Do you Spank your kids?

Hi folks!

Do you spank your kids? I think most of us are brought up with the thought that "Spare the rod, spoilt the kids" concept. And since young, we ourselves might have gone through some sorts of spanking or punishment. But do you agree with such displinary measure?

 

I don't like to impose physical punishment to my children. However, there are times they can just test your patience and their "boundaries", so how do you tackle this? I must confess when my umpteen warnings go unheaded and what they are doing are causing harm either to themselves or their siblings, at times I might use "spanking" too.

 

Recently I came across an article in Parenthots, "How can spanking be healthy?" which I find it helpful as reference to us parents.

 

Here's the excerpt of the articles, for full content, do refer to Parenthots website.

 

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How can spanking be healthy?

8 November 2010

It just seems barbaric to cause pain to a defenceless child. Tell me why you think it is healthy to spank him or her.


Corporal punishment, when used lovingly and properly, is beneficial to a child because it is in harmony with nature itself.

Consider the purpose of minor pain in a child's life and how he learns from it. Suppose two-year-old Peter pulls on a tablecloth and with it comes a vase of roses that cracks him between the eyes. From this pain, he learns that it is dangerous to pull on the tablecloth unless he knows what sits on it. When he touches a hot stove, he quickly learns that heat must be respected.

If he lives to be a hundred years old, he will never again reach out and touch the red-hot coils of a stove. The same lesson is learned when he pulls the doggy's tail and promptly gets a neat row of teeth marks across the back of his hand, or when he climbs out of his high chair when Mum isn't looking and discovers all about gravity

During the childhood years, he typically accumulates minor bumps, bruises, scratches, and burns, each one teaching him about life's boundaries. Do these experiences make him a violent person? No! The pain associated with these events teaches him to avoid making the same mistakes again. This pain mechanism is a valuable vehicle for instruction.

When a parent administers a reasonable spanking in response to wilful disobedience, a similar nonverbal message is being given to the child. He must understand that there are not only dangers in the physical world to be avoided. He should also be wary of dangers in his social world, such as defiance, sassiness, selfishness, temper tantrums, behaviour that puts his life in danger, that which hurts others, etc. The minor pain associated with this deliberate misbehaviour tends to inhibit it, just as discomfort works to shape behaviour in the physical world. Neither conveys hatred. Neither results in rejection. Neither makes the child more violent.

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