Should children be disciplined by physical force?

Harrenys Targaryen · Should children be disciplined by physical force?

How would you define your stance on this issue?

I acknowledge that many corporally punished kids become morally upright adults, but I also argue that they are outnumbered by those who were spanked or smacked during childhood and whose successes have been overpowered by dysfunctions.

I should know.

*WARNING: testimonial monologue ahead*

I was often the target of my mother and stepfather's wrath, deserved and unprovoked. They administered punishments ranging from acute pinches to cigarette burns. Such treatment has gradually, but drastically lowered my respect for them over the course of fifteen years.

But what really rouses my fury and sorrow is how they weren't above physically disciplining me in public. I can't recall how many times my ears were squeezed to the point of near-bleeding at the grocery check-out and how onlookers' faces looked, as if they were spectators in a stadium. I wonder why my parents couldn't have at least waited to reprimand me at home - I mean, what good did it do them to teach their son a lesson in front of a crowd and thus make our private familial problem a public train-wreck spectacle? In my opinion, the sole outcome of open-air punishment is the humiliation of both the punisher and the punished. It doesn't matter if the latter had it coming: it is one of the grossest examples of instant gratification.

*end monologue*

I feel that a parent may use physical force on his or her child only when the child is about to injure itself and the resulting pain would be more damaging than corporal punishment, e.g. a boy rummaging through an actual tool box or a girl waving her hands close to a candle. I believe that corporal punishment is unacceptable in all other cases.

Loic

I am all for responsible corporal punishment that is administered in a wise and just manner. HT, your particular situation actually constitutes child abuse, in my opinion. It has exceeded the limits of responsible chatisement.

Personally, I wonder if I could ever bring myself to inflict bodily harm on my children. I already flinched when I ordered my trainees to do push-ups. True, spare the rod and spoil the child, but I hope I'd never be the one who has to lift the rod.

Akoni

Slapping your own kids is a sign of impotence, a sign of not being able to control your kids in a normal way. I might sound harsh, I've never been physically harmed by my parents, but I believe harming your own kid is just evil....

Pauline

Harrenys

i don't know what to reply to your message, it's truly sad, unjust, terrible.

I think someone's slapped me 2 times. one time my mother slapped me because I've runned into the road where there were many cars, it was some years ago. The other time it was a teacher but after she talked with me and said me that she was very sorry. I don't know why she slapped me. it was about 2 or 3 years ago.

Benjamin [inactive]

I have never tolerated any corporal punishment from my parents. I once remember pretending to phone the National Society for Protection against Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) after my mother had smacked me for no real reason (I was about 10, and she had almost never smacked me before — we were doing sewing together, and I think she got frustrated with it and took it out on me without thinking). Basically, I went upstairs and talked out loud, pretending that I was having a telephone conversation with someone from the NSPCC. She actually believed that I was really on the phone to the NSPCC and got really upset about it, but I admitted afterwards that I hadn't really phoned them. It certainly worked though, because she didn't dare smack me again.

Porthos

I believe in giving children a little smack on the butt every now and then when they misbehave, and all other forms of discipline fail.

Some of you might not know this, but the word "discipline" originally meant "to teach", or "to instruct". So, the point of discipline is not to humiliate the child, or make him resentful, but to teach him, so that he learns from his mistakes in a constructive way.

My mother used to hit me on the bottom with wooden spoons when I was a small child. She has slapped me on several occasions, or pinched me, or pulled my ears. And I was always spanked when I misbehaved, or wouldn't shut up when talking back. And I think it's a good thing, as long as it is not taken to extremes, as the child must learn to respect his parents and be obedient.

In some cases, physically punishing your child is just not okay. Take for instance, my elder brother, who has a serious temper. One day, I walked into the room, while he was whipping my niece with a belt. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, and so I came in to see what was going on. I saw the look on my brother's face, and I knew that he was beyond self-control, and in a fit of rage. At that point, you are no longer "disciplining" your child, but you are taking out your own inner demons on them. So I told him to stop, and he didn't hear me. So I jumped on his back, and tried my best to restrain him. I was 15 or 16, and I'm long and lanky, while my brother was 32, and he's a very strong, heavy built man. My whole body weight was hanging on his right arm, and he was still able to whip his daughter while lifting me up in the middle of his swings, with one arm.

Such a feat of rage is pyschologically damaging to a child. And it is grossly wrong.

When my mother and I argue, she still tries to whack me around or back-hand me in the face, but now, I'm 17 and much stronger than her, so I just grab her arms and hold them down, and there's nothing she can do about, lol.

André in Zuid-Afrika

I agree with Porthos, it should be very controlled, and only a last resort. Harrenys, what your parents did, is not punishment, it's abuse, and in SA, and I'm sure in the US too, punishable by law. It tells more about them than about you. A slap in the face, punishment in public (in any form), not even to mention pinching and certainly burning with a cigarette, is totally unacceptable. One or two smacks on the butt or hands with something like a wooden spoon or even a belt in the case of older children, and only in extreme cases, is the only way. I take my hat off to Porthos for intervening when his brother did what he did! I hope you told him off afterwards!

Uriel

A quick smack on the butt is fine. Anything else is not. And it has to be discipline for the child, and disciplined for the adult.

Deborah

HT, what you experienced is unquestionably abuse, and I'm really sorry to hear that you had to go through it. I was never hit, not even a slap on the butt, by my parents, which is fairly remarkable, since my mother was physically abused by her mother and such behavior tends to be passed along.

I know what you mean about it being worse in public. I was ridiculed a lot by boys when I was kid, and it was always much more humiliating when there were others around to witness it. My mother used to say the same thing about her mother abusing her in public. Once when one of my mother's aunts was visiting, my mother asked her about what the rest of the family thought about the situation, since they all witnessed it. My aunt said that everyone felt very bad for her, but in those days (the 1920s), people tended to think that it was the parents' right to do whatever they wanted with their kids. They simply tried to make up for it by being especially nice to her. (My mother had always told me how much she loved her other relatives.) Benjamin, your reaction to your mother's slapping you was great.

It also shows how society has advanced since my mother's childhood days.

I think it's really sad when a person's earliest memory is of physical abuse. My mother's earliest memory was of being in a store and my grandmother twisting her arm behind her back and threatening, in a furious whisper, to break it if she didn't stop crying. My roommate's earliest memory is of getting whacked hard across the face by her mother. My earliest memory -- lucky me -- is of the beach in San Diego.

I suppose it's OK to do the slap on the butt for infractions; I've often seen this happen in Latino families out in public, and it seems OK when it's followed by a hug or some other sort of reassurance, because the kids don't appear to be affected by it (other than stopping whatever objectionable activity prompted the slap). Personally, though, I don't think I could ever even do that to a kid.

But, HT, I hope you're able to talk about this with some sort of counselor or trained professional. I've seen, in my mother, what that sort of childhood experience can do to the adult when it's not acknowledged and worked through. I'm sure she would have been a happier person had she had the resources people have today, and would not have become such an abusive -- in her own non-physical way -- parent.

Pauline

Harrenys

I have thougth about what you've told. I think that it's very difficult coping after such things. I wish you luck and i think that you're very couraegous. it's evident you are completely different person that your parenst.

I don't knwo if you feel that you would like therapy. I can tell you that for me it's helpful cognitive behaviour therapy.It do *not* critcise you or force you doign some things. Also it's not olgiatory telling them what you don't want. for me, it is help for knwoign what's delsuion or what's not, how to correctly perceive and behave in some situations etc..but probably they give a differetn advices depending of you and your situation.I can't trust them compltelty and sometimes not at all, but it don't matter - they don't force nothing and for sure some of the things they tell are correct.

You are innocent of the things you've told, so maybe cbt would be for you helpful, if you feel what you've put : overpwoered by dysfunctions.

I'm so sad they did those things to you. I absolutly hate cruelty.

Loic

I must also say, HT, that you yourself know your situation well. From an outsiders' point of view, your parents' method of discipline has gone overboard and no amount of explanation can justify that.

However, I can understand if they were made with the best of intentions. Some people are very quick-tempered and often do things which they regret intensely later. I am speculating here, but who knows if your mother sometimes thinks about what she has done and wished that she has chosen a better method?

I have never been slapped by my parents before. However, I was once slapped by a prefect when I was 8. That cocky bastard was only 12, I think. Back in primary schools, prefects were given power to administer discipline on their fellow students.

Porthos, I am a little surprised that your niece was belted. I thought it is a universal truth that girls are not subjected to corporal punishment. From where I come from, only boys have the dubious privilege of being on the receiving end of a rod.

Loic

I'd like to add that children nowadays can sometimes be very badly behaved in public and I can't help but wonder if society's growing laxity with them has partially contributed to a deterioration of their behaviour.

Akoni said that slapping a child implies a lose of control over them. I disagree. What if your kid were to stamp his foot, give ugly sulks and to insist that you buy the latest toy for him? He refuses to budge and starts to throw a horrible tantrum that has passers-by shaking their heads in dismay. No amount of coo-ing and rationalising would make him be sensible.

Children are still children and they do not have the maturity to understand reason all the time. A bit of pain is sometimes still the best teacher. No pain, no gain, right?

Deborah

Loic, I don't believe that burning someone with a cigarette can possibly be done "with the best of intentions".

Are you sure that girls in your part of the world never receive corporal punishment? How about behind closed doors? I've know lots of girls, from all sorts of backgrounds, who were hit by their parents, with or without belts or rods. Besides, as Porthos said, his niece wasn't just receiving corporal punishment as discipline -- she was the recipient of her father's rage.

As for the child who has a tantrum in a store, there is a middle ground between cooing and rationalizing, and slapping the kid -- you can take him out of the store. If you've got a kid who has tantrums, it's an indication that you've already done something wrong in bringing him up, and it's time for educating yourself on how to discipline your kid -- without slapping him.

Julian

My wife's grandmother once told me that her father would discipline her and her ten brothers and sisters by strapping them to a bench and flogging them with twigs. She said that was the "Spanish way".

(You have to realize that Filipino old-timers viewed the Spaniards as brutal oppressors). After all these years, that memory of her dad still lingers in the back of her mind. It would kill me if my child were to grow into adulthood remembering that about me.

Uriel

Girls get the belt all the time in the US. I know one woman who used to brag about her parents taking a horsewhip to her! (It often seems to be a point of pride for some people -- girls included -- to brag about what horrible kids they were and how much their parents tried to break them -- but failed.)

I never got hit with anything but an open hand, and it certainly never scarred me emotionally. I can't imagine trying to turn my mother or father in to Child Protective Services for something minor like that. I think belts and shoes and paddles are a bit much. Cigarette burns are beyond the pale.

But it is true that parents mellow out over time -- my teenage half-sister has never been smacked by my mom, and that woman had a quick temper when I was a kid! I'm a little put out that she's gone so easy on the other one.... not fair!

Fredrik

Loic

Do you think sending a child straight to bed without supper is a form of corporal punishment? After all, it inflicts pain -via hunger- on his body.

Uriel

No. Hunger is not the same as real pain, unless it's been a loooong time since your last meal! And most kids in our societies could stand to skip a dinner or two anyway. -- they're not going to die from it.

Julian

Loic

It is a noble idea that children should never be on the receiving end of bodily blows. I suppose it stems from this sporting idea that we should pick on people our own size and children being so much smaller than us, is definitely beyond the remit of corporal punishment.

I am old now and am definitely not a child. However, I still remember what it was like being young and immature. A particular incident still stood out: when I was in primary school, I had this tendency to run out of class whenever the teacher was boring me to death. One fine morning, the teacher lost his cool and promptly marched me to the headmaster's office where I was administered three fine strokes of the cane on my buttocks. God, how it hurt. I never committed that act again. I remembered that the fear of the searing pain was enough for me to plant my buttocks on the seat throughout the day.

If someone had sat me down and tried to reason with me, I doubt the message would have got through. No amount of exhortations would have made me realise that simply rushing out of class was not only disrupting, but also exasperating for the poor blighter standing in front of the blackboard. Sometimes, it is the fear of pain itself that commits men to the straight and narrow.

I feel that corporal punishment is a grey area. However, I find it appalling that many countries have passed laws which make it a crime to physically discipline one's own child. This, in my opinion, is outside the remit of the state. And I wonder why some critics often deadpan Singapore as a 'nanny state' whereas many more countries seem to be interfering with the private lives of their citizens.

Uriel

Young children can't really be reasoned with -- they lack the capacity for it. They're more reactive.

Harrenys Targaryen

Guys, I'm very sorry I haven't been around to respond.

I've spent almost all of my time afterschool attending to my grandma, ever since she injured herself the Saturday after I began this thread. I don’t feel comfortable discussing the details, but PM me if you'd like to know what happened…

---

Well, I feel better knowing that you can all relate to this topic, even if you haven't exactly experienced it. If you'll allow me to respond to you one by one:

loic: Although I do support the decision of some countries to outlaw all forms of corporal punishment against children, you’re right when you suggest that such measures tend to be impractically altruistic. Perhaps you are more of a de facto type and I a more de jure one.

Akoni: I agree, though I’d say misguided rather than evil.

Pauline: Thank you...I hope those two incidences will be the last of their kind.

Benjamin: Wow. I should’ve tried that when I had the chance! Well, not really, since my telephone voice would have failed to convince anyone.

Porthos: I might not share some of your stances, but the big picture you present is quite admirable, even if it's only applicable to buff boys like yourself. XD (I kid, I kid - you don't have to be in shape to stand up to someone else, but the thing is, I've never been in a fight against a peer in my entire life.)

André: Yes, in the year or so that I've known you, you've treated me more like your own kin than either my biological dad or stepfather. Now I know why…

Uriel: If only my own mom could be more like yours: my half-sister, who's my sole sibling, has been struck (on her behind, hands, and head) at about the same rate as I was struck, and she just turned ten.

Deborah: I guess I'm fortunate enough that my earliest memory is of me in the car with my family, about to get our first home-computer. But yea, I've been undergoing therapy for three years as of now, and I believe it's been effective. I wonder how long I should stick to it...

Julian: Holy smokes, I'm Filipino. It's a wonder my grandma discarded such practices when she discovered that her daughter was about to have her own kid: yea, everyone who knows my grandma, including herself, insists that she was a disaster as a parent and a miracle as a grandparent. I'd prefer to not have to wait for a second chance, so I'm going to follow your teachings, shaman.

Fredrik: Heh heh, yes, when I found out that Denmark had banned corporal punishment against juveniles, I went into an ecstatic frenzy even though I was expecting it all along. You know, I think my mom and stepfather have a thing to learn from you and your family in terms of rational upbringing…