Quote:
Originally Posted by Pawnmower
This is where I think you are ignorant, and it shows. You don't NEED to do anything in regards to punishing a child....theres no one sitting there telling you what you need to do. This is all opinion, and yours (or mine) isnt the "right one". There is no right one....what works for you is going to be different for someone else...Thats all I am trying to say....I do not see any difference from the "restraint" you say you see by hitting your child with a hand versus hitting them with a "tool". WHat if you hit them harder with your hand than with a tool? I think its possible to use a paddle or tool just as "gently" as a hand. I dont think just by using a tool you are somehow more "bad" than the guy who uses no tool yet does it (as you say) out of anger or just "because he thinks he is right".
Personally I view everything as a tool....my hand , my voice, my body language.....etc...
I guarantee you don't need a switch to be abusive.
I also guarantee that not everyone who uses a switch, or wooden spoon or belt IS abusive.
At least by my definition.
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The hand is right there. You said before you've spanked when your son was about to do something dangerous. Run into the street was it? You didn't say, "Wait here," go grab a switch from the tree, and start hitting him. That's an elapsed time between the action and the correction. It can create confusion for the child in what they did wrong. But far worse than that, it ritualizes the disciplinary action and makes it a grand event. It no longer becomes a correction of behavior. It turns the kid into a defective child-- he's no longer just a child who didn't know not to run into the street or who didn't fully grasp the importance of the rule his parents laid down for him for his own safety. Getting a whip of some type is in reaction to the child and not his action. It makes HIM out to be the problem.
It may just be psychological, sure, but that's all a part of the permanent mental and emotional damage that can happen to children when you go way overboard on disciplinary methods.
That's the kind of stuff that shows up VERY CLEARLY in all of the research done on excessive corporal punishment used on children. You don't have to be a parent to understand it or have an opinion on it, either. It's not a liberal conspiracy, and it's not a quack convention of people who think they're too smart for their own good. They make no money or profit from these studies.
I get that I'm still going off of shit somebody else says, but it's better than the alternative argument for someone in my position without kids, which is, "Wait until you have kids who are a real handful. You'll change your mind, then!" That's more anecdotal crap, similar to "I'm glad my parents beat the shit out of me, because I feel like a totally better person for it!" You feel okay, but there are thousands of other people who don't. That argument (which I'm not attributing to you) is just like saying, "Well, my mom smoked when she was pregnant with me, and I came out with no ill health effects. Therefore I won't fault any pregnant women at all if they are smokers and just gotta have their cigarettes during those 9 months."