Spanking your child as punishment- Ethical or not? - General

You can train animals by punishing them when they do something wrong, or rewarding them for doing good. I believe same applies to children, spanking them is one way to discipline them, but the latter works so much better, unless you over-do it and end up with spoiled little brats for kids.

Grounding doesn't work. Timeouts don't work. Spanking does. I was spanked as a kid. Never severely, and I really had to cock up to get it, but I did get a couple thwacks on the ass a couple times. Unlike the OP, though, I didn't end up violent because of it, and I don't hate or resent my parents over it.

I think sometimes you have no choice but slap the little fucker in the face and tell him to go to bed. But the use of objects, such as shoes or paddles or belts, let alone specifically spanking your kid's bare ass is pretty insane, and will cause more trauma than necessary.

It's really a necessary evil.

I don't know. My parent spanked me as a kid, but they would also yell at me and threaten to take me to a military school and etc... I must admit that both worked effectively but the threats and scolds were what got to me. Kids that are like how I used to be be will feel the fear of their parents not loving them if their yelled at or threatened to become orphans. But as xXdictatorXx stated before, it all depends on the child themselves. If spankings aren't working then I would advise the parents to yell and make serious threats.

In any case, if you agree with spanking than you're saying it's okay to inflict physical pain on a child. Personally the idea that we must hurt out children in order to be good parents doesn't sit well with me. Rather maybe we as parents shouldn't send them the message that violence is an okay way to deal with problems. Maybe then we wouldn't have the problems we do now.

Well since I've heard that smacking can cause psychological problems in certain kids I'd say it's best to ban it. I do not however agree that it means you're a failed parent, not all parents have a chance to study child psychology and I'd say you're far more of a failed parent if you're kid goes out of control than if you smack them.

To be honest I have a feeling most cases where spanking "worked" was less the physical pain and more the severe disapproval of your parents and fear of wrath that preceded it. Kids don't fear getting spanked and being in pain, they fear seeing their parents upset at them. This is why parents who resort to spanking because they're awful at parenting still raise bad children, except now the children got the idea that violence is a reasonable solution to being slighted.

yes I believe it is 100% effective for instance in the movie starship troopers john rico is flogged for making a bad call during a training exercise that ends up getting a comrade killed after corporal punishment he doesn't do that anymore problem?

I agree, I remember being hit and automatically remembering something was wrong.

If you spank your kid, you have to show them affection and love to compensate. There is a yin and yang to everything.

Unethical. If violence is not permitted between adults except in defense, why should we allow adult to physically harm the most vulnerable members of our society, next to maybe the comatose? All it does is teach children that authority is only valid if and because they can hurt you and that we should be solving problems with violence.

I don't think it's as unethical as it is excessive, unecessary and harmful.

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;35809886] If it's not OK to do it to teenagers, why is it OK to do it to children?[/QUOTE] Because they won't hit back?

No, why should it be ethical? There are good reason there's no coporal punishment for criminals anymore these days. And fearing your parents will most likely not be benefical for your development.

Good parents don't need to hit their children.

All spanking does is teach the kid to fear reprisal, not to understand what you're telling them. After a certain point they're only going to be concerned with avoiding reprisal rather than actually doing the right thing. I prefer my kid not to be scared shitless of me.

[QUOTE=TheFilmSlacker;35810020]Yes they will. I've seen it happen several times, most recently in the Toronto airport. The fucker kicked my seat on the flight home too, but that's irrelevant. The thing is, what's the cut-off date for spanking? My stepfather spanked me until I was 16, or at least that's the last time it happened. As far as I know, there's no law against it in Canada, but I think there should be a limit to how much you do it, if at all. Like, spanking your kids, in my opinion, isn't right, but if you want to do it, it's legal. Just don't spank them over nothing at all. If your son spills his orange juice, there's no need to spank him.[/QUOTE] Yeah, spanking and shit is only a last resort, if a kid gets spanked over everything they'll just block it out, and the entire fear of pain disappears.

No, just, no. Using physical violence on a child is just wrong and can, and does, cause permanent physical and psychological damage. I won't deny it can be effective, but that doesn't justify it.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;35810894]No, just, no. Using physical violence on a child is just wrong and can, and does, cause permanent physical and psychological damage. I won't deny it can be effective, but that doesn't justify it.[/QUOTE] I have to agree with you there. Some kids may keep anger and rage locked up inside them and may change them. It may depress the child too if he/she is beat often causing lack of self-esteem and grades may drop dramatically.

The only thing that spanking did for me as a kid was it made me fear my dad, spanking combined with verbal abuse has just lead to me hating and resenting my father for the way that he parented, instead of making me learn from my mistakes it just made me paranoid to do anything. Spanking is an archaic practice, and while there is a need for parents to discipline their kids, spanking and abuse in general is not the way to go about doing it.

[QUOTE=asteroidrules;35810894]No, just, no. Using physical violence on a child is just wrong and can, and does, cause permanent physical and psychological damage. I won't deny it can be effective, but that doesn't justify it.[/QUOTE] I don't see how it causes permanent physical damage unless you do some extreme stuff.

I was spanked as a child and i turned out ok. Oh wait....

only if your child is hitler

There is good parenting and then there is bad parenting. (Making a fake-notion of slapping your kid and commanding him to do something when he hasn't bothered to clean/etc for a week is not unethical or bad parenting necessarily.) Tougher discipline is good though, very good actually. But as you can assume, some kids might take tougher discipline or "hostile parenting" the wrong way, so [b]love[/b] is another keyword here.

[QUOTE=Kalibos;35808495]yes I believe it is 100% effective for instance in the movie starship troopers john rico is flogged for making a bad call during a training exercise that ends up getting a comrade killed after corporal punishment he doesn't do that anymore problem?[/QUOTE] nice reference anyway, spanking your kid on the ass is good as punishment, teaches them discipline. if you make empty threats at them without taking action, they [B]WILL[/B] walk over you. even if you take their shit away, they'll find away to bitch/moan/be a cunt again

As a child of the wooden spoon, I learned what right and wrong was [I]fairly[/I] quickly, but I don't feel abused at all. There's a difference between spanking and senselessly beating a child. You all make it sound like spanking is when you wail on and torture a kid. No, it's a slap on the butt that's plenty painful enough, but not physically brutal, to teach a child that their actions were way out of line.

it's ethical to an extent i got spanked with a leather belt, wooden paddle with holes, switches (incase you dont know what a switch is it is a flexible branch that is green if you strip the bark off), by hand. In my case my father was a abusive drunk so theres much more shit he's done to me but i wont go into detail with that.

I don't see a problem with it, but there is a very fine line. I was never really spanked as a kid, to be honest. I do remember if I did something my dad would tug me by my arm or yank me with a bit of force, but definitely not to the extent that you would consider it violent. He'd bring me in face-to-face so he could talk to me in a stern voice about what I did and explain why it was wrong. That seems like the right technique, in my opinion. His voice and facial expression were enough to let me know that I shouldn't screw up again.

[QUOTE=bucketofshrimp;35810976]I have to agree with you there. Some kids may keep anger and rage locked up inside them and may change them. It may depress the child too if he/she is beat often causing lack of self-esteem and grades may drop dramatically.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that's what happened to me, my parents spanked me and I developed anger issues and a real fear/hate of my father from it. And really that's all it does, a time out or a grounding lets a kid think about what they've done, a spanking lets them justify hating their parents.