i say dont hit ya fuckin kids
i got my ass beat growing up
that being said
fuck some law telling anybody what to do, actual change comes from social interaction.

I agree that if it is a frequent punishment then you may not know much about parenting techniques. It is something to be used as an ultimate punishment for a very young child.

I'd definitely exempt the very young as well...

Depends on your concept of very young..... 4-10 to me is very young. Are you thinking of 1-3?

I'd see 10 as very young as well.

Who mentioned anything about mental scarring? I only commented on it from the perspective of a parenting technique/strategy.



Surely is depends on the intensity and frequency of the spanking/hitting, sure. Even when done once though it's often due to frustration and lack of better parenting techniques, even in a single moment. My parents only ever spanked me once in my life. Neither of us feel "bad" about it, and I don't feel "mentally scarred" by it (I don't even remember it happening), but my mom does admit it was out of frustration and not knowing what else to do/having the energy to do anything else.

Sometimes spanking is necessary in instances where children don't understand a natural consequence. Take electrical outlets for example. A 3 y/o child does not, no, cannot understand how electricity works, and won't for some time. Sticking a fork in there is tempting because of natural curiosity, and because they don't understand that electrical currents can kill them, you have to deter them some other way. A spanking creates a negative connection to the experience of messing with the electrical outlet, because the last time Billy tried to play with it he got a good swat for it. When he's older you can explain why you did it, and children usually over the age of 8 don't require such subversive lessons.

Most things in this light, such as chemicals under the sink, running into a busy street, messing with animals/people you don't know can be controlled by the parent. Locking cabinets with childproof locks, keeping an eye on children, and teaching good lessons is obviously your first line of defense. But you can't always teach adult concepts to a child and have the lesson "stick". My wife's sister has a kid who has mild autism who figured out how to remove the protective outlet covers (not like it's hard) and tries to lick the sockets or put things in them. He's almost 5 and still hasn't learned that it's not okay to do because he's incapable, at least at this stage in his development. She's "tried everything" but refuses physical punishment, my argument is that if it would save his life, would a few spankings really be that bad? Pain is a universal language, and I'm not recommending her beating my nephew, just a solid lesson.

I got a fork in my hand for playing with the candles over and over. Didn't pierce the skin, but it was somewhat shocking at the time. It wasn't really emotionally separating as it was not the standard but a single escalation.
that's sort of the scale of a single physical correction I was talking about, that's not to bad to do once. But yeah in general it comes from laziness to take more time in dealing with the situation.

Normalization to violence is a slippery slope tho. There have to be boundaries somewhere

I suppose that distinguishes the utilization of spanking from the traditional sense of punishment v. utilizing it in situations of safety. Most conversations on spanking revolve around its utilization in the form of punishment and ethical development. I think your examples make sense, but do bring up a separate category that isn't often talked about in this context, that being of safety. Even then, I also think there's gradation in swatting the child's hand as you see them reaching for an outlet with a fork v. taking them away from the immediate situation to then spank them. The former I can understand, because you're immediately attempting to prevent greater harm, but to remove them from the situation and then to spank them so as to impart some kind of "safety knowledge" if you will, still rings oddly to me.

I certainly don't pretend to be a parenting expert, nor have I ever been a parent myself thus far in life, so certainly there's much to learn and contemplate about this topic. I do hope that your sister-in-law is able to learn or find a parenting technique that is effective for having her son learn what is and isn't safe, sincerely.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Apr 1 2018 11:10am