When does spanking our children go too far? Why do we feel that spanking our children is the right thing to do? Will it really help our children grow if we do not spank them? How would you be able to punish our children without hitting them? Does it really go too far in the eyes of the law? When does physical punishment become just too much?When DCFS steps in, is it really necassary for them to interfere in your life in certain situations?
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Thank you for your comments
Jennifer Jocelyn (11:00)
13 comments:
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it excuses my English badly.
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Spanking a child does go to far. There is no point a parent needs to make that teaches the child the lesson needing to be learned. The only lesson the child is learning is that violence is okay. People think it is okay to spank, because they themselves had been spanked and they do not feel there were any long term damage to themselves and they learned to stop what they were doing. What did they learn other than that? Punishment is not an appropriate discipline, whereby natural consequences are. In the state of Illinois, spanking is against the law and if spanking is the only method, which is what people who use violence do to get their point across to a child are abusing and neglecting them. DCFS job is not to break up a family but to help it continue in an appropriate atmosphere whereby the children at risk are getting what they really deserve: Love, understanding, respect,guidance, stability, and trust. They are there to educate and quide the family to a healthier family unit. In my opinion, spanking should be against the law because violence begets violence and it does not guide children to making correct decisions and only instills fear and anger from the parent and the child. It is necessary for DCFS to step in when the family is in crises. Linda Francis
Monday, April 16, 2007 1:11:00 PM
I believe spanking goes too far when hitting a child for a little mess up. When spanking a child, it learns that they can hit and get their way. I think that the law should interfere when outside or the spanking has gone too far. DCFS should not invade when the parent is getting punished from any other way. The DCFS does help, but only goes far enough until they can not handle it. I use to get spanked and I thought it was a good way to handle someone's punishment. The reason is because my eleven year old nephew never got spanked and is now getting spoiled.
Katrina Burkhardt
Spanking can too easily get out of hand, unfortunately there isn't a handbook on how to raise our children so people resort to violence. If you teach your child at a young age that violence is accepted and done by you, the person they look up to, than don't you think were sending the wrong message. Time outs, losing privelages, doing more chores,or simply sitting your child down and explaining what they have done wrong are all good solutions. I have a very young child so I realize the difficulty in conveying a message yet spanking them clearly conveys to hit is ok.Then when yell at our kids when they hit us or hit or bite someone else.How can we blame them when we have not given them the proper tools to handling stressful situations? Some children and parents may even need more help such as going to a counsler or possibly finding out if there is a medical reason for the bad behavoir, but if we don't stop the violence now than how can we expect our kids to be nonviolent when we are the ones hitting them?
Last comment was from Amy M.
I honestly dont know when spanking your child goes to far because it was different from me. People think its funny when we say we as african americans dont get spanking we get whooping and beating and its true. So i think to get put over a knee and hit a couple times on the butt is nothing. All children do things that need to be punishment somethings. In my house there was no such thing as a spanking. You got hit wit whatever was there, like a belt, shoe, electric cord, toaster, plastic baseball bat, and all kinds of other things and it wasnt just on the arms where we got hit it was all over the body. They tried to stay away from the face but sometimes with all the moving around we did it happening. From looking in on this you might see some of the welts i got to be a problems, but for me it was just another whooping. This is another one of those big situations that people are always going to have different opinons on. But i do feel that some people take it to far when it does come to spanking, whooping, or beating their kids.
Destini Reed
Most parents find it hard to think of bringing up a child without using some sort of physical punishment whether it is a slap on the hand or a smack on the leg. Physical punishment is often used because it seems to work quickly. But using too much physical punishment has a price. If their parents yell, scream and hit a lot children will probably yell, scream and hit a lot too. Some children who are hit or smacked to often will become withdrawn or frightened of trying something new or they might find it easier to act helpless. Later in life they will probably be less able to think for themselves because they wiil be afraid of making mistakes.
Amanda Borders
I think physical punishment goes too far with regards to disciplining a child. Parents can punish their children in other ways, by putting them in timeout with nothing to do, grounding them from leaving the house (and while in the house not letting them watch tv, play video games, be on the computer, anything really), taking away their allowance, etc. Kids learn their lessons those ways, and it's better for them psychologically. I don't think spanking goes too far in the eyes of the law, but there is a very fine line between what's legal and what isn't when it comes to physical punishment - so it's best to not do it at all. DCFS does have the right to interfere in your life - if you are hitting your kids and not just spanking, they have every right to step in. I don't care how bad your kids are, hitting is unacceptable. I know that when I have children I will not spank them because they can punished in other ways as I said. I would feel wrong doing it any other way.
Nigel Knop.
I see nothing wrong with spanking a child if they do something worthy of one. It teaches the kids discipline, in my opinion. Now I'm not saying you should spank your kids for every little mistake they make, but if they do something bad enough, I don't see a problem. Again, it teaches them not too act badly again. I can understand both sides of this argument, however, i don't think spanking your child is that big of a deal. Matt Lindsay
I agree that some parents, not all can take spanking their children too far. When I was growing up, it was normal to get a spanking or whooping for not behaving like we were expected. I feel this didn't make me afraid of my father, nor did it stop me from trying new things. I think back in the days, it was normal to discipline your children physically. It taught my oldest brother and me to respect our elders.
From what I see today, the most important thing lacking in children is respect for their parents and elders. I don't think spanking is a good method these days, with our children exposed to violence in schools, the media (including not limited to video games, television, and music). I think it teaches our children to result in violence in handling issues that could be handled in a different way.
Some parents find spanking a useful tool, when disciplining their child. I believe parents should make their own choice on disciplining their children, without outside involvement. If the spanking goes to the level of physical abuse, then someone like DCFS should step in.
From my experience, my children have experienced a slap on the leg to get their attention or to stop a behavior. I have recently noticed my five year old, will stop, but for my two year old, it doesn't affect him. I have chosen to stop spanking, b/c I feel it isn't worth me feeling guilty, plus I don't want to teach my children negative behavior-being a single mother, you have to try different methods to see what works. I prefer time out or grounding them from toys or an activity for a hour or day.
I want to clarify, I do not support out of control spanking that leaves marks or bruises on the child. I consider that child abuse.
Cheri A
coming from a family that does spank kids I do think that it is necessary for parents to hit thier children when they need it. When i say hit I mean just spank them a couple of times just enough to make sure they understood the message, I dont mean hit them till they pass out. Because I notice how different the people that got hit when they were little are from the kids that never got spanked. kids that didnt get it have no type of respect and i know that when parents have their child they dont want to resort to spanking them because they love them, but if they really do love them they should be teaching them respect for their elders,discipline and to not live a careless life.
I don't think small spankings are a bad thing, but sometimes parents go too far. I don't think spankings should reach the too far mark. The spankings should stop before that, because it isn't effective at that point. It will help children to grow if you spank them, they will better know their boundaries, they want to see how much they can get away with. If you threaten to spank but never go through, the kids pick up on that. Actions are what children react to, the spanking doesn't have to be bad to be a positive punishment. I have a cousin that was a problem child; his parents only threatened to spank him, but never went through. My grandpa and me were the only ones to spank him, and we were the only ones he respected. As he got he got older he got worse and worse, I would link this fact to never being spanked. Acting up became a game for him, he was getting all types of attention. Eventually, my grandfather and I couldn't control him. He still continues to be in and out of trouble.
Some parents don't have the type of control needed while spanking. They go too far and cause physical harm. These people shouldn't spank their kids. If they can't control themselves the spankings will get worse and worse. The idea of spanking isn't to make the children remember how hard you hit them, with physical strength. Although, some parents feel the spanking is only effective if you put more power into it, they are wrong. The children get emotional before the spanking, they will think the spanking was harder than it really was. A small spanking will go a long way. The effective part is the build-up to the spanking, That's initially what the children will remember. they will not remember how hard you hit them, but how they felt at that moment. The spankings will then seem larger than they really were. The build-up is only effective, if you follow through. After that, the next time they act up, you can remind them of that time. The kids will forget how they felt until you remind them. thats when they will start to behave.
Unfortunately, some parents do get out of hand, they get engulfed in a power trip. This is when DCFS must intervene. Especially, if bruises and actual marks are visible sugns of beatings. This is when it surpasses spanking into beating. DCFS is necessary to restrict the probability of this happening. If a parent cannot control themselves, then leave the punishing up to the other parent or try other means of punishment.
Aaron Peters
Parents spanking thier children isn't a bad thing. Its just a different form of punishment for the kid. For example, putting your kid in the room for a whole day with no TV, no friends, no phone, no music, and etc, will be more punishing becasue you are taking away that childs fun. On the other hand if the chilld gets a woopen for a while then at the end of the day that child can still go outside with his friends and play his video games with a couple of aches on his ass though. When I was I always got a woopen because me being in time out, I didn't learn my lesson. As soon as I started getting woopens though thats when I dicided to think about what I was going to do. See, being in locked up in your room is nothing, you just wait, but after getting a woopen you start betting yourself so you won't have to feel that pain again.
Jaime Carpenter
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