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spanking
I just read this post, and it made me wonder - what's your stance on spanking?
Do you think that it is acceptable under certain circumstances, or not under any whatsoever?
Do you think that talking doesn't always work with some kids (i.e., a swat is useful to startle them out of the repetitive/dangerous situation) or that if talking doesn't work, a spank isn't going to improve things?
Do you think it teaches kids that violence is acceptable, or do you think that as long as it's done infrequently, it's more of an attention-getting device and doesn't necessarily teach them to hit?
I know this can be a super controversial topic, but I figure the ladies on this board are pretty good at keeping things civil. 
I'll make an clicky poll, in case you'd like to put your opinion out there anonymously.
Re: spanking
I have the same sentiments. Both DH & I were spanked when we were kids and both turned out fine. We both believe spanking is ok when necessary and especially with limits. I don't have a kid yet so I am not sure if my opinion will change once I have one.
Ditto everything lola said. MH & I had different opinions on spanking, though. MH was never spanked. I was spanked (rarely) as a child. They were just swats on the butt and the few times that it did happen, it was enough to instill the fear in me to not want to get spanked again. I turned out fine - I am by no means a violent person nor do I condone violence. I told MH that if our children ever get out of control, I am not opposed to spanking them as a last resort. He was adamantly opposed to this at first but the more out of control children he sees, the more he is inclined to agree with me. I think that in today's society, children are no longer afraid of their parents and that's why they sometimes act out and are as disrespectful as they are. Don't get me wrong, I don't want my children to fear me, but I do want them to be respectful and not throw any tantrums.
And like lola808 said, for me spanking means a swift swat on the butt or hand and not the multiple whacks over the knee.
Heh, I just realized that I hadn't answered my own poll! Anyway, this is pretty much what I was going to say:
I was spanked as a child, and it was never, ever the first method of discipline used, and therefore didn't happen very often (and I can 100% say that it has not made me think that it's OK to hit someone as a means to get what I want). I would consider it acceptable as long as it was used as an attention-getting device vs. a pain-causing one, if that makes sense - as lola said, it should never be done as a means of taking out your anger on your child.
And no matter what form of discipline was used, we always got very clear verbal warnings and opportunities to change our behavior, and my mom also always explained to us why what we were doing was unacceptable - I'd consider all of these things necessary no matter what form of punishment is used.
I do not believe in spanking. I never spanked my daughter (she's 8). My exH did. It was very upsetting to my daughter. He and I both agreed that we would never spank her... but, he did. She did not tell me that he spanked her immediately after. This supports my beliefs on what spanking does to a child: the child is made to feel bad and wants to hide the situation. It sets the precedent that a stronger person can hurt a weaker person to be in control.
Do parents spank to be in control? It seems like a short-term way to get it. I think there are better methods to gain respect, build trust and work together to establish appropriate behavior.
All kids will have bouts of insanity. LOL wait until you see it. There really is no other way to describe it. Most people call it the Terrible Twos. Once you have a child, you realize it can happen before two and beyond two. There are times that you know it is because your tot is overtired or frustrated. Sometimes, you don't know why... and can only guess that your little angel has been possessed by the devil. I don't see how spanking would fix that. Time to calm down away from whatever started the problem usually works well. We usually start with saying it is not acceptable and needs to stop. Sometimes we talk before time out. Sometimes she needs time to calm down first; then, we talk.
Have there been many times that talking didn't work? Yes.
Have there been many times that she was given a time out and would not stay seated? Yes. There were also many times that she refused to go to time out. Was it tiring to keep repeating the steps until she listened? Absolutely!
I know that children are unique. I don't expect the same thing to work for everyone. I just don't understand spanking.
Newlyweds since 2007
Wholeheartedly agree with ya hon! This is my stance too.
I believe the very moment you smack your child, you are disrespecting them. While I agree that you are not necessarily teaching them that it's ok for them to inflict violence, I do wonder if you are teaching them that there are times when they deserve to have violence inflicted upon them.
When Maya has a tantrum, I have found that I, strangely enough, enter this kind of calm state. The worse she gets, the calmer I act. I will either walk away (if it's a "I WANT THIS NOW!" kind of tantrum) or I will sit there quietly and, when she quietens down for a minute, I'll ask "Why are you acting like this? Why are you upset?"
I don't expect for her to answer me at the moment but I figure that, eventually she will realize that the only way she is going to get anywhere is if she communicates properly.
If she loses control of herself, I sit down on the floor, pull her onto my lap with her back to my chest, put my hand on her forehead and hold her until she regains control of herself.
I know there will be testing times, where she'll do something that puts her or others in danger and my husband and I will figure out a method of dealing with how to snap her out of that behaviour.
I was never smacked as a child. Well... only once and it was when I let down all the tyres on my dads car and he lost it and backhanded me hard across the face. His ring caught me on the eyeball and I ended up with a blood eye for a week.
He cried afterwards and it never happened again.
I think that it's very important that, when you're disciplining your child, that you show them you mean business. If you ground them for a week, they're grounded for a week, no ifs, ands or buts. Being consistent may just be more effective than the threat of a smack.
I agree with lola on this one too. A swat on the rear, IMHO, is not bad. A friend of mine gives her little one an easy pinch when she's misbehaving and her daughter thinks that is a spanking. It's effective for them though.
The one thing I will say about discipline that I cannot stand is when I hear parents, in a calm voice, telling their little terror, "please don't do that sweetie....". Please? You don't ASK your child to stop misbehaving, you TELL them to stop.
I am with Nancy and Tina on this issue.
We will not spank our children. I cannot fathom laying my hands on my child in this manner. I don't even do it to my dogs. And certainly have never smacked/spanked/hit another adult, so why would I do it to a child?
Distraction and redirection are better tools, in my opinion. As are consequences such as losing priviledges, timeouts, etc. I also think getting down to the child's level (physically) and speaking to them in a direct manner is important. I don't know if any of you watch Supernanny...but her techniques DO work and she never promotes spanking.
For me, I have never experienced physical discipline to be effective and rarely have I seen it used when the parent was not frustrated or angry. I put yelling in the same category. Personally I feel it can be as equally destructive to children. That said, DH and I both grew up in verbally and physically abusive households, so perhaps we are more sensitive to these issues and where the line might be.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
Ohhhh yeahhhhhh. The 'distract and redirect' approach is one I use A LOT, lol! At this age, it usually works with Maya. I'm gonna get as much mileage as I can out of it
I do agree that every child is different, and I agree with the above statement that it is possible that spanking could work in extreme situations as a last resort. After all, I was spanked exactly twice in my life, and I certainly remember those situations and definitely did not repeat those incidents.
However, in general I don't really think that spanking is all that effective for MOST children. I think that there are so many other behavior modification techniques that should be tried before spanking, and if THEY didn't work, I doubt that spanking will, either.
I guess I'm not completely closed off to the idea, but I would hope that I wouldn't have to try it on my child. I hope that I'll have so many other "tricks" in my bag to try first. And as a teacher for the past 11 years for children ages 3-11, I have certainly learned a few!
This would be very upsetting to me.
I think it's absolutely imperative that parents are in agreement about how they plan on disciplining their children (and hold to that agreement). Regardless of my own personal stance on spanking, if Ben and I agreed that we would never do it, I'd go apesh!t if I found out he did. Did you find out before or after he was your ex?
I know. It is very upsetting to me, too. We did agree that we would never spank our children when we were planning to have a family. Our values were similar... so, I thought.
He had an affair when I was pregnant. That was the biggest shock. It came out of nowhere. When she was about 1 year old, we agreed to shared custody (parenting plan is part of the divorce). In my state, shared custody is expected unless one parent has a history of being an unfit parent.
When my daughter was a preschooler, I found out she had been spanked by my exH. We were on vacation visiting my mom. Of all things, we are walking through Sam's (for anyone who does not know, it is a giant warehouse store). As we're picking out food, she says in the tiniest voice something about Daddy hitting her. I got down to her level and asked her what she said and explained that I did not hear her. She said she had been bad and her dad spanked her on the bottom. We went over it in detail. Yes, on the floor of Sam's.
My daughter has always talked about everything. She knows that hitting another person, child or adult, is never okay. Her preschool even had presentations with dinosaurs to teach kids about telling an adult when something happened that they thought was not okay. All of this... yet, she did not speak up. It goes against everything that she normally is... very open, talkative and loud. It goes against everything she has been taught.
I have never been spanked, which is why I said that I don't understand it. I don't know what it would make a person feel like.
Judging from my daughter's reaction, my guess is that it makes the child feel like they were bad and that if they speak of it, more bad things will happen.
Newlyweds since 2007
Lisa, it's interesting that this topic was brought up b/c i just read (don't remember where) that children that are spanked are more likely to be violent or abusive in future relationships.
I don't think I have any lasting negative effects from what my parents did (aside from a healthy respect for their authority) but DH and I have talked about it and we will use some sort of physical discipline if we have to. hopefully it won't come to that and our kids will be more well behaved than either of us were
and alternative methods of discipline will work...but we are both ok w/the occasional spanking.
both of us were spanked as kids. I don't think I ever felt like I couldn't talk about it... but it did make me realize that what I had done was bad. I think every kid reacts to it differently.
my parents did not do it often, but if I was really bad then they would use it as a form of punishment. they'd make me put my palm out and then they'd hit it w/a ruler. honestly, I was a terrible (I mean really terrible) child and would not wish my former self upon anyone else
so I kind of understand why
they had to do that to get me in line. it was always enough to get me
to stop doing whatever it was I wasn't supposed to be doing, but it was
never the last time I was "spanked" b/c I was always getting into
trouble LOL. my parents would try other things too... they'd make me
kneel and hold my arms out and make me carry the weight of a few books
in each hand/arm for a certain number of minutes. to me, that was
almost worse b/c your arms get so tired after a short period of time!!
I'd get really sore from doing that. and if i started acting out in
church, my mom would pinch my thighs and that always got me to behave 
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
This is interesting to me...
I'm curious about the definition of "spanking" in this study. What I mean is that, to me, I would regard spanking as a single swat on the butt or a light swat on the wrist. If anything is used (belt, wooden spoon, etc.) I would regard that as beyond spanking...maybe not exactly beating, but beyond spanking. I'm very curious if the reseachers had the same definition or if theirs was more broad. I guess I'm curious because I'm pretty passive.
This is an interesting point too:
Like Jaime, although I was spanked (not harshly and not often, but it did happen), I never felt that it inhibited my ability or willingness to speak up. HOWEVER, I will say that every child is different...so although in general I may be OK with a swat on the butt now and then, I also firmly believe that it depends on the child - clearly it affected your daughter in ways that it didn't affect me.