<p>I would hope we all agree that we are indeed the experts, but on our own children only. I’ll say again that I don’t consider my children to have been compliant or easy. </p>
<p>One of my ds is a special education teacher. Some of her students do indeed exhibit shocking behavior, much of which is the direct result of a diagnosed condition or illness. Of course she does not have the option of physical punishment (nor would she want it). She’s supposed to create other ways to maintain discipline, and she has to work hard at it.</p>
This is exactly what when I first read that spanking was taking a child’s dignity away. If the child is receiving punishment, then they were doing something very “dignifying” in the first place. </p>
<p>“There are lots of people who think they have this child-rearing thing all figured out–until the second (or third, or even fourth) child comes along.”</p>
<p>lol…so true.</p>
<p>When our first son was born, our best friends had their first child, a very compliant daughter, born 6 days earlier. When the babies were toddlers, they couldn’t understand why when I went to their home, I’d move their easily reachable meds, vitamins and knives that they had out. THEN…a few years later, they had a boy. Enough said. </p>
<p>Lol. My best friend and I had our first babies 3 weeks apart. We would visit each other once a week to get some grown up sanity time. She brought her son to my house once when the kids had both began walking and said “OMG. You keep crystal frames on the coffee table? How do you keep her from breaking everything?” I said “Umm…I say “no no honey, don’t touch” and she never has tried again.” She was stunned, “REALLY? You tell her not to do something once and she doesn’t do it again!!!” </p>
<p>Of course, when the kids were teens and her son was steady and happy all the time, and my girls were going through girl roller coaster emotion stuff, she felt a lot better about having sons. :D</p>