| User | cabbalistic |
| Topic | Abuse? |
| Message | Okay, the debate forum is getting a bit stale.
So…my question is: Who here thinks spanking your children should be made illegal? While there are about a million and one other way more important things that cause concern to normal people (say…starvation, molestation, education, war) when it comes to the well-being of children, the UN considers this issue important enough to pursue it as part of the UN convention on the rights of the child. This is not just about whether spanking your child to punish him/her is an effective disciplinary tool. It’s also about whether it should be BANNED, criminalizing well-meaning parents, who are anything but abusive, in the process. I’m still ambivalent over whether spanking is one of the answers to bad behavior. Younger kids don’t have the cognitive development that would enable an adult to reason with them and sometimes the sting of a smack on the bottom does bring immediate and long-lasting results On the other hand, I’ve seen kids who are spanked by their parents think it’s alright for them to hit their younger siblings in the same way, to ‘punish’ them. And before anyone wastes their time going on about how ‘cruel’ it is to hit a kid: Spanking is not the same as belting, whipping etc. Anyone who associates it with child abuse is an idiot. To people here who actually have kids: I think it would be great to have input from parents. Does spanking work? Does it do more harm than good? Should it be banned? How else do you discipline your children? Time-outs and grounding? |
|| Replies ||
| User | dismentled | 2007-02-14 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | I agree, but most people with shitty parents are whack jobs! But that doesn’t mean there unnable to be decent, or at least better parents themselves. |
| User | MyX | 2007-02-13 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | dont let it get to yer head =)
myx |
| User | mae | 2007-02-13 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Why thank you, MyX! mae |
| User | MyX | 2007-02-13 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | children with shitty parents can grow into magnificent people
myx |
| User | mae | 2007-02-13 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | The fact that you are extremely different also shows the impact of your relationship with them, dismentled. My parents were abusive as well, and I purposely raised my children differently than I was raised. I suspect that is the case for you as well. mae |
| User | dismentled | 2007-02-13 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | alright. Well my professor puts it pretty simply. A crappy adult will raise a crappy child, if you’re a good adult at least you have a fighting chance. I can’t really argue what you said, cause basically what you’re saying is that one way or another despite your relationship/upbringing with your parents it’ll someway somehow impact you raising your child. I am VERY much unlike my parents, both sets. What I want for my child, and how I’m going about it are BOTH extremely different than that of my parents. Remember though, just because someone forgives, doesn’t mean they forget. |
| User | mae | 2007-02-12 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | NO! I definitely did NOT say you would wind up just like them. I said your relationship with your parents will color your relationship with your own child, whether the original relationship was good or bad - or indifferent. The better your relationship with your parents - or the more you have forgiven them for their mistakes or bad choices - the better you’ll do with your own child. Perhaps I should say, it will probably be easier. Of course, there are no guarantees where relationships are concerned, but we do learn to parent from our parents. Depending on our personality, we also learn how NOT to parent from our parents.
The fact is - and it is supported by studies - a poor upbringing is a major hurdle in life. (And I don’t mean ’poor’ as in poverty. I mean ’poor’ as in not done well.) mae |
| User | MyX | 2007-02-12 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Are you saying that people who hate their parents will end up just like them?
Noooo....you’re too smart for that. I must be misunderstanding you again. MyX |
| User | mae | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | dismentled, you know your life with your parents. I do not. And I’m not trying to say that your assessment was wrong. But your bitterness and anger toward your own parents will color your relationship with your child, whether you want it to or not. What purpose does hanging onto it do? That’s the thing about anger or bitterness. Holding onto it, even nurturing it, never hurts those with whom you are angry or toward whom you are bitter. It only affects your own heart and those with whom you associate now.
I know the feelings of frustration, anger, pain and hopelessness that come from being the child of abusive parents. I also know the prison that those feelings create if they aren’t dealt with. I lived in it for years. Freedom from them only came when I learned to forgive them. It was perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it was the best. mae |
| User | Dark Romeo89 | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | that was good
i agree i have a good relationship with my parrents well my mom and my step dad i havent talked to my real dad in months but i have seen all three of my sisters so thats fine with me my grandfather beat the shit out of my mom with his fist until he simply could not do it anymore my mom was a bad ass so she treated me a hell of alot better sometimes i deserved the belt and thats the only time she used it mostly about grades |
| User | dismentled | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Well Mae, I’m not surprised my answers are/were bitter my relationship with my parents as it is now only exhists so I can have one with my siblings. What was there job? Well I’ll answer that in saying what my job as a father is, now that I’m in the shoes. And that’s to give my son the best opportunity at a "good" life. And by that I mean happy, and content with whatever it is he chooses to become. I rather him be a happy/content gas station attendent, than a miserable doctor. It’s not my job to try and force him to believe certain things, such as polotical/religious views as it is more my job to teach him to be open-minded without being naive so that he can make the best choices. To show him his own potential, and allow him to create his own identity without restrictions(less it hurts him or others), due to prejudice and/or close-mindedness.
As it is now, I’ve looked over my childhood plenty of times, and the biggest mistakes I made was being naive and gulable. As it is, on many accords my parents were/are still wrong. They taught me to stand up for myself, but always punished me for when I did so against them, they taught me that family came first but did so at my expense, by removing me from traditional schooling so I could act as a full-time baby-sitter and maid. They tried to constrict my thinking, and punished me when I thought otherwise. If I saw anything other than exactly how they saw it, I was defiant. Maybe, just maybe if they allowed me to feel more like a human and actaully encouraged human contact, more than a problematic bitch userful only to their disposal, than maybe I would have actaully listened more. But does it make any sense to listen to those who abuse you, those you loathe and dispise? Cause it doesn’t to me! I wanted to be as much unlike them as possible, so why would I have listened? To do so would bring me one step closer to them. All I want for my child is for him to be happy in this life. Gay or straight, kids or no kids, republican or democrat, I LOVE my child, and for him to be happy and healthy, and to help him achieve the best he can are my dutites as a father, not to hold him down and criticise him for wanting to be different. To me happiness matters more than money, possesions, sucess, etc. If you’re not happy, than really, what’s the point? |
| User | mae | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | listen to them blab on about what they felt was "right" and "wrong".
dismentled, while I agree that lecturing doesn’t work particularly well, your comments about your parents leave me wondering what you viewed their "job" to be. Whose standards were they supposed to teach you if not their own? What should they have wanted for you if not for you to grow into the kind of person they would have liked to be. Perhaps their methods were flawed - and they probably were - but your posts seem to hold a bitterness beyond that for just their methods of punishment. If you didn’t respond to spanking, beating, lecturing, what would you have responded to? If ’talking back’ was one of your biggest ’problems’ - and actually, from knowing you just a bit, I believe that completely!! 8>) - why do you think the actual problem was theirs and not perhaps yours in the way you put things? I’m not saying that’s for sure the way it was because I wasn’t there, and I’m not saying their reaction was appropriate. Just that maybe the fault lies in more than one direction. I mean, you’re an adult now. Shouldn’t you also be looking at what mistakes you’ve made in the past? First, so you don’t continue to make them, but also to help you understand your own child, as well as perhaps understand your parents a little. Maybe even understand yourself a little better. Just a thought, dismentled. Your comments sounded really bitter to me. mae |
| User | dismentled | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | LOL, yeah, I’m sure I wasn’t always "fun in the sun" as a teenager. But to me the worse treatment was/were the lectures, oh my god, I rahter beat myself with the freakin’ belt than listen to them blab on about what they felt was "right" and "wrong". as for them they both got the shyt beat outta them when they were kids, though that didn’t work for them either, so all the more reason to question why they think it would work on me. I hate spanking my child, and it is a LAST resort, not first or second, or anywhere close, besides he’s too much like me for it to work. |
| User | cabbalistic | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | I’m really sorry your parents were so strict. Not tucking your shirt in or talking back doesn’t deserve such harsh treatment. You were a good, regular kid....Your parents were probably brought up in the same way and thought they were doing you good.
’Talking back’ and ’talking in class’ was something I specialized in as well. Teachers would complain to my parents and even said that I would probably be suspended if it weren’t for my academic performance! Weird huh? My mum (the main disciplinarian in the house) didn’t punish me for it though, I just got a very polite talking to (which was worse for me because I didn’t like to see her upset because of me). It worked....for a while anyway.:) Then the school counselor told the teachers I had a er...’boredom’ issue and they upped some of my classes...that worked too. But not for long haha! I don’t understand why some parents will immediately go for physical punishment. More often than not there is an underlying cause for all sorts of acting out. If school had suspended me, or my parents had hit me for it, I would probably have become much worse just rebel...teens suck:). |
| User | dismentled | 2007-01-29 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | You know I really have no problem with you asking, but I don’t remember; most of the time I was punished for what I still consider bs things, like not tucking in my shirt when I went out, and for the most part "talking back" that was my speciality, I’ve always taken consequences over conformity, if it ment that I was gonn aget hit with a belt because I said what I truelly felt, than so be it, my parents still to this day know no way of punishing me, though the worst thing I really did, was try and be myself without there stipulations. I never skipped school, or hurt anyone, or anything like that, I just wasn’t(and still am not, thnak god) what they want/ed. |
| User | cabbalistic | 2007-01-28 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | I’m sorry you were hit by your grandpa. :( No child should ever have to fear being injured, especially by a guardian.
Some people are just %^&U*& |
| User | Dark Romeo89 | 2007-01-28 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | i dont know any school that doesent use a paddle other than the private schools
a switch is what pissed me off i will never hit a child with a switch it leaves welps its worse than a clouth hanger my grandfother used one on me too many times |
| User | cabbalistic | 2007-01-28 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Hitting your kids with a belt, hanger is insane. Overkill, really.
I agree with dismentled, no one but parents should have the right to discipline kids with a spanking. But NO ONE should be allowed to beat kids up, which is what you’re doing with a belt. Dismentled, do you mind if I ask what your parents thought deserved a belt? I can’t imagine ever hitting a kid ...mine or someone else’s...with a belt. ouch. |
| User | dismentled | 2007-01-28 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Anybody but me, or his mother touches my kid is gonna have a big fuckin’ problem on their hands! Spanking should be up to the parents. And using items like the belt didn’t work on me, it only pissed me off and convinced me to get better at hiding w/e it was that caused it, until I was big enough that I didn’t take it period, and just blocked them from smacking me, or hitting me; for "reason" or not. It’s instinct, to not allow another being to hurt you. |
| User | mae | 2007-01-28 | |
| Subject | untitled |
| Message | Many schools used to, but I doubt if you could find one that does that these days. mae |