• LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Is it OK to spank a child?

Do adults make mistakes? Do we get "smacked" ? Why do so many of you think spanking or hitting will help a kid learn

Some adults have the same issue, I'd gladly smack around some asshole. You don't punish the kid if they made an honest mistake, but I think it is fine to spank a kid that is purposefully acting out and being disrespectful. They learn manners this way, a lot of adults seem to not know what fighting words are and they think disrespecting others is okay and the reason is because they didn't learn what results from these actions.
 
Wow I had to clean-up about half of this thread :D
We're in SO now so keep it above-board folks ;)


I only ever had a couple of spankings, and they were all with plenty of warning and explanation of exactly why I was receiving the punishment. They were very effective in that I clearly understood what I had done wrong and what I was not to do again.

I think if the discipline is fueled by extreme anger or aggression or accompanied with substance use, it is very very wrong. If physical discipline is administered in an appropriate and very controlled manner, it can be effective.

But it should be the absolute LAST resort, and ONLY if you can do it properly.

The problem with saying that is most people can't do it properly.

One of the problems with physical discipline is that MOST parents don't know how to dish it out effectively, and if they use it at all, they tend to rely on it too heavily. The other huge problem with physical discipline is that a lot of the time it is administered while the parent is drunk or high, which can easily result in the discipline being way too harsh or heavy-handed, without the parent even realising.

So to play it safe, I think it's best if we just say collectively that NO it is not okay to physically discipline your child. There are other much more effective ways of disciplining your child, and I recall hearing in a psychology lecture that many studies have shown that physical punishment typically doesn't have a lasting effect on the child's learning anyway.
 
^+ a million! EXCEPT I think spanking is totally okay.

I will definitely say that some kids never need to be spanked, and spanking is definitely a last resort or something to pull out for extreme circumstances like the one I will mention shortly. Some kids, however, absolutely need it. I got swatted probly around 10 times that I can remember at most, and it sure as shit got me to stop doing the stupid shit I was doing (ran out into the street when I was 3 and totally knew better, shit like that...). It was always in the context of a thorough explanation of what I did wrong after the fact and so on and so forth, so it was extremely effective for me. I was a wise-ass of a kid, too smart for my own good kinda thing, so sometimes I needed that little whack to get the picture because otherwise my mouth would run... :D
 
the only time i believe that spanking is effective is when the child is too young for verbal communication. the pops on the mouth with verbal disobedience, the pops on the bottom to get their attention for other acts...but even then, it is not a pain manipulation, but an attention getter.

it has worked for me, but i don't judge others who decide differently. there is nothing more difficult than being a parent, you are always wanting to produce the most sane, emotionally healthy and happy child. you are constantly worried about every action from you and that child...if a kid goes down a bad path and you don't know what else to do...i won't judge someone for going with corporal punishment. nothing annoys me more than holier than thou people who think they could do better. i don't mind spanking themno matter what their age.
 
To get the attention of a kid regarding the danger of reaching towards a stove burner or drinking bleach a good swat makes sense to me. Too often when corporal punishment is a primary tool, the main lesson learned ends up being along the lines of might makes right. That can get pretty ugly when they end up a foot taller than you and more physically fit.

One of many good reasons I'm not a parent is that I believe over all discipline needs to be fairly consistent and and comprehensible. To spite my best efforts I think I'd end up arbitrary and too emotional. Kids don't end up rotten very often through no discipline imo, but because of senseless and vacillating discipline.
 
it kind of worries me how many people have been hit by their parents...what about soft power and using your words?

Sometimes kids cant listen to words. When you got a kid who is in the store screamin her ass off aint no "time out" gonna stop that shit. Sometimes kids just need a damn smack. i aint sayin its the only way to discipline a kid. i dont think nobody is sayin it is. it aint some shit for all the time or the first thing you go to , to deal with your kid. but sometimes its necessary. I got smacked all the time as a kid and i deserved it everytime. And once you learn sometimes you aint even need to get smacked. Sometimes its enough to say "just wait til your daddy gets home...."

It dont hurt kids to give em some regular spankin when they need it. We aint talkin about whuppin nobodys ass but a well placed smack when its really needed, that shit is just part of the whole "tool kit" of raisin your kid. I dont see nothin wrong with it.

Honestly, i think people dont spank their kids enough these days. so many lil bad ass kids runnin around who act like the damn tazmanian devil and their parents dont do shit. or they just say "No! no! i told you no! No!" and dont do shit about it when the kid keeps goin crazy and dont listen at all.

Or the "time out"....haaa....give me a break...

I aint tryna criticize other people parenting ideas, but I cant help but say whoever said that they give ONE MINUTE of "time out" for each year of the childs age just made me laugh out loud. oh wow....six minutes of time out, that is really a threat to put the fear into ya.

I aint in support of abusin kids. I aint about fuckin with them psychologically and doin fucked up shit to them to torture them and make them fear you or nothin like that. But its just as damaging to let em walk all over you and do watever the fuck they want and give them weak-ass lame excuses for punishment that are just a joke and dont really do nothin to discipline the kid.


Also, marissaa...Spanking aint sexual by default. thats just silly. Do u think its better to hit a kid in the face? for a little kid smackin them on the ass aint no type of sexual thing. Just becuz its also a sexual thing for adults dont mean they are the same, and kids dont percieve it that way. u said that u got spanked and now u like gettin spanked during sex--so wat? That dont mean nothin, who cares, it aint like theres something wrong with liking that. i dont think that its some kind of negative sexual consequence or nothin like that.

A butt aint sexual in a young child, especially when its a parent smackin them. trust me on that. I think alot of people who aint had kids or younger brothers/sisters or been around/helped to raise kids before think that certain shit is "weird" or kind of sexual when it really aint at all and is totally normal but is just part of raising a kid. For example taking a bath with your kid or some shit like that when they are a little baby. that aint weird or nothing, and some people get freaked out by the slightest thing that would be sexual if 2 adults did it. i think that this is a exampe of that....smackin your kid on the ass aint sexual in the least, and just becuz the ass is a part of the body that is sexual later on in life, dont mean that its sexual in a young kid, u feel me?

anyways....TLDR version is people dont smack their kids enough, sometimes a kid deserves it and thats just the way it is, and aint nothing wrong with it as long as u dont rely on it as your only way of keepin ur kid in control.
 
Hell yeah its alright man, wtf...? If discepline is needed then spank that ass, and make sure to wet it before hand. You must have never heard the saying; spare the rod, spoil the child.


Edit: also gotta make sure there's no hypocrisy by the parents though.
 
wetting your hand before you spank your child is bordering on physical abuse.

lacey: while i respect your opinion, there are ways to command respect from your children without spanking them.

as far as popping a child for screaming, there are ways early on to teach and guide your child into learning appropriate ways to communicate. our friends recently had their first baby and i was so impressed that now that he's at talking age, they are teaching him to say "help" instead of crying and screaming and acting out. how powerful is that? that is something that will benefit him his entire life.
 
our friends recently had their first baby and i was so impressed that now that he's at talking age, they are teaching him to say "help" instead of crying and screaming and acting out. how powerful is that? that is something that will benefit him his entire life.

I absolutely love that! <3
 
Hell yeah its alright man, wtf...? If discepline is needed then spank that ass, and make sure to wet it before hand. You must have never heard the saying; spare the rod, spoil the child.


Edit: also gotta make sure there's no hypocrisy by the parents though.

This attitude scares the living daylights out of me :(
 
mannn im puertorican i got beat da shit out of since young so yea my parents put in mad werk. I TURNED OUT FINE GO FOR IT.. fuckers these day are out of hand cause there parents dont go in, shit my kid act up
[I know you're joking but this is a bit over the top - n3o] a lil roughness aint bad granted its called for. they fuck up they get it, but if u mad ur tight the giants aint win n u take it out on jr, u my friend are a bad parent.. Now say jr breaks the flat screen ur watchin the giants on.... dat kid gettin beat! n grounded for months..
[Beating children does not make them better people, please do not insinuate this - n3o]
I remember my dad used to put tabasco sauce in my mouth when i was yung and did bad shit.. fast forward a bit and Im addicted to anything spicy! backfired on his ass didnt it lol
 
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^^ There are so many things that you said that I wholeheartedly disagree with.

But each to their own.

Just make sure you discipline your children fairly and justly. Don't just beat your kids senseless just because your dad did it to you. That's not reason enough to dish out physical discipline. Use your brain and think about the potential damaging consequences it could have on the child (this is not just aimed at you Beef, but anyone who wants to physically discipline their child)
 
mannn im puertorican i got beat da shit out of since young so yea my parents put in mad werk. I TURNED OUT FINE GO FOR IT.. fuckers these day are out of hand cause there parents dont go in, shit my kid act up
[I know you're joking but this is a bit over the top - n3o] a lil roughness aint bad granted its called for. they fuck up they get it, but if u mad ur tight the giants aint win n u take it out on jr, u my friend are a bad parent.. Now say jr breaks the flat screen ur watchin the giants on.... dat kid gettin beat! n grounded for months..
[Beating children does not make them better people, please do not insinuate this - n3o]
I remember my dad used to put tabasco sauce in my mouth when i was yung and did bad shit.. fast forward a bit and Im addicted to anything spicy! backfired on his ass didnt it lol

Wow. Just WOW.

I read an article on a website called "People You'll See In Hell" (it's a site devoted to brining to light monsters in this world and to make people aware that horrific abuse occurs everyday. It also gives updates on court cases, etc. Anyway, I was reading about one case of horrible child abuse - which included pouring Tabasco into the child's mouth, making the child eat habanero chilis. It also included abuse that i'm hesitant to repeat here - needless to say, the child died due to the sustained, long-term abuse.

You DO NOT force a child to eat Tabasco sauce. That is cruel and unusual punishment. Plain and simple. My heart goes out to you that you had to experience this. :(

I think I might be best bowing out of this thread, and not coming back. I have worked in the area of Child Protection and have first hand experience with the horrors some of the children of this world have to face daily. It's a very sensitive issue and i don't want to get worked up over some of the opinions posted in this thread.

<3
 
I absolutely love that! <3

isn't it awesome? when they told me that, i was just so impressed. it really stuck with me. i think about how many adults i know including myself have difficulty communicating what they want or asking for help.

they also taught him sign language really early on so that instead of crying, he could ask for what he wanted. :)

I think I might be best bowing out of this thread, and not coming back. I have worked in the area of Child Protection and have first hand experience with the horrors some of the children of this world have to face daily. It's a very sensitive issue and i don't want to get worked up over some of the opinions posted in this thread.

<3

seriously. some of the posts and opinions in here are really... unfortunate.

i can't help but think spanking or hitting your child is lazy parenting. instead of communicating, understanding and taking the time to resolve the issue, which could simply be miscommunication or an honest accident, some parents resort to the easiest, quickest form of discipline: physically lashing out. redirection and time-outs can be very effective.

with that said, and though i'm super anti-spanking, i do worry about how i'd react if my three year-old did something to endanger themselves like running into a busy street. at that age, they don't understand they could get hurt and since at that age it's all fun and games, other than a swat, i'm not sure what else would get their attention. (i suppose you could always prevent this from happening by getting one of those god awful child leashes. :D)
 
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^Your last paragraph here is what speaks volumes for me. (And omg those leash things are just so hilariously wrong...) As I mentioned earlier, one of the spankings I clearly remember is after I ran out into the street at about age 3. My neighbor was babysitting me while my mom was at work, and when my mom came to pick me up our neighbor was in tears like "OMG! I spanked your daughter! AHHH!" freaking out and shit. My mom was totally cool with it, and I never ran into the street again.

I can't help but think that lots of you have never dealt with children on a long term basis... That's all I can really say. Many of you have some hopelessly idealistic notions (specifically coming to mind is people thinking that a 2 year old can have a rational discussion with you about their behavior or even understand why something they did was wrong or dangerous). I've helped raise about 25 of them (huge family, long stint as a nanny, and babysitting for many different families), and I can tell you without question which parents had good strategies for discipline and which didn't, and for the record, the good ones OFTEN, but NOT always, included corporal punishment in some form.

SOME children never need to be spanked. SOME children do. Different kids respond best to different strategies, and to rule something out completely for no good reason seems silly to me (a swat on the butt is NOT damaging; screaming at a child is worse imo...). End of story as far as I've experienced.

And I've never laid a hand on a child.
 
Man, I dont know why yall are so bugged out by BeefNBrokly post. I missed the edited shit so IDK wat was in it before but the way it looks now aint got nothing wrong in it as far as im concerned. I think its prob a hood thing vs a middle upper class thing.....Lot of white upper class parents are all about the "time out" shit and all that, or "nicely" explaining to a kid the shit they did wrong and pleasantly asking them to please, if they dont mind, if aint too much trouble to them, to not do that.

when u raised around the type of spankin and smackin stuff like that, when everybodys parent did it and its just how it goes, then u dont see it as such a horriffic thing.

Dont get me wrong i aint sayin beat your kids like beat-beat them...But sometimes kids do need a smack. I aint with all this pussy wishy-washy shit that parents do nowadays. kid is havin a fucking tantrum to end the world in the middle of the grocery store and the parent just stands there ignorin them, or nicely ASKING them to PLEASE be quiet. That shit makes me laugh, you are the PARENT.....you dont just let them do WTFever they want.

I aint sayin, "OH, you the PARENT, so whup that ass cuz you the bosss and you can do watever you want!"

The idea aint to be a bully or to abuse the fact that you bigger and stronger. of course you love your kid and you dont want to harm them or do shit that will be permanently hurtful. but seriously kids need to learn some damn respect, and i see SOOOO many kids these days that coulda REALLY benefit from a good smackin now and then as a kid. I forget who in here said that "not disciplining kids at all rarely leads to any real problems" and im sayin wat the FUCK?? Are you serious? The fuck outta here it dont lead to problems, thats one of the worse things you can do to a kid is not give em no discipline. I aint sayin you should be over harsh with it becuz we all know there is a balance.

But seriously, spanking and smacking AINT child abuse. Sayin shit like the people who would do that belong in hell or shit like that is just ....petty. There is a difference between child abuse, and while it might not be a solid straight line that can be defined for certain, its one of them things that you know it when you see it.

I dont see NOTHING wrong with smackin a kid when they do somethin serious and they aint a little baby who is helpless and defenseless. nobody should ever hit a baby, obviously. But when your kid is 6, 7 yrs old and he does some bad-ass shit, like stealin from the store or even like Beefnbrokly said running and playin in the house when he KNOWS he aint suppose to do that and he breaks the brand new TV that you busted your ass workin for, fuck yea he deserves a smack.

It aint a big deal to spank kids it really aint. it dont cause all these fuckin problems and shit ilke people always whine about. Parents who never discipline their kid or when their kid does somethin REALLY bad and they be like....Thats it junior....I am REALLY gonna make you GO TO YOUR ROOM now! and im gonna TALK to you! Thatll show you! I just dont get it.

Futurepig i think you misunderstood me when i was talkin about a kid screamin his ass off when you out shoppin, etc. I dont mean like screaming like a baby screams cuz they cant talk. i mean when you got a 3 year old in tantrum zone, kickin and screamin his lungs out layin on the floor kickin his feet and punchin the floor WAAAAAAIIIIILIN for 15 minutes, after you told him to be quiet, becuz HE WANTS A COOKIE, and he NEEDS a cookie, and you GIVE HIM THE COOKIE MAMA NOW!!! and you explain that he cant have it, and that we aint buyin that and he better just deal with it, and you aint gonna change your mind, and so he throws a fit like that--you better damn well believe that kid needs a hard whack on the ass.

I just dont see a problem with alot of the shit that people got such issues with. And i will never abuse my kid . I am head over heels in love with this baby and I aint even have em yet, i will never do nothing to put em in harms way. But i know that a little bit of a butt whuppin aint a negative or bad thing and dont make me a bad parent. honestly i think people these days are way too pussy when it comes to disciplining their kids.

I think alot of it got to do like i said with ur type of family and where u come from. In the hood everybody spanks their kid its just normal. and also, in families that is first or second generation immigrant families i think its also more common. Like my grandfather and grandma both was fresh off the boat. my granddad couldnt speak no english when he got here and had the classic italian family. My mom was the first one to be born here in america , u feel me. So i think that its a lil more old fashioned values than alot of the other people on this site. usually Asian, hispanic, and italian families who hung onto their culture and aint totally 'americanized" its more common for the parents to spank their kid. And all my girls who are black always smacked their kids if they needed it from time to time.

I think that honestly alot of white people seem to have a problem with it and it seems to become more of a big deal wiith them. they aint used to it as much so it becomes this big issue or somethin. where for the people who it is more common and natural for, it aint no thing. nobody freaks out becuz their mom spanked them becuz its accepted as a normal appropriate way of discipline so kids dont get a damn complex about it becuz they dont see it as nothing out of the ordinary....but alot of times when people make a big deal about shit, tellin a kid that he been abused when he just been spanked, etc, and people act like it aint normal and like the kid had somethin really bad happen to him, then he gets some shit in his head actually thinking that a regular lil spanking is this bad awful thing his parents did to him and it fucks up his head.
 
Yeah ... I got beaten with a wooden spoon ..

Only on the bum and it was only a whack or two. What did I learn? negative actions have negative consequences.

It didn't twist or derange me in anyway I just behaved better.

Although is it's a hit anywhere other than the bum like the face .. I think that's kinda fucked up.

A kid is like a Tamagotchi :)
 
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