Urgent advice needed - very serious post.

[hblair]

If not spanking your kids works thats great. But just because it works in your case doesn't mean it works for everyone else.

And for you guys who view spanking a childs rear as abuse, you might need some therapy. When I spank my boys rears I'm not trying to hurt them, just sting their rear. >Pop!< Big deal. I don't know where you get that it's some kinda *beating* or *striking* thing. That's some sad twisted crap. I hope you're not doing that.

Thrawn and whoever else, did you have any brothers close to your age growing up? Are you or have you raised 2 or more boys who's ages are within 2-3 years of each other?

I get the feeling you guys have a couple of lil girls or something.

[sidthekid]

Thrawn



Child abuse

n : the physical or emotional or sexual mistreatment of children
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University


I must be blind OR is Spanking not in there?


 And if your going to say  its mistreatment than any  form of of discipline could be twisted to say its mistreatment.


Toad careful your anology is wrong. If seen animals snipe and youngsters when humans approached in Africa. also seen a fox and many other animals grab its young with its mouth clamping around neck and running off. Guess I shouldv'e yelled Child abuse.


Not 1 state in USA says Spanking is child abuse as far as I know not 1 country passed a law on outlawing spanking. Please if wrong tell me where.....

[Toad]

uh... Sid....

I raise dogs. I know how they discipline. Probably everyone else knows too.

"It was a joke, son, I say a JOKE!"

[Hangtime]

I've been 'in it'.. sittin right if front of MY situation for almost 20 years now. I've been told, unanimously by every shrink and therapist my kid has had that my childs intractable behavior was as a result of 'inconsistent behavior modification' during the formative personality years.

What THAT mealy mouthed buncha noise boils down to is this.. When the kid was told by me; not to do something, the childs mother would invariably say 'stop picking on her, she's only a child'. Or 'it's allright, leave her be..' It was rare indeed that when she did something I didn't want her to do, she was not excused by some 'higher authority'.. Mom.

Mom was and is over-protective and horribly over permissive. Mom taught this kid to argue, taught this kid it's ok to ignore parents and other authority figures, taught this kid by aquiesence that  temper tantrums and agrssive destructive behavior that she could get more of what she wanted. Attention. Pretty soon there was no diffrence between bad attention and good attention.. it was attention.

the kid soon learned to manipulate her situation.. sometimes just for toejams and giggles, she'd set up a fight between mom and dad.. do something to get daddy pissed, daddy hollers at kid, mom hollers at dad, then gives kid whatever she wanted that i denied.. Soon, even when mom was not around the kid would still 'play the game'. She'd do something 'bad', dad would send her to her room. Mom would come home, kid would rush out wailing 'daddys been mean to me.." Mom would shreik at dad, and kids instantly off punishment.

*sigh*

I left her. Nothin else I could do, really. stayin was makin it worse.. or so i thought. turns out that things got much worse.

The deal is, when she was 3 and she started throwin temper tantrums at the supermarket, If ida been 'allowed' to paddle her lil bottom right then and there, then taken her home and given her a time out.. well; whaddya wanna bet a whole toejamload of grief woulda been avoided. Whaddya wanna bet that if her mom disagreed with my stern disiclinary measures BUT KEPT HER FREAKIN TRAP SHUT AND DISCUSSED IT WITH ME PRIVATELY LATER, the kid woulda NOT turned out to be so gawdamned messed up.

Paddlin a 4 year olds kids fanny when they need it is NOT child abuse.

It's discipline. Spare that rod, you'll spoil the child. I got proof. very expensive high maintenance living breathing diddlyed up proof.

[Sandman]

Sounds like lack of discipline to me...

Note... lack of corporal punishment does not equal lack of discipline.

[Kratzer]

bingo.

[Hangtime]

Johnny is 2 1/2 years old. johnnys a headstrong lil boy.

Johnny pops his cousin in the eye because the cousin won't share his toy.

You make Johnny aware that his behavior is not proper by scolding him sternly and ending play time with a time out. Johnny shrieks and refuses to go to the time out chair. When you attempt to move johnny physicly to the time out chair he swings at you. When you pick him up he bites you.

you do what?

[Thrawn]

This is Thrawn's wife, I go by Tang online.

In my opinion there is no *need* to spank your kids.  In my experience spanking and time outs rarely work in the overall picture.  It may work to stop the behaviour at the time but it does little to teach the child what they should do instead.   You just end up in a cycle or the kid learns to hide the behaviour so they don't get caught.

I see a lot of people in this thread equating not spanking your kids to being a permissive parent.  That doesn't have to be the case.  Punishment is not discipline.  Discipline implies you are teaching.  There is also the fact that a lot of people see age appropriate behaviour as needing to be punished.  Positive and permissive are worlds appart.  

Children are the only people in our society that we are allowed to hit.  If another adult does something we don't want them to it is illegal to hit them.  In my opinion children deserve to have the same rights as everyone else.

I have never been in any way permissive with any of the children I have looked after and I've never spanked or done time outs.  A little creativity and forethought can go a long way towards making life easier and positive in general.  As an example before you take the 3 yr old to the grocery store make sure they are not hungry or tired.  Bring a snack or a toy so you have something to give them to keep them occupied.  Give them a *job*, let them pick out the veggies etc..If nothing works and they still have tantrums, take them home or don't try to to take them shopping in the first place.  It is very age appropriate for a three yr old to tantrum when they are overwhelmed.  My point is you need to teach them how to behave in the store.  Sticking them in the cart and expecting them to be quiet is unrealistic in my view.

As for boys aged two yrs apart who constanly want to kill each other.....I have always found that at least an hour or two of exercise a day and no tv before dinner does wonders.   Getting them involved in disciplined/team sports is good too.

I could go on and on about my philosophy on childrearing but I don't want to bore ya'll.  If you are interested do some research on positive parenting it doesn't mean you let your kids do whatever they want it means you teach them.

As long as you aren't leaving marks or harming your kids it's up to you if you want to spank.  It doesn't, however, mean I think it's right.

Gotta go, I'm needed hope that made sense.

Tangwystl
(13 yrs experience as a nanny/caregiver, aunt to 6 and mom to 1 in case anyone is interested.)

[sidthekid]

24 years as caregiver, Father of 5 uncle to 23 total number of spankings as discipline maybe 30. total spankings given 330.

 Now 300 were on birthdays other 30 were not much harder. Can't speak for others but I spank but not without explanations.

 Worst spanking was oldest daughter age 12 for smoking because everyone was doing it. That was after showing her what would happen if she smoked later in life and probally 3 months of trying all kinds of talks. Wasn't till she got spanked in front of friends did she stop. Hardest thing for a Father to do is spank his daughters, at least for me. And i can only speak for my self. I have no doubt in my mind. the thought of a spanking by my grandfather is only reason I never smoked drank or did any type of drugs...... I can tell you out of 20 players on my highschool team in early 70's I was only one who didn't try drugs or smoking. Not sure how they were brought up, But they all knew if they came out to our farm. They better not bring any thing to smoke,Liquor or drugs.



 I'd like to know what thrawn and tang think the reason so many children. Are in trouble with law, kill kids, do drugs, get pregnant and many other problems that have tripled since 1970's. I think Its because of "so called new ways to parenting"

[Thrawn]

Thrawn again.

Youth crime in Canada is decreacing.

Across Canada in rural and urban neighbourhoods, the overall youth crime rate is declining. Between 1991 and 1997, the charge rate for young people dropped from 643 to 495 per 10,000 youth in the population ¾ a 23% decrease.

Only a small number of youth are involved in serious and repeat criminal acts, particularly acts of violence. In 1997, 82% of charges laid against youth were for non-violent crime like theft, drug possession and contempt of court orders. 18 % were for violent crimes ¾ a 2% drop from the previous year.

http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/news/nr/1999/yoafact4.html


Juvenile violent crime is dropping very quickly in the US.

In 1997, according to victims’ reports, 70,000 serious violent crimes involved one or more juvenile offenders between the ages of 12 and 17. The 1997 juvenile violent crime rate of 31 crimes per 1,000 youth in the general population dropped from a high of 52 per 1,000 in 1993 and is the lowest rate since 1986. When compared to the number of violent crimes nationwide, violent crimes committed by juveniles comprise about 1 in 4 of all violent crimes.

http://www.childstats.gov/ac1999/teenrel.asp

It is a very difficult questions to answer though as statics on this subject weren't even kept until the 1970's.

This shows that number of children that are victimised by other children has dropped dramatically, since 1980.

Table BEH4.A Youth victims of serious violent crimes: Number and rate of victimizations for youth ages 12 to 17 by age, race, and gender, 1980-99

http://www.childstats.gov/ac2001/xBEH4A.asp

Teen pregnancy rate has dropped significantly in the US, since 1986.

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html#t1

The above link is from here

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/teen_preg_stats.html

[Eagler]

Tang

ur kid probably doesn't need to be spanked but I know Thrawn does

Most kids need a spanking, whether they get it or not. You can talk to your blue in the face to some and get nowhere - others talk is all you need. This group is in the minority, if your child is in it, I am glad for you. Most kids I've seen/experienced are not - the parents think they are and are thus owned by their little darling spoiled- rotten rugrat.

[Kieran]

I have a brother one year older and another one year younger. We fought every single day. Mom didn't spank (generally), dad did. Dad was the only reason that house is still standing.

My brothers and I would have literally high-fived one another if we had been given "time-out". When mom sent us to our room we just smiled to ourselves, I kid you not.

We wouldn't have acted out in public anywhere, because we knew what would happen if we did. We didn't have to be bribed, distracted, or overfed before we went. We knew the proper conduct and the consequences for not following them... hey! just like life!

As we grew we began to notice other families, and began to notice other kids talking back to the parents. Instinctively we knew this wasn't right and unacceptable, yet marvelled how the parents bargained with the kids. We laughed.

You don't bargain discipline.

[Eagler]

"Teen pregnancy rate has dropped significantly in the US, since 1986. "

dunno what this has to do with this thread but the reason for the drop is because Planned Parenthood now gives out birth control to 12 YEAR OLDs, 12! And can give it out without a parents consent! I think PP encourages said behavior as without it, they wouldn't have a job.

[hblair]

Kieran, I'm oh so so sorry you were physically abused as a child. I can't believe your parents struck you.


Thrawns wife, Does nanny/caregiver mean you go home at the end of the day? If so, you have one live-in child of your own?

[Hangtime]

C'mon Thrawn 'n Tang.. What about lil Johnny??

Yah gave me 123 paragraphs on 'there is always annother way'..

lets hear it! What specificaly in this circumstance is appropriate treatment fel lil Johnny? He's defied you, used violence, has thrown and is throwing a destructive temper tantrum.. further, isolation and scolding has demonstrated itself as ineffective in the past, the behavior pattern of "if I hit and scream and raise holy hell & I'll eventually get what i want.." is beginnning to take root..

Tranqilizer dart him?

c'mon, folks; whats the 'appropriate non-violent' course of action?