Grandma B

Both my parents spanked for the wrong reasons–they were tired or upset and therefore our antics were conjoined with short fuses. However, our mother loved us a ton. When she hit us it was generally easily forgotten, and we moved on. My father, on the other hand, had been abandoned as a child, and my mother was his first real tie in his life. He adored her but was often jealous of the attention she gave my sister and me. If he were overworked or stressed, he would hit us, and there was a very different feel to the whole situation. Everything came through his arm: hatred, disgust, a desire to hurt us. It was a way of letting us know: “Back off, and don’t get too close to me.”

I ended up in several fist fights with him as a teenager, almost as if I were trying to hit the rejection. And, as his subconscious desire dictated, I never got very close.

Hence: Kids are very forgiving and resillient. You can hit, and you can even hit for the wrong reasons, and it probably won’t damage them. To hit out of spite, hatred, or any of the black emotions can do damage.

I have a son of 7 now, I dont want to hit him but sometimes I hit him. I control myself a lot. He is a sweet child, and normally naughty to some extent. But I hit him sometimes if he does not concetrate on his studies. I love him. but my frustation unknowingly get on. and then I really really regret.

I have realised that its a child needs protection as i needed, loved, respected. I dont want him to become rebellious later.hence I have other ways to punish him like no watching shaun the sheep, no tom n jerry , or no cycling, or no function. Well that works.
I want him to be successful if not Einstein or Franklin. Children need to be talked, loved , disciplined and also setting our own examples.Love your children. be tolerant. Spank with explainations and only on very serious wrongs.

As a child, I was spanked once. I still remember. I loved my father, and more than the physical pain of that beating (my ass was red and sore for days), the emotional scarring was evident for a long time. I wanted to make him happy, and I did not even understand what I had done that was so wrong. He gave me no chance to make amends, just beat me. It was one of the singularly most scary events of my life. I was six. He also would not talk to me for days. Looking back I see that it was wrong, but as a child you would never understand that. My father reacted out of fear. What he should have done instead was sit me down and talk to me. Ask me what happened and why I did it, in a calm tone. Then explain why children don’t do that. In the end, it wasn’t even my fault, but neither of my parents ever cared to ask.

Usually I was put on time-out if I did something wrong, or when I got older my things were taken away or I was grounded from using the phone or computer, and could not see my friends for usually a reasonable designated amount of time, or if it was homework-related, until I had caught up. I won’t say I’ve never made mistakes in my life, but even now my Mother struggles to remember many times where I did something wrong. The only times she remembers, I do too. I was never punished for trivial things.

The reason I can say that I was so well-behaved is because of the understanding and time put into raising me by my Mother. She was a stay-at-home Mom, but more than that, she took me to the community center where we got regular socialization and we took many classes together, everything from sports to arts and crafts to even ballet for a few years. In my neighborhood, we started the Kids Club, and we decided amongst ourselves that we should have regular bake sales and donate a portion of the money to a good church. The rest of the money we saved til the end of the year to go on a trip to Six Flags together. Only one kid in the club couldn’t go. From the moment I was born, my Mother immersed herself in Motherhood and stimulating my mind, and teaching me about compassion towards others, especially animals and those littler than me. Once at the park when I was about 8, we observed that a baby blackbird had fallen out of it’s nest. The adults were attempting to protect it from a nearby stalking cat. Without hesitation, my Mom being the woman she is, we took that baby home and raised it, taking care to make sure it was fed properly and in the right amounts. We taught him to fly, though truly it is a very instinctual thing for creatures with wings. Eventually we took him to a wildlife center where they would teach him to hunt for himself and then re-release him into the wild. My Mother never sugar-coated anything for me and spoke to me like an adult, using complex sentences and “big words”. My Mother may have been exceptional, but I believe it is not impossible for even working Mothers to instill the same values and understanding in their children, with a little time and effort. I believe compassion comes along with intelligence.

There is ALWAYS an alternative to hitting a child, if the parents has the intelligence/compassion to control their own impulses and utilize them.