The Student Room Group

Spanking children as a punishment (poll included)

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Original post by yothi5
No kid likes being hit or spanked. Deters them from committing further wrongs in the future.


thats wrong spanking and other general physical punishments don't actually work. They say to the child that violence is allowed if you believe that what someone else has done is wrong. This promotes violence in the children and violence in the adult. 86 % of abusive parents where physicaly discplined. 80 % of all criminals were physically discplined. It also shows that you should use violence to express your opinion.

ITS OBVIOUS THAT SPANKING IN ANYWAY IS NARROW MINDED, AGGRESSIVE, STUPID AND INEFFECTIVE
Reply 101
At times i think God did design the ass in a way that would be able to endure spanking......
Reply 102
Original post by garfeeled
thats wrong spanking and other general physical punishments don't actually work. They say to the child that violence is allowed if you believe that what someone else has done is wrong. This promotes violence in the children and violence in the adult. 86 % of abusive parents where physicaly discplined. 80 % of all criminals were physically discplined. It also shows that you should use violence to express your opinion.

ITS OBVIOUS THAT SPANKING IN ANYWAY IS NARROW MINDED, AGGRESSIVE, STUPID AND INEFFECTIVE


It is a lot more complex than you think. You are now confusing physical violence, in your terms "abusive parenting", with "spanking". It seems to me it is you who is showing narrow minded thinking.
Reply 103
Original post by Herr
I was never smacked by my parents as they did not believe that was the right way of disciplining a child.

Now I have 2 kids, a 4 year old and a 7 month old. The mother of the 4 year old used to smack her, now she no longer lives with us so no one smacks her.... for the most part she behaves because I make sure she knows that if she misbehaves she is going to get her corner or she would be staying home on Saturday instead of being brought out. If all else fails I just tell her "I'm going to tell your mam" or I tell her I'm going to send her to "Herr ********'s house" who is one scary old geezer that lives down the road. Thankfully that usually does the trick.

I don't think there should be any regulations that prohibit spanking though, some kids do need them as that's the only way to discipline them and end of the day I don't believe it is the government's job to tell parents how to raise their brats. But there is a fine line between discipline and child abuse... a smack on the bum isn't child abuse unless done repeatedly.


While I think you should be able to raise your children however you like, I just wanted to raise one of your points for discussion. In my opinion, threatening children with things such as sending them to the house of a 'scary old geezer' is emotionally not good for a child.

There is a place for telling a child a parent would be informed if they behave badly. For example i have been a nanny for many years and if a child is particularly naughty and they are aware that they are doing wrong, one thing i might say to them would be, 'how do you think your parents would react if I told them you did that?'. While it is similar to the way you tell your daughter, 'I'm going to tell your Mum', I personally believe that asking a child a question in order to make them think about their actions is better than threatening a child with going to tell someone else. But it's all down to how one words it. Making a threat is just that, a threat, it rarely makes a difference to how the child acts, asking them a question and talking about their actions will make them think about their behaviour. I also don't believe one parent playing off against the other is a good idea either. An ex boyfriend of mine had a son from a previous relationship and he and his ex were constantly telling the child that they would tell the other parent about his behaviour, it got them nowhere and the child just lived in constant fear and never actually learnt a lesson. My Mum used to do the same thing with my sister and I, we knew well that even if she did call our father and tell him that we'd done something wrong, he wouldn't do anything about it. Talking to a child and asking how they think their actions will affect others and make them feel makes the child think about what they've done and consider others in a way they may not have done otherwise.
Reply 104
Original post by Bobo1234
Nietzsche would've loved you. Not. :p: I'm anti-spanking but it's hard to see how "not eating lipstick" falls under some system of morality. My mum tells me I did that when I was three and got smacked for it, apparently the next night I smeared lipstick all over my teddies, so guess smacking does't always work xD


Can't say I'm familiar with Nietzsche (or any philosophers to be fair)

The lipstick thing isn't immoral. I'm not sure how healthy it is but it isn't 'wrong'. At least the act isn't wrong, the technical theft of someone else's lipstick is though.

I'm thinking I'd probably just tell them it'd make them unwell or something. Of course hypothetical parenting is much easier than telling a kid not to eat random stuff in practice though :redface:
Reply 105
Original post by garfeeled
thats wrong spanking and other general physical punishments don't actually work. They say to the child that violence is allowed if you believe that what someone else has done is wrong. This promotes violence in the children and violence in the adult. 86 % of abusive parents where physicaly discplined. 80 % of all criminals were physically discplined. It also shows that you should use violence to express your opinion.

ITS OBVIOUS THAT SPANKING IN ANYWAY IS NARROW MINDED, AGGRESSIVE, STUPID AND INEFFECTIVE


You're an idiot.
Reply 106
Original post by garfeeled
thats wrong spanking and other general physical punishments don't actually work. They say to the child that violence is allowed if you believe that what someone else has done is wrong. This promotes violence in the children and violence in the adult. 86 % of abusive parents where physicaly discplined. 80 % of all criminals were physically discplined. It also shows that you should use violence to express your opinion.

ITS OBVIOUS THAT SPANKING IN ANYWAY IS NARROW MINDED, AGGRESSIVE, STUPID AND INEFFECTIVE


Source?

Do you know that theres a difference between spanking and domestic abuse/violence?

Everything about your post screams stupidity. And as someone has said, you're an idiot.
Original post by Bonged.
"I can't explain why what you're doing is wrong so I'm just going to hit you"

sums up spanking.


Well, a 5 year old does not understand right and wrong quite the same way as the rest of us, but there is one thing that they do understand.

:spank: (Just a gentle spank, no rods :P )
(edited 12 years ago)
I think children should be spanked, I was spanked only when I had done wrong and I kept on doing wrong, primarily when I was being too loud or not doing as I was told. If I hadn't been spanked I don't think I would have quit doing what I was doing, so I think it is necessary. It was never really painful, but I feared it none the less. Having fear was necessary when learning what is right and wrong, if I hadn't been punished I would have continued doing what I was doing.

I hardly think it's worthwhile trying to reason with a child. Perhaps when you have a teenager but not a child.
Wowza the poll is close—it's gotta be the tighest poll I've ever seen on TSR.
Reply 110
The stuff I've been posting is probably influenced by the fact that I've never been affected by punishments really. I never understood the idea of punishing someone because what they did was 'wrong'. Not in school or with parents.

You have to understand why something's wrong, not just have your toys taken away so you behave 'correctly'. Mind you, many things we get told are wrong as kids aren't wrong at all. We've just pissed someone off.
(edited 12 years ago)
I'll get slated for this but here we go, if I was repeatedly naughty and ignored all warnings as a child, I'd get a smack bum, and I turned out considerably better behaved than my friends who were never smacked and allowed to get away with murder.

I was never hit, never any violence and it never hurt, it was just the shock that made sure I wouldn't do it again. Taking away toys or privileges never worked because I knew they'd be back in a few days, and neither did just being spoken to because I was so used to it (I could be quite naughty as a child but nothing compared to the kids I see these days! :eek: or most people of my age today for that matter!). A warning, followed by a quick, painless smack on the bum always stopped me (and they only needed to do it a few times, eventually they wouldn't even get to "2" on counting "1...2....3" before I'd stop whatever I was doing and be as good as gold!

All children are individual - for some it will work, for others it won't, but it's no good insisting it's cruel or should be banned when, if done properly, it causes very little if any pain, is a good deterrent, and I completely disagree with the whole "teaching them to be violent if things aren't going their way" - again, I'm a much calmer person than most of my friends and don't snap easily, I talk things through and unless someone hits me first, I will never resort to violence. Being smacked on the bum as a child hasn't made me a violent person because I don't see it as violence, it was simple discipline and it worked. Don't say it's cruel and should be banned just because it doesn't work for some kids whereas it has worked for many in the past.
Reply 112
I don't think you should spank your children as a punishment. As people have previously mentioned, a lot of parents don't explain why what the child did was wrong and just hit them, which only serves to confuse them more.

Obviously I can't comment on the relationships other people have had with their parents and they way they were punished, but whenever my mum smacked me (and it was always my mum, never my dad) I never understood why I was being hit. She also never used to hit me on my bum as is convention (I think) it was usually on my arm or my thigh.

I remember once when I was younger there was a billboard proclaiming something like 'smacking your children is illegal' which I told my mum, I got smacked for telling her how to be a parent. Looking back now, I can see that I was an utter terror to my mother, but she didn't deal with it in the right way, I was too young to understand why I was being physically punished when I'd only used words.
Original post by Zelex
It is a lot more complex than you think. You are now confusing physical violence, in your terms "abusive parenting", with "spanking". It seems to me it is you who is showing narrow minded thinking.


im not mixing them up i understand there is a huge difference what im saying is that people who are physically disciplined are more likely to abuse children if they have any. I my self was physically disciplined which then moved on to abuse. It was originally a slap on the hands (which is far worse then most people think as it stops the child exploring) when i was very very young, at that age all i did was cry as i was being hurt and thats what babies do. When i was a toddler i was very clumsy and was spanked because of it. Which lead me to have a very fearful view of my father. When i was 5 i slipped in the kitchen and broke a vase my dad inhereted from my grandmother, my punishment was that he slammed a door on my hand several times, which broke it. After that i had a incredibly reclusive personality when it came to my parents and sisters. I was terrified of my dad, felt abandoned by my mum and jealous of my sisters because my mum made sure they wouldn't get hit. That meant all my dads anger got targeted at me which lead to punishment for pointless reasons. i regularly pushed me down the stairs. Which all stemmed from the fact that my father couldn't think of other ways of discipline.

Physical discipline in any form is counter productive.

Spanking, hitting whatever form loses its effect overtime and in order to keep the effect the strength behind it increases, not in all cases but many.

Not only that many forms stunt the social growth of the child. Hitting the hands of young children stops them exploring as the hands are how younger children explore the world around them. Spanking teaches the child that in order to get there point across violence is a reasonable methord of doing that
Original post by Claudine
I thought that generally people had stopped spanking their children as a punishment (apart from child abuse which is different). However today I was watching an episode of supernanny and Jo who was dealing with parents to still spanked their children.

Do you think that it should still be used as a punishment or not?

I don't think it should be used, I know kids are hard to communicate with sometimes, but I believe that violence should never be the answer.

Discuss.


Agreed, but if a kid connects trying to walk in the road with a small amount of pain, they won't do it again. I would cause my child a small amount of pain to make SURE, absolutely SURE, that they didn't get hurt in a much worse way.
Should parents spank their children as a deterrent - no.

Should parents be allowed to spank their children as a deterrent - yes.

Some parents will not be able to reason with a child effectively, so this might be a more reasonable form of punishment despite it not being the ideological solution to the problem. I think that sometimes a situation between a parent and a child can be allowed to escalate into one so extreme that physical punishment is necessary. But I think a good parent will not allow it to escalate to that kind of situation by removing privileges where necessary and forcing the child to think about what they have done.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by cl_steele
i never said anything about dogs?


I know you didn't, I did. Please re-read my post and yours and then you'll see why I did.
Reply 117
Original post by garfeeled
im not mixing them up i understand there is a huge difference what im saying is that people who are physically disciplined are more likely to abuse children if they have any. I my self was physically disciplined which then moved on to abuse. It was originally a slap on the hands (which is far worse then most people think as it stops the child exploring) when i was very very young, at that age all i did was cry as i was being hurt and thats what babies do. When i was a toddler i was very clumsy and was spanked because of it. Which lead me to have a very fearful view of my father. When i was 5 i slipped in the kitchen and broke a vase my dad inhereted from my grandmother, my punishment was that he slammed a door on my hand several times, which broke it. After that i had a incredibly reclusive personality when it came to my parents and sisters. I was terrified of my dad, felt abandoned by my mum and jealous of my sisters because my mum made sure they wouldn't get hit. That meant all my dads anger got targeted at me which lead to punishment for pointless reasons. i regularly pushed me down the stairs. Which all stemmed from the fact that my father couldn't think of other ways of discipline.

Physical discipline in any form is counter productive.

Spanking, hitting whatever form loses its effect overtime and in order to keep the effect the strength behind it increases, not in all cases but many.

Not only that many forms stunt the social growth of the child. Hitting the hands of young children stops them exploring as the hands are how younger children explore the world around them. Spanking teaches the child that in order to get there point across violence is a reasonable methord of doing that


I understand your sentiments behind the issue, and your explanation is fair based on your own first hand experience.However I disagree, I too was also physically disciplined and given a reason why, when I would not listen numerous of times. This type of method was effective in my case as, it made me understand what I had done was absolutley wrong. I ended up perfectly fine, I am not a violent person. yours and my case agrees my point I made previously, that physical discipline my work for some children and not for others. It also shows it depends on the type of physical discipline and how its approached.
Original post by HarveyCanis
I know you didn't, I did. Please re-read my post and yours and then you'll see why I did.


but i fail to see how you can relate my post to treating kids like a disobedient poodle?
Reply 119
Voted NO.

Smacking and Spanking should be classed as Child Abuse.

I was a victim of Child Abuse by the way.

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