Why is beating children legal?

Sexualizing spanking makes about as much sense as claiming that suppositories will make you gay

Susie I dont want to be insulting in any way, you have a right to your opinion as does anyone else. However Logan asked you to "point any of us to any psychological or behavioral studies to back your original assertion" and the url you gave led simply to another therapist's OPINION. I read it and while at first I attempted to read it with an open mind, by the end of it I found his points both ridiculous and in a few cases insulting.

To equate spanking a child with a sexual act and insinuate this is what leads to wanting to be spanked as an adult as a kink..... I'm sorry I can't even respond to that it's so absolutely ridiculous.

When I once grabbed my son (5 yrs old) by his arm, yanked him out of the path of an oncoming car and brought my other hand down across his butt for one good wack to get his attention.... There was NOTHING remotely sexual about that and to insinuate that there is, is an insult to parents everywhere! I did it because my repeated instructions to stay out of the street, then my yelling "look out!" had had no effect and the sharp sting to his bottom certainly did. The child rubbed his butt, looked at me in shock, watched the car wiz by, cried for a few minutes, and never stepped out in the street without looking again.

Now as I said before, I haven't NEEDED to spank my children more than a couple of times in their lives, but if I had, it certainly wouldn't have led to any so called deviant behavior as adults. (And for the record, we all have our own opinions as to what is "deviant" and what isn't.... I'm not even going to go into that whole debate.)

There is no fine line between spanking your partner in the bedroom and spanking your child to make a point..... There is a HUGE line... a freakin grand canyon of difference. The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other and to say they do is an insult to any parent who has so much as considered spanking their child. The author of that article is basically calling us all child molesters.... and that's so so far off base it made me almost angry to read it.

I have no doubt, in fact I KNOW there are terrible parents out there who do awful things to the children they are supposed to love..... but those terrible things are NOT spankings. There is a big difference between spanking a child and beating a child. There is a big difference between disciplining a child and traumatizing one. I of course use other methods to teach my children, I don't always go for the easiest quickest choice. And I dont assume what works for my children will work for every child. I dont think spanking is always necessary, I dont say it always works. But I also won't say it never works because I've seen the instances where for mine it did. The important thing is that parents have to do something rather than nothing, because we call all see all around us the results of doing nothing.

(oh and ps. cocoanut.... thanks but i'm sure my teenage daughter would occasionally disagree... lol. Guess we all see the end result of our methods when they come back to visit with their own children years from now. )

that is what you call a nutjob

what happen to the whole "gonna hurt me more than it is going to hurt you"?

has it been replaced by "this is gonna hurt you but it gets me off"?



check this one out

i think you have to be insane to tell a parent, ask an employee to intervene, or call a child abuse hotline for a spanking

what next, take the route of the "pro life" sides and start shooting partents who spank?

or spank them?

damn fanatics, not happy unless they are forcing thier views on someone else!

children are stimulated and excited by spankings? damn didn't that shit go away when freud ran out of coke?

The sexualisation of spanking reminds me of Freud.
While we may owe him a debt as the father of modern psychiatry, many of his ideas are now considered incorrect and outdated.
And never forget, freud spent a lot of time high on cocaine, and advocated it as the most useful drug known to psychiatry.
Modern Freudians tend to forget stuff like that.
As far as I can see these are pseudo Freudian documents.
Being more of a jungian myself, I think the conclusions asserted are balderdash.
Im sure behaviourists following on BF Skinner would think the same, and several other schools of psychiatry too.

beat ya!

Lol, Mulch

That Donahue fellow needs to be psychoanalyzed himself.

You have to love when folks project their own sick and dark thoughts onto others.

I did not begin to personally attack you - I held back from posting what I really think - I made comments on your statement. Notice collectively how many people in this thread find what you said to be patently ridiculous and indefensible. The fact that you claim to work in this field makes your statement even worse. It is reckless, uninformed, and honestly laughable. People make a lot of riduclous claims on the Internet - saying that spanking is far more traumatic than molesting a child has to be the most absurd I have ever seen. Let's see - swatting an unruly child on the ass, or fucking one up the ass? Which is more traumatic? Apparently the former according to you.

I've seen the exact opposite in action. Different parent,s different technique. Different child, different signals and responce. I see where parents don't spank children, and where they do. In almost all cases, the spanked child was better behaved.

Feel free to show me some long term studies done with a double blind... rather than just opinions..if you want to change that view.

You say spanking makes the child less behaved. My experiences say otherwise.

You owe me a new keyboard Eggy I just spit Diet Dr Pepper all over mine

I haven't read the entire thread because I choose to not get into a debate about this subject. My personal opinion is that there is a major difference between abuse and discipline. Believe me, I know all about abuse from my ex and what he did to me. I see a definate lack of discipline these days as parents want to be 'friends' with their children and not parents. I see it every day in my workplace where kids come in and act like idiots tearing up my store while the parents are oblivious to what they are doing and how their devil child is affecting others. I can tell the children who are disciplined and the ones who aren't right away. I know I never acted the way kids do these days because I was disciplined and when I got spanked, I knew not to do it again.

The fact that this thread is named "Why is beating children legal?" shows the OP's ridiculous snarky attitude of what abuse and discipline is, because I'm not gonna have anyone tell me my parents were abusive because they spanked me when I was bad.

Not only did they abuse you, according to the OP, but it would have been better had they molested you.

The "Spanking is Beating and results in sociopaths that can't love and kill kittens" arguement always reminds me of a very enlightening experience I had a few years back...

As a teen, I was in line buying something at some store, probably a walmart... and the 8 or 9 year old behind me was demanding candy from his mother. Finally, he started calling his mother some of the worst names.... and I turned around, fixed him with a glare that actually made him stop mid-slur, and told him if my mother had raised him, he would be getting that smirk slapped of his face followed by soap for desert.

And the mother was appalled at me. Didn't I know that was abuse and horrible and blah blah blah.

And then I glared at her and told her idiocy like that was exactly why her 9 year old son thought it was okay to call her a bitch.

People who fall for this stupidity have only themselves to blame when Jr knocks over a liquor store.

As for the lunacy of the molestation is better than spanking arguement? There are 6 cousins in my family, three sets of two. One set was molested, the other lived in a non-violent-pussy family that the original poster adores, and my sister and I knew if we stepped out onto that highway, mom would tan us with the belt, and if we swore, we'd be eating soap. My sister and I are the only functioning adults in the family, the only ones not in prison, not commited, not doped up and able to hold a job and manage the standard responsibilities of life.

Edit: Just noticed the challenge of "Show me a violent adult who didn't learn violence at home first". I don't think spanking is violent, but if you think it is...

The male cousin raised in the sissy house has crashed the car his pregnant girlfriend was in on purpose, beaten her to the point their child has severe mental defects, axed down the door of her apartment to beat her, and is currently in prison for robbing convience stores with a semi-automatic weapon. And his mom makes June Cleaver look like a bitter old shrew.

I agree. Had I not received spankings as a child, I would not have the respect that I do for authority. I have a friend who never got spankings and I always envied them. Now she has 5 children, who she beats the hell out of and is a crack head. She has no respect for authority, curses her mother out on a regular basis and steals to get by. She cannot hold down a job because she does not know what it means to NOT be insubordinate. This is what happens when children think that they can get away with anything.

There are some very effective methods of discipline that do not require spanking though. However, you MUST be very persistent to excecute them. I HAVE seen parents who have raised their children with no or very little spanking at all...and it has worked. But these are those very strict parents who are 100% involved in their childrens lives and are on the ball when it comes to discipline.

I have an aunt who would not spank her youngest child because of the advice of some phsycologist. (She spanked my 2 older cousins though, but not the youngest...since times change LOL). This child was the worst behaved child I have ever met. She pretty much RAN the house! Always saying No to adults and always doing whatever the hell she wanted.

When she was 4 she started playing around the electrical outlets. My aunt started putting her in time out when she was 3, but eventually time out becomes routine and the child could care less. It just wasn't enough to make her listen to her mother...."Ok so I'm sitting in the corner again... Woot!"

So she started playing with outlets and had a hair pin one day and stuck it in and guess what...Zap! Fu*ked up her whole right hand for life. I remember SPECIFICALLY being told ONE time when I was young NOT to play around with electrical sockets. When I decided to ignore my mother, I caught an azz whipping! I NEVER touched that damn socket again. That;s why I have use of my right hand and "Lil Miss Prissy" DOESN'T!

In my whole childhood, I think I was spanked less than 3 times (that I remember).

It was always a big production, with the whole "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" bit.

Looking back at my childhood, I don't personally associate any mental pain or anguish with being spanked. I was bad, I got punished. C'est La Vie.

My Mother's weapon of choice, however - was guilt. She could/can wield that more sharply than any paddle, open hand or fist. As an adult, I often have to stop myself from using guilt as a weapon; yet on the other hand, I don't have the least interest in physical actions as 'punishment'.

Just for me personally, I don't think being spanked as a kid did much to influence the kind of person I grew up to be. There were other, more significant things that shaped me instead.

Then again, the bodies piling up in the back yard do concern me. Is 26 too many?

Not at all, that's perfectly normal and healthy! It's that 3rd spanking you received that I'd be concerned about...

I skipped the last two pages so forgive me if this is a rehash.


I was spanked AND beaten as a child. My mother was 15 when she had me and she did not know how to handle a small, very strong willed child. So she beat me. My grandparents, who were her parents, helped raise me and they spanked me when I got into trouble.

Even when I was very small I knew the difference. I lived in fear of my mother, who would haul off and whack me in the head for no reason, or for very little reason. My grandparents I respected and learned from because they would only spank me when I did something to warrant it.

I spank my children now. And yes, I do know the clear difference between beating and discipline. My 3 year old will not respond to reasoning. I cannot sit down and "chat" with her about why it's bad to do something. An issue right now is the kitten we have. She is 6-7 months old and recently spayed, so stitches are still in. My daughter will not leave the cat alone and continually picks her up. At first I would try talking to her about how it hurts the cat and not ok to do. So she started sneaking around and picking the cat up when she KNEW that I could not see her. The cat yowling would bust her, and then I would make her put the cat down and explain she is getting a spanking because she knows she is not allowed to pick up the cat and that she was defying me on purpose. (Not quite those words, but in words a 3 year old gets.) So she'd get spanked and be pissed at me, and when she was done being mad, she comes to me and says she is sorry and we hug.

If she acts up in the store to the point where she needs to be swatted, go ahead and say something to me in public. Call the cops. I don't care. I will swat her on her butt if needed and no one is going to tell me that I am doing my job wrong. If you know how to do it so much better, then by all means...have my kids, raise them, and when they don't follow your rules, I am not taking them back.

I remember being all high and mighty about how my kids would or would not act..BEFORE I had kids. I saw a screaming kid in a store and commented to my husband that our kids would never do that. Fast forward 5 years later to a Costco and I am carrying a screaming child out of the store because she just had a huge tantrum.

Comparing spankings to sexual abuse is just stupid. Saying spankings are worse just proves your head is so far up your ass that I doubt you could ever find it to pull it out.

Hey Susie,

I think we are all entitled to our opinions. I do have a question for you though if you do not mind.

I am wondering how being molested would be better than getting a spanking...especially if I have disobeyed my parents and have been told ahead of time that a spanking would be the consequence.

Could you explain in detail how being molested is better than receiveing a spanking? If you tell a child to clean their room and say,





Either way you are going to get a response from the child...they will most likely clean their room. But if they don't?

When you spank them they will remember and think the next time you tell them to clean their room, "I got a spanking the last time I did not clean my room. I don't want another spanking, I better go clean my room."

If you molest them...first of all...to molest a child you must be enjoying it. Do molesters do it to punish the child? I don't think so, they might say this but they do it because they enjoy it. I wouldn't even want to imagine what would go through that poor child's mind in that type of scenario.

I would really like to hear your position on this and how this is so. I am personally trying to understand how it is better to be molested than being spanked. If you can provide a logical explanation, I will personally call my parents and tell them that I would have rather them molested me then spanked me when I was little and I will even start a 501(c) to support your cause. We can call it:





[left]We can hold charity events to raise money to support people who want to molest their children instead of spanking them. The money will go to pay their court fees when they are thrown in prison I suppose. Please please tell us all how moelsting is better than spanking....[/left]


[left]All ears[/left]

Creami,

Kudos to you! Keep up the good work. You have my respect and my support!
Hugz

It's not clear which field you mean.. molestation or spanking. I assume some form of psychotherapy - which frankly scares me.

While respecting all the good work psychologists (etc) have done in the world, there are some who are on the wrong side of the couch. I recall many years ago going in for some therapy to help cope with the death of my mother and the therapist being convinced that I had been sexually abused as a child and had supressed the memories. It became quickly evident that it was HER problem, not mine ... and I didn't let the door hit me in the ass on my way to a therapist who was not projecting her own issues onto me.

And no, I was not molested as a child.

I had a similar experience after my dad's death. I went to see someone because I was really having a hard time with everything, and the doctor was obsessed with asking me what I thought about when I masturbated, if I had ever pictured my father sexually, blah blah blah. It was also fairly clear it was getting him aroused. I could not get out of there fast enough. They even tried to bill me for the session - I sent back a letter saying if they tried to bill me I would sue for sexual harassment so fast their head would spin, and I never heard another peep out of Dr. Freak.

Time outs can be VERY effective

probably the most effective punishment

...

If


if...

the child is 11 years old or older

that age, standing with your nose to the corner is a fate worse than a spanking

even more effective when they are sugar buzzed with a friend over to witness the corner event

one time in the corner in front of a friend at that age and i assure you all you need to do is look at a corner when they get out of line and they will instantly behave

Tell that to Madonna! *wiggles rump enticingly*

Woot! 600th Post! hehe.