm sorry your mom spanking you traumatised you like that, but anything can be traumatising. I had a particularly bad incident as a kid with a bodyboard in the sea, but that doesn't mean swimming in the sea or bodyboarding should be banned. Proper guidelines for spanking that ensure parents who take it too far get prosecuted, definitely. But I don't like the government taking over the decisions parents make when they are best made by parents themselves.

If you were regularly spanked for SEVEN YEARS, it obviously wasn't a terribly effective method of discipline.

You don't remember the intended lessons of the spankings.

What the spankings would have taught you, though, is to see the use of spanking as something that parents do. They taught you to see it as normal. Through seven years of modelling, your brain will see spanking as a natural response to situations where children need discipline, and you will need to work harder if you want to avoid using it. By using spanking regularly, you would also have been exposed to less use of effective alternatives to physical discipline. "Not hitting" is a learned behavior, and you had fewer chances to learn it. You will lack the personal experience that would give you the instinct to know just what non-physical discipline to use when needed. You will tend to view discipline in a certain way, and it will take conscious effort to change that.

[Conuly]

Is the evidence of everyday life not enough? If spanking is so terrible then how come so many adults that are just fine were spanked as kids? How come so many good parents spank? I wouldn't spank myself, but the spankings I got as a kid had no lasting impact on me other than to make me not do that thing again. Definitely not the traumatic events this study is making out. How can swatting a kid's butt with a bare palm be anything other than a swift sharp method of discipline that while not to everyone's taste, is no more harmful than the scratch of the needle when getting vaccinated? It's not hitting, it's not like punching in anger.

This is an incredibly illogical argument. You might as well say "If seatbelts are so important, how come so many adults survived without ever using them as children?" or "If smoking is so dangerous, how come my grandpa smoked like a chimney until he was 99 and didn't get sick?"

Obviously in any group of people there will be a lot of individual variation. In a group of people who were spanked, some of them will have been more affected by this than others. This is plain common sense.

But a parent does have some authority over their children's bodies - parents decide to vaccinate, parents decide what medical treatment to go for, parents decide what foods to feed their kids. They don't decide that for other adults

In some situations we do get to decide that for other adults, if those adults are not capable of deciding these things on their own. But that does not mean that we should hit our dottering old grandmother just because she's no longer capable of making her medical decisions and we have power of attorney over her, no matter how annoying she might be.

And really, sometimes the quick easy method is the best, to make a child put down something dangerous for instance. With situations like that there's no time to reason with the child.

If your child is holding a gun or a knife, which is easier and safer - to talk to your child calmly and convince them to put it down or give it to you (possibly, with a very young child, using redirection to trade the dangerous object for a safer one), or to hit them until they drop it? Which one is more likely to result in an injury?

I find that reasoning works with younger children than most people think. Not the same level of reasoning we use with adults, but simple reasoning in conjunction with redirection and the like. There is actually at least one study backing me up, showing that reasoning with your child about not running into the street is more effective than grabbing them and spanking them every time they make a dash for it, but damn if I can ever find it again. I read it over a year ago and then it vanished into the ether of google.

I also find that teaching your child to manage dangerous situations (for a child) works better than simply forbidding them. Your three year old can use a knife when supervised, and then they're not as interested in doing so unsupervised. Your four year old can tell you when you can both cross the street (and they're more careful about it than most adults!), and then they're less likely to simply run into it without you at all.

Of course, if your child WILL not be redirected and you CAN not trust them, then the question to ask is "Why do you have dangerous things where your child can access them easily when they are unsupervised?" I wouldn't trust ANY discipline method to keep a kid safe from dangers they hadn't yet learned to live with.

I was spanked pretty regularly from 5 to about 12ish? And I really don't remember any of the incidents specifically. They had no impact beyond immediate discipline

If you don't remember any specific incident, how do you know they worked? You wouldn't be able to remember! I agree with others, if you were spanked "pretty regularly" for such a long period of time, that sounds like an argument that they didn't work.

However, this DOES explain why you're intent on arguing for a discipline method you claim not to intend to use. If you argue that spanking is bad, that means arguing that your parents made a mistake. Now, unlike some people, I don't think that this mistake necessarily makes them bad people. If spanking was the norm in your culture at the time, they were just doing what they were used to. However, it doesn't make them good parents either. If they didn't know any different, that's that. But we DO know different. We DO have the evidence saying that other methods work at least as well (and generally better) and that spanking can be detrimental.

Nobody wants to question their parents, but being an adult means you sometimes have to. Nobody is a paragon, not even your loving mom and dad.

[emmiedahl]

You don't have to reason with a toddler ffs. Just praise good behavior and ignore bad behavior. Keep them safe by physically keeping them safe: watching them, removing hazards, keeping them in reach when in potentially dangerous places. They are illogical and emotional and impetuous but that does not mean the adult should be illogical and emotional and impetuous.

Once they are old enough to be reasoned with, say age 3-4, then reason with them. Keep praising good behavior. Start imposing negative consequences for behavior when they clearly know better and chose to misbehave. Ignore the other stuff and let them grow out of it.

This is a little bit more difficult than just smacking them when you feel like, but by the time the child is 9 or 10 they will be reasonable, polite, and capable of making good decisions without adult input most of the time.

You can pick out the routinely spanked children because they are the older ones who still need constant intervention like a little baby. They are the toddlers who hit and the preschoolers who lie and sneak. They hit age 18 still needing to have adults impose consequences because they have never been taught to regulate themselves. It is a huge disservice to them.

[Koala]

Here is a quote from Kelly Crawford's e-book on this subject:

And here is how she does it:

She is a sadistic bitch.

[2xx1xy1JD]

You don't have to reason with a toddler ffs. Just praise good behavior and ignore bad behavior. Keep them safe by physically keeping them safe: watching them, removing hazards, keeping them in reach when in potentially dangerous places. They are illogical and emotional and impetuous but that does not mean the adult should be illogical and emotional and impetuous.

Once they are old enough to be reasoned with, say age 3-4, then reason with them. Keep praising good behavior. Start imposing negative consequences for behavior when they clearly know better and chose to misbehave. Ignore the other stuff and let them grow out of it.

This is a little bit more difficult than just smacking them when you feel like, but by the time the child is 9 or 10 they will be reasonable, polite, and capable of making good decisions without adult input most of the time.

You can pick out the routinely spanked children because they are the older ones who still need constant intervention like a little baby. They are the toddlers who hit and the preschoolers who lie and sneak. They hit age 18 still needing to have adults impose consequences because they have never been taught to regulate themselves. It is a huge disservice to them.

Ditto.

The thing about positive parenting is that you really change your whole mindset about what discipline is. "Toddler running into the street" is the classic example given in defense of spanking. At that point, the mindset is focused on punishment for a dangerous behavior once the problem is already happening. I found that when you use positive parenting, you take a step back and really think about managing situations BEFORE they become a problem. So, you make a rule that the toddler must be holding your hand the moment that you step out the door. You make a meal plan and schedule, so that you don't get hunger-related meltdowns or arguments over food. You know your child's nap schedule, so that you don't get cranky tantrums. You focus on teaching and using calm voices, so that your kids can talk without getting frustrated and can hear you when you do raise your voice. You go over to the child and get down to their level when giving instructions, so that you don't shout across the room and repeat yourself 10x. You can teach and even do some reasoning with small children - but not in the heat of the moment. There will still be moments where kids act out, but they will be fewer.

[hoipolloi]

She is a sadistic bitch.

Or a spanking fetishist. Anytime I read these elaborate descriptions of what position the child should be in, what s/he should or shouldn't wear/say/do during or after the beating, and what the abuser should say/do, I suspect that training the child is not the main motivation.

Yes, Kelly Crawford - I'm looking at you, you sick excuse for a parent.

[Trynn]

I can only remember being spanked one time, though I know it happened more often. And yes, even done with a bare palm, it HURT. Plus it was just... humiliating. I mean, as a kid you're told not to let anyone touch your butt... and then the parent insists on touching it anyway? I don't know how to explain it, but it's like having a sensitive, hidden part of you exposed and hurt.

For some reason I don't know how to explain, I grew to associate spanking with sexual actions. This is why I personally would NEVER spank my child. (aside from the fact that hitting a child is wrong.)

I also really really REALLY dislike the "my parents did X, but I or she or he or zie turned out just fine" argument. Because it doesn't matter how the child eventually turns out, what matters is what is best AT THAT TIME. Little Gertrude might have "turned out just fine" from being spanked, (setting aside the "is she REALLY fine?" argument) but a different form of discipline would still have been much better to use at that time.

When my parents were growing up in the 60s/70s, no one wore helmets when riding bicycles, most cars didn't have seat belts, and there was no chicken pox vaccine. You could argue that my parents turned out just fine without all these things, but even if they DID turn out just fine without, say, seat belts, wouldn't it still have been better for them at the time if they had had seat belts? And probably a lot of people DIDN'T turn out just fine. How many people died before the invention of seat belts, and then the years in between when they weren't mandatory?

And with the Chicken Pox. I had it as a kid, and I turned out just fine (so far... I could still get shingles, and for all I know I still have other complications... but that's beside the point) BUT it might have been BETTER for me as a child AT THAT TIME if I had NOT had chicken pox. It certainly would've made first grade a lot more bearable.

Does this make sense? I might not have explained it clearly...

[jaynie]

Ditto.

The thing about positive parenting is that you really change your whole mindset about what discipline is. "Toddler running into the street" is the classic example given in defense of spanking. At that point, the mindset is focused on punishment for a dangerous behavior once the problem is already happening. I found that when you use positive parenting, you take a step back and really think about managing situations BEFORE they become a problem. So, you make a rule that the toddler must be holding your hand the moment that you step out the door. You make a meal plan and schedule, so that you don't get hunger-related meltdowns or arguments over food. You know your child's nap schedule, so that you don't get cranky tantrums. You focus on teaching and using calm voices, so that your kids can talk without getting frustrated and can hear you when you do raise your voice. You go over to the child and get down to their level when giving instructions, so that you don't shout across the room and repeat yourself 10x. You can teach and even do some reasoning with small children - but not in the heat of the moment. There will still be moments where kids act out, but they will be fewer.

I think part of this is understanding that your child is a separate human being with her own needs, wants, and feelings. In the running across the street example, the reactive* parent thinks "She disobeyed me! I must punish her so she won't do it again!" whereas the proactive* (progressive) parent is already thinking "why might my child run into the road? How can I explain the danger to her in a clear way, or direct her attention so that she won't do it?" Similarly with tantrums, the reactive parent thinks "she's being bad! punish!" while the proactive parent thinks "why is she so upset? What can I do to avoid this?" Because the latter is focused on *why* the child does something, the correction is more about teaching good behavior, and the lessons are much broader and more applicable to other scenarios.

*no idea if the terms reactive and proactive are correct, but they sound right to me.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I do have a bit of hesitation in endorsing the CMAJ position, though, because it's not clear how it would be enforced.

Currently, many forms of spanking are already illegal (under 2, over 12, using an object, hitting the face/head, hitting in anger, hitting too hard).

Right now, if you give a spanking that crosses those lines, it's a mandatory report to child protection officials and the police. They are required to investigate. If they have reason to believe that any of those lines have been crossed, they have to take action. Once child protection officials are aware of non-permitted spanking, they have to stay involved and do whatever is necessary to make sure that it doesn't happen again. If a parent is resistant and doesn't immediately admit that spanking is wrong, they can get a court order for supervision, or even apprehend kids and place them in foster care (just google "Aylmer Mennonite spanking ontario" for more info.)

No, I do not think that spanking is good parenting practice. I also know that in most cases, if I was approached by child protection workers, I would smile and do whatever necessary to be nice. That's my personality, and it also reflects the fact that I was born and raised in Toronto by a middle-class family where my mother was a teacher and that I am a part of the system. We know that there are many groups in the Toronto area, for example, that do tend to have a culture of using corporal punishment. We also know that minorities, recent immigrants and people from lower socio-economic classes DON'T always have a positive relationship with the system. They aren't insiders, they don't fully understand the process, they are scared and intimidated, and they sometimes put on a tough and even defiant front. This gets labelled as "parent is belligerant and unwilling to cooperate", and escalates involvement to the next level. That means warrants to apprehend, police coming to the door and forcibly taking the children into care. The child protection system is necessary and these powers exist for a reason, but it also means that child protection involvement carries inherent risks of harm. If mom's a crackhead, you don't have much choice. If she gave the kid a very light swat on the wrist, it can be overkill.

[jaynie]

I do have a bit of hesitation in endorsing the CMAJ position, though, because it's not clear how it would be enforced.

Currently, many forms of spanking are already illegal (under 2, over 12, using an object, hitting the face/head, hitting in anger, hitting too hard).

Right now, if you give a spanking that crosses those lines, it's a mandatory report to child protection officials and the police. They are required to investigate. If they have reason to believe that any of those lines have been crossed, they have to take action. Once child protection officials are aware of non-permitted spanking, they have to stay involved and do whatever is necessary to make sure that it doesn't happen again. If a parent is resistant and doesn't immediately admit that spanking is wrong, they can get a court order for supervision, or even apprehend kids and place them in foster care (just google "Aylmer Mennonite spanking ontario" for more info.)

No, I do not think that spanking is good parenting practice. I also know that in most cases, if I was approached by child protection workers, I would smile and do whatever necessary to be nice. That's my personality, and it also reflects the fact that I was born and raised in Toronto by a middle-class family where my mother was a teacher and that I am a part of the system. We know that there are many groups in the Toronto area, for example, that do tend to have a culture of using corporal punishment. We also know that minorities, recent immigrants and people from lower socio-economic classes DON'T always have a positive relationship with the system. They aren't insiders, they don't fully understand the process, they are scared and intimidated, and they sometimes put on a tough and even defiant front. This gets labelled as "parent is belligerant and unwilling to cooperate", and escalates involvement to the next level. That means warrants to apprehend, police coming to the door and forcibly taking the children into care. The child protection system is necessary and these powers exist for a reason, but it also means that child protection involvement carries inherent risks of harm. If mom's a crackhead, you don't have much choice. If she gave the kid a very light swat on the wrist, it can be overkill.

I agree that it would need to be a very well thought out law to make a positive change, but I think it's worthwhile to figure it out. Personally, I'd be very supportive of a widespread campaign to educate people (not just current/expecting parents) about healthy alternatives to corporal punishment. I think a lot of people are resistant to non-cp childrearing just because they think it's either hit your kids or never ever correct them about anything. Actually I think this should be incorporated into high school health classes because it would make it more likely that by the time those students had kids, they'd be on board with not spanking.

[fencesitter]

Many children be reasoned with. I was not one of those. I could be asked nicely, distracted, asked not nicely, bribed, coerced, urged, redirected but I was determined. Spanking was the only thing that worked for me and it stopped after an appropriate age when there were other forms of discipline that were effective for me (grounding, charging money,etc). And I grew from a hellion child to a "easy to parent" teen and adult...who graduated head of the class without any behavioral problems. I can't imagine what I would have turned out like if I wasn't spanked. I think it is easy to say spanking is always bad until you have a hellion child for whom spanking is the only thing that works.

When I was about 2, Mom had set a hot curling iron on the bed and I decided it was fun to jump on the bed... she told me to stop, she removed me from the bed, she gave time out, she warned, she distracted to no avail. My final attempt at jumping on the bed ended with me burning my fat little thigh on that curling iron bad enough to go to the doctor. The doctor asked my mom what happened and his response to her (who was anti-spanking at the time) was "Well, if you had spanked that little butt, I'll bet she would have stopped."

[formergothardite]

Move the curling iron so that a child can't jump and land on it.

[emmiedahl]

Many children be reasoned with. I was not one of those. I could be asked nicely, distracted, asked not nicely, bribed, coerced, urged, redirected but I was determined. Spanking was the only thing that worked for me and it stopped after an appropriate age when there were other forms of discipline that were effective for me (grounding, charging money,etc). And I grew from a hellion child to a "easy to parent" teen and adult...who graduated head of the class without any behavioral problems. I can't imagine what I would have turned out like if I wasn't spanked. I think it is easy to say spanking is always bad until you have a hellion child for whom spanking is the only thing that works.

When I was about 2, Mom had set a hot curling iron on the bed and I decided it was fun to jump on the bed... she told me to stop, she removed me from the bed, she gave time out, she warned, she distracted to no avail. My final attempt at jumping on the bed ended with me burning my fat little thigh on that curling iron bad enough to go to the doctor. The doctor asked my mom what happened and his response to her (who was anti-spanking at the time) was "Well, if you had spanked that little butt, I'll bet she would have stopped."

Your mom put a hot curling iron on the bed? Really? Because burning linens is something people do?

Have you considered that reasoning did not work because you had been getting your ass beat from a young age and taught that your parents are the enemy? I see this all the time in spankers. They say things like, "Well you don't need to spank because your children are so well-behaved!!!" My children are well-behaved because I did not spank them.

[Witsec7]

Many children be reasoned with. I was not one of those. I could be asked nicely, distracted, asked not nicely, bribed, coerced, urged, redirected but I was determined. Spanking was the only thing that worked for me and it stopped after an appropriate age when there were other forms of discipline that were effective for me (grounding, charging money,etc). And I grew from a hellion child to a "easy to parent" teen and adult...who graduated head of the class without any behavioral problems. I can't imagine what I would have turned out like if I wasn't spanked. I think it is easy to say spanking is always bad until you have a hellion child for whom spanking is the only thing that works.

When I was about 2, Mom had set a hot curling iron on the bed and I decided it was fun to jump on the bed... she told me to stop, she removed me from the bed, she gave time out, she warned, she distracted to no avail. My final attempt at jumping on the bed ended with me burning my fat little thigh on that curling iron bad enough to go to the doctor. The doctor asked my mom what happened and his response to her (who was anti-spanking at the time) was "Well, if you had spanked that little butt, I'll bet she would have stopped."

Yup your mother did something dumb like leave a hot curling iron on a bed, so you got burned badly enough to go to the Dr. None of this makes sense.

[emmiedahl]

If it is hot enough to burn a baby enough to require medical care, it is hot enough to fry the linens and possibly set the bed on fire.

In other words, it did not happen.

[snarkbillie]

Move the curling iron so that a child can't jump and land on it.

Indeed.

"My mom put a very hot item that could burn me on an unsafe surface when I was too young to be expected to steer clear of her stupidity. She didn't hit me and I suffered the consequences of her idiocy and poor parenting. The good doctor who knows everything told her she could continue being unsafe and stupendously idiotic if only she would hit me more often. My mom was the greatest, bless her soul."

I fixed the anecdote for you fencesitter.

[Conuly]

Many children be reasoned with. I was not one of those. I could be asked nicely, distracted, asked not nicely, bribed, coerced, urged, redirected but I was determined. Spanking was the only thing that worked for me and it stopped after an appropriate age when there were other forms of discipline that were effective for me (grounding, charging money,etc).

If your parents tried all those different methods, I'm not surprised none of them worked. Any discipline approach - including spanking, if we're going to list it as a discipline approach - has to be consistent to work. If you're switching from one method to another, you won't get any results at all.

And I grew from a hellion child to a "easy to parent" teen and adult...who graduated head of the class without any behavioral problems. I can't imagine what I would have turned out like if I wasn't spanked.

The thing is, you don't know. You may have been an even MORE awesome child without spanking - but you'll never ever know.

I think it is easy to say spanking is always bad until you have a hellion child for whom spanking is the only thing that works.

But we don't know that it was the only thing that would've worked with you. Maybe your parents didn't stick with any of the non-violent approaches long enough to find out. Indeed, it sounds like that was the case.

When I was about 2, Mom had set a hot curling iron on the bed and I decided it was fun to jump on the bed... she told me to stop, she removed me from the bed, she gave time out, she warned, she distracted to no avail.

I'm going to go with everybody else and call bullshit on this story. Your mother set a hot curling iron on the bed for long enough for you to be given a time-out AND distracted AND warned AND removed and the bed didn't burn up? If it's hot enough to burn you, why didn't it at least scorch the bedding?

My final attempt at jumping on the bed ended with me burning my fat little thigh on that curling iron bad enough to go to the doctor. The doctor asked my mom what happened and his response to her (who was anti-spanking at the time) was "Well, if you had spanked that little butt, I'll bet she would have stopped."

And if she'd had a little more sense and kept dangerous items like the curling iron out of your reach in the first place, or if she'd stopped and held it and explained to you it was hot and let you put your hand near it to see how hot it was, you might not have burned yourself. If you really did, because, again, the premise of this story is ludicrous on the very face of it.

[debrand]

I understand why it is difficult for some people to admit that spanking is abusive. Many of us had parents or grandparents that we love dearly who spanked us. It was hard for me to admit, for example, that my grandmother was wrong for using a switch on me. Much to my embarrasment, it took a long time for me to realize that spanking was ineffective. I wish that I had never used it as a form of discipline.

Everyone else is correct when they say that spanking is lazy parenting.

Some spankers believe that nonspankers don't discipline their children at all. That is not true. Everyone needs boundaries, not only kids but adults as well.

I know a lot of parents who slap their teenagers when they are disrespectful. When my daughter went through a sarcastic, nasty phrase, I admit, I was tempted to fall back on the behavior that I'd been taught as a child. Instead, I made her repeat any disrespectful statement until she said it politely. I also realized that sometimes an unpleasant attitude is a young teenagers reaction to feeling like they're not being heard. So, I listened to her more. The result is that now she is a pretty polite kid. Even her older brother has remarked how much her temperment has changed. No face slapping was necessary.

[debrand]

Many children be reasoned with. I was not one of those. I could be asked nicely, distracted, asked not nicely, bribed, coerced, urged, redirected but I was determined. Spanking was the only thing that worked for me and it stopped after an appropriate age when there were other forms of discipline that were effective for me (grounding, charging money,etc). And I grew from a hellion child to a "easy to parent" teen and adult...who graduated head of the class without any behavioral problems. I can't imagine what I would have turned out like if I wasn't spanked. I think it is easy to say spanking is always bad until you have a hellion child for whom spanking is the only thing that works.

When I was about 2, Mom had set a hot curling iron on the bed and I decided it was fun to jump on the bed... she told me to stop, she removed me from the bed, she gave time out, she warned, she distracted to no avail. My final attempt at jumping on the bed ended with me burning my fat little thigh on that curling iron bad enough to go to the doctor. The doctor asked my mom what happened and his response to her (who was anti-spanking at the time) was "Well, if you had spanked that little butt, I'll bet she would have stopped."

You were only two. Why the heck did your mom leave you in a room with a hot curling iron? Where was she? Why not take you out of the room and shut the door?

Two is so young that I am guessing that you are repeating a story that your mom told you. Perhaps your mom told you this story to explain why she started spanking you but honestly, I think that she wasn't being honest with you. Either that, or she remembers the story incorrectly.

I used a curling iron in the eighties. Most people plugged it up in the bathroom. I knew a few people who put it on their dresser. But I didn't know anyone who laid a hot curling iron the bed.