[Chills]

"Sale of spanking tool points up larger issue

By Patricia Wen, Globe Staff | January 10, 2005

ARLINGTON -- On a spring day, Susan Lawrence was flipping through a magazine, Home School Digest, when she came across an advertisement that took her breath away. In it, ''The Rod," a $5 flexible whipping stick, was described as the ''ideal tool for child training."
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''Spoons are for cooking, belts are for holding up pants, hands are for loving, and rods are for chastening," read the advertisement she saw nearly two years ago for the 22-inch nylon rod. It also cited a biblical passage, which instructs parents not to spare the ''rod of correction."

The ad shocked Lawrence, a Lutheran who home-schools her children and opposes corporal punishment. She began a national campaign to stop what she sees as the misuse of the Bible as a justification for striking children. She also asked the federal government to deem The Rod hazardous to children, and ban the sale of all products designed for spanking. Lawrence says striking children violates the Golden Rule from the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament: ''In everything do to others as you would have them do to you."

Her effort exemplifies the passionate debate among Americans over the role of corporal punishment in modern child-rearing and highlights the clashing interpretations of religion that underlie many cultural divisions in the United States.

Where some see a time-honored form of discipline, others see a sanctioned type of child abuse. Both sides cite biblical passages and scholarly pediatric research to back their views, as well as anecdotal evidence of children who went astray because of too little -- or too much -- spanking.

Though corporal punishment is on the decline in the United States and the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly opposes the practice, spanking children remains common. National polls in 2002 indicated that two-thirds of American parents approved of spanking, and more than 20 states sanction corporal punishment in schools. Most parents said they use bare hands if they spank a child, though roughly one-third of parents in a 1995 Gallup poll said they had used ''a belt, hairbrush, stick, or some other hard object" to strike their child's bottom."LINK HERE FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE. (http://http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/10/campaigner_targets_spanking_tools_sale/)

[H2O]

Spank them doggies.....yeehaw

I am pro ROD !

Beat-em hard beat-em often..

As I am now 47 years old and did recieve the ROD as a boy.
I am respectfull to others and many others whom were spared are not.

The best rod is 4 to 5 feet long with a firm handle. well balanced for maxium accuracy. A Golf pro type swing will do, but a ninja warrior type swimg is best.

Sure it seems mean, but is it?












Just causing trouble chills, as I know the readers will disagree

[HeadachesAbound]

DW grew up getting wooden spoons. I received a variety including wooden spoons, standard issue educational paddle (still used when I was in school), switch of the tree (usually pruned by oneself upon demand), belts, and the original hand. I am in favor of corporal punishment due to it's effectiveness. All three of my young children know what a spanking is and prefer not to receive them. As they are getting older, there are other ways to punish them (such as removing games or toys) but the standard spanking works best when nothing else does. Of course, if you really want advice on how to discipline your child in an effective manner...try this google search (http://www.google.com/search?q=spare+the+rod%2C+spoil+the+child&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official).

[fruit loop]

....and I'm talking scars and broken bones here, I do not support spanking. Hitting is hitting. It's only a matter of how hard

It just pissed me off and I had ZERO respect for those people. I thank God every day that they're dead and can never come near a child again.

We used to get it for hitting each other, although they hit a whole lot harder than a little slap on sib's arm. They hit us - because we were hitting! That was SOOOOOO intelligent.

Especially for teens. The teen realizes the adult is just being "I'm bigger than you are and I pay the rent so I can do this."

I think I was about fourteen when I realized they couldn't hit me if I didn't stand still and let them. Of course, that refusal got me beaten unconscious, but I have no regrets. That's the night I left and never went back.

Raised my cousin's kids and never spanked them. Didn't let their dad do it either. They turned out just fine. The girl won a scholarship to UT last year. The boy is a network engineer.

You have no idea how glad I am that they were never hit by me. They have never been struck. Sometimes it brings tears to my eyes, knowing they will never, ever have to know how that feels - the physical pain, the humiliation, the knowing that you're less than dirt to the person on the end of the rod on a power thrill. They'll never know what that feels like. I'm so glad

[Meg]

If a small child is spanked without anger and it is in no way excessively hard, I don't see a problem using it as a punishment. Just never on the face. :no:
Otherwise a good spanking works wonders for childen of young age. :yes:
Or you could just do this ... :poke: Just kidding. ;)

[Pepper]

I only got a spanking by my daddy once in my life. I was 5 years old and snuck out of our yard into a neighbors basement to play with the toys they had stored in there. My parents where frantic because they didn't know where I was. I heard them calling me but I ignored them. Big mistake!

I remember mama using a switch on me a few times, but I would always get her tickled by my dancing around acting goofy.

After that spanking from my daddy all he had to do is tell me NO, and I knew he meant what he said. I wasn't ever afraid of him. IMHO parent's today don't let their No, mean No. They give in to easy to what ever their children want.

Pepper

[HeadachesAbound]

Clarification...

There is a limit to punishment versus abuse. I never cross that limit because I am familiar with it. Anyone who acts out of anger is not providing discipline but instilling fear. Fear only leads to anger and does not solve the problem which led to the need for discipline. I limit spankings to when and only when verbal communication does not work. As my children have gotten older they have begun to better understand that NO means NO and tend to mind quite a bit better thus they get fewer spankings.

[fruit loop]

Explain why the behavior is wrong and that it won't be tolerated. Once the kid understands that, why is the hitting necessary? Some people seem to think that the hand hitting the child somehow imparts understanding and knowledge.

[Chills]

I think the whole debate about discipline is really about control.

Healthy parents raise healthy kids.

Control freaks... arent healthy.... at all.
They use what ever works so they can maintain their little empires of delusion

What healthy parent would need to buy a rod to discipline their child?

IMO... this company is appealing to the control freaks twisted need to dominate..

[Potemkin]

Try to make a child "explain" to a child that is less than 3-4 years old not to touch that wood stove or stick metal objects in power sockets.

Spanking doesn't impart any particular knowledge, it is pure Pavlovian training at that point.

Now later "explaining" might work.

Of course, some adult giving about the 10th "Now Johnny, don't do that" to their child in that whining pleading voice and I am ready to spank their child. :devil:

[Chills]

Pote...

I happen to agree that .... reason doesnt work with those who have not cognitively developed to the point that they are capable of reason...

I think however.... a healthy parent... doesnt even think twice about the appropriate discipline to apply... I doubt a healty person feels any qualms about smacking a childs hand to save it from burning on a stove....

It is only those wacked out control freaks who make a big deal of it...

And lets not kid ourselves.... control freaks come in all stripes... simply because one doesnt use a spanking or what have you to... discipline a child.... the use of emotional manipulation such as guilting...a child... is as twisted and as HONKED up as abusing them physically...so the control freak gets their way... etc.

Just some thoughts.

[Potemkin]

Pote...

I happen to agree that .... reason doesnt work with those who have not cognitively developed to the point that they are capable of reason...



Cognitively developed? That is a $2 word!

Sounds like you have an education in one of the "Childhood" disciplines. :D

I got your point and agree.

[Chills]

Cognitively developed? That is a $2 word!

Sounds like you have an education in one of the "Childhood" disciplines. :D

I got your point and agree.

I bought that word at a yard sale... :P
for pennies on the dollar.

Anyway cognition is a pet interest of mine.

Also should point out... (I should correct an early point where I said children are incapable of reason) I am not suggesting that children can not or are incapable of reason...quite the contrary..... but to be attempt to communicate abstract notions (i.e. danger) with them at a critical moment.... would appear to be an absence of reason on the parents part.
IMO

In other words... it is not so much the inability of the child to reason as our inability to communicate reason or appreciate that the child can not actualize/or/process the pertinent critieria.etc ( reason) in the critical time frame.

Like anything else... the neuron paths take time to develope... and it takes time to process information... in a developing brain I tend to think that doesnt happen fast enough

[Anita]

I never found a good enough reason to hit my kids. I remember my ex was READY to spank our oldest when she aimed for that wall socket, but I said, "I don't want to do it that way", distracted her from the socket, and soon later purchased those plastic plug-ins. I'm sure they DID touch the hot stove, but I didn't see them do it. I simply put my hand close to the stove, said, "Hot", and let them learn what hot meant. So, Chills, I guess I'm one of those people who WOULD think twice about slapping a hand rather than see it get burned...which may lead to a second question: If we learn from our mistakes, why do so many parents think it's important to prevent children from making mistakes?

[Unique]

Teach correct principals and then let them govern themselves.

I have noticed that people tend to spank when angry. Then it seems your just teaching more anger?

I do not spank but I'm not really sure what I'm doing.. every now and then my youngest is put into time out and made to apologize.

Ever noticed mellow parents equals mellow kids? Sure their are exceptions but I see lots of that.

[Chills]

Anita

I think I said earlier that heathy parents apply the appropriate discipline.

What ever that might be in any given situation.
I think that in more critical situations, time is of the essence.

As far as allowing kids to learn from their mistakes I think that is very an interesting question.
There are some mistakes that there is no learning from because they are infact fatal, crippling and or have permanent negative effects.

How one deals with the less acceptable behavior and or dire mistakes a child makes has also serious and permanent consequences. In my opinion this is where there is a great potential for falling short as a parent and making mistakes ourselves.

Parenting is not simply discipline and discipline can not simply be separated out and looked at as a lone behavior... it is part of a lot more. ...

It may be of interest I am not sure, but the Oji-Cree first nations people of Northwest Ontario and Northern Manitoba etc, did not punish children. They just did not do it with in their traditional culture. This led to a great deal of conflict when the Euro's settled and the Canadian govt tried to impose our laws on these people.
Two things were happening. One the Euro mind set simply could not comprehend the way the Oji-Cree culture operated, it appeared for the most part to the Euro mind to be child neglect. Which is was not at all. Secondly.. the Oji-Cree nurturing and parenting did not really prepare their kids for a different culture especially one like the British dominated Canadian mindset.
A friend of mine who was a parole officer in the north related this story to me.

A child kept running away and getting into trouble. He ended up in court. And their was the chance that he could be removed from his home etc. The grandfather was his legal guardian. When the judge asked the grandfather if he knew about the boys behavior the grandfather replied he did. The judge then asked him what he was doing about it. The grandfather replied he hid the boys shoes.
Most of us would see that as no discipline at all.
That is a true story. The point is, in that culture the grandfather could not do more without going against his own nurturing. The judge had to divest himself of his own culture and nurturing to render an appropriate decision.
BTW-- situations like this led to the formation or re-introduction of the traditional Circle trials (my memory fails me... I cant recall what they are called at the moment).

Discipline is not simply the discipline we apply, discipline is part of the whole package of parenting and is quite often culturally shaped.

Your anedote about your child the socket and the husband says more to me about your relationship with your child and your presence of mind...than how you discipline your child. Actually I think that was a great way to deal with a potential crisis, but is distraction, discipline?

[Unique]

In the real world there are consequences for bad behavior and mistakes.

Give your children negative consequences for mistakes so others do not have to provide those consequences..

The consequence should not teach other undesirable things.

Fruit Loop so sorry. Nothing could be worse. :no:

[Robert]

Violence is violence regardless of the name we give it or the believed justification.
So we hit this human being that is less well equipped to confront us intellectually or physically. What have we done? What have we accomplished?
The action creates fear in the child and that is our motive, that is what we want to create.
Does it instill trust? No. Does it instill love towards us from the child? No. Does it teach the child that through fear there is control as he or she is controlled. And that concept is carried outwardly towards society, then isn’t it? And that child perpetuates that action to other children. Have you ever watched that? Ever seen the bully who is always the coward always full of fear who is the first to cower when confronted. Because the bully who hit that child and that’s what he or she is, is really, underneath it all, a coward and those of you who hit children think about your emotions, your fear when you are hitting that child. Because it is your outward action, your inability to confront the child intelligently regardless of the age of that child. And if you hit your child you also hit your dog because that is the same mentality the same bully who has not found an intelligent way to exist because the bottom line is that it is a fundamental failure of reason of the ability to resolve ones problems intelligently and what is intelligence if it is not the ability to resolve our problems constructively.

My two cents.

[Chills]

So Robert...are you a parent?
If so have you ever disciplined your child?
If so I would be interested how you do it.
What is your alternative strategies (as compared to smack on the hand or bottom or a fierc yell ) etc.?

[Anita]

I'd like to address the fear thought with the thought I had when I posted about the wall socket and the distraction. There are certainly many approaches to parenting, but the first one out of the gate seems to be the one we know the best [as in the one used on us by our parents]. A new approach is required when new parents can't find common ground in an old method.

I was pretty sure my ex-husband's parents had spanked him before the wall-socket moment, and I was pretty sure that he wished they'd not. He wanted a different approach, but didn't really know which ones worked, which ones didn't, yadda yadda. So, in that respect, I think he would have hit, but not out of fear, but more of impotence and ignorance; I don't know a better approach, so I'm doomed to repeat this one.

My folks hadn't spanked. I can assure you that wasn't my mom's idea. I'm sure she spent MANY years thinking about finally being on the RIGHT end of the belt just to have my dad thwart her rite of passage.

In families where corporal punishment wasn't considered an option, an unusual genetic mutation took place, resulting in The Look . The Look consists of two parts: 1) a belief in the philosophy that children want their parents' approval over all else, and 2) an involuntary "look" that comes upon one when parental approval cannot be offered. My father had The Look. He passed it on to me.

I've also heard that liberals and conservatives think of children differently, with liberals thinking that all are born good and conservatives thinking that all are born bad and must be forced to be good.

Chills: I think there are a whole lot of factors at play with discipline, but I think the goal is to have self-disciplined children, is it not?

[Robert]

I think if we look at the first thought most parents have it is to protect the child regardless of whether they hit or not. Hitting or even abusive language, which to me, is just as bad leave scars on the child.
My father did both and I can remember the exact perception of him that I had. It was respect out of fear and not love. I remember taking tests in school and thinking that I would be ridiculed or hit if I did badly and that always affected my ability to concentrate on the material in front of me.

I can recall a specific incident when I was about twelve.
I loved to draw and on one particular rainy Sunday I was in my room self occupied. All of a sudden the sun broke through so I put down my drawing instruments and started heading outdoors. My father stopped me and asked if I had finished my drawing. I replied, “No I’ll do it later” to which he replied, “No, you’ll do it now.” I finished that drawing but never drew again until I was out of the house living on my own. It was only in retrospect when I asked myself why I had ever stopped drawing that I realized why.
So why didn’t I confront my father with the simple logic that it was only a hobby and I was just passing the time? Because underneath it all I was afraid what would happen if I did. Fear had replaced reason. I was no longer an individual, I was my father’s son and my life was predicated, not on reason or my will but on the undisputed wishes of my father. So we shout out in the world at the cruelty of despots but how many of us lived our lives under those same conditions and how many of us subject our children to that?

Anita:
”So, in that respect, I think he would have hit, but not out of fear, but more of impotence and ignorance; I don't know a better approach, so I'm doomed to repeat this one.”


Let’s say it was impotence. Isn’t that fear? Aren’t we afraid that we don’t have power, don’t have control?
What are we saying if we think it is ignorance? After all, any of us can do ignorant things everyday. How many times have I said, “If I had only know better I wouldn’t have done that”. So I think we can be ignorant once or maybe twice about the action and effects of hitting but after that it becomes complacency, becomes our inability to put ourselves in the child’s position and we should never be so callous as to do that. Not with anyone especially our children that we have the responsibility to love and nourish.
I remember once when I was a young man and I had my first cat. She did something I didn’t like and I violently stuck her nose in it. When I realized what I had done I felt terrible. I saw this poor animal that would always have an underlying fear of me. After that point I never touched another animal aggressively. I had learned, I saw the world from the animal’s viewpoint. It was my lesson and not the child or the animal.
Our kid runs out into traffic. We run out, grab and hit him or her. We are looking at the world from our perspective and asking that child or animal to see and understand our views. Either one could easily be totally befuddled and confused as to why they were hit just like Helen Keller was before she made the correlation to water that changed her life. We hope the child makes the association and never runs into traffic again but in fact, we don’t know this is true. What we do know is that the child or animal is now apprehensive of us either openly or subliminally.
I think we have to be very careful about how we teach and relate to our children and how we look at them. I see them as small people. I do stupid things everyday. Do I think my ninety year old mother has a right to hit me for them? Do I think it would do any good. No. Did it do any good when my father did it to me as a boy? No.

If parents raise relatively well balanced healthy children without hitting them what does it say about the parents who think they need to hit their children to have them grow up healthy and well balanced?

If you hit your kids you will most likely never know, throughout your life with them, their actual feelings towards you regardless of what they say. Sit down and think about the message hitting sends and the statement it makes about your inability to find constructive solutions to YOUR problems without the use of violence.

[Chills]

Anita

Yup—I think it is all about developing self-discipline/survival.

I use the VOICE with my grandkids and other little uns.
It is NOT screaming. I think it is the same technique stage actors use.
I guess it comes from singing the blues. I project from the diaphragm.
I have two of em. One is very guttural and the other cold and flat..both have substantial presence.

Robert
I guess the only ones who know how well or poorly a method worked is the child.

Personally I was a terrible parent. I lacked consistency and presence much of the time.
By the time I married a second time I was a bit better. But I think it took me until recently to be anything remotely close to being a skilled grandparent.


It is only on looking back and seeing the out come that I can now recognize my own mistakes and develop any concept of how I might have done things differently and how to deal with the grandkidlens today.

[Unique]

Anita said..

"I've also heard that liberals and conservatives think of children differently, with liberals thinking that all are born good and conservatives thinking that all are born bad and must be forced to be good."


I consider myself to be conservative. I attend church every Sunday as well. I really disagree with this generalization.

Children are pure and can not even be tempted to do wrong until about the age of eight. Forcing and controlling is opposite of free agency. Did we not come here (to earth) to prove that we would live like the good example? If we are controlled how can we do that?

Edited to add..After a little study this view is not held by all but true to my Christian religion.

[Robert]

Robert
I guess the only ones who know how well or poorly a method worked is the child.

Personally I was a terrible parent. I lacked consistency and presence much of the time.
By the time I married a second time I was a bit better. But I think it took me until recently to be anything remotely close to being a skilled grandparent.



Ditto. If I had become a parent in my twenties I would have stunk. I would have been close to a copy of my father.
I've always said we should be required to take a test before we have kids and most people would fail horribly.

[Sally]

I remember when my kids were in elementary school, the principal could remember just about all of the kids' names. When they acted up, she spoke softly and explained what they should do. She treated them with respect and they beahved accordingly -- very well. She moved up to the next level and was replaced by a strict disciplinarian who yelled and belittled the kids. They ignored him and behaved like monsters when he was yelling at them.

Sally