darthska
Staff member
- 46,251
- 30,413
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2004
Something I said in another thread (the kid getting publicly embarrassed & hit for stealing) prompted me to make THIS thread.
I said something to the effect that CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IS DUE TO LAZY PARENTING (since it's obviously very easy for a grown man/woman to inflict harm on a small child) OR LIMITED KNOWLEDGE ON WHAT THE HELL ELSE CAN BE DONE.
You do NOT have to hit/smack/PHYSICALLY HARM a kid to teach him/her to act right. You don't. YOU JUST DON'T.
Now... a common argument against my way of thinking is "Oh, you must have been a good kid, never had your !$@ kicked. You don't know 'bad'."
FALSE. I was severely abused. I'm not going to go into details, for 2 reasons:
#1- the details are irrelevant. Just know that I went through some very traumatic things. Read 'The Lost Boy' and 'A Child Called It' and know that I can relate to a majority of what Dave chronicles in those 2 books.
#2- you wouldn't believe half of what I'd tell you.
So yes, I definitely know what an !$@ whooping is, and I definitely know bad.
But the pattern of violence that lead to me wanting to fight every-damn-body hit me hardest in my late 20s, when I started realizing that eventually, me and my wife (now ex-wife) are going to have a kid someday, and I'm going to teach him the same violence I was taught.
So it was in my late 20s that I really started putting MYSELF through anger management, and making my OWN observations about non-physical parenting.
FAST FORWARD TO NOW.
Now I have a son, 4 years old in September, and I get complimented ALL THE TIME on how well-behaved he is, how helpful he is to other kids at day care, how obedient he is... blah, blah, blah... and that obviously makes dear ol' dad mighty proud. What makes me even MORE proud is this: HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE PUNISHED THROUGH SPANKING, HITTING, GRABBING, and he HARDLY even knows what it's like to have me or his mom raise our voice to him.
You think timeouts don't work? That's your opinion, and it's an incorrect one.
You think it doesn't work when you're in the store and you start putting 'his' stuff back on shelves? You're wrong.
In the 4 years of his life, were there times when it would have been easier for me to just grab him up and smack his butt a few times? Hell yeah! Were there times when he was being mouthy and it would have been easier to just smack his lips and tell him 'Don't talk to me like that!"? Of course... but before he was born, I observed from OTHER parents that those painful tactics are both unnecessary and lazy.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE A KID, OR IF YOU HAVE A YOUNG KID... AND YOU THINK THAT GETTING PHYSICAL W/ A KID IS JUST PART OF RAISING HIM/HER... if you read nothing else, read this:
- from the time your kid is born, MAINTAIN your authority. YOU make the decisions, YOU call the shots, YOU decide where y'all are going, what you're buying, what y'all are eating, etc. My son knows DAMN well that he is NOT going to act a fool today and then we go to the pool. HEEEELLLLLL nah. And once we're at the pool, if he's not listening, if he's acting a fool, we will march our happy tails right on back home. He throws a fit? He WILL sit on timeout till Christ returns, and that doesn't mean with all his toys and with a movie on.
- make the punishment fit the crime. He don't want to eat his dinner? Simple; no dessert. Duh. And I tell him before dinner "You eat your chicken and green beans, and we'll have ice cream after." Now he's all excited for ice cream... and fully aware that it won't happen without those green beans disappearing. He won't clean up his toys when it's time to clean up? I'll start cleaning them up... starting by throwing a few of them in the trash (this is what I use the free toys he gets in stuff like happy meals and cereal boxes; I'm not throwing my money in the trash
).
- think in advance. I always let him go to bed with 1 or 2 of his toys. Why? Because after cleanup & brushing teeth, if he throws a fit about bedtime, now he can go to bed without a toy.
- COMMIT to doing things this way. I know that the second I decide to start getting physical w/ my son, all that's left for him to learn is how to get past the pain, and once he learns that, then I've got nothing. If he's 16, 17 years old and lived a life of timeouts, taking toys away, no ice cream, not going on class field trips, no phone, no PS7 (
), no daddy taking him to concerts, then I'll still have tools in my belt to make sure he keeps some 'ackright'. But if he's 16, 17 years old, starting to get stronger than me, what the hell am I gonna have in my belt if all I've done his whole life is spank him and smack his mouth? I'll be damn near 50 by that time, and if he's wilin' out, acting a fool, what am I gonna do? I could spank him when he was 5, 6, 7 years old. But now what? He gets suspended from school, and I'm gonna grab a belt?
Nah, if he were suspended from school... ever... he's staying home with me and we're doing chores and schoolwork, for that whole suspension. And if he EVER got expelled, we would have the cleanest house on the block, believe that.
- explain yourself after consequences sometime. This is often confused with 'answering' to your kid. "Psh, I'm not answering to my freaking 6 year old." You're not answering to them; you're EXPLAINING to them why you did what you did, so that they know that the reason you did is definitely more than just "Cuz I can. Deal with it."
I know this was way too much for most of you ADD having fools to digest, but... yeah... just wanted to drop this on the table, see where it goes.
I said something to the effect that CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IS DUE TO LAZY PARENTING (since it's obviously very easy for a grown man/woman to inflict harm on a small child) OR LIMITED KNOWLEDGE ON WHAT THE HELL ELSE CAN BE DONE.
You do NOT have to hit/smack/PHYSICALLY HARM a kid to teach him/her to act right. You don't. YOU JUST DON'T.
Now... a common argument against my way of thinking is "Oh, you must have been a good kid, never had your !$@ kicked. You don't know 'bad'."
FALSE. I was severely abused. I'm not going to go into details, for 2 reasons:
#1- the details are irrelevant. Just know that I went through some very traumatic things. Read 'The Lost Boy' and 'A Child Called It' and know that I can relate to a majority of what Dave chronicles in those 2 books.
#2- you wouldn't believe half of what I'd tell you.
So yes, I definitely know what an !$@ whooping is, and I definitely know bad.
But the pattern of violence that lead to me wanting to fight every-damn-body hit me hardest in my late 20s, when I started realizing that eventually, me and my wife (now ex-wife) are going to have a kid someday, and I'm going to teach him the same violence I was taught.
So it was in my late 20s that I really started putting MYSELF through anger management, and making my OWN observations about non-physical parenting.
FAST FORWARD TO NOW.
Now I have a son, 4 years old in September, and I get complimented ALL THE TIME on how well-behaved he is, how helpful he is to other kids at day care, how obedient he is... blah, blah, blah... and that obviously makes dear ol' dad mighty proud. What makes me even MORE proud is this: HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE PUNISHED THROUGH SPANKING, HITTING, GRABBING, and he HARDLY even knows what it's like to have me or his mom raise our voice to him.
You think timeouts don't work? That's your opinion, and it's an incorrect one.
You think it doesn't work when you're in the store and you start putting 'his' stuff back on shelves? You're wrong.
In the 4 years of his life, were there times when it would have been easier for me to just grab him up and smack his butt a few times? Hell yeah! Were there times when he was being mouthy and it would have been easier to just smack his lips and tell him 'Don't talk to me like that!"? Of course... but before he was born, I observed from OTHER parents that those painful tactics are both unnecessary and lazy.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE A KID, OR IF YOU HAVE A YOUNG KID... AND YOU THINK THAT GETTING PHYSICAL W/ A KID IS JUST PART OF RAISING HIM/HER... if you read nothing else, read this:
- from the time your kid is born, MAINTAIN your authority. YOU make the decisions, YOU call the shots, YOU decide where y'all are going, what you're buying, what y'all are eating, etc. My son knows DAMN well that he is NOT going to act a fool today and then we go to the pool. HEEEELLLLLL nah. And once we're at the pool, if he's not listening, if he's acting a fool, we will march our happy tails right on back home. He throws a fit? He WILL sit on timeout till Christ returns, and that doesn't mean with all his toys and with a movie on.
- make the punishment fit the crime. He don't want to eat his dinner? Simple; no dessert. Duh. And I tell him before dinner "You eat your chicken and green beans, and we'll have ice cream after." Now he's all excited for ice cream... and fully aware that it won't happen without those green beans disappearing. He won't clean up his toys when it's time to clean up? I'll start cleaning them up... starting by throwing a few of them in the trash (this is what I use the free toys he gets in stuff like happy meals and cereal boxes; I'm not throwing my money in the trash
- think in advance. I always let him go to bed with 1 or 2 of his toys. Why? Because after cleanup & brushing teeth, if he throws a fit about bedtime, now he can go to bed without a toy.
- COMMIT to doing things this way. I know that the second I decide to start getting physical w/ my son, all that's left for him to learn is how to get past the pain, and once he learns that, then I've got nothing. If he's 16, 17 years old and lived a life of timeouts, taking toys away, no ice cream, not going on class field trips, no phone, no PS7 (
- explain yourself after consequences sometime. This is often confused with 'answering' to your kid. "Psh, I'm not answering to my freaking 6 year old." You're not answering to them; you're EXPLAINING to them why you did what you did, so that they know that the reason you did is definitely more than just "Cuz I can. Deal with it."
I know this was way too much for most of you ADD having fools to digest, but... yeah... just wanted to drop this on the table, see where it goes.