quote:Originally posted by CageTheElephant:quote:SEZ Buttercup:
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.
Well...Good Luck on your PC "child raising" experience.
When they don't want a "TIME OUT"...what are ya' gonna do...then?
He doesn't have a choice on the timeout. And there are other methods: taking away privileges, not allowing extra privileges, etc. that register with his behavior bank (i.e., Is the bad behavior worth it?).
For example, my little boy likes Star Wars. He can save up his own money to buy a toy he likes, but if he's misbehaved I take the privilege of buying it away. That means something to him because, again, Star Wars toys mean something to him.
When going out, we've always explained the consequences of misbehavior before walking out the door so that he'd know what to expect. Example: I'd tell him (when he was younger), "If you misbehave at the grocery store, no cartoons when you get home."
We were always consistent (key word) with the discipline (another key word) and our child has turned out respectful and courteous and very rarely needs privileges taken away or timeouts anymore, because he "got it" a long time ago.