Uechi-Ryu.com

Perhaps I should clarify something here:
Definitely I agree with Bill Glasheen in that there needs to be a sort of "pyramid of escalation."
So I am not advocating using physical discipline as anything but a last resort.
Think of it as sort of a "Strategic Nuclear Strike"
the derriere should be the target.Think of it as a last resort, a sort of "Trump card" if you will.

Meta: "I'll see your tongue sticking out behind my back with a firm, raised voice.
Child:I'll raise your firm, raised voice with a classic eye roll.
Meta: Ok, I'll see your classic eye roll with a...Ker-BLAMO!!!


TIP: Glancing horizontal flat strikes over the head of your little Hellion will be almost painless, but HUGE in the "shock and awe" Dept.

As MikeK mentioned, Often just the counting works like magic.

I'd like to mention that while I prefer NOT spanking my child 99.999% out of all the times when she is being a miniature jackass, It's that THREAT that allows me control.
And Indeed, it is about control.
In fact the law requires it.
I am not my child's "buddy", or group therapy partner.
I am her father.
It is my primary job to teach her how to survive in this world.
I give her life, love, a home, warmth, wisdom, food, clothes, opportunity, nurturing, play, and copious amounts of hugs and cuddles.

For this, I demand respect, and nothing less.
(The wife, on the other hand is a different matter altogether)


I also demand my child try her best in all things, and if she has done so, even in failure she obtains victory.
I demand she conduct herself with honor and truthfulness,
is polite and kind to others, and represents our family name when at home and in public.

I don't have time to learn how to be a psychologist.
Physiologists *may* have such a privileged luxury, but I think for most of us, between parents daily work and our kids homework, cooking, cleaning, pets and MA, sometimes I think we are lucky to see our kids at all.

~And I am still skeptical of most psychology as a whole anyway. I'm not dismissing that it has any merit, It just seems to me that what is "The current and proper method" today, is soon debunked tomorrow.

I wonder,
If all of American child psychologists are right, then how is it that other countries have not socially imploded by now given that most of them follow "old school" parenting techniques?,

And yet after all this,
It still rips my heart out during those rare times when I feel the situation has escalated to a spanking.



Ugh... I can't argue here. This is too true a point.
No fair!
No Fair!
Guilt trip!
Guilt trip!


But on that point, ..and I really have no answer other than to say I hope my child will understand my motivations came from pure love and an unselfish parent's desire for her to be happy, healthy and successful in life, rather than anything else.

_________________
There's a bit of Metablade in all of us.

The difference is that my wife hits back....
....HARD



Seriously,
One difference may be that I can walk away (Divorce, break-up) from a significant other if they have enough behaviors that I cannot tolerate.

But I cannot walk away from my child.
A wife may only be a wife as long as the courts agree it is so.
A child is your child for life.
Also, as much as people may not want to admit it, raising a child is a lot like raising a dog.
"Training" is definitely involved.
I need not behaviorally "train" my wife..(Though I think she doesn't share my view when the thought is reversed)
She is already fully grown and matured.
A child is not a fully formed adult.
But you still have a valid point.
There are those who do not or cannot see a division in relationships that way.

_________________
There's a bit of Metablade in all of us.

Yup, different options between adults that you don't have with kids. Kids aren't little adults, they are kids. They don't think like adults and tend to follow different social rules than adults. One thing that I've noticed from playing with my boys for the last 9 - 12 years is that you can gain their respect by being physical. A good old game of football or ganging up on dad can establish who rules the roost without anybody getting hurt or being negative. I've used gentle controlling techniques when wrestling with them and it makes the point of who is in control with everyone still laughing.

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I was dreaming of the past...

Good points made here that I would have made last night if I wasn't still banned from the forums in my home account.

AHEM...

But I am glad they were made.

What I was going to say last night is that it is a BIG mistake equating a parental relationship with a spousal or peer relationship. Where someone I know but won't mention fails is that she tries to be "friends" with her children. You cannot love and adore your kids enough. You can never spoil them with too much affection. But you are their parent first. If they choose to hate you when suffering from the disease commonly known as adolescence, so be it. You still have parental duties to perform, and you cannot let them emotionally blackmail you.

It's like assuming work is a democracy. It most definitely is not. You do what you are told or there are consequences.

Mike makes a good point about display of physicality. It's a lot of what I do, and I learned it from my sister.

My oldest sister is 100 pounds in wet clothing. And yet she could rule a roost of 200 pound Great Danes. How did she do it? It started as puppies when she would be "physical" with them. Like the little elephant on the chain, they learn as children that you are alpha. When they get older and can break from that chain, they generally will not.

My oldest sister (and I) also learned very devious methods of "corporal punishment." For one of my dogs, just the sound of a camera flash charging its battery would put terror in her heart. When she was being really bad, out came the camera flash. (She was terrified of flashes because it reminded her of thunderstorms). Whatever works.. My oldest sister and I both found that some dogs hate water. Sometimes a squirt gun would shut up one of her mouthy Danes. In any case, she and I both learned to be able to make our Danes pi$$ the floor (literally) with nothing more than a look. After a while, attitude rules. When they grow up, if you have trained them to respect others and respect your authority, no corporal punishment is needed. But that starts very early.

Other points worth making:

1) Every child (and every dog) is different. What works on one (even in the same family or dog litter) will not work on the other. One child may be a saint, and the next the devil reincarnated.

2) Two or three children are different than one. Children in the presence of an uncooperative mate are much harder to handle than children with a cooperative mate or just you and the children.

3) At the end of the day, you must learn to do what makes YOU comfortable. It is YOUR relationship with your children, and YOU create the expectations. Within the limits of the law, it's YOUR business how you want to raise your children.

But that doesn't mean that several dozen people won't offer their expert opinions along the way - particularly when you least want it. And it doesn't mean you won't get better at it over time.

- Bill

Oh and on the parental thing you are thinking about, it's about bloody time!!

I'm very excited for the both of you. I expect an invitation to the baby shower.

- Bill

None. But we aren't talking about "hitting" our children; we are talking about spanking them. A spouse/partner who hits their significant other does not do so to gain control (although this is what they may think they are trying to accomplish); they are doing it out of anger/rage. A parent spanking a child should, ideally, do it not out of anger, but for the sake of disipline when words alone fail.


Bill- I love the dog analogy. I am constantly amazed when friends of mine (who are 2-legged parents, but not 4-legged) tell me how strange it seems that my dogs respond positively to the same parenting methods they use on their children. Kinda bizarre on the surface, but many dogs function at least a 2 year old child's mental and emotional level.

Has anyone else here watched a bitch raise her pups during their first few weeks of life? Interesting seeing the force continuim in effect in mother nature. A puppy does something mom doesn't particularly like and she makes some sounds. If the puppy continues mom may issue a little growl or bark. After then mom may physically try to stop unwanted behavior with nudging or grabbing the scruff of the neck. If all else fails, however, mama dog will nip her puppy's little behind (behind is figurative here; its really any part of the body that gets the puppy's attention).

cheers,

chewy

Thanks Bill. We'll let you know.


So...here's the thing I still get hung up on...
Basically when you use spanking or slapping of another body part you're setting up the concept that when cognitive and emotional management strategies break down - then way to get what you want is to use physical strategies.

Because in the end - disciplining our children is, for the most part, getting an outcome we desire. Now that's not a bad thing most of the time. Because we desire our children to be competent and functional members of society.

But we can't expect our children to stand up for themselves with their peer group and roll over for us as parents. Particularly when they reach adolescence.

So if you are going to use spanking or slapping, is there an age at which you shoud taper off? I've seen a teenager spanked in front of their peers. It wasn't pretty. For anyone.

Because in the end when I'm raising my child I'm raising my grandchildren and great grandchildren etc. So how would I like the world to be in the future. If I want that world to include peaceful resolutions that don't use force to get the job done...it sure makes sense to start that at home.

I'm not saying this is easy. I'm just trying to understand if we don't drive our grandparents' best designed cars or use our grandparents' best educational or medical practices, then why we are still using our grandparents' formula for discipline?

And of course the old methods work. Classical conditioning will always work. We are, in the end, animals. We seek pleasure and avoid pain. But is it the best way?

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

Whoa slow down Dana, Most of us parents are just too busy trying to make it through the week to worry about the world of the future. Perspective changes trying to cope with the first exploding diaper.

Yes. Recently one of my kids was being bullied so he used a physical stategy to get the bully to back off. Situation between them was solved and I am proud of how he handled it. Physical strategies are a good thing in certain situations where cognitive and emotional managent strategies don't work.

Yes we can. We're not training children to be push overs but are training them in what we believe is important. Hopefully by the time they reach adolescence they have enough respect for our judgement and fear of what we will do to them to not do anything too stupid. My dad's father and son talk with me was this, "You do drugs, get drunk, get a girl pregnant or get arrested and I will kill you." Guess what I didn't do during my adolescence. My respect and fear of my father kept me out of mucho trouble and allowed me to help friends who were doing those other things. Thanks Dad.

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I was dreaming of the past...

Guess what my fortune cookie said tonight. tee hee.



So I hope you'll all check this thread again in 10-15 years and I'll let you know how I turn out.

I seem to have an extra dose of idealism running through my veins.

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

I had that too Dana but kids can take care of that. Right now I'm looking at a picture of my first born at 4-6 months sitting on my shoulders. I still remember thinking "The world is mine" as my wife snapped the picture. Reality hit when he spit up on my head and down the back of my neck.

Raising kids is a balancing act and no matter how many books you read kids manage to come up with something new. One moment you look at them and see all their potential, the next they're overflowing the bathtub. You learn to focus on the potential and move past the overflows. It's a wonderful ride.

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I was dreaming of the past...

I think its our job as parents (or one of them anyway) to help teach our kids the consequences of their actions - to help them get ready to "launch" into the real world and to thrive in it. That means carefully explaining the consequences of their actions and giving them positive and negative feedback to help them understand the life lesson and build good habits.

When a child is old enough to reason, I find you don't really need to resort to physical force. Time outs and taking away privileges will do the job nicely. When a child is too young to reason, its tougher. For really bad things, they need immediate feedback - and consequences they'll remember. Run across the street without dad - well that's life threatening, you're likely going to get a smack on the bum to help you remember that you don't like what happens when you do that.

I've reserved spankings for life threatening behaviour (running across the street, playing with fire, tying rope around your neck, playing with electricity etc....) and for extreme defiance. I can't remember that last time I had to spank my 8 year old. Its been years. Actually, I think its been quite a while for my 5 year old too. They're thoughtful and respectful kids. (We're respectful of them too). The 3 year old is not quite there yet...

One thing is for sure, my kids are getting spanked a whole lot less (and less harshly) than I was. My dad was "old Europe" style. I remember the last time I ever got spanked. It was my mom, she took a wooden spoon and started beating me on my rear. The wooden spoon broke and I started laughing. We both had a good laugh and that was the last spanking. (I reached the age of reason later than my kids )

Parenting is tough - but I wouldn't trade it for anything!
Cheers!
Rob

Very nice post, Rob. I concur 100%.

Dana, I'd love for you to have "A day in the life of..." I'd love for you to see when number 1 son and number 2 son are having a very bad day. I'd like you to experience two smart, not entirely mature, energetic, sometimes selfish boys having a disagreement - particularly when they think you aren't there watching.

It was so bad one time that I brought number 1 son and number 2 son into karate one day. Through quite a bit of cajoling, I had number 2 son lift his shirt to show the entire karate class - a class who knew number 1 son - see what the older one had done to him. You could see the welts. You could see a clear hand print on the back, and the size of it was pretty damning. Then I pointed to the biggest guy in the class, and told my older son "Today you will do kotekitae with him." It was sobering...

To say that my older brother punched me more than a thousand times when I was growing up would not be an understatement. Today if you hit me in the deltoid, you'll likely break your fist.

Children will experience physical resolutions in their lives. If we are lucky, we teach them better ways to resolve issues. If we are attentive and have the means, we can put them in environments where they can escape the worst of it and improve the odds that they will live a pretty decent life. But the truth of the matter is that physical confrontations for kids is a reality.

That's one big reason why man invented sports!

- Bill

Absolutely physical confrontations will occur.

I'm just still not sure that there shouldn't be some very clear lines between teaching physical confrontations and discipline.

Bill I grew up with an older brother. He was pretty good then and is a wonderful husband and father now. (A yondan in shorin-ryu to boot.)

However we still had our scuffles - hits, pinches, rug burns from wrestling. The year he joined the wrestling team his freshman year of high school my life took a turn for the worse.

I guess it is a line in my head between using physical to keep yourself safe and using physical at other times.

We are still critters and we will always be physical...and I still muse about what it does to your lens of the world when you're hit to learn what is right.

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

Dana,

Like many here have stated, the lesson your children learn depend greatly upon how and when you use a given punishment. If a parent's solution to everything a child does wrong is to hit them, then that child is definitely being set up for life long mental and emotional scarring; not to mention the possibility that it increases the chances that the child will marry and abuser and/or become an abuser.

On the other hand if you teach peaceful conflict resolution, fairness in your actions (including punishment), and physical discipline as a last resort I don't think the child will be taught any damaging lessons. They are taught that when mom or dad have a problem with someone, they first try to talk it through. They offer up and expect apologies when they are wrong or are wronged, respectively.

If this level of problem resolution doesn't work, then mom and dad start eliminating privilages. The lesson being, for every "right" or privilage you think you have, you also have a responsibily to your friends, family, and society not to abuse those rights/privilages or violate the rules/laws of the house/society. "If you do the crime you do the time."

Finally, when one refuses the accept responsibility for the wrongs they have done, there are ever increasingly tough consequences to face. Up to and including physical discomfort. The lesson? Things will only get worse for you if you refuse to accept responsibility for your actions. In the home this means longer groudings, lost privilages, manual labor, and possibly spanking. In the real world it means warrents for your arrest, prison, or even death.

I don't know of anyone who as been appropriately spanked as a child who suffered emotionaly scarring as an adult. But there is a very fine line between abuse and physical discipline and you have good reason to be concerned with it. Its the people who worry about these things who often make good parents.


cheers,

steve