Should people spank their kids?

[rong]

OK, we've heard enough rhetoric from both sides. Now's time for practical problems.

Pop quiz:

3 yr old is asking for sweets as a snack, you have offered healthy alternative, say some fruit or w/e, child is having a major tantrum over not getting sweets, is over tired and and has quickly descended into screaming it's little head off, demanding sweets, lying on the floor hitting the ground. It is now beyond reasoning with as when you try to talk to it, it just carries on shouting and demanding. You know that normally long before it reached this stage you would have talked to it, explained the situation and used the naughty step, but now it's beyond that.

What do you do Jack, what do you do?

[jackvance]

OK, we've heard enough rhetoric from both sides. Now's time for practical problems.

Pop quiz:

3 yr old is asking for sweets as a snack, you have offered healthy alternative, say some fruit or w/e, child is having a major tantrum over not getting sweets, is over tired and and has quickly descended into screaming it's little head off, demanding sweets, lying on the floor hitting the ground. It is now beyond reasoning with as when you try to talk to it, it just carries on shouting and demanding. You know that normally long before it reached this stage you would have talked to it, explained the situation and used the naughty step, but now it's beyond that.

What do you do Jack, what do you do?

Thanks for asking. Probably forcibly send it to stand in a corner, without hitting.

[Luco]

Will the next question be addressed to everyone?

[jackvance]

What would you do Luco?

[OngBonga]

Ok so I'm assuming that the child understands what its being told.

"You can have some sweets later, but you have to eat some fruit first"

"I DON'T WANNA"

"Tough"

"WAA WAA"

"Well you can have no fruit and no sweets then"

"WAA WAA WAA WAA"

"No sweets tomorrow either"

*processes thoughts*
*takes fruit*

WIN

[rong]

Ok so I'm assuming that the child understands what its being told.

"You can have some sweets later, but you have to eat some fruit first"

"I DON'T WANNA"

"Tough"

"WAA WAA"

"Well you can have no fruit and no sweets then"

"WAA WAA WAA WAA"

"No sweets tomorrow either"

*processes thoughts*
*takes fruit*

WIN

If only.

[OngBonga]

he's still 16 in girl years

Now if you and galap are going to be mean you can have no sweets, and if you carry on, you'll get a smack.

Oh oh I thought of something... I'm pretty sure that lots of religious fanatics think drugs are bad mckay.

You suck.

[Luco]

What would you do Luco?

As my other post implied, you can never give in to the child in this situation. I would explain to them that I've already given my answer and that there will be no further discussion on the matter. Further to this, I would explain that if this is how they behave whenever they want sweets I would have to seriously consider if they will ever be allowed sweets again. That is of course, unless they calm the fuck down right fucking now.

[OngBonga]

Ok Dan, so "No sweets tomorrow" didn't work. I'll have to take a leaf out of my Dad's book.

*walks to chimney*
*talks loudly up chimney*

"Father Christmas? I need to talk to you"

"No don't Daddy, please, I'll eat the fruit"

WIN

[Luco]

Ong, your approach works well and works often for me. However, there are times when they just dig their heels in and refuse to comply, no matter what you throw at them.

For my youngest, it's tidying up. He absolutely hates it, in fact the last time we asked him to help tidy up he actually walked to the naughty corner, sat down and said 'tell me when you're finished'. Bravo

[a500lbgorilla]

I was spanked.

Honestly, I think it was more damaging to find out that my parents were just normal people than the times I got beat on for whatever the fuck it was. I honestly don't remember. Just the stick... oh the stick... and the tears... and the darkness... so cold.

But seriously, spank you kids, but not too much.

[pocketfours]

3 yr old is asking for sweets as a snack, you have offered healthy alternative, say some fruit or w/e, child is having a major tantrum over not getting sweets, is over tired and and has quickly descended into screaming it's little head off, demanding sweets, lying on the floor hitting the ground. It is now beyond reasoning with as when you try to talk to it, it just carries on shouting and demanding. You know that normally long before it reached this stage you would have talked to it, explained the situation and used the naughty step, but now it's beyond that.

What do you do Jack, what do you do?

If this happens, then there's a pretty high chance that his/her tantrums have been successful before, which is the actual problem here. Child needs to understand that a no is a no and nothing will change it.

Besides I don't give my kids sweets almost ever.

[Luco]

Should Zangief piledrive his kids if they're naughty? Or just a spinning lariat on the butt?

[spoonitnow]

Should Zangief piledrive his kids if they're naughty? Or just a spinning lariat on the butt?

Chops across the ass would be more effective than a lariat.

[OngBonga]

Ong, your approach works well and works often for me. However, there are times when they just dig their heels in and refuse to comply, no matter what you throw at them.

For my youngest, it's tidying up. He absolutely hates it, in fact the last time we asked him to help tidy up he actually walked to the naughty corner, sat down and said 'tell me when you're finished'. Bravo

You have an awesome child and you're doing a great job. Serious.

[Luco]

You have an awesome child and you're doing a great job. Serious.

I'm sure I could do a lot better. But yes, my boys are awesome

[jyms]

Seriously people, if you never had a 2 or 3 year old, using things like "process thoughts" or make them do push ups is a rediculous idea. There is a huge difference I would hope in talking about an 8- 10 yr old and a toddler here. Also, I think how you do the little things with a toddler ( like a light but scary smack on the ass) will do far more for the same child when he's 8 than any spanking ever will at the older age,

Does everyone posting these long diatribes against spanking have children above 5 yrs old that were never spanked?

[jyms]

If this happens, then there's a pretty high chance that his/her tantrums have been successful before, which is the actual problem here. Child needs to understand that a no is a no and nothing will change it.

This is huge too.

[jyms]

Ong, your approach works well and works often for me. However, there are times when they just dig their heels in and refuse to comply, no matter what you throw at them.

For my youngest, it's tidying up. He absolutely hates it, in fact the last time we asked him to help tidy up he actually walked to the naughty corner, sat down and said 'tell me when you're finished'. Bravo

When my son was 4 I threw a bunch of his stuff in a garbage bag while he watched. I walked it all the way out to the curb and left it there, He balled for an hour standing at the window he kept making deals with me about how he would help and clean up. I made him want to clean his room when I asked.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'll try to hold it together today.

I think it's pretty shocking that even in my mid-30's, I can still feel such pain and betrayal when I dwell on this subject... even though I love my dad more than anything, and I have forgiven him any mistakes he made in my upbringing.

This kind of discipline scars people. Maybe some of you were spanked and maybe you don't feel scarred. I envy you. I mean that is the fullest sense, devoid of sarcasm.

I don't have kids so I can't speak as a parent, but I worked as a preschool teacher for a few years. It seems to me that if I had the choice of hiring someone who spanked children to discipline them or someone who had more creative and robust techniques for molding the child's behavior... well, I'd never go with the spanker.

Doesn't that say it all?

[eugmac]

When my son was 4 I threw a bunch of his stuff in a garbage bag while he watched. I walked it all the way out to the curb and left it there, He balled for an hour standing at the window he kept making deals with me about how he would help and clean up. I made him want to clean his room when I asked.

My mom did the same to me, except the stuff was actually taken away and never returned. It was fucking horrible shit. Definitely made more of a lasting impression than the fairly routine spankings I received.

No I don't keep my room tidy. If you try to steal my shit though I might kill you.

[surviva316]

Does everyone posting these long diatribes against spanking have children above 5 yrs old that were never spanked?

I hope I'm not considered one of these people posting diatribes against spanking since I've only spoken out against a certain kind of it (which it seems might not apply to your rearing style). But just in case, I'll answer "no."

I'll wait to see if you send this in its most likely logical extension before I point out the flaws of it.

[kiwiMark]

I remember being spanked a couple of times, I don't think hard enough that it was actually painful (could be wrong here) but it was always pants down and smacked on the bare ass -- the embarrassment is much more seared into my memory than physical pain.

I also think it's really important to make a distinction not just between lots of force used and a little bit of force used but between a reactionary smack and a ritualized "right, you've been bad so now the consequence is a smack".

It's already been brought up a fair bit but I feel like a lot of the time in these spanking arguments while spanking gets demonized excessive use of psychological tactics (like, say, making your kid feel ridiculously guilty about stuff) is deemed acceptable and that ends up bothering me more than the spanking arguments.

Continuing my spray of random thoughts: Everyone's pouncing on spoon's facetious(?) "spank them or they're gonna be out of control", buuuut people suck. There are a lot of stupid people out there and they have children too. It's unreasonable to believe that everybody is going to possess the ability to reason with their kids (assuming now the kids are at an age where this would make sense) in a convincing and satisfactory way. Maybe spanking is still far from the only alternative, but I feel like far too often when talking about if spanking should be illegal or not, parents get idealized as infinitely patient infinitely wise people who should be able to come up with other ways of dealing with problems when they have no references for this themselves. I do feel like some form of spanking (again not all spanking is created equally, this point seems so key) is going to be better than no boundaries - and I mean better for the kid not just better for spoon in the supermarket annoyed at the temper tantrum in the next aisle.

I could keep writing more but this is already disjointed enough.

[wufwugy]

Now if you and galap are going to be mean you can have no sweets, and if you carry on, you'll get a smack.

Oh oh I thought of something... I'm pretty sure that lots of religious fanatics think drugs are bad mckay.

You suck.

What is your point? You didn't actually provide an example on the criteria I laid out

[spoonitnow]

Is it relevant that every single thing I've seen my nieces do has been a nothing other than mimicry of their mother, grandmothers, and mother's best friend

No because all women are fucking irrational sacks of fuck

[Sasquach991]

If you were a kid (under 8 yrs old), who would you rather have as a father:
jyms, spoon, wuf?

If you were 20, who would you rather have had as a father?

[surviva316]

spoon is my father. It's not particularly pleasant now, but it was truly hellacious when I was 8.

[Sasquach991]

jyms as your Dad-You would be well behaved. Say yessir and yesmam. Appreciate everything you have, earn what you get and be in good physical shape. But you would suck at poker. If she can't bench press her weight, you don't date her.

spoon as your Dad- Well behaved but you swear like a sailor. Ass whuppins would be a distant memory as you got the message before 4 yrs old. You sound like a hick which confuses people as you orally derive Maxwell's Equations and recite them like you're ordering pizza. Good at poker but you hate playing because you've been hearing about implied odds and giving whores orgasms since you could talk. You love fat women.

wuf as your dad- You stay confused all the time because you don't understand what dad is saying. You made the mistake of asking why the sky is blue and had to listen for hours about why it's a right wing conspiracy. You love some guy named Obama (who was president 10 years ago) but you don't understand why. You love poker as long as dad's not around.

[surviva316]

spoon as your Dad- Well behaved but you swear like a sailor. Ass whuppins would be a distant memory as you got the message before 4 yrs old. You sound like a hick which confuses people as you orally derive Maxwell's Equations and recite them like you're ordering pizza. Good at poker but you hate playing because you've been hearing about implied odds and giving whores orgasms since you could talk. You love fat women.

I won't mention the things that went unmentioned in this post because they are unmentioned in our house as well (and for good reason).

[wufwugy]

jyms as your Dad-You would be well behaved. Say yessir and yesmam. Appreciate everything you have, earn what you get and be in good physical shape. But you would suck at poker. If she can't bench press her weight, you don't date her.

spoon as your Dad- Well behaved but you swear like a sailor. Ass whuppins would be a distant memory as you got the message before 4 yrs old. You sound like a hick which confuses people as you orally derive Maxwell's Equations and recite them like you're ordering pizza. Good at poker but you hate playing because you've been hearing about implied odds and giving whores orgasms since you could talk. You love fat women.

wuf as your dad- You stay confused all the time because you don't understand what dad is saying. You made the mistake of asking why the sky is blue and had to listen for hours about why it's a right wing conspiracy. You love some guy named Obama (who was president 10 years ago) but you don't understand why. You love poker as long as dad's not around.

lol good stuff

[pocketfours]

funny that the twins disagree

[kingnat]

For me most parenting decisions can be defined along 2 axises. A cruel/kind axis vs. strict/not strict. Most people confuse being strict with just being cruel. Being strict, and teaching your kids that you always follow through is profoundly powerful. You can remove privileges and such in a kind an loving way. Yelling, scolding, shaming, etc. are just as bad as spanking and all are unnecessary. Those that spank AND have attentive polite kids are probably also strict. I believe very strongly it is the strict-ness that deters poor behavior, not the actual punishment.

If kids are having full on meltdowns, its either because of special circumstances (exhaustion or illness) or it's been successful in the past. People generally suck at parenting because it's really, really hard. I spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about and reflecting on my parenting, and I would say I'm just ok. I've never hit my kids in any way, and they are polite and respectful and kind.

I've got more to sya, but apparently they want this plane to take off.

[MadMojoMonkey]

AXIS is singular (a kind of line)
AXES is plural

I'm such an A-hole monkey. Sorry.

[d0zer]

I want to ban mojomonkey and take kingnat as a father figure.

[spoonitnow]

AXIS is singular (a kind of line)
AXES is plural

I'm such an A-hole monkey. Sorry.

He has a PhD in physics, not in English. Give the guy a fucking break.

[kiwiMark]

AND he's single upper-lippedly curing cancer. And he was probably giving the sex to two grad students while typing that message.

[Vinland]

Not reading all of this bullshit.
Lol at Luco having kids....I thought he was a hard partying, womanizing college kid but he's actually a boring square.

Not sure if the question is asking about repeated spanks over triffling matters. I spank my kids maybe a few times a year and its maybe 3 at a time. No ceremony, no "bend over the knee", no 15 repetitions, just 2-3 to show I've had enough of their shit. Usually things can be worked through without it.

I think repeated spanking is a cop-out to actually changing attitudes in children. Parents dont want to work on something so just beat the shit out of them.

[Poker Orifice]

Dogs know they're being punished. You smack a dog for shitting on the carpet, sooner or later he starts to understand why you're smacking him. The learning curve will be even quicker if you reward the dog for shitting outside.

It's not about pain. I was looking after a rottweiler a couple of years back, I had to give him a smack because he was howling all fucking night and disturbing the neighbours. Do I think I actually caused the dog pain when I smacked it? He was a big fucking dog. No, it didn't hurt. But he was afraid. I was rather glad he was afraid, because if he turned on me I'd have been afraid.

Fear is more effective than pain.

Can't remember the film, but it had Steven Seagal in it, and it was awful. But there was this quote, which I remember well...
"anticipation of death is worse than death itself".

Even as a kid I thought that was true.

'Respect' goes alot further than fear or pain. Same thing with kids imo.

[Luke124]

i got my first kid on the way and i couldnt hit a him , when i was about 7 my mum hit me and i just laughed so she hit me harder but then she gets upset cuz she thinks she hit me to hard so no point in hitting kids but then if u dont hit your kid they will end up taken the piss and being little shits

[kiwiMark]

/thread

[Luco]

i got my first kid on the way and i couldnt hit a him , when i was about 7 my mum hit me and i just laughed so she hit me harder but then she gets upset cuz she thinks she hit me to hard so no point in hitting kids but then if u dont hit your kid they will end up taken the piss and being little shits

So you're planning to raise a piss taken little shit?

[kingnat]

AXIS is singular (a kind of line)
AXES is plural

I'm such an A-hole monkey. Sorry.

True, I was typing this out at Reagan Airport, at 7am on 3 hours sleep, while my flight was boarding. That said, i do make a silly number of engrish mistakes given my level of edjumacation.

I still agree with most of what I said. I don't do things perfectly. Having suffered under my own father's use of physical violence and shame (the latter still to this day), and given our culture of what parenting tends to look like. It's very easy to slip into cruel parenting habits, and tbh, I tend to yell at my kids more than many of my friends (and way more than I should). However, I'm also far more strict than most of the friends.

I'm also quick to apologize for raising my voice, and explaining the reasons that I was upset in a way that isn't overtly shaming. I usually try to consider alternative actions that might've have helped me to avoid getting angry in the first place. And I share those with my children. If the kids act out, any punishment or discussion about it also includes some discussion of alternative things that could've been done. It probably sounds silly, but very often I'll go so far as have the kids say the exact thing outloud that they thought of (Why did you want your brother to stop singing? Oh because you are tired and not feeling well, why don't you try telling him that rather than screaming at him to stop singing. Go ahead, tell him.)

I'm sure anyone who has kids that act out and are unruly at some age between 1-10ish would think, "oh, this guy doesn't know shit from shit, my kids would eat him up" and I appreciate the possibility that I have a small sample and maybe I'm fortunate and just have good kids, (I also understand that some kids have legitimate special needs and I haven't had to deal with that). I'm fairly confident that it would work with any functional human, although it would take awhile to change their understanding and expectations that went along with previous parenting and such.

Making threats doesn't make you strict, following through makes you strict. It's also really easy to overdue threats. It's been difficult for me to not bust out the "You need to stop doing that or I will take this/that away". It's challenging to explain to them, that certain behavior is not acceptable. I tend to give out small punishments as a warning. e.g., they have limited (compared to most kids) screentime per week, and so I'll start by taking 15 minutes of screen time in a week, and remind them that if they wish to keep the rest of it, they should improve their behavior. This almost universally works, and I'm pretty sure, in large part because they know I will follow through. I read a book once that had what I felt was excellent advice "Pick your battles carefully, but when you do decide to battle, you have to win."

This may sound antithetical to my previous sentiment at first, but it doesn't mean that you need to get cruel, etc. It means you better be damn sure you are ready to back things up if you say them. Which means that you should be very careful about making stupid comments about your expectations, because if you tell your kids, "hey, shape up or we are going to leave" and they don't shape up, you have to leave. Sounds simple but people fuck this up all the time. Take some time and think before you speak to your kids.

tl;dr - parenting is hard but it is possible to be strict and kind and raise awesome kids, without ever hitting them

[jyms]

Have kids then come back and talk when they are 15, let me know how it turns out.

[Luco]

Also,

[Keith]

Have kids then come back and talk when they are 15, let me know how it turns out.

have to agree with Jyms here . At the 6 and 3 stage at the moment and naughty step is working so far.However , if you knew your dad eats babies , wouldn't you behave ?

[jyms]

I made a joke about giving my kid a spanking when he was being a smart ass playing Wii this morning and he laughed at me. I asked him when was the last time he had one, maybe he needed a refresher. He doesn't think he's ever been spanked. I've given him maybe two whacks on his ass in his life, both back around 3 or 4 yrs old. I doubt he's scarred for life, but both times he's never done what he did to deserve them the first time. They have also never been the over the knee, or pants down, multiple whacks either. Grab his arm, one whack, more shock than pain. Lots of tears.

[BennyLaRue]

[surviva316]

Have kids then come back and talk when they are 15, let me know how it turns out.

Yeah ok, so this is where you were going with that question.

The thing is that on some points and issues, personal experience is paramount; there are others where it's as much of a hinderance as anything.

As an example of the first point: the day-to-day experience of dealing with children gives you really valuable experience for what gets kids to listen to you and things like that. This is why I relented very easily on my points to p4 that had to do with all that "once you get the kids to understand what they did wrong, you'd think that you're most of the way there to getting them to stop doing it without spanking" stuff.

On the second point, though, parents deal with extremely small sample sizes and what they've learned from those experiences can get in the way of sounder methods for coming to observational conclusions. Let's say someone says, "Kids aren't gonna respect you if you spank them, and they're going to be undisciplined little brats" (just as an example; no one said this). If research shows that children of parents who don't spank don't have problems respecting their parents, and that they're actually better behaved children who have less issues with yadda-yadda and so-and-so, then having any sort of anecdotal evidence (both small-sampled and amateur as far as determining cause and such) about how your kids developed respect and discipline and fundamental moral values isn't going to make it so that everyone else needs to shut their mouth because they don't know anything.*

Again, though, I don't even know if your'e including me in your list of people diatribing against spanking because I'm not really. In fact, the method you're talking about using (light spanking in rare cases between the ages of 2-6) is very very defensible, and it's the stance taken by the minority constituent of the APA. I mean, spanking your kid in a non-scarring way once in their entire life is closer to a "No" in this poll than it is to a "Yes," and I'm undecided on that method, so that just happens to be my simplified, one-word answer.

*I'm not trying to argue that these studies demonstrably show that kids who aren't spanked are going to turn out better than kids who are because of their causal issues. However, they do show that not spanking your kids doesn't doom your children.

[rong]

lol at the footnote, you've been scarred by the mean things hey said about you.

[Sasquach991]

Have kids then come back and talk when they are 15, let me know how it turns out.

jyms wins thread

[Micro2Macro]

True, I was typing this out at Reagan Airport, at 7am on 3 hours sleep, while my flight was boarding. That said, i do make a silly number of engrish mistakes given my level of edjumacation.

I still agree with most of what I said. I don't do things perfectly. Having suffered under my own father's use of physical violence and shame (the latter still to this day), and given our culture of what parenting tends to look like. It's very easy to slip into cruel parenting habits, and tbh, I tend to yell at my kids more than many of my friends (and way more than I should). However, I'm also far more strict than most of the friends.

I'm also quick to apologize for raising my voice, and explaining the reasons that I was upset in a way that isn't overtly shaming. I usually try to consider alternative actions that might've have helped me to avoid getting angry in the first place. And I share those with my children. If the kids act out, any punishment or discussion about it also includes some discussion of alternative things that could've been done. It probably sounds silly, but very often I'll go so far as have the kids say the exact thing outloud that they thought of (Why did you want your brother to stop singing? Oh because you are tired and not feeling well, why don't you try telling him that rather than screaming at him to stop singing. Go ahead, tell him.)

I'm sure anyone who has kids that act out and are unruly at some age between 1-10ish would think, "oh, this guy doesn't know shit from shit, my kids would eat him up" and I appreciate the possibility that I have a small sample and maybe I'm fortunate and just have good kids, (I also understand that some kids have legitimate special needs and I haven't had to deal with that). I'm fairly confident that it would work with any functional human, although it would take awhile to change their understanding and expectations that went along with previous parenting and such.

Making threats doesn't make you strict, following through makes you strict. It's also really easy to overdue threats. It's been difficult for me to not bust out the "You need to stop doing that or I will take this/that away". It's challenging to explain to them, that certain behavior is not acceptable. I tend to give out small punishments as a warning. e.g., they have limited (compared to most kids) screentime per week, and so I'll start by taking 15 minutes of screen time in a week, and remind them that if they wish to keep the rest of it, they should improve their behavior. This almost universally works, and I'm pretty sure, in large part because they know I will follow through. I read a book once that had what I felt was excellent advice "Pick your battles carefully, but when you do decide to battle, you have to win."

This may sound antithetical to my previous sentiment at first, but it doesn't mean that you need to get cruel, etc. It means you better be damn sure you are ready to back things up if you say them. Which means that you should be very careful about making stupid comments about your expectations, because if you tell your kids, "hey, shape up or we are going to leave" and they don't shape up, you have to leave. Sounds simple but people fuck this up all the time. Take some time and think before you speak to your kids.

tl;dr - parenting is hard but it is possible to be strict and kind and raise awesome kids, without ever hitting them

This is a really awesome, informative post.

[surviva316]

. . .

tl;dr: There are some caveats to the conversation to where jyms is completely right. There are other caveats where it's pretty much the equivalent of saying, "Go try 3b'ing with air and let me know how that turns out for ya."

[ISillyDurrrAK]

of course they shouldn't, only if the kids are kinda into spanking

[Tom1559]

I was brought up in a time when spanking kids and also belting them at school was pretty much the normal. While I cant say it ever did me any real harm it was not something I took forward when I had my own family. It is just not necessary to spank or punish kids with any form of physical contact. There are much more effective ways to punish them when they misbehave. I am a very definite no spanking.

[a500lbgorilla]

Gimmle, are you gonna spank gimmle II, Carl V?

[oskar]

Why would you beat a child, they are so little?
If you're unsure how to educate your child, how about reading some alice miller?
Maybe it's a cultural thing, but if you beat your child on the street in austria, you better have the cash handy to get all your front teeth crowned.
Coming from spoon, I expect this to be a troll post anyway. Surprised at so many troll votes, but idk...

Spoon, I never understood your gripe with lazy people, which I expect to be a real one. To paraphrase Carlin: Show me someone who stays home and plays with his dick all day, and I show you someone who doesn't cause any problems.

[kingnat]

Although it has completely unnecessary biblical quotes at the start of each chapter, I recommend the book "Parenting with Love and Logic". I don't agree or practice everything it suggests, but it's got a lot of great ideas.

[Savy]

Biblical quotes though....

[kiwiMark]

jesus never spanked his kids

[rong]

jesus never spanked his kids

His monkey though....

[BennyLaRue]

jesus never spanked his kids

No, but he was cool with a sinless person casting rocks and stuff at a horny chick. It totally backfired on him when the big kid with Down's and a heart of gold ambled by.

[BennyLaRue]

I think the last part was in one of the Coptic chapters.

[kingnat]

Biblical quotes though....

Yes, it's annoying, and nearly turned me off to the whole book before I ever got started, but i'm not religious at all, and it's still an excellent book.

[PokerKing]

No, if you raise your kids properly, it should not be necessary

[bode]

i was spanked as a kid and always thought that i would spank my kids if it was needed. As of now, i have a 3.5 year old son and 1.5 year old daughter and have found no circumstance where spanking them would have been more beneficial over other forms of discipline.

[Savy]

i was spanked as a kid and always thought that i would spank my kids if it was needed. As of now, i have a 3.5 year old son and 1.5 year old daughter and have found no circumstance where spanking them would have been more beneficial over other forms of discipline.

I think with that knowing so much more and the ease at which we can now find information compared to even 20 years ago means that there just isn't really any need for it.

It was just the most obvious form of punishment for doing something wrong, and we now know there are better ways to deal with it so there's no need.

[givememyleg]

Gimmle, are you gonna spank gimmle II, Carl V?

well, yeah.

[jyms]

No, if you raise your kids properly, it should not be necessary

Do you have kids?

I want to hear from people not with 2 yr olds or 8 yr olds, I want to hear from the people with kids in their late teens, their early 20's that didn't spank at least once. I don't want to hear a philosophical argument, I want real life results.

[PokerKing]

My kids are 17 and 14 and never been spanked. It's not a un-natural thing, not to spank your kids, there are people who don't do that, believe it or not

[d0zer]

Do you have kids?

I want to hear from people not with 2 yr olds or 8 yr olds, I want to hear from the people with kids in their late teens, their early 20's that didn't spank at least once. I don't want to hear a philosophical argument, I want real life results.

I'll get my parents to post then.

[kiwiMark]

I want to hear from people with hot daughters on the issue

[philly and the phanatics]

when i was a kid my dad would spank me but eventually i realized that it did not hurt, it was like hitting a dog with newspaper, it makes a loud noise but doesnt hurt...this kind of spanking to instill fear up to a certain age i think can be a useful tool, however beating a kid with a belt and leaving welts i dont think ever is permissable.

[surviva316]

Do you have kids?

I want to hear from people not with 2 yr olds or 8 yr olds, I want to hear from the people with kids in their late teens, their early 20's that didn't spank at least once. I don't want to hear a philosophical argument, I want real life results.

Four months later, and I still fail to see how looking at large-sampled statistical data isn't real enough. The studies show the results of thousands of people in their late teens and early 20s who weren't spanked at least once. Is requiring the parents of each of those kids to make an FTR account and say, "Yup, they didn't turn out to be pussies after all," really a terribly productive requisite to impose?

Again, parents of children obviously know waaaay more about all sorts of real-experience things in dealing with children, but someone basing their beliefs on whether or not kids turn out okay without spanking based on a 1 or 2 or 3 or--fuck, I'll grant you a 10-kid sample for shits and giggles--aren't gonna have privileged information over those looking at scientifically administered (though admittedly incomplete) studies on that particular issue.

[d0zer]

Again, parents of children obviously know waaaay more about all sorts of real-experience things in dealing with children

The things is, there's a lot of variance child to child, even from the same parents, and there's a lot of know-it-all parents who project their experience onto others, when that may benefit from different approaches tailored to their unique situation. Generalizations are tough to come up with for child-rearing.

[Savy]

Again, parents of children obviously know waaaay more about all sorts of real-experience things in dealing with children, but someone basing their beliefs on whether or not kids turn out okay without spanking based on a 1 or 2 or 3 or--fuck, I'll grant you a 10-kid sample for shits and giggles--aren't gonna have privileged information over those looking at scientifically administered (though admittedly incomplete) studies on that particular issue.

Not to mention other peoples personal experiences are an awful way to get information. Talk to anyone who has played lots of poker but never done any real research on it. He'll have lots of personal experience but come out with complete rubbish because they don't understand the situation properly.