Alternative to spanking

[HeartsOpenWide]

I had very lax parents myself. I can remember being spanked once in my entire life. I got grounded a few times once I reached high school and for good reasons, but other than that I didn't really receive discipline much from my parents. My husbands family on the other hand is in favor of spanking; at one point I though I was too but am now against it...but still have to stifle laughs when I hear a parent say, "use your words" to a kid throwing a tantrum; maybe because I am yet to see this work.

I am in Community Nursing this semester. The placement I am at has a brochure on why you should not spank. The brochure was very informative on why you should not spank but it lacked any information on alternative ways to correct behavior/discipline. I chose not to had this out because I felt the information was not complete. Not being a parent yet myself, I did not feel equip to give alternatives if asked once the brochure was read and the client found that no alternatives were included.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

[futurenicunurse2008]

When a tantrum breaks out in my household, I actually say "Calm down, use your words, or I will not listen to you" and then I walk away. It does work for us. Getting them to calm down long enough to tell you what is going through their head and then acknowledging the feeling behind it ("It's okay to be angry, but it's not okay to hit/scream/etc.") seems to work for us and I have one very strong willed child and another following not far behind.

If the situation calls for it, taking away a privelege works very well (putting a Leapster away for a few days, no t.v. for a few days, etc.). I even have been known to turn the car around on our way to a Birthday Party because of bad behavior. I DO NOT GIVE IN. I always joke that I am more stubborn than any of my children and I can hold out, even if it's not the easiest solution for me (it never is).

Good luck!

this is very much my way of parenting although like someone else mentioned above I have swatted when they are doing something dangerous .

It is a pita at times but it does work. I have been known to leave the cart full of groceries and take my daughter home because of a tantrum that wouldnt end. Now when I say "sit in the cart and behave or your going home" she listens because she knows im dead serious and will take her home. Follow through and consistency I think are vital.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I am not one bit unwilling to remove my child from a store and i personally havent(except one time) spanked my child in a store but that does not mean I wouldn't do it. My kids know that it does not matter where we are it will be taken care of right then. Why should i have to remove them from a place to discipline them? If you see it and don't like oh well. THats your opinion. My daughter got slapped because she called me a whore because she is 13 and thinks shes the boss and could leave the house because she WANTED to and she has times she thinks she can do whatever she wants. Sticking her in time out or grounding her for that specific name calling(had it been something else maybe a different punishment.) Basically if you have tried every kind of discipline and nothing else works then ya spank em. I know I didn't repeat the stuff I got spankings for. And for those that every other kind of discipline works for you, good. I am glad. I reserve the spanking for major things because the other things i do work.

I'm totally against slapping anyone, let alone a 13 year old. Spanking is for unreasonable wee ones, and then just a smack or two on the rear. Dobson says age 6 is the maximum for spanking, that parents should have developed other techniques by then.

None of my children would have ever dared to call me a whore, however, so I contend that you lost control of your daughter a long time ago. Yes, I have a 12 year old and 14 year old daughters, I can't imagine spanking or slapping them!

[Baloney Amputation, BSN, LPN, RN]

I'm totally against slapping anyone, let alone a 13 year old. Spanking is for unreasonable wee ones, and then just a smack or two on the rear. Dobson says age 6 is the maximum for spanking, that parents should have developed other techniques by then.

None of my children would have ever dared to call me a whore, however, so I contend that you lost control of your daughter a long time ago. Yes, I have a 12 year old and 14 year old daughter, I can't imagine spanking or slapping them!

At 13 I didn't even know what a whore was. Was it possible the offending daughter heard it at school and called her mother that not knowing exactly what it was but just "trying" out the language, not exactly that it is language that is thrown around the household?

Personally, I recall an incident using the C--- word (NOT CRAP!) where my parents found it hilarious that my brother thought he had one, and he was just at that age too. (I found it to be a humiliating discussion, but that's another topic.) That age tends to hear words, know they are dirty, but not always get it. Or maybe I'm just old at 29.

[leslie :-D]

None of my children would have ever dared to call me a whore, however, so I contend that you lost control of your daughter a long time ago.

i think we really need to tread carefully when personalizing parenting styles.

we have no idea as to the nature of littlebit's/dtr's relationship and to contend that she lost control, is a bit unwarranted, imo.

most of us have had experiences with our kids, when our first thought was, "i never raised them to do/say/act/respond this way" and we are blown away by these behaviors.

i've had experiences w/ea of my kids, totally different from one another, where i've been stunned...

yet living in an urban area where they are exposed to people from all backgrounds, one has to wonder if sometimes, they test to see what they can get away with, or to just be downright defiant...whatever their crazy reasoning is.

but our kids will indeed, say the darndest things sometimes.

it's not always a measure of what kind of environment they are raised in either.

i have always encouraged my kids to have a healthy sense of self, to assert themselves when advocating, to never cower, remain/be strong, faith, a whole bunch of qualities i find important...

yet through discovery and exploration, they sometimes have pushed the envelope a bit too far.

so i guess what i'm saying is often, our kids need to be held accountable for what they do and say.

mom or dad aren't always to blame.

not at all.

too many circumstances and variables in which our kids are going to do/say what they darned well please, regardless of how they were raised.

just a different perspective from a very liberal/progressive parent.

leslie

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

I am in favor of intelligent parenting. That being said, I have sure seen a lot of parenting that didn't involve much thought, either in the process of becoming a parent, or in the taking care of the child.

This is the same advice, at the core, that I will give to, say, a nurse learning her role: Know the need, figure out the goal, tailor the action to how it will best accomplish your goal and then KNOW YOURSELF, and be honest about your intentions while you are doing all this.

That applies to a good many situations. Each child is different, and they change over time so the things that were needed for your two year old may be completely different in a few years.

My background is, two households. Early household was drunk adults who were definitely "old school south." I'm the only person I know who was knocked on the head (I saw stars) with a full jar of applesauce when I said my first cussword. It worked, I learned not to curse around one person. I learned that if I found the stash of switches and broke them into tiny bits and threw them all away, the bedroom slipper was not something I would enjoy as a consequence. I learned to hide.

Later, my second household, included a cop for a stepdad who was a big belt fan and thought he had it made in the shade, wow look a servant. I've scrubbed tile floors with a toothbrush while being kicked the whole time. I skipped phys. ed. in school for a whole quarter once, hiding in the bathroom because I couldn't change into shorts in front of people, too many bruises. My mom was the type to take her abuse, and then pass it on. So, no, I don't have a relationship with my mom anymore. She got her divorce when I was an adult and then refused to acknowledge we had ever had any problems.

My daughter is 16 now and autistic. Boy howdy has she been a handful. She grabbed a lamp off a table at age two and I smacked her little hand, and she belly laughed at me. Well that was a wakeup call. Restraint, moving furniture around, babyproofing the house, worked. She was six before it was safe to walk through a parking lot with her by my side without her trying to run away and hide under other people's cars. She hid anywhere she could; we had to nail the kitchen cabinets shut under the sink so she couldn't get under there and play with the dishwasher insulation. She dismantled a cabinet lock before she could walk. She fed oatmeal and magnets to the VCR before we remembered to rearrange the placement of that, too. She couldn't go to sleep before 1 am and we didn't have a coffee table until she was in kindergarten- the day we got one she gave herself a concussion falling off it. I got very little sleep.

There was very little negative reinforcement that worked up to school age for her. She liked everything, so you couldn't take away her favorite stuff. Take away crayons? Why would that bother a kid who could finger paint with feces? Now to be honest, she only did that once. I burst out screaming when I saw it, and she was terrified and didn't repeat it.

As she grew more selective in her likes, taking away things worked, but explanations and picking battles also worked. She has a desire to please, but it took her a long time to realize that it was there. During age about 7 to 12-ish, spanking was an option that I utilized, I think less than a dozen times. And by spanking I mean, I wanted the act to get her attention, make noise, and involve a small amount of pain. It also had to be in response to something that she should never do, and had to be something that I thought warranted me intimidating the person who trusts me most in the world. So my tool of choice was the kitchen wood spoon, one or two swats. She now knows she can't call me names, she can't be physically destructive in her environment, she can't play with fire, screaming fits in that marvelous falsetto range are not allowed, she can't cut her bed linens to little bits to make a pinata.

At this stage, at 16, she's hormonal and trying to figure out how to socialize as a young lady in a world that doesn't like different people with imaginary friends. She still has a good relationship with me, and she hasn't been spanked in 3 years. The last time she got a spanking was when she got upset at school and threatened to kill someone. Echolalia played a part in the wording, and her punishment included a writing assignment, a whack on the hind end, a long talk about adult consequences of terroristic threats, and after two hours she was so upset that she got a benadryl and a nap. The behavior has not been repeated.

Pros to having spanked my child: She has a healthy respect for the fact that I can physically take her out of a situation should the need arise, and she knows that it is possible to make me angry with her, which is something she doesn't want.

Con: Since I've done any spanking, and been on the receiving end of a lot of it, I can be a smartass about it at times. Various rebellious statements she can make, I can come back with "yeah you go do what I just said or I'll beat your butt missy." There should be less talk, I think, but it happens anyway.

In the long run it is mentally and physically exhausting having to be so creative with discipline. Really. But I think that people unwilling to invest the effort and thought in it, should not be having children.

[StrwbryblndRN]

When growing up, my mother was quite verbally abusive and when all is ok there was never any feeling of love. I never knew till I met other families how it should have been. My hubby's for one. Never thought that telling your kids I love you or giving hugs daily was normal. I did not get spanked much and I have to say I never did anything that rebellious. That being said I hated my childhood because of how I was treated. I bounced back but was deteremined not to treat my kids with such distant and distaste. (yet all my friends thinks my mom is great???)\

Kids need discipline and it comes in huge variety of forms but not at the expense of their self worth and secuitry of a generally happy home.

PS: My mother read Dr Spock for how to raise children. From what I read about him she did not take his advice.

[Baloney Amputation, BSN, LPN, RN]

When growing up, my mother was quite verbally abusive and when all is ok there was never any feeling of love. I never knew till I met other families how it should have been. My hubby's for one. Never thought that telling your kids I love you or giving hugs daily was normal. I did not get spanked much and I have to say I never did anything that rebellious. That being said I hated my childhood because of how I was treated. I bounced back but was deteremined not to treat my kids with such distant and distaste. (yet all my friends thinks my mom is great???)\

Kids need discipline and it comes in huge variety of forms but not at the expense of their self worth and secuitry of a generally happy home.

PS: My mother read Dr Spock for how to raise children. Either he is a quack or she got the wrong idea.

You are so not alone. I could have written that post word for word except the post script part. My mother knew everything, or so she though. Dr. Spock had nothing on her! Ha.

[litbitblack, ASN, RN]

I'm totally against slapping anyone, let alone a 13 year old. Spanking is for unreasonable wee ones, and then just a smack or two on the rear. Dobson says age 6 is the maximum for spanking, that parents should have developed other techniques by then.

None of my children would have ever dared to call me a whore, however, so I contend that you lost control of your daughter a long time ago. Yes, I have a 12 year old and 14 year old daughters, I can't imagine spanking or slapping them!

Just because my daughter decided to call me a name in no way means I have "lost control" of her by no means. I will not defend myself in my actions and this is a discussion where people voice thier opinions. She made a bad decision and deserved her punishment. It just so happened I was right behind her when she said it, so slapping may have been quick but she will think twice before doing that again. A parent has to know how thier kids are, what works for them and what doesn't. People will always disagree with this issue.

[Iam46yearsold]

I must lead a really sheltered life, because I rarely see kids acting horribly in public. When they do, usually the parents act worse than the kids.

Come work in ER. You see children and teens behave so badly, that you want to slap their parents for allowing it. When did it come to the point that the children rule the house and not the parents.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

another scripture....can't seem to find right now, but it says....."spare the rod, spoil the child."

that isn't scripture; it's samuel taylor coleridge.

[RNperdiem, RN]

Despite what I read in all the books and advice about spanking, time-out, talking a problem to death etc, I have discovered one thing for real.

There are no quick fixes. There is no easy way with a difficult child.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

You're right about not personalizing, Leslie. I do stand by my stance that it's inappropriate to slap 13 year olds, and in fact leads to stronger defiance. My mother used to slap me across the face without warning when she got angry when I got mouthy at that age. I think it was very destructive, and I never said anything close to calling her a whore. There comes a point, when your child is as big as you, when you have to treat as you would treat any adult under the law, which I think means hands off.

Lilbitblack, good luck with your daughter.