Exactly.....the million dollar answer. The homes that some of us grew up in were much more stricter. Our parents were much less worried about being our friends and much more worried about bringing us up right.

Family values, morals, and things like that are very important. Structure and dicipline is very important too. Sorry, some kids you can get away with not spanking, but there are some (like me when I was young) that need that consequence to learn.

I think it's a lack of empathy. When I was a child I had to go every major holiday to the local soup kitchen or homeless shelter and help serve food to the poor. A lack of empathy is something I see in everyone today, adults and children alike. You can't respect other people if you never learned to walk in another person's shoes. That's a key value that's missing. Spanking doesn't show empathy as far as I can tell either.

I was opposed to spanking till while visiting friends one day I had my eyes opened.

they had a very free spirited 3 year old, who felt she was immortal, and that the world could not harm her. And, she liked the thrill of danger. She was constantly putting herself in situations where she could lose her life, become dangerously lost, etc. After one incident was the only time I have seen my friends spank a child, and it was not physical at all. But, it was the only thing that was reaching her. And, had she kept going, she would have managed to accidentally end her life.

She is now 7, and better behaved. But 3-5 were hard years for them.

I think to say that all of the problems children and teens have nowadays could be solved by spanking is very simplistic. There are many things that are different now. The amount of time children spend developing social skills by playing unstructured games together has plummeted. Kids hove no way to learn to resolve little disputes, so when big probelms arise they have no way to deal with their feelings and no means to resolve disagreements. At the same time, they are exposed to a huge amount of violence in the form of video games and tv, in which violence is marketed as a solution to everything. The world is reduced to the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' and if you are a 'good guy' it is fine to get your way using any means at hand. Of course the means which they are exposed to are violence and weapons.
Family and community structure has broken down, and most parents have no family support while working more, and therefore less time and patience to actually interact with their children. Commercial interests have stepped in to provide organized sports and games and classes to suck up what little time the child has outside of homework, and what little money the parent has after keeping up with the Joneses. So everyone is totally stressed out and ready to blow.
I do not see how spanking is helpful in this. How about some preventive action to restore calm and peace to the household?
I just don't want my children learning that love is all mixed up with violence and shame and fear.

I think their are many tools we can use in discipline and spanking is one of them. I'd say in cases of extreme danger such as, running out in a street to out right disrespect (back talking)...spanking is necessary.

Thriver...sometimes shame and fear are necessary tools to learning. A child does need to learn the feeling of being ashamed by their improper behaviors. If they never experience humiliation, they become haughty. If they have no fear, they become arrogant and dangerous. You cannot strip away negatives in hopes of breeding positives. Life is a balance. Like the other post on learning empathy...it is important for children to learn that life is multifaceted.

Hmmm. I know that life is going to bring some occasions to experience shame, humiliation, fear, and a lot of other feelings normally called negative feelings. I just don't think I need to cause more of those feelings by hitting my children.

Adults' feelings of shame and fear, etc are at the core of a lot of dysfunctional behaviors. When those feelings are linked with the most primary of relationships, that of parent/child, I think it sets a person up to link any love relationship with shame and fear, at least in terms of tolerating fear and . That is not a blueprint for a healthy love relationship.

If I want a child to understand why certain behaviors are unacceptable, why not explain the reason? If I don't want them to pick their noses in public, can't I just tell them that it is gross and unsanitary and that it will turn people off? Why shame them, as if there is something intrinsically wrong with them?

Sock, from your post, I think we are on totally opposite sides of this...don't think we are going to find a middle ground.

Thriver I don't think we are talking about spanking a child over picking their nose. That is quite trivial.

I remember one teacher that had a board hanging on his wall to spank the offending children. But I do not recall that any children got spanked.

I think spanking or whipping children is parenting with pain and fear. I think it teaches them that you are bigger, stronger and have more power which I do not believe are good life lessons. I have never had to spank my children. I taught my children about choices how to make them and I let them make their own. I also let them experience the pain and disappointment of poor choices or behavior rather than protect them them from it. I have swatted a bottom before for running out in the street or something life threatening and because I did not use physical punishment as a method it had a huge impact and got the point across. When behaving badly in a store my child was given a choice 1) you pull it together or 2) I carry you out of here and the next time I go you stay home. All of my children learned early on that if they wanted to have privilege in life they had to behave. There are always appropriate natural consequences if enforced and used consistently are real effective. My kids are all curtious, thoughtful, empathetic and make good choices. None of them have ever gotten into trouble, drank or done drugs. I never spanked and believe the are much more intelligent ways to teach and raise responsible, functional adult children w/o using physical aggression and pain.

Absolutely not! No way, not ever. I was a teacher for many years. No way, I would have ever laid a hand on them to teach them anything, that invoked fear, shame or pain. NO WAY. I am a mother to 2 children that are now deceased. I never laid a hand on my daughter, to teach her that she learned something by being hit, shamed or in pain. No way.

I don't think spanking is ok at all. If anything it's a lazy way of discipline! I've worked with a lot of troubled kids, and there are many other ways to deal with them. You know, instead of worrying about bringing corporal punishment back in the schools, maybe we should think about having mandatory parenting classes!

Absoflippinlutely I agree, you don't need to "beat" a child but stern disipline is a necessary evil. My parents aswitched us good, we all turned out OK. but we knew that if we screwed up there was a price to be paid.....