<p>Go explain that to the 7-year-old boy whose mama meant to give her son one “proper” face-slap (because he answered their apartment door to her boyfriend, without first asking her–evidently an unsafe move on his part). </p>
<p>Unfortunately she forgot she was wearing a metal ring which opened the skin on his face. As a teacher I saw that the next morning and as mandated reporter called in Child Protective Service.</p>
<p>The mom didn’t intend to open his face. Knowing the kid, I’ll even give her that she meant to emphasize a safety point she’d been making to him repeatedly, and he wasn’t listening. </p>
<p>CPS did not put high priority on that case because they said the mom intended only to slap him open-handed on the face, not break the skin and leave a scar. They went to her home, interviewed her and told me she said she didn’t do it. They also said that when such a mom finds out someone’s watching her from the government, she usually pulls back from hitting her child. (How DO they know?) </p>
<p>The parent’s intention and the end result do not always come out as clean and calm as your sentences.</p>
<p>Your best bet for connecting spanking as a form of punishment to Will Hunting-esque abuse is probably something other than talking about their motives. Said motives are clearly not the same, and it is absurd to suggest that they are. Did you watch the movie?</p>
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<p>Obviously a five-year-old isn’t up for a debate on the merits of corporal punishment. What matters is reality, and the question is, is proper (as distinct from arbitrary, anger-inspired) spanking an appropriate punishment to deter certain, extreme behaviors? If it -actually- does, then it doesn’t matter if the child “doesn’t see it that way.” No one seems to mind wanting to meet teenage daughters’ boyfriends as an imperative safety precaution, even if the daughters “don’t see it that way.” </p>
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<p>Obviously. In every post I’ve made, I’ve limited my support of spanking to spanking that is not arbitrary and not driven by anger, which is the spanking that I received as a child and the spanking that I can claim did not cause me to fear my parents or suffer from emotional issues. I’m not in favor of the Will Hunting scenario. If you’re attacking my argument on the basis that controlled spanking can lead to accidental injury, the burden is not on spanking as a theory but on the practioner to pay attention to the pieces of metal he/she is projecting at their child’s face at high velocity.</p>
<p>Sounds smooth, but this mama was usually on crack cocaine so didn’t think of herself as a practitioner of spanking. The real world is messy.</p>
<p>She would have to calmly remove her ring and then slap her son’s face. </p>
<p>In fact, the situations where kids trigger their parents to spank them provoke anger and frustration in the parent. One of the reasons spanking is not supported by pediatricians is they know how difficult children can be, and how parental frustration and anger quickly escalates. What begins as a spanking too often changes midway through into a beating, kicking, or scalding. </p>
<p>If an adult is in so much control they can deliver a theoretical proper spanking (eta: without anger), they have the brain-power to come up with more effective strategies for changing a child’s behavior. Most parents aren’t that calm when they’re spanking their kids. If you believe you will be the rare exception, and today defend your parents as rare exceptions, so be it. Also grasp why laws about child abuse apply to what most people do, not the rare exception.</p>
<p>Proper spanking? Without anger or frustration? I cannot even imagine spanking my child unless I was angry or frustrated with something they did. It would almost seem more wrong to me to spank them if I wasn’t upset with them. Let’s see, you did something wrong and now I’m going to hit you on your bottom to get your attention that this thing is wrong. But this thing that you did was not enough to make me angry or frustrated.</p>
I didn’t say the motives were the same, though I said they had something in common. And I honestly don’t think the difference is nearly as clear, or the connection as absurd, as you do. As I said, it’s a difference of degree. Papa Hunting and the parent administering the “proper spanking” are not doing completely different things for completely different reasons. They are both inflicting pain and instilling fear in order to re-establish and emphasize their power over the child. One of them is mentally healthier and in better control of his emotions than the other, and his behavior is much better connected to reasonable and benign parenting goals. But I don’t agree that it’s quite apples and oranges. </p>
<p>And yes, I’ve seen the movie three times, I think. It’s a favorite of mine, even with Robin Williams’ ghastly accent.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as “proper spanking.” And the idea that the intent is the issue is downright laughable. Let’s see how that would work:
“Well, your Honor, I was walking down the street, kind of bored so I punched this guy in the face…because I thought he might wander into the street. I wasn’t angry and I didn’t mean to hurt him.”<br>
“Oh, well, then in that case, you’re free to go.” </p>
<p>Hunt, You may believe it to be nonsensical but I very much value that my parents never hit me. When I had my own child, when I saw how really small and vulnerable children are, it would have been very sad to think that my parents had hit me as a child. </p>
<p>I’ve seen such a shift in the attitude about this topic that I’m confident within my lifetime that hitting a child will be made illegal.</p>
<p>The whole intent argument here reminds me of a post I recently read about bigotry called something like “Intent is Effing Magic!” Needless to say, the title was sarcastic. Intent is an interesting thing to analyze in a philosophical sense, but it has 0% influence on how traumatized the victim is going to be by the horrible actions that the perp tries to excuse through not-bad intent. </p>
<p>I can’t even believe the OP would dare start such a thread. Spanking with a belt is hardcore beating imo and in the opinions of all the bitter, effed up adults I know who experienced it as children. My grandfather, who I love dearly, has no love from his own children. By the time I came around he was a changed man who gave me little candy bars, but he beat (yes, beat – because calling it “spanking” is doublespeak if anything is) his kids with belts. If it weren’t for me, he’d be alone on every holiday. His kids see him as a sort of pitiful monster, no matter how much he’s changed since he left welts and bruises on them when they were little. </p>
<p>If you smack your wife across the face, hello prison time. If you inflict “corporal punishment” on your kid, it must be because your kid earned it, right? Hello victim blaming. Domestic abusers hink their wives earned it just as much as you think your kids earn it.</p>
<p>I can see spanking out of horror and frustration if your kid runs into the street. I cannot see hitting (it’s HITTING – as someone said above, spanking is a cutesy, obfuscating term – using a different word for it doesn’t make it a different thing) your child because you think it’s going to teach them to be a good person. That’s utterly warped. Smacking people, ESPECIALLY tiny, helpless people around is not the way to help them grow in character. It is most certainly the way to teach them that you like to hit people if you know you won’t be punished for it.</p>
<p>I can’t actually even figure out how something we would consider torture if practiced by the “state” can be considered “emphasis” when done to a small child. Something you could get arrested for by the police if you did to your neighbor is something you might do to “teach a child a lesson.” Can you imagine if someone who worked for you did something you didn’t like and you just walked in and hit them with a belt??? First, how would this teach them anything? Second, you would be arrested.</p>
<p>We only ever did time-outs. When we wanted to add emphasis, we would put a timer on next to our kids so they would be aware of how long they had to sit there. Even the timer was such an escalation and caused such distress we thought it might have been torturous and stopped doing it after the second time. Our kids are very well behaved and extremely self-regulating and were by a very young age. Wow.</p>
My parents never hit, slapped, or beat me, either. They did spank me, though. I’m sorry that so many of you aren’t willing to understand the difference.</p>
<p>I get it. My parents differentiated between spankings and beatings. Spankings from mom and beatings from dad. And yes, there was a difference and yes they were always in anger.</p>
<p>I don’t think I hold it against them, because the beatings were used when I did something I was told not to do. But as I said before, I learned to do those exact things without being caught…and learned how to lie to my parents.</p>
<p>I think the fallout is, I don’t lie to my parents as an adult, but I don’t tell them a lot and get defensive when they ask questions.</p>
<p>We probably don’t understand the difference between spankings and beatings because in a lot of our lives what we were told were spankings were really beatings. I have never seen anyone being spanked where the parent wasn’t angry.</p>
<p>I have seen parents “spank” where the parent wasn’t angry. I’ve seen parents give a light slap on the back of the hand to a toddler to accompany a “don’t touch” message where the parent wasn’t angry and the child did not appear to be traumatized. I’ve also seen parents give a swat on the generously padded bottom of a two-three year old to back up a message. I think the range of behaviors described on this thread is so great that it becomes difficult to have a discussion. Sure, I recognize that some parents would consider the tap on the wrist the same thing as a violent beating, but that just seems like comparing a gentle breeze to a hurricane. In addition, the word spank usually refers (dictionary-wise) to an open hand on the buttocks but it seems to be used on this thread interchangeably with all kinds of other hitting and violent behavior. Does anyone remember the tradition we had as kids of spanking someone on their birthday? I remember teachers even lightly spanking the birthday child with a stronger pat for good luck. I think most kids loved being the center of attention for that (except when some kids would get carried away with each other.)</p>
<p>Momk6, your description of spanking was good. I spanked my son once with one swat on the bottom when he was little and never had to do it again. I never screamed at my son. I praised him when he was good and had fun with him and he has turned out great. Totally different from my upbringing.</p>
I certainly understand that there is a difference - though, as I said, it seems to me to be one of degree. In my mind, spanking belongs in the same family as hitting, slapping, and even beating. What I don’t understand are parents who think spanking is a good idea, or that it ever represents the best possible response to the need for discipline.</p>
<p>I feel like we’re getting into Humpty Dumpty territory with some of these words, so I thought I’d pull out my American Heritage dictionary.</p>
<p>beat, v.tr. 1. To strike repeatedly. (Obviously a spanking would qualify.)</p>
<p>hit, v.tr. – 1.b. To deal a blow to.</p>
<p>spank, v.tr. – To slap on the buttocks with a flat object or with the open hand, as for punishment.</p>
<p>And if you’re going to argue that a slap on the buttocks is not a “blow,” AHD begs to differ:</p>
<p>slap, n. 1.a. A sharp blow made with the open hand or with a flat object; a smack.</p>
<p>So to say “my parents spanked me, but they never hit, slapped or beat me” is a distinction without a difference. Spanking is hitting. It’s slapping. It’s beating. You can justify it, you can forgive it, you can even recommend it if you want, but let’s not do violence to language in the process.</p>
<p>I think calling a common spanking a beating is a gross misuse of lanquage meant mostly to inflame the rhetoric.
And how has the time-out philosophy of punishment worked out? I see a generation of kids wno can’t handle the slighted adversity and ask their parents to solve every problem from roommates to a bad grade, massive use of mind altering drugs for ADD and all the off-shoots, rampant sense of entitlement to a perfect stressless life where it’s A’s with no work for everyone because I’m special and so on.</p>
<p>Barrons: I beg to differ. I see a generation of kids who are kind to others, believe in creating a sustainable system of global consumption that doesn’t depend on the misery of others, and who expect to work very hard for somewhat less than their parents have.</p>
<p>Barrons - you’re hanging out with the wrong kids. However, I knew plenty of kids like that from previous generations too. In fact, I knew lots of them who used lots of mind altering drugs. I had friends in college whose parents got involved with room mate issues and got involved in everything from class registration to dorm assignments. </p>
<p>dmd - I see more of what you see too. </p>
<p>It’s just silly to suggest that spanking is the antidote to all the things mentioned.</p>