Okay, I think this is the easiest way to go about this. If you spank why? If you do not spank, why not? If you do not spank, what consequences do you use instead? If you do spank, do you ever regret it? I also think we should be able to ask our own questions about this. So if either side of the fence has a question for the other. Go ahead and ask.
13 comments:
Well, I don't want to offend anyone with what I say, nor give anyone the wrong impression about me...but this is what I do...
First off, I'm not a "100% spanker." I only spank when I feel like it's appropiate...(or on the rare occasion when I just lost it over what my son did!)
By appropiate I mean, when I need to get his attention over the situation, somewhere where he could/did hurt himself, or another very seriously.
Here's an example...once when we lived in the mountains, my son would love to take off running down our hill-of-a-driveway when I would repeatedly ask him not to, while playing outside. One time he did and I literally had to run after him before I finally got him. He almost made it to the road within seconds (and cars coming around the curves in the mountains cannot see you -on my old street)! So, this was one time that I spanked him, only once, to get his attention and let him know I didn't want him doing that...and for not listening to me.
Like I said, there are other incidents -and just plain no good reasons I have popped him- but I only have, and only do, spank one time...enough to get his attention.
Yes, I do spank. I only do this in the toddler stage. My older kids would probably be really insulted for treating them like a baby if I spaked them. I mostly do it out of last resort to get their attention. My baby likes to bite and after screaming owwwww, pretending to cry and telling "no bite" 30 times in a row (she thought all of these were just more reasons to bite me again) I did pop her in the mouth. It hurt her feelings which I felt bad about, but I didn't know what else to do.
I will say if you feel guilty about it, it probably means it's not for you or you went to far. I do know it's not "what jesus would do," so I try not to, but it does happen occasionally. I do threaten it a lot though which I should really stop doing.
I try not to, but I do spank. Like Carmen, I do it mostly to get his attention (which seems to be the only way sometimes with a 2 1/2 yr old boy) after doing something I repeatedly told him not to do or after doing something dangerous.
Lately it has been back firing on me though, I spank him and now he hits me back...so I probably will be stopping this very soon.
i spank-or swat her on the bottom-sometimes -never when i'm upset because then i get worried that i might spank her to hard -but mostly i do it to get her attention -it think it is better than yelling sometimes-but who knows
At this point I am not a spanker, however that may change with the terrible 2's upon us! I decided not to, because i didn't want to teach my children not to hit, by hitting. But, mostly I know that when I am ready to spank it is because I am VERY frustrated, and therefore not doing it for the right reasons. I would do as others said, to get their attention not because I am mad. So, it has been an internal battle for me. As far as what I actually do... time-out in the high chair (because he can get out of everything else). But, the hitting/tantrums are getting worse, so I have been thinking of spanking. DON'T KNOW!!!
In my expieriance (4 kids) time out works the best. It just takes 147 of them for your kid to know you mean business.( This btw gets VERY frustrating!!) At least for my kids anyway, they were pretty stubborn. I'm just lucky enough to be more stubborn then them and on top of that I won't lose!! :)
I would say that spanking for hitting (which I have done) really doesn't make sense. You are hitting them and telling them not to hit. Most kids do do as they see not as their told. I know that it mostly happens out of frustration for me and probably most parents. It's the "I've tried everything else so what will get your attention" mentality.
One little fact that I thought was funny. We played family feud as a couples activity at church one time and 100 mormons were surveyed. The #1 answer for how do lds families discipline their children was spanking. 62 points. So I think we have all been their at least once in our lives.
I generally do not believe in spanking. I had no problems with not spanking Bryant until Cora was born. But when you see your kid stomp on a two week old baby and combine that with all those lovely hormones...things can heat up real quick. So yes, I have popped Bryant a few times. I've never actually bent him over my knee or anything, but I must say any time I've smacked his hand I'll see him hit the baby like ten minutes later. So it doesn't really work. It doesn't help him calm down, it doesn't make things better. So I don't 99.9 percent of the time.
I try (emphasis on try) to parent happy. Which means that I try to find ways to make it so we don't end up in horrible crying/tantrumming situations. I try to find ways to say yes, and I try to find ways to calm him down before he blows. This doesn't always work, but when I take the time and energy to pay attention and do fun interactive things with my kids I often don't need to discipline at all. It's true--an idle mind is the devil's work shop.
I also have made rules. We just have 3 (no hitting, throwing, kicking) and if he can be reasonably obedient through out the day he gets a check. When he gets 7 checks he gets a prize. I keep a little chart that is really wrinkled because Bryant loves to carry it every where with him and tell everyone his rules. He's already earned a cd player (it took six weeks) and now he's vying for a bucket of side walk chalk. It helps because if I see that look in his eye I just remind him that he's so close to getting a check and how great it would be to get one!
Wow. Everyone has really good ideas. I would say that I haven't really spanked my kids a lot.
For me, I think about how I was raised. As a kid, I was spanked all the time. When I was younger, I was way afraid of being spanked. It hurt, but as I got older, I stopped caring. (My threshold for pain increased, basically). No matter how hard my mom spanked me, I just took it, and then went back to what I was doing (which usually resorted in another spank). So, her resorting to the big guns quickly worked for a while, but over time proved to be an ineffective mode of parenting.
Additionally, I feel like I'm not only raising children, but soon enough these children will become teenagers and later adults. When I was a kid, I was definitely afraid of my mom. But then, as I got older, the spanking threat lost it's strength. That's when I was able to just wince and get back to business. Fear was no longer motivation enough for me to obey, etc. I don't want that to happen with my kids. I want to be sure that the mode of my current discipline will feed easily into the mode needed as they get older. I feel that spanking/corporal punishment without real reason is kind of a dead end.
As my children have gotten older, I try to make sure that 1. There is a connection between their actions and consequences. 2. They can trust me - I'm not power hungry. I'm not controlling. I give them rules and limits for their good and development.
As a religious person, I feel that this is the way God governs His children. Does he punish us from time to time? Yes, but the punishment only comes after multiple warnings and chances. And even then, even in the midst of punishment, we have the chance to change and repent. No matter our decisions, we always have access to His love. As we keep His commandments, we are blessed with rewards. We can begin to see that the Lord gives us commandments, difficulties, and trials so that we can grow and then become happy. As I have developed this knowledge, it has been easier for me to accept the Lord's Will and keep his commandments. I hope to apply these parenting principles to my own life. ... anyways. We'll see how it goes. My kids are still only 7 and 5 1/2...so I have a long way to go.
Maurine, I LOVE that idea with the rules. Bryant is about the same age as Natalie, so I really should do that with her. Maybe I'll clean out her toys and save some of the ones that are newer, so she can "earn" them back - like they're new. Hmm... lots to think about. (Thanks for that! lol)
As for me - I generally try not to spank. I totally argue with myself and the emotions of "how do you teach a child not to hit when spanking is the same thing" or "you shouldn't spank when you're angry" ... but here's the two contradictions to both of those... 1) like you guys already mentioned, if you spank your child because they hit you or someone else - that's going to backfire. But in general,it's when Natalie has done something serious that she needs to know I will NOT tolerate. That being, biting Jonah, throwing something at him, hurting him, walking out into the road, running away from me in public, etc. Those things are so way beyond dangerous and not okay and I will absolutely one hundred percent not even flinch to spank in those situations. She doesn't know how much strength she has, and she has hurt Jonah one too many times to count. I felt bad about it at first, until I realized that even as taboo as spanking can sometimes be, there's a reason people refer to it as discipline or punishment.
2) I don't understand the "don't spank when you're angry" concept. That's like punishing a cat who's done something bad 10 hours after the fact. When I need to spank Natalie, it needs to be done RIGHT after she's committed the act of bad behavior. If I wait till I'm not angry about it anymore, the teaching moment is gone. It's worse to me (and I believe I've heard this on SuperNanny as well) that if you're punishing your child for something that was done several hours ago or even 10 minutes ago, it's too late. So yeah, spanking is done in anger. The key is to not get carried away. As the parent, we should be in control enough of our anger to know how to spank effectively. I know when Natalie has really hurt Jonah, I spanked her, and stayed angry, and I fumed, and I was mean, but I never laid another hand on her until after she was out of time out and I had cooled down enough to speak to her at a normal tone.
To me there's a difference in how it can all be done, and with everything in parenting, it's trial and error until you find the punishment that your child responds to the best.
Oh my gosh Krissy. Bryant is very much like Natalie. He is constantly trying to hurt the baby. He says he does not like the baby. We go through cycles of good days and bad days--but he just loves to shove the poor girl!!! I've actually had to make a modification to my rules lately--he went almost a week without getting a check and he is trying to earn a big bucket of side walk chalk. I really wanted him to have a success and get a check so instead of talking about the "rules" all day long I just told him that if he could be nice to the baby he would get his check for the day. It worked and he finally got a check (only two more to go till he wins his chalk)--and I feel like now that we are focusing on why we have all the rules he is being better behaved. I've really been praying for inspiration on how to get Bryant to like his sister!!! Any of you with older ones have any advice?????
Hey Maurine,
As far as Bryant and the baby are concerned I'm so sorry. That is really hard especially that he doesn't like her when she is so little. It usually gets bad after they start walking and can take their stuff. That being said here are two thing you can try. Maybe you already have?????
Number one, kids love to help. So let him do as much as he can for her. Getting her clothes, bathing her, getting her diapers, buckling her car seat, feeding her. Maybe he isn't into all of those things but if he is into any of them stick with that. We love who we serve right? Also kids love to feel big and important. You might just want to sit down and teach him HOW to play with her. Maybe he just doesn't know or get it. Kids get really sick of hearing what they can't do so maybe try telling him what he can and even better sit down and show him. Try to make it fun time with all three of you.
Idea number 2, Bryant was yours and yours alone for so long he obviously feels very intruded upon by Cora. YOU are most likely his biggest currency. If you let him know that if he's nice to the baby then at nap time you and him can have special time. (You might want to try this without having him earn it.) If he takes a nap at the same time, just give him 15min. That seems like forever in a kids mind, then you still get your mommy time. This worked like a charm on Madison. She just needed to know that she was still my baby too. And she was 4 (now 5) and still needs that time with me. It doesn't have to be long. We color a pic. together or play a game. Sometimes we read a book or I just give her my undivided attention for her to show me her gymnastics. She jusst wants my attention to herself for a while.
Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes.
Well, today was actually a great day for Bryant. The most likely reason is my constant pleading in prayer (I think sometimes I forget it is my best resource), but I just kept saying to Bryant all day long "I just know you can get a check today, you are such a good big brother" and I kept saying what a great job he was doing at everything, and I asked him to pick out some toys for her to play with and praised him for that. I took the kids to the chik-fil-a play place and Bryant showed her to the toddler section (yes our chik-fil-a is that awesome) and showed her how to play with it all.
I think that he really liked being nice to her and getting praised so much and he did get his check today and he is so excited that he only has one more to go to get his sidewalk chalk.
I agree with Stephanie that it is so important to nab that alone time with each child. I think it's also so good to hold our children and hug them and give them lots of physical affection. It just lets them know in so many ways that they are loved. Sorry, I guess I'm feeling sentimental tonight. Erick and I were talking the other night about how we parent. We pretty much came down to the fact that you can either parent based on the things you as the parent want, or parent based on the things your child NEEDS. So I'm trying to be the latter kind of parent. We'll see how tomorrow goes!
p.s. Cora's 1st b-day is next week. Ideas as how to make it a good day for Bryant too???
I totally agree with what Steph said before your last comment, Maurine.
From what I've read with SuperNanny's books, (She is my lifesaver, sorry if I "over do it" with talking about her techniques, it works wonders for me!) she basically says the same thing.
Most of the time when Jacob was younger and Caleb was in that 2-3 years stage...and acting up b/c he didn't like me paying so much attention to Jacob, it was because he wanted attention too. And I didn't notice this at first...
But I after I started reading and realizing that it wasn't Caleb just trying to make me mad, etc. That he was actually 'pleading' for some of my time, I tried to spend some one on one time with him, praise him for being nice to Jakey -with kisses, hugs- and etc. And it totally worked!
I can honestly say today, that my boys get along well, for the most part! Sure they have their moments of fighting over toys, hitting, or whatever. But they have a GOOD relationship and I can tell they really do love each other. :) I even catch them sharing without being asked from time to time! (Kind of comforting in a way!) ;)
However, this didn't happen over night, lemme tell ya! One thing that SuperNanny says that is SO true, I think, no matter who you are..."Consistency is key."
As far as ideas for Cora's birthday...I've read some things about letting the older sibling have a friend over, helping with whatever needs to be done, playing some games that the "older" child likes...etc. Not sure if any of those will work for you or not but...just some ideas. :) Hope it's fun!!
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