How to Punish Children

[CorpusScorpius]

Japher......I would condone some form of spanking but after a certain age (someone said a child will the ability to reason) & grounding would be more appropriate. I could not stand to be grounded for an extended amount of time. However there is a very very fine line between a couple of swats & a beating.

[Meldor]

Originally posted by Maniac


Apparently that's exactly what you absolutely don't have to do. First you beat them and a minute later you hug them and say you love them. You'll be confusing the child and it won't know if his or her action was good or bad.

And I totally disagree wwith that. They behavior happens. The spanking occurs and then you put it behind you. You don't hold a grudge. I am not saying that as soon as you put down the belt you grab them and hug them. You spank them, talk with them to farther expain what they did wrong and why it isn't acceptable and then at the end, hug them and let them know that you still love them even though they behaved badly and had to be punished. It doesn't cause any confusion.

[Mercator]

Anyone here who thinks a 5 year old is not smart enough to reason is severely underestimating young children.

[mrmitchell]

If you think that punishment of children has anything to do with either sex or power, I would advise you to visit a mental health facility soon. I find I hav no need to spank her because she is beyond those behaviors that are bad enough to be spankable. She behaves and not out of fear. She knows she will no longer be spanked. The lessons by this time are either learned or not.

No, no, no. By the time a child is 15, they can definitely get the point through methods other than spanking. Everyone I've ever talked to about it agrees with me, and usually, transgressions by that age are more of the regular "teenage rebellion" that can be corrected by raising them well in their early years. (Like Japher said, he stayed up late but he knew he messed up and he apologized to his parents. Now that's some damn fine parenting.)

Wrong agasin. While he is at an age in which he can indeed reason out the fact that taking away priviledges is connected to the behavior, it still is not to the point that he cares enough about future actions, beyond a handfull of days. While he knows that school will start soon, he dosn't really care and won't think about it seriously until it is a matter of days away. However, most of his transgressions are the type in which he doen't think ahgead about the reactions to his actions. He will run with a knive, not because he doesn't know that running with a knife is dangerous, he knows it, he just doesn't think about what could happen. He is likely to try things on the spur of the moment and not think about it in depth. Most of his punishment consists of sitting him down and expaining to him just what could have happened in minor cases, and applying re-enforcement to the lesson in major cases.

Sitting him down and explaining is good, especially by the time he is 11. Most of the time by he is 11 he will be able to hash out more complicated things than, say, 6 or 4. For example, an 11 year old who does A and gets B on date C taken away from him should be able to figure out that the privelige denial was because of action A. If he can't, then you are either seriously underestimating him or you've got bigger problems than action A.

As far as their behavoir, intellegence and social developement, I will be happy to stack them up against you or any children you have managed to procreate.

I'll pass. I don't want to accept a "Mine is longer" contest about kids, of all things.

[Jon Miller]

I agree that different situations and people need different reponses

I also tend to think that after 10-12 spankings are no longer needed (and I think that there is a stage (probably 12+) where the proper response to some problems is to call the cops)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Mercator
Anyone here who thinks a 5 year old is not smart enough to reason is severely underestimating young children.

depends on the kid

Jon Miller

[mrmitchell]

Most parents should be able to tell if their 5 year old is smart enough or not.

Spanking is a small, insignificant phase over the early years (up to 10 at the most.) Instead of spanking, time-outs work relatively efficiently if the child can be shut up and then after that, groundings etc. come into play. By the time your child is past 10, you are underestimating him if you are still giving him spankings, and in fact he's probably only getting negative feedback (the spanking no longer works and to the child it's more of a sadistic beating instead of a punishment.)

[Mercator]

Yes... And that depends on how much they got spanked or neglected in the previous years.

[Meldor]

Originally posted by Mercator
Anyone here who thinks a 5 year old is not smart enough to reason is severely underestimating young children.

They are able to reason, but they do not understand complex relationships. Time is a big one. Future actions. They can talk about it but they do not understand it. They can repaeat words, but the base isn't there.

A good example is taking children on a long trip.

When they are really small, below 5, they have no real conscept of time beyond before, now and after. They do know that supper comes later but don't really understand by how much. On our long trip, they will not worry about how long it takes as long as there is something to occupy their minds.

When they are in the 6-10 year range, they start to get an idea of what time is. They know that meals come at regular times, they just don't have the concept of larger or finer increments. 5 minutes tends to be just as far away as 5 hours. If you take them on a long trip they will be the ones who ask how much longer every 5 minutes. You tell them it will be an hour to get there and they wait what is a long time to them and ask again.

After 10 or so they begin to be able to judge and reason in increments of time. If you tell them that the trip will take 5 hours, they can inderstand and monitor progress.

This goes into a lot of complex concepts. The children are developing, go figure. Also, before the blood flies, these are large generalizations. However, one of the worst things you can do is to overestimate the reasoning ability of a child of a given age. Even though they can parrot the logic of an adult and olderchild it doesn't mean they understand it or can deal with it fully. Understanding the developement of the child can go a long way into making it a lot easier to go through raising them.

[Meldor]

Several people have mentioned time outs. I and the wife tried them, they didn't work. My children had active enough imaginations that when put in a corner they could still amuse themselves and it wasn't a punishment at all.

[Mercator]

I don't know about you, but when I was 5, I was already in school.

Have you ever seen programs about young children losing a parent or so? They are perfectly able to grasp it... The only problem really is the parents who don't know what to say. Not to mention things like birds, bees and Santa Claus.

[Dis]

tell them they should have been aborted

[Lorizael]

My parents never spanked me and never grounded me, and I was a very obedient child. They employed a different tactic... I think it was called good parenting or something.

[KrazyHorse]

Anyone who resorts to spanking their kid admits that they've been outwitted by a child.

[mrmitchell]

My parents never spanked me and never grounded me, and I was a very obedient child. They employed a different tactic... I think it was called good parenting or something.

Anyone who resorts to spanking their kid admits that they've been outwitted by a child.