Christian Forum Thread About Spanking Kids

[EmmieJ]

I was raised by parents who believed in occasional spanking, and so as a child, did get spanked on at least several occasions. I really only remember two or three -- once when my sisters and I (who shared a bedroom) were goofing around for a long time after being put to bed and my dad came up and gave us all a spanking. It was probably only 3 spanks to our backside, covered by panties and nightgown, but we all were crying and sniffling after he left. One of said "I'm going to have a bruise tomorrow" and a second one agreed, then the third piped up and said "I'm going to have TWO bruises" and we all started giggling quietly at that.

Another time was when I didn't want to eat a piece of gristle that I'd left on my plate. My dad should have just let it alone - it's freaking gristle not as if I were offered prime rib and ground it on the floor under my foot. But it was a control issue and probably had been a bad day for him - who knows? Because I "answered back" when he told me to eat the gristle ("but it's just fat dad!"), I got a spanking after dinner. That one really harmed my relationship with him for a long time afterward, because I truly felt it was unfair and uncalled for, and that I was too old for a spanking.

I don't hold a grudge against my parents for raising us with some corporal punishment, because overall, the idea was not to hurt us, but to have children who were polite and respectful. In turn, my parents were polite and respectful to us as well, and the underlying theme was they loved us, loved having a large family, and we were well cared for and treated lovingly.

As to my own experience as a parent -- during the "terrible two's and three's", I did try spanking when all else had failed. I will never forget the look my son gave me the first time I gave him a swat on his diapered butt. He looked shocked, hurt, and cried his eyes out. I felt like a monster. After a few more times, I just couldn't do it anymore and regretted I'd ever tried that path. It was much harder to gently deal with his temperament and phases without resorting to "might makes right" but I just kept at it and figured out ways. Sometimes, a child just has to have a melt down. Let them have it -- it releases a lot of frustration. Especially at developmental stages, my son would have some really tough days. It could be seen as defiance, but I realized he was going through some changes very quickly and was basically overwhelmed. Routine was even more important at those times, and lots of patience. In a worst case scenario, I would put him in his room and let him scream it out for a little bit, until I could hear the tone change and the worst of the storm pass. Then I would go in, sit with him, comfort him, and we would move on, all was forgiven.

I am not particularly religious, but it always seemed to me that Jesus was a very gentle man, one who would prefer to gently guide his followers than beat them with a stick. I'm not sure why so many of his followers seem to ignore that.

[latraviata]

I can understand smacking a child in the heat of the moment, but having rules set in stone about the precise time and place to pull down a child's underwear is just disturbing. It's the cold, calculating premeditation that seems so worrying.

Exactly!! I wholeheartedly agree!

[Ava]

Do you not understand that is it inherently wrong on SO many levels to strip a child down to beat them? What purpose does it serve, other than it's more painful and humiliating (especially around other people)? It's so violating. (And yes, I have had therapy to deal with this. But people trying to justify this behavior makes my skin crawl!)

I fail to see why you felt it necessary to quote my post and then say this. What does what I said have to do with what you said in "response"? What cause have I given you to think that I in any way support the idea of spanking? Do you have me confused with some other poster? Or perhaps you just did not actually read my post?

[CanadianHippie]

All I can add to this conversation is that I was spanked once as a child. The only thing I remember about the incident is the absolute terror I felt. I had never been spanked before, but even then I was scared enough to try and run for it, tried hiding in my room, and as a direct result I became extremely protective of my personal space. If one of my parents can hurt me in my own space, then no one is allowed in there without me.

Whether it's out of frustration, or it's some sort of ritualistic event, spanking is not ok. I know sometimes we do things we don't plan, or want to do when we're frustrated, but justifying as such is no help to anyway. It's way better to figure out what got you to that point, and how you can avoid it next time.

[Hisey]

I have never spanked my kids, and never plan to. I have a good relationship with them and they are relaxed, happy and confident in my presence. I feel strongly that if I had hit them -- even once-- our relationship would be different. There would be an element of fear there that I just don't want.

My youngest was quite wild as a preschooler, and I worried about how she'd do in school. But she has turned out fine, and settled down, and is one of the best behaved kids in her class. My oldest is a model student whom everyone trusts and is extremely responsible. So I have two totally different kids, both raised on the "withdrawal of privileges" type of discipline, and no spanking has ever been necessary.

Anyhow, my point is that it changes your relationship with your child. If your spouse hit you--even once--wouldn't you always remember it? Always have it in the back of your mind? Always be just a little cautious?

[persuaded]

christianforums.com/t2967252/

I found this thread on Christian forums asking parents if they spank on the bare bottom. Thankfully, most do not but some of the answers are troubling. I have mixed feelings about spanking. It was not a type of punishment that worked with my kids but it took me a while to catch on to its ineffectiveness. Yes, I am ashamed about that.

I found some of those disturbing... well, they're all disturbing, but some were especially so. Like "smacking" a child on the mouth? I can't ever think of a situation where that would be remotely acceptable, in fact I find it rather shocking that anyone would admit to doing that... let alone try to justify it as anything approaching an appropriate form of discipline. I find it interesting and very sad that that particular person described herself as "a very willful and defiant child"... did it never occur to her that perhaps her attitude and demeanor were related to the excessive and harsh discipline in the family?

Interesting too was saying that swats to the hand when "trying to grab breakables at Grandma's" were for "safety reasons." Obviously she is referring to the safety of the "breakables" rather than safety of the child.

When my oldest child was a toddler, I spanked her one time. I was washing some of my crystal glassware and she was standing on a stepstool to my side. She picked up a vase and dropped it into the rack. I told her not to touch. She picked it up again and dropped it again. I got down on her level and told her once more that these dishes were special to Mommy and she was treating them in a way that would break them. I told her not to touch them. She promptly picked up the vase one more time, looked me right in the eye and dropped it again.... so I smacked her on the hand. She looked at me with utter shock, burst into tears and said, "You don't supposed to hit people!" Soo.. yeah, I never could bring myself to strike her again. And funny thing is, even though she had a very feisty spirit and Asperger's syndrome as well, she grew to be a very well behaved and well manner child. Spanking really just isn't necessary.

At least in my opinion, it ain't.

[Guest Anonymous]

Anyhow, my point is that it changes your relationship with your child. If your spouse hit you--even once--wouldn't you always remember it? Always have it in the back of your mind? Always be just a little cautious?

I think this is a really good point - and more proof (in my opinion) that many fundies don't actually view children as people.

Most adults, no matter how angry they get, won't haul off and smack another adult, but some people think it's inevitable that parents lose their tempers and hit their children.

[AnnoDomini]

Maybe my parents used mostly spanking because they didn't have privileges to withdraw. Grounding wouldn't have done anything since we didn't have friends to go out with, talk on the phone with, etc. No personal computers back then. No videogames. No cell phones or texting or anyone to text. We were sent to our rooms for mild infractions and spanked for significant ones.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

I can understand smacking a child in the heat of the moment, but having rules set in stone about the precise time and place to pull down a child's underwear is just disturbing. It's the cold, calculating premeditation that seems so worrying.

Why is one more understandable than the other? It's not legal to smack anyone other than a small, defenseless child in the heat of the moment and I will never, for the life of me, understand how people can rationalize losing their cool and taking it out on a child or find it remotely understandable. Violence is violence is violence. I know how hard it is to be a parent and how stressful it can be. But there is always the option to walk away and take some deep breaths. There is no grey area on this topic for me, obviously.

[Guest Anonymous]

I agree with Hane that hitting your child even once can poison or diminish the parent-child relationship. However, I think that this is not necessarily inevitable and I have an anecdote to illustrate what I'm thinking of. (Apologies if I've relayed this before on this site.)

When I was 6, my mother had never hit me and we had a really close relationship (my father was the hitter in the family). Anyway, one day I came home from first grade without my sweater, which I had lost at school. So my mother kind of went off the deep end about it. She was asking me where it was and how I'd lost it, and I told her I just didn't know. She was distraught, almost in tears, and suddenly smacked me really hard across the face. I remember not feeling afraid at all, or humiliated, just very very calm, and I just looked back at her. She was IMMEDIATELY remorseful, and started crying and hugged me and told me how sorry she was. She explained how stressed she was trying to make ends meet, andjust felt that losing this sweater was going to make her job harder on a tight budget.

Now, I don't condone what my mother did AT ALL, but it was not irreperable. Even at 6, I could tell that her loss of temper and violence was uncharacteristic, and that she still loved me but was going through a rough time. I also felt my dignity and my rights affirmed when she apologized to me, and I trusted 100% that nothing like this would ever happen again (and it never did). And, because she apologized and was honest about her feelings, I felt incredible empathy for her and what she must be going through to keep the budget on track. It made understand in a very deep way, not an abstract way, how important it was to keep track of my things. I don't think I would have understood this, or even been interested in understanding this, if my mother hadn't treated me with respect.

IN CONTRAST (and at the risk of going on too long), writing this made me think of another money incident, but this time with my punitive, disrespectful father. Fast forward to 8th grade, at which time our family fortunes had vastly improved. I had earned $100 in babysitting money which I brought with me in cash on a vacation we took, with the idea of finding a walkman to buy. We were staying in a 5-star hotel and, in my youth and naivete, I took for granted that no one would steal for me in a 5-star hotel. But my $100, which I'd stashed in a wallet in my unlocked suitcase, was stolen nonetheless. When the theft was discovered, my attitude was, "Lesson learned. I am not going to whine and cry about it. I am not going to let this ruin our vacation. I will simply live without getting the fancy walkman I wanted to buy."

For some reason, my response infuriated my father. He went on a rampage about my carelessness and my lack of respect for money. He threatened (but did not carry out) a spanking. He threw my empty wallet in my face in contempt. At no time, did he express any interest in my point of view; he simply assumed the worst, that I was harboring a spoiled, cavalier attitude, and needed to be punished in order to have the "correct" attitude.

That's the problem with spanking parents. They don't really see their children as people, but rather as objects who must conform to their views and whose any deviation from the parents' vision is interpreted as "defiance."

[sableduck]

I don't spank, which my fundie husband and inlaws don't understand AT ALL. I'm not sure my in laws even fully believe me. But here is what I don't get: My 16-month-old wants to be JUST LIKE Daddy, and occasionally even Mommy. He wants to do and imitate everything Daddy does...and I said to my husband, how are you going to excplain to him that it's okay for Daddy to hit Josh but its not okay for Josh to hit anybody? Huh?

That ended our spanking debate.

[oscar]

Maybe my parents used mostly spanking because they didn't have privileges to withdraw. Grounding wouldn't have done anything since we didn't have friends to go out with, talk on the phone with, etc. No personal computers back then. No videogames. No cell phones or texting or anyone to text. We were sent to our rooms for mild infractions and spanked for significant ones.

Eh, I didn't have a lot of privileges to withdraw, either - our TV reception was poor so I rarely watched it, we didn't have a lot of toys or gadgets, and most of the time my sister and I played with each other because neither of us had friends who lived close by. Spanking wasn't a thing in our house, and punishments were along the lines of, "I need you to think carefully about what you did, because it is important for you to understand why it was dangerous. I don't want you to get distracted, so I am going to lock the book cabinets for now. Daddy and I will talk to you together when he comes home." I can remember this and most other punishments WORD FOR WORD, because I felt terrible for doing something I knew was wrong and letting my parents down.

My mom had a horrible childhood. I think in order to have a worse childhood than my mom did, one would have to be a child soldier or a slave or actually die from abuse. I don't think there's any gray area for her, when it comes to spanking or striking a child.

My siblings and I were rarely punished, but that certainly wasn't because we were intrinsically good kids. My mother is a behavior modification specialist, and when my husband was first getting to know my family, he noticed, "Wow, your mom makes me feel so good for doing the right thing!"

My mom's sister decided not to strike her children either, but she would pull her kid's pants down, put the back of one hand against their butt and clap with her other hand so they would have all the humiliation of being spanked but none of the beating. She would also pinch a child's side or the back of their arm, pull them in close and whisper cutting and humiliating things to them if they misbehaved. Guess who has a strained and superficial relationship with her grown children? Hint: Not my mom!

[bananacat]

I don't think that spanking is always abuse, but I do think it's always unnecessary. Almost every teacher, daycare worker, nanny, and even teen babysitter manages to care for and discipline children without hitting them. There's just not need for a parent to do it any any circumstance, because all these other people manage to get through to kids without it.

Kids have an understanding of empathy and fairness from a young age, but lack the self-control to care about it more than their own immediate desires. I think it's always more effective to use these basic human instincts, which is why I like time-outs. Both before and after, the kid should get an explanation, and the time-out is more about thinking about things than making them suffer. I never make the lectures one-sided either. I ask them questions that force them to think about what they did. Unless there's something seriously wrong with them, kids really do want to be good people. I also think that for toddlers, it's much better to tell them what to do instead of what not to do. It's easy for us to take little things for granted, but kids that young really might not know what to instead. So for example, I was baby-sitting and took a toddler for a walk, and she threw her lollipop stick on the ground. I told her not throw trash on the ground, and she was confused. So then I told her to pick up the stick, hold it until we got home, and then put it in the trash can.

I also agree with oscar that praising good behavior will go a lot farther than punishing bad behavior.

[latraviata]

Why is one more understandable than the other? It's not legal to smack anyone other than a small, defenseless child in the heat of the moment and I will never, for the life of me, understand how people can rationalize losing their cool and taking it out on a child or find it remotely understandable. Violence is violence is violence. I know how hard it is to be a parent and how stressful it can be. But there is always the option to walk away and take some deep breaths. There is no grey area on this topic for me, obviously.

You are absolutely right about violence is violence. But a parent being so angry with the child that he or she is losing control and spanks, to me that is more understandable and human but absolutely condemnable let me be clear about that, than indeed corporal punishment as educational measure and administered in a calm and calculated fashion. That is outright cruel, losing temper (unfortunately) that can happen to anyone, systematic spanking is appalling and I cannot comprehend how people are able to do it with a straight face.

[latraviata]

I also agree with oscar that praising good behavior will go a lot farther than punishing bad behavior.

First rule for good parenting!

[CanadianHippie]

First rule for good parenting!

Second rule is to remember your children are human beings and individuals, and to respect that.

[latraviata]

Second rule is to remember your children are human beings and individuals, and to respect that.

Absolutely!

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Absolutely!

And this is why I *heart* this place so much. You don't have to visit a religious mommy board to find hoards of people who will never understand these 2 basic, but oh-so-important concepts.

[Mompom]

You are absolutely right about violence is violence. But a parent being so angry with the child that he or she is losing control and spanks, to me that is more understandable and human but absolutely condemnable let me be clear about that, than indeed corporal punishment as educational measure and administered in a calm and calculated fashion. That is outright cruel, losing temper (unfortunately) that can happen to anyone, systematic spanking is appalling and I cannot comprehend how people are able to do it with a straight face.

My parents were the calm spanking type but would spank for ever, with pauses in between, counting each torturous spank (with a dowel rod or wooden spoon). Later they bought a "whacker" which was made out of rubber. They used that on the younger kids. My mother feels bad (not as bad as I think she should feel), but feels like what she did was an improvement over the heated abuse she received as a child. I don't know which is worse to experience as a child, but I do think telling a child in a calm and cool way that they deserve to receive 50 spanks and incredible pain because that is what is right is sick and totally twisted. It has probably contributed to me complete inability to trust in any governmental or authority figures whatsoever. I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty, police over reaching, schools, government, etc. I'm so defensive when it comes to authority. I don't trust anyone in authority and I always side for the underdog (even if they are in the wrong). I wish I had a more *normal* way of viewing things, but I don't. I think it's due to being spanked in this fashion until I was 16 years old and driving, planning college, getting to know my future husband. That kind of stuff messes with your head, and I don't know if I will ever be totally *right* ever.

I do not understand how people can not see that hitting a girl only 3-4 or so inches FROM HER VAGINA is sexual. Are you freaking insane people? How can you not see that? How can you not see that it is completely humiliating in every way to strip someone of their clothing so you can cause more pain? WTH is wrong with people?

[raineymott]

Nothing like making an already scary and shameful punishment even more scary and shameful.

No kidding! When we were younger, it was always on a bare bottom...because we wouldn't "get" it if a diaper was in the way. And sometimes we would wear multiple layers to try to lessen the severity of the spanking, which was another reason for the bare-bottom spankings...to make sure we didn't have extra layers. Fortunately when we were in our teens, we didn't have to do bare-bottom spankings anymore.

Second rule is to remember your children are human beings and individuals, and to respect that.

YES!!! My dad would have gotten SO much farther with me if he had praised me for doing good instead of always putting me down and spanking me. After talking to me (before the spanking) I already felt guilty enough to not want to do whatever it was again. My whole childhood...well, practically my whole life, all I wanted was for him to be proud of me. He never was.

[TMS]

What the heck are these kids doing to warrant being beat with their pants down? What's wrong with a little time-out? Good grief.

[raineymott]

What the heck are these kids doing to warrant being beat with their pants down? What's wrong with a little time-out? Good grief.

Anything...don't obey right away the first time? Spank. Don't eat your food? Spank. Grumpy face? Spank.

[TMS]

Anything...don't obey right away the first time? Spank. Don't eat your food? Spank. Grumpy face? Spank.

That is truly horrible. If that is really what fundies are hitting their kids for, my kids would never make it. When wondering why these kids "need" to be beat in such a manner, I thought how my kids rarely need to be punished for anything - they're really good kids, and we do not spank. When discipline is needed, we use time-out, loss of privileges, sometimes deduction from allowance. But even these things don't happen often. However, if my kids were in one of those homes, they would be beat from morning to night. Not obeying the first time, not eating all food set before them, pouty faces - um yeah, my kids probably do these things every day. Not a big deal. I ignore it and chose my battles. Of course, I'm sure that's how the majority of us parent. I feel awful for children growing up in families that spank for every little infraction. I can't imagine how low their self-esteem must be.

[changemanagement]

I was spanked as a child. It taught me to be a liar and exceptionally sneaky. The lesson learned was to not get caught.

My mom bragged(?) that she and he brother got lots of beatings and even pre-emptory beatings if they looked as if they they were thinking wrong thoughts.

I decided to stop the cycle. As others have mentioned, I swatted my kid on the butt as a toddler - she looked as if I broke her heart..and the dog growled at me, to boot - lol. From that point on it was time out.

I can't say that this is the perfect solution, but I clearly have a better relationship with my adult daughter than I ever had with my mother.

[raineymott]

Allowance? What's that? Self-esteem? What's that?

Neither were allowed in my house. lol

I was extremely sneaky as a kid/teen too.