quote:Originally posted by Lets Go Jeepin':
While I dont contribute any of this to spanking or not spanking exclusively, I have to disagree with you about the number of children spanked. There are parts of this country (I've lived all over it) where it is not acceptable to swat your child in public. Period. You will get a visit from DHR because someone will call in a complaint. Although most are cleared, DHR is still required to make the visit when a complaint is called. Because of this, all over the country, I feel there is much less spanking today than in the past. And children from about 6 or 7 up know this and use it against their parents. I see it all the time. Parents are spanking less out of fear of having to explain themselves more than out of not wanting to spank. As I said, this is not seen here as much as many other places in the US, this being the bible belt and all.
I was a latchkey kid back in the mid to late 80's and early 90's. Latchkey children have been around for a long time (my father was a latchkey kid as well). What kept me in line (most of the time) during those few hours? Fear of what would happen if I didn't. Where did that fear come from? Discipline. Mine was a mixture of spanking, grounding, write offs (Id rather had a spanking), and whatever other method my parents could think of. I was brought up to 'respect' my parents. They werent my friends or my buddies, they were my parents and they acted like it.
With all the things that are changing and all the things that are going wrong, I know from personal experience that spankings work if used correctly. Do the studies you posted show different? Yep. But there were also studies once upon a time that said cigarette smoking was safe and that limiting the speed to 55 would save lives. Both turned out the be incorrect. So, todays studies could be easily proven incorrect tomorrow, while past experience never changes.
The point of my post was that, just like I dont critisize folks that dont spank their children because they believe it is wrong, I dont expect to be critisized because I think it is right. This issue is not an issue that affects the public in general, it is an issue that deals with my personal realtionship with my child and, in all honesty, its not anyone elses concern if someone wants to spank or not spank. Like I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with a person trying to explain their beliefs (as you have here, besides, anyone who knows me knows I like a good debate), its those that believe that someone is less of a parent or a person because they choose to spank that bother me.
Jeepin'
It doesn't matter if there are parts of the country where swatting/spanking/whatever is unacceptable; people still do it. Smoking pot is illegal, but people still do it. And a 6 or 7 year old child won't just randomly accuse his parents of spanking him, just because. You say you see it all the time. Maybe it's happened here and there, but not all the time. If a child realizes he can be taken away from a loving home and loving parents, he will not make such an accusation unless he's non compos mentis.
So you were a latchkey kid and turned out fine. You were lucky. Are you honestly going to argue that there aren't latchkey kids out there who get themselves into trouble for the simple fact that they have no supervision several hours a day, day after day? I'm not a helicopter parent, but am sure not going to allow my child to be alone at home until I'm 100% certain he's mature enough and reliable enough to handle it.
And instilling fear of a spanking in my child for misbehaving is just wrong. Again, frightening and terrorizing children is not your job as a parent. You're not a state trooper; you're a parent - their first, and most important, teacher. You make them understand WHY the action is wrong. Spanking does not teach such a lesson.