Hit Them with a Switch?
A good friend of mine owns and operates a website called Midnight Lotus. It’s primarily a role-playing* forum in which you can create and organize either one-on-one role-plays and/or group role-plays. It’s also a place where people can share their artwork and writing, but a place where people can discuss pretty much whatever they’d like to discuss. I was spending some time on there and came across a thread discussing child discipline and I thought it’d be an interesting topic to talk about.
Over the years I’ve seen and read about many different types of ways people discipline their children. Some are praised for how they raise their children, while some are ridiculed. I’ve also noticed that ways of disciplining children has evolved and changed quite drastically over the past few years. When my parents were younger, even when I was younger, hitting was not seen as this cruel gesture, but as a way to get your children to behave themselves after they’ve been acting wrongly or gone against the rules that had been put into place. In today’s society, if you spank you’re child you’re seen as a horrible monster. It makes me wonder which method was actually better, if either.
Do you think that children were better-behaved with disciplined more severely or are they better-behaved now that discipline involves getting put on the “naughty step/stool/circle/etc.”? Personally, I’m not one hundred percent sure that either method really worked out well. I do, however, believe that some children today are stuck-up and think that they can walk all over their parents because their parents aren’t more firm with their discipline. That doesn’t mean that they have to spank them, but it does mean that some parents, in my opinion, are very lax when it comes to their disciplinary methods. But enough about what I think, what do you all think?
Let’s Chat!:
Do you think parents are too lenient when it comes to disciplining their children? What methods have you found to best discipline your child? And finally, how were you disciplined (if at all) as a child and do you think it worked well or did/do you recent your parents for the way they disciplined you?
*The role-play I am referring to is when someone takes on a role and identity of a fictional character that they have created—or in a fandom’s case, someone else has create—in which they determine the actions of their characters in a given situation.
Posted on June 25, 2012 by Felicia
I’m in two minds about spanking but ultimately, I think it depends on the child. I would hope that if I have my own children, they would have enough respect for me that I wouldn’t have to go down that route, but some kids really do need a slap. There is a boy who lives in the block beyond mine who is so facety to his mother/sister. This child continually kicks his ball at ur kitchen window and yells at his mother/sister, telling them ‘NO’ whenever they tell him to do something. I think children like that need a firm hand to be honest – and like Reina, I too was spanked. It didn’t do me any harm.
I’m very much like you on this topic, Jem. I don’t want to hit my kids and I don’t intend to do it, but sometimes if they aren’t listening you have to do something so they aren’t walking all over you. I think this is why I had a hard time responding to Rei’s comment because I’m so torn. But like you, I hope that my children respect me enough to not do something that would make me reach my breaking point and hit them.
I personally think that there’s nothing wrong with spanking your own child, I think that kids nowadays especially need to understand right from wrong in ways that they’ll understand. Telling a child ‘No don’t do that’ wont stop them because eventually they’ll realize that it’s nothing more than words and the boundaries will be pushed to such an extent that the parent will no longer be able to do anything other than let the kid get away with it.
I used to get spanked (As a more pleasant term) when I was younger and I knew that I would never do that again, because I don’t want to be hit. Parents are way too soft on their kids; I heard one girl call her mother a bitch to her face and the mother was about to cry. Had that been me, she would have gotten beaten there and then based on the simple fact that she was disrespectful.
I’m not saying to go all out and beat them, but starting off with a slap to the hand or back of the legs is not gonna do any harm. Some kids use the fact their parents don’t hit them to act up, and taking away their things wont matter to them because they know they’ll eventually get it back OR go to a friends house. In no way shape or form should a child be able to dictate punishments to the parents
I don’t agree with spanking kids at all. I think that the negatives far outweigh the positives (if there so be any).
I agree with you. There are better ways of punishing a child than spanking them.
I think parents should discipline them better… A good spanking would do them good. Wouldn’t hurt to anyway in my view. Some Chinese parents do abuse them or hit them violently or even slap them. Its allowed in China.
Just because abuse and hitting children violently is legal, doesn’t mean it should be done. Abuse is a very horrible thing that can cause traumatic outcomes for anybody, let alone a child. There are much better ways of disciplining than beating the crap out of your kid in my opinion.
I’ve pulled through it myself before so yeah, I know what you mean.