Is it OK to Spank Your Kid?

Posted on 12 21, 2006 under Master Debaters by Noodad |

55371866_spankyKids can be kids which means sometimes, no matter how peaceful you think you may be, you want to just pound the hell out of them. They know, better than anybody, how to get under your skin. They know how to piss you off and then piss you off even more.

I used to get spanked. I don't think it ever really hurt, it was more the sting of being struck that did damage. But some of my friends speak of getting a literal lashing or belt whipping growing up. These dudes all grew up to be normal people with no serious development or social skill shortcomings.


But in the age of litigious kids and human rights activists flooding the airwaves, public acknowledgment of spanking is frowned upon. And sometimes time outs are as effective as grand jury hearings on steroids: they are great in theory but they don't seem to change anything. Which brings us to this week's question:

Should you be able to spank you kid?

This the latest installment of our Master Debaters Question of the Week Series. There are some topics that seem to fall into the consensus category: drunk driving is bad, guns kill people, Transformers are better than GoBots. But that only covers less than 1% of the decisions you and your spouse make towards the upbringing of your kids. The majority of issues tend to fall more in the gray area.

Here at Noodad.com, we take pride in delivering important advice for dads. But we realize that some of our advice is subjective. The collected readership surely have things to add and unique perspectives to contribute.

So where do you weigh in?

 

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Viewing 20 Comments

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    I have twins, boy and a girl. I know its a doublestandard but I spank my son and not my daughter. Time outs don\'t work for him. I got the belt as a kid and I never did the same bad thing twice because of it. So I weigh in at, \"Yes.\"
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    I got spanked when I was a kid, never with a belt or anything like that, it never did hurt at all, and like you said it was the sting of getting spanked rather than the spanking itself. I wouldn\'t say spanking with a belt or other object is ok. But a good old fashion smack on the butt never hurt anyone. So im also going to say yes.
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    I\'ve received everything from the hand to the \"go outside to that tree and pick out a switch.\" I was one of those kids that a serious talk would work for, on the other hand, I have cousins that are in dire need of a couple of hands to the bottom. I\'d say that spanking is ok. Beating is not ok. I\'ve always read that the key is to discipline rather than punish. I guess what parents would want to achieve with the spanking is that what the child did was wrong and they want for the child to remember that their action was wrong. I would also say not to spank/discipline your child while you\'re angry or still upset. That makes it easy to take things a little too far and forget why you are spanking in the first place. Our plan to discipline our child is to try the \"naughty corner\" and if our child turns out to not be suitable for a \"naughty corner\" then we will spank our child, and afterwards we will have the serious discussion as to what the child did wrong, why it was wrong, and in effect, why they received the spanking.
    Bottom line: spanking can be used as a tool for discipline. Beating is abuse and won\'t really teach your kids anything except for it\'s ok to lash out violently when angry.
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    Hell no. I try to model for my kids that it is NEVER okay to hit anyone, therefore I do not hit my children. What kind of message am I sending if I did spank my child, but got upset when they hit me or a friend? Pure double standard. Some may try to justify it all as discipline over beating, but the intentioin of spanking is still to inflict pain in order to drive home the point of a parent\'s discipline/punishment. It\'s still cruel, painful and unnecessary. If you can\'t find a better way to make your point than spanking your child, I suggest you talk to your doctor or kid\'s pediatrician about other methods and possibly discuss your own anger issues.
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    I\'m for a quick spank to get the kids attention, but there are lots of times that it just doesn\'t work (eg during an overload tantrum). After watching a British program called \'The Nanny\' I picked up lots of alternative ideas, and freely admit that spanking can all to easily become a knee jerk reaction.
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    People who spank aren\'t good parents. It teaches everythiing wrong about life.
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    Whoa, such blanket condemnation of spanking by a couple of folks. I believe that spanking does have its proper time and place and that will vary by child. But to just dis people for spanking their kids and making them sound like scum of the earth, that\'s just plain wrong.
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    WHOAH there rupertz! How dare you call my mother a bad parent! I guaruntee you are not the perfect parent you think you are. All 3 of my siblings and I were spanked and we all consider ourselves better people for it. None of us are violent people and I can say with 100% assurance that none of us have ever thrown a punch at another human being or been in any sort of physical altercations. My mother taught us respect for others and respect for my elders and I can link that back to being spanked when the situation warranted. She was not random, it was necessary when it happened. Did it hurt, not physically, but mentally it hurt to know I had done that great of a wrong. And to respond to other people, spanking is not intended to inflict pain. I feel it is intended to gain the attention of the child and to demonstrate the severity of the situation. Could it have an effect negatively on who I am today? Maybe, I nor you can know that since psychology is not an exact science. I must say I love to debate with people because I feel we all have a right to our different points of view, but to insult and condemn so blantly may show a lack of parenting by your parents. You will notice I said may and did not state that your parents were bad parents, but its a possibility. It\'s possible that we are all bad parents at some point but as long as I do what I feel right by my child I and they will be happy and healthy.
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    Ah…leave it up to Noodad to bring up another controversial topic. What works for one family might not work for another. I spank my kids when they are misbehaving.

    We have friends that use time outs and the naughty corner and their kids are the biggest brats out of all of our friend\'s kids.
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    Sorry Shujump, I don\'t mean to offend but for me some things are just wrong, and spanking is right up there. It teaches children that violence is an acceptable form of communication, which it isn\'t. I\'m sure many people would be outraged to say punching a child in the face as hard as possible is an outrage...I feel the same way about slapping a child or giving it a child the belt.
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    My 2 are teens now but I spanked them on occassion. When they they got a little older and I gave them a choice between having something taken away, a day in their rooms or a couple of whacks on the behind, they chose spanking everytime. That\\\\\\\'s when I stopped spanking them.

    Why would you automatically associate spanking with anger Rupertz? You don\\\\\\\'t have to be angry to spank a child. I\\\\\\\'ve seen folks handling children way too rough just sitting them in a corner for time out or dragging them away from something. Some folks just shouldn\\\\\\\'t be disciplining children and that has nothing to do with spanking.

    I also don\\\\\\\'t agree with you on the double standard statment. There are things I do and have done as an adult around my children, other than spanking them, that is not okay for them do. We are not peers and I am not their friend. We can be friends when they are grown, for now I am going to be their dad and teach them what I hope is what they need to be good people and take care of themselves. ....so I can sleep at night in a couple of years when my first moves on to do her own thing. ...Yeah I know, that\\\\\\\'ll never happen but one can hope.
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    I am a reletively new parent per say. I have a six month old son. However I have also played an integral role in the raising of my two sisters 6 and 20. I punished the 20 year old with whoopins. It worked. My mom wouldn\\\'t put it on her so I did. Whenever she was in my charge she was always on best behavior. When I moved out and she was gettin around 18 she turned wild as a buck and my mom had no control over her what so ever. I believe to this day that it is because she was not as much of an authorative figure as she should have been.
    Now the six year old all I have to do is raise my voice a little and give a certain look and she is shattered. That is all it takes for her to realize she has done something so bad that I am upset with her actions. As time goes on and she gets older this may change and a more aggressive approach may be needed such as a time out, taking things away, or even spankings.
    As for my son, who knows what kind of kid he will be. Whether he is the one that feels bad because your\\\'e angry or just hard headed and has to learn from experience I know that I will be there to make the proper adjustments to his discipline and he will be a better person in the longrun for it.
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    yes spanking works it has teahed me repested for other and my self becasue of it i never took up drinking or smoking and i respect my parents alot unlike todays brazen kids who are sassy as heck and just plain lazy they except everthing for nothing so i say a good old ass wipping never hurt i,m fine to day and now i,m 34 so there parents rule kids .not kids rule parents
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    As a parent I feel it is my responsibility to look at what my parents did and how it affected me. Then I look at what works with my son's personality. For me, spankings did affect me psychologically. I only got them when I really deserved them and I rarely remember my parents being angry when giving them. In my opinion this made it worse. At least if they had been angry, I could have thought they overreacted instead of really wanting to hurt me. As was however, I knew they took time to think about hurting me and did so intentionally. This made me feel disrespected as a person. Kids are people as much as we may feel we "own" them. It honestly made me feel like an animal getting beat around. Not to mention there was often something my parents could have just taken away from me that probably would have made me think about it for longer. I can't say I judge parents that give kids a sting on the bum for putting themselves in danger (running out in the road and such), but as a regular form of punishment I feel there are more effective and loving ways to keep a child in line. I never want my child to feel the sickening fear I had as a child of knowing my mommy or daddy was going to hit me.
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    the ones against spanking seem to think that parents spank to "hurt" their child. Most good parents dont spank to hurt their kid. I spank my son, not to hurt him, to correct him. He's a good kid. Never hits anyone. He behaves ten times better than my friends' children who you just get "a good talking" You cant reason with a three year old. Nothing wrong with a swat on the butt and then letting the child know how to avoid it in the future.
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    spanking is a quick way to punish a person who has caused real upset feelings by your conduct. as a kid my father quickly handled the situation by taking me to the bathroom, shutting the door, telling me to bare my bottom and get over his jnees. after telling why i am getting spanked he tanned my backside with a hairbrush until i was screaming with pain. this procedure convinced me never to repeat my misdoing.
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    i got spanks alot mof it from my paremts and iam a better person now
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    I have 2 young boys they are just 11 months apart. I spank both my boys and i aIso do timeout. I just think that if they are old enough to know right and wrong then they know that some form of discipline will come for doing something bad. Thats just life if an adult stole a car they would go to jail. If a kid said somthing bad at the park (s)he would get a punishment set by the parents. I dont thing that a child should chose what punishment (s)he want, thats like asking if you want to do community service or jail time. The parent should chose and stick with it.
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    "Thats just life if an adult stole a car they would go to jail." They go to jail but they don't have the warden hit them. That would be illegal.
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    I'm 25 years old w/ no kids. But I had my butt kicked when I screwed up and I'm alive today and thank my parents for it because it installed respect and added to my character. I think that it is very important for parents to use the correct form of disipline. sometimes time out just doesnt work.

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