Who is talking about beating little girls? If my future son or daughter did something like draw with crayons on the wall or something else that kids no they shouldnt do, They
wont be beaten like snookie but they will get physically repremanded. I just watched my nephew the other night walk over to his sister and violently push her down. He
laughed about it and she started balling. My sister in law doesnt believe in hitting so she put him in ten minutes time out. He literally just sat there like it didnt bother him one
bit. Half hour after his time out what did he do? He punched his sister in the back. Nobody here is talking about bloodying up their children but a good smack is not outta the
question. Kids arent made of glass, smackin some sense into them wont make them break but will help inforce a lesson stronger than a timeout session.
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of people resort to hitting their kids before exhausting other options. There is a point in every child's life where they test their boundaries. This happens when they're about 2 or 3. If parents don't discipline correctly during this time, then the kids know how much they can get away with, how lazy their parents are and so on.
If your kid colored on the wall for the first time, is spanking them really the right punishment? If they did it 20 times and time out didn't work, then it's the parents' fault for not trying other forms of punishment and letting it get out of control. When kids act badly it's either because they don't know what they're doing is wrong or because they know the punishment is no big deal. Time out only works for certain ages and for a certain amount of time.
If my son colored on the wall, the first time he would get time out. The second time I would make him clean it up, which is a far more effective punishment than time out or spanking because he would learn that if he ever did it again, he'd have to spend a very long time cleaning. If he was tenacious enough to do it again, he would not only have to clean it up again but also lose privileges; no tv no video games, etc. And it's up to the parent to make sure they are consistent with this punishment.
Basically, if a parent disciplines their child properly for every single thing they do, the child should never get out of control to begin with. The boy that pushed his sister obviously needs a higher form of punishment than time out. Depends on his age, but maybe he needs to do his sister's chores for a week, or even be put in time out longer (like an hour). The punishment needs to be equal to the thing the kid did wrong. I would never in my life think that 10 min time out is the right punishment for hitting someone. Similarly, how could you think that you could teach a kid that hitting someone is wrong by hitting them as punishment?
A kid will learn to weigh the pros and cons: "Oh, if I hit my sister I just have to sit in time out for 10 minutes, no big deal" compared to "If I hit my sister then I have to do her chores for a whole month, that's not worth it"
The form of discipline should change with the child. Like I said in my post, I got spanked so many times by the time I was 8 that getting hit with a belt on my butt would tickle, and I'd laugh the whole time I was getting spanked. It didn't even hurt anymore. So in my case, getting spanked didn't even stop me from doing things because I had gotten used to it, and I didn't care if I got spanked.
The most effective form of punishment is when you take away something that child cares about. For my son, right now time out works because he doesn't like to be put on the stairs with no toys, no tv, no games, and is not allowed to talk. If he acts badly while he's in time out, he adds more minutes before he can get out. He hates it so it works. But it will get to the point where I know he won't care anymore and that's when the punishment will change to something he does care about losing.
Try sending a kid to bed without dinner. Obviously they won't starve to death, but they'll think they are. Maybe when Santa comes at the end of the year they should really get coal and switches instead of toys with a note from Santa about all the bad things they did. Maybe a parent should make them go clean up all the dog poop people don't pick up from the other houses in the neighborhood.
The whole thing is that if a kid knows there's a nasty punishment waiting for them, they will think twice about doing it. And as I mentioned before, this is more effective because when those kids grow up, they *DO* have consequences for their actions. A cop isn't gonna come by and tell them to sit in a corner for 10 minutes. And a boss isn't going to spank someone for not doing their job right. There are real consequences in the world, and they need to learn from a young age that deviant actions have real consequences that they do not want to experience. And if a kid gets out of control, it's the parents' fault, not the kid's. A kid shouldn't get hit because their parents are too lazy to discipline or don't know how to raise a kid the right way.
