NON-fundy parents how would you handle this

[1004srs]

Spanking threads are like peanut butter and food allergy threads. You aren't going to change someones mind on the interwebz. Stop trying.

What's the old saying - opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.

[SquirrelySquirrel]

Like most here, I would have given a warning/taken her outside, and left if the behavior didn't improve. We left a playgroup function one time when she was 3-ish and the time taken to calm down didn't help. She learned pretty damn quickly that I don't make empty threats, and more importantly, that other people should not have to deal with someone who is acting like that and that is why we left. She was also tired and in need of a nap.

As for the issue of disagreeing with grandparents, my parents were very occasional spankers (I'm told I was spanked maybe twice. I don't remember) but they know my feelings on the matter and they wouldn't dream of spanking any of their grandchildren, even though my brother's daughter does get spanked at home. And I made it damn clear to the in-laws -and plenty of other people- while I was pregnant that if someone laid on a hand on my child I would call the police and file assault charges. I was already pretty sure that they wouldn't spank her if told not to, but I felt the need to make it crystal clear where I stood on the matter. And they assured us that they never would, and I trust that they won't. If I felt they ever would, they wouldn't be alone with her. Full stop. (Though this is hardly an issue since they can barely be bothered to spend time with her. Their loss.).

[Koala]

If your boyfriend/husband made you go to bed at a certain time, forbade you from eating cake for dinner every night, and made all medical decisions on your behalf, it would be considered controlling and abusive. Right now it's being hotly debated whether it's right to allow birth control to be nixed because that would be control over adult women. Why is it different when a parent does it? When a parent decides dinner with no say for the kids, or decides what they will wear, when they will go to bed, where they will go to school, what chores they have, even every last medical decision? Because the relationship's purpose is different. Parents have the job to teach, discipline, train, and raise their children to be decent adults. Significant others don't have that job with each other.

It's also argued not to do anything your kids can't do. Well it's not wrong as adults to drink a beer or have sex. Some privileges come with age. Kids are not miniature adults and should not be treated like adults in miniature bodies.

Adults and children are different, and relationships and responsibilities related to them are different.

Hitting is abusive whether you are hitting an adult or a child.

The freedom from abuse should not be a "privilege" reserved solely for adults.

[Deleted03]

Spanking threads are like peanut butter and food allergy threads. You aren't going to change someones mind on the interwebz. Stop trying.

What's the old saying - opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.

I don't agree I think at least one poster has said a similar thread has made her look hard at her practices. Yes its most certainly interminable and at some point everyone has to bow down, but I that stop trying is unwarranted.

[Deleted03]

If your boyfriend/husband made you go to bed at a certain time, forbade you from eating cake for dinner every night, and made all medical decisions on your behalf, it would be considered controlling and abusive. Right now it's being hotly debated whether it's right to allow birth control to be nixed because that would be control over adult women. Why is it different when a parent does it? When a parent decides dinner with no say for the kids, or decides what they will wear, when they will go to bed, where they will go to school, what chores they have, even every last medical decision? Because the relationship's purpose is different. Parents have the job to teach, discipline, train, and raise their children to be decent adults. Significant others don't have that job with each other.

It's also argued not to do anything your kids can't do. Well it's not wrong as adults to drink a beer or have sex. Some privileges come with age. Kids are not miniature adults and should not be treated like adults in miniature bodies.

Adults and children are different, and relationships and responsibilities related to them are different.

I'm surprised you don't look at studies that show that it is detrimental to kids to hit them.

Again, if you can raise kids properly without hitting them, why would you choose the route where physical violence is used?

[debrand]

Spanking threads are like peanut butter and food allergy threads. You aren't going to change someones mind on the interwebz. Stop trying.

What's the old saying - opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.

1004srs, you've accidentally touched on a pet peeve of mine. So, I am going to rant. :snooty:

Lately, I've come across online commenters who claim that opinions do not change. They are wrong. Ideas do change people. Maybe those ideas don't change people immediately but overtime, they have an effect. If they didn't, why would anyone discuss anything? We could all just break off into our own little groups of like minded people. Slavery would still exist and women would not vote. I've changed and so have others. However, in order for the change to happen, we need to speak out.

Life would be so much easier if everyone listened to me. 8-) :lol:

[2xx1xy1JD]

It doesn't happen all the time, but I have actually changed a couple of fundie's minds about the spanking issue during online debate, and influenced a few people IRL.

Of course, it's a bit luck winning at a slot machine: you get a high from a "win", and that makes you willing to mindless feed quarters into the machine for ages afterward. I know that for every person I influence, there's an awful lot of wasted typing.

[1004srs]

I can guarantee that your opinion isn't going to be changed based on what my

opinion of spanking is.

...or my opinion of peanut butter allergies

...or my opinion of food allergies and school.

[Koala]

1004srs, you've accidentally touched on a pet peeve of mine. So, I am going to rant. :snooty:

Lately, I've come across online commenters who claim that opinions do not change. They are wrong. Ideas do change people. Maybe those ideas don't change people immediately but overtime, they have an effect. If they didn't, why would anyone discuss anything? We could all just break off into our own little groups of like minded people. Slavery would still exist and women would not vote. I've changed and so have others. However, in order for the change to happen, we need to speak out.

Life would be so much easier if everyone listened to me. 8-) :lol:

well said debrand :clap:

[formergothardite]

If your boyfriend/husband made you go to bed at a certain time, forbade you from eating cake for dinner every night, and made all medical decisions on your behalf, it would be considered controlling and abusive. Right now it's being hotly debated whether it's right to allow birth control to be nixed because that would be control over adult women. Why is it different when a parent does it? When a parent decides dinner with no say for the kids, or decides what they will wear, when they will go to bed, where they will go to school, what chores they have, even every last medical decision? Because the relationship's purpose is different. Parents have the job to teach, discipline, train, and raise their children to be decent adults. Significant others don't have that job with each other.

It's also argued not to do anything your kids can't do. Well it's not wrong as adults to drink a beer or have sex. Some privileges come with age. Kids are not miniature adults and should not be treated like adults in miniature bodies.

Adults and children are different, and relationships and responsibilities related to them are different.

So children are small and not mature so it is okay to hit them?

And I have changed my opinion on the Bible, spanking, circumcision and probably a couple of other things due to reading debates online. It happens.

[1004srs]

http://www.cerm.info/bible_studies/Topical/spanking.htm

http://www.familyprospankusa.org/news.php

I am not putting my opinion out there. However, there are "studies" on both sides. Just because a person picks one side or the other doesn't make them bad, immoral, or stupid.

[emmiedahl]

Neither of those links cites a study that shows the benefit of spanking. And I would surmise that a website that includes the word 'pro-spank' in its title is not exactly impartial.

[Koala]

http://www.cerm.info/bible_studies/Topical/spanking.htm

I have an errand to run, so I've only glanced over the first link and I didn't have time to read all of that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a link to sermon notes or the like? Because the last I checked, sermon notes does not a study make.

[Elle]

Every form of punishment can be detrimental. Take an object away, and a child can grow up insecure about whether their possession will remain theirs or not. My mom was a very poor child, and losing a toy was extremely hurtful because they had so little to lose to begin with that this was severe. Her family didn't have a TV or money for many activities, so grounding her from being able to see her friends was also severe. As an adult, she was always afraid of losing things and had a hard time letting go of anything. Her insecurity over losing things turned her into a pack rat. Her fear over not being allowed to see her friends let to her being afraid to make friends. When she got older and had nothing left to take away, well if you want to talk about physical abuse, what she went through is nothing compared to an open-handed swat to a clothed butt.

Now not every kid who loses privileges or toys grows up like this. But the whole can't be accurately judged by the extremes. Most people who were spanked as kids don't grow up to be ingrates who are violent criminals.

EVERY form of discipline or punishment can be taken to a point of abuse. That doesn't mean the milder forms are automatically abusive too. I have a friend right now who genuinely believes that doing anything other than keeping your kids out of the road when a car is coming or running with scissors or playing with fire is abuse. She genuinely believes that redirecting is abuse because she says kids need to be allowed to explore anything they're interested in. They need to be allowed to express themselves, even if it means drawing on the wall with some markers they found. She thinks positive reinforcement is all a kid needs. She praises when her kids do what she would like them to, but there is no reason to not do things like push over the TV to see what will happen. She thinks it is disrespectful of a child's possessions, and therefore the child, to withhold their own possessions. She thinks it's disrespectful of their bodily autonomy to enforce meals that are healthy. She thinks it is extremely harmful to make them go to school. She thinks it's disrespectful to their freedom of movement to ground them. She had a couple of unschooled, obese, disrespectful little brats because she truly truly truly believes that any discipline at all is abuse, and she constantly tries to convince everyone to give up on everything and stop "abusing" their kids. In turn, a lot of people think she's abusing her kids by neglect. She is hurting them by not teaching them to respect boundaries, and they are going to learn as adults the hard way that they can't have everything they want. They will probably end up in jail, if she doesn't lose custody of them to the state first.

No matter what you do, someone will think you're abusing your kids. The desired end result should be a good, decent adult who has learned to think for themselves without fear, which is where fundies are going wrong (those adults are afraid to think for themselves because it was heated out of them to even try), and where my friend is likely o go wrong is her kids have no boundaries, so I fear they won't respect the law. A child shouldn't have to go to therapy to get over how they were disciplined as kids and to learn how to be independent, capable adults who can take care of themselves, or go to jail because there was a lack of it. If an adult falls into either of those camps, the parents failed. Kids aren't black and white either, and not all respond to the same things.

I know our method of giving a few warnings prior to a swat on the butt is not popular here. I don't care. My child is a happy child who has learned pretty well that no means no. She's not capable yet of understanding reasoning, and redirecting her does no good. If she wants to play with something, say a lamp, that she shouldn't, taking her away and giving her crayons and paper doesn't to jack since she can still see the lamp. We live in a studio, so don't have the luxury of hiding the lamp or closing a door. She will keep trying to do what she wants to do. She is too young to understand reasoning. "Play with the lamp and knock it over and you can break it or cause a fire" is a bunch own mumbo-jumbo at her age. But she can understand cause and effect. Play with the lamp after mommy said no three times (she can count to three), and there's going to be a swat. Since I can't keep her with me in our tiny bathroom, and with the set-up of our place I can't watch her when I'm peeing to make sure she doesn't get to the lamp, it's vital that she learns not to play with it, or to stick things in sockets (she can ill out the protectors faster than I can). I'd rather give her a swat so she knows not to do something than to have her electrocute herself just so I seem like a "good" mommy to a bunch of people on the internet. Her last warning comes with her name said in a stern voice. It's gotten to the point that if I say her name sternly, then give her an order, like "Put it back," she will, and then she gets praised. She has learned that continuing to misbehave after that stern voice means a swat. in fact, she's learning that it's pointless to continue after the first warning or two because she knows where it will end up. We rarely get to a third warning anymore.

It saved her life just yesterday. We were leaving the grocery store, and I had a big bag in one arm and was holding her hand with the other. She broke away and tore to the parking lot with an oncoming SUV. I sternly said her name, skipping the first two warnings, followed by STOP, and she stopped IMMEDIATELY, and hardly a moment too soon. If she had gone i just a few more steps, she would have been hit and probably killed. That SUV was speeding and wouldn't have had time to stop. BECAUSE she learned that continuing after that stern voice means she will get a swat, she stopped. MY CHILD IS ALIVE BECAUSE SHE LEARNED CAUSE AND EFFECT BY BEING SPANKED. It doesn't matter why mommy says no sometimes, all that matters is that mommy says no. She won't remember a lecture in the morning about why not to run in front of cars, but she remembers that misbehaving after that astern tone means a swat, so stop what she's doing. You can call me a bad mom all you want, but my child would probably be dead, and only a fucking lying fool would say I just shouldn't have let her get away. Every parent who is HONEST has to admit that at least once your kid managed to pull a hand away and run. She did, and she would have died. I would rather be a bad mommy in the eyes or the majority here who are outspoken (the majority of Americans do spank their kids, and an even larger majority are good, productive, non-traumatized citizens, though few are willing to speak up and admit to it because the anti-spank brigade jumps on them) than for my child to be dead because I didn't have the time to redirect her from the path on an oncoming car.

Call me abusive all you want. My child is alive and giggling like crazy snuggled next to me while watching a kid's show on her iPad. I'm not planning a funeral, my child isn't afraid to be creative, is independent but knows no means no, and she is happy and knows she's loved. I'm doing something RIGHT.

[dawbs]

. BECAUSE she learned that continuing after that stern voice means she will get a swat, she stopped. MY CHILD IS ALIVE BECAUSE SHE LEARNED CAUSE AND EFFECT BY BEING SPANKED. It doesn't matter why mommy says no sometimes, all that matters is that mommy says no. She won't remember a lecture in the morning about why not to run in front of cars, but she remembers that misbehaving after that astern tone means a swat, so stop what she's doing.

Except you don't really know the cause and effect, do you?

If your child had, instead of, as you claim, learned to associate that voice with 'stop or get a swat' had learned 'if I stop now, I get a swat, I should run faster' your child would be dead, no?

You are assuming that correlation = causation. And it doesn't. Just because these things correlate doesn't mean one necessarily caused the other.

Your child is alive because she stopped...but she could jsut as easily have not stopped. You dn't really know taht your past swats had anything to do w/ her actions.

(I say that as someone who isnt' 'really' anti-swat. I don't do it at this point. I don't plan on it. But I am a lot more 'meh' about it than most FJers are.)

[2xx1xy1JD]

Elle:

A couple of suggestions:

1. Re warnings - chances are that your child, who knows how to count to 3, has also learned that she doesn't need to listen until the third warning and/or the really serious voice. Responding the first time will get better results.

2. We had a 1 bedroom with similar safety issues. When I needed a shower, it meant putting my tot in a safety yard and having her watch her favorite video.

3. You are right that very small children don't have verbal reasoning. I would do an immediate "NO! DANGER!", swoop in and deposit the child in the safety yard or playpen. They get the association pretty quickly.

4. If you really reserve your stern voice for the most serious situations, that alone can get your child to stop.

Kids outgrow safety issues. The trick is keeping them safe until they do.

[emmiedahl]

Wow, Elle. If spanking is the only thing that keeps kids from getting hit by cars, then every AP parent must have a long line of dead children in their wake. Weird logic, even coming from you.

About your friend anecdote: it is oddly comforting to see that you are still friends with the biggest assholes on the globe. You have an asshole friend for every illogical opinion you hold, don't you?

[formergothardite]

I wish people would just call it hitting. Just own up to the fact that they hit a small child.

By the way, I had a runner, a child who would jerk away. She was in a stroller or a wearing a harness every single time we were out and she didn't obey. My child learned that when she tried to run and I used that stern voice she better stop or she would be strapped back into a stroller or have the harness on her. I didn't have to hit her, I just had to be consistant. Also, the times I would let her off to see if she would walk with me, it was in safe places where if she ran she wouldn't get hurt. But she would still learn that when I say stay with me and walk, she better listen.

[Feberin]

Pages ago it was asked what to do about running off while in dangerous places. My son just turned two and the rule that we've had for perhaps the past month is that he can either hold my hand or be carried/go in the stroller/cart. He hates being restrained so normally I remind him once if he tries to pull away from me. Once we get to the car he has to touch it while I open the doors. Once recently he ran off while I was doing this and I grabbed him before he reached the end of the van then we had a little time out before going home.

We just started doing the 1, 2, 3 magic method. I really like it because it really promotes being calm about discipline. I am against hitting anyways but honestly don't think I could actually do it. Growing up my younger brother used to always kick, punch, bite and other ways attack me. My father was a very laid back thousand and one warnings kind of parent who used to threaten to spank but didn't follow through on it. Once he said to me that I should just slap my brother back then maybe he could learn his lesson. But I couldn't even when he punched me so hard in the stomach that I doubled over or hit me with a bat. I just couldn't bring myself to hurt somebody else.

Another question was about allowing children to stay with relatives who spank. My MIL is very into spanking and told me before my son was born that if we didn't spank him then he wouldn't learn how to listen and be a monster (she has since said that she's amazed how well time outs work with my son after watching us deal with him acting up at her house). However I feel confidant that she wouldn't spank our child. She might disagree and sigh about the fact that she can't spank him but she knows that this is something my husband and I are very serious about and if she ever did spank him then that would severely limit or possibly end her contact with him. We also don't have her watch him frequently. Unless an emergency comes up (like when I had to take my very feverish husband to the ER) we limit having her watch him to once a month. I think if she was watching him on a daily basis it would make it more difficult to stick to our rules. Honestly the biggest thing she fights about our parenting rules is that we don't do solid foods until six months.

[Deleted03]

I wish people would just call it hitting. Just own up to the fact that they hit a small child.

.

+1

[SquirrelySquirrel]

1004srs, you've accidentally touched on a pet peeve of mine. So, I am going to rant. :snooty:

Lately, I've come across online commenters who claim that opinions do not change. They are wrong. Ideas do change people. Maybe those ideas don't change people immediately but overtime, they have an effect. If they didn't, why would anyone discuss anything? We could all just break off into our own little groups of like minded people. Slavery would still exist and women would not vote. I've changed and so have others. However, in order for the change to happen, we need to speak out.

Life would be so much easier if everyone listened to me. 8-) :lol:

Well said. Online debate has done me a world of good, as it can for any open-minded person. I've changed my stance on a couple of very big issues and have learned so much from being able to discuss topics with people all over the globe.

[tingeofginge]

Except you don't really know the cause and effect, do you?

If your child had, instead of, as you claim, learned to associate that voice with 'stop or get a swat' had learned 'if I stop now, I get a swat, I should run faster' your child would be dead, no?

You are assuming that correlation = causation. And it doesn't. Just because these things correlate doesn't mean one necessarily caused the other.

Your child is alive because she stopped...but she could jsut as easily have not stopped. You dn't really know taht your past swats had anything to do w/ her actions.

Totally agree with this. Also, If your kid is pulling out the outlet plugs, get the kind that screw over the outlet so she can't pull out. They are cheap and even my extremely resourceful, curious kid couldn't get them out. People making excuses for hitting their kids just makes me sick and sad. Elle, there are many ways to parent (even in difficult situations) without swatting. But, you do have to be creative. Rationalize it all you want, but you spank your kid because you are a lazy parent.

ETA: I have a kid who even now, at 3 1/2 will run away due to impulse control issues. You can bet your ass I don't let him pull away from me. In parking lots, he either holds my hand (somehow I've always managed to keep a hold on it even though he is very strong and wiggly and likes to just become dead weight suddenly while we're walking) or I take the cart out and he rides in it.

[Guest Anonymous]

+1

:clap:

[keeperrox]

Rationalize it all you want, but you spank your kid because you are a lazy parent.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

1. In the invitation I would include the note "gyms are places where we can all get a little rowdy, but too rowdy and you and your child will be warned. After one warning the child may remain at the party enjoying the other activities, but may not be on or near apparatus. We want everyone to have a fun, SAFE time."

2. First little monster who gets out of line, ask him where his Mom is and have "the talk" as nicely as possible, but be firm on do-overs.

When my kids wanted "event" parties I made sure to say "no presents" so I could throw a kid out!!! I never had to but it sure helps knowing they've spent money for gas only!!!