spank your child or not to spank?

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/spanking-linked-mental-illness-says-study-175900352.html

spank or not to spank that is the question


Although the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strongly discourages spanking, at least half of parents admit to physically punishing their children. Some research suggests that as many as 70-90 percent of mothers have resorted to spanking at one time or another. A new study published in the journal Pediatrics may cause parents to think more carefully before laying a hand on their little ones.

Researchers examined data from more than 34,000 adults and found that being spanked significantly increased the risk of developing mental health issues as adults. According to their results, corporal punishment is associated with mood disorders, including depression and anxiety, as well as personality disorders and alcohol and drug abuse. They estimate that as much as 7 percent of adult mental illness may be attributable to childhood physical punishment, including slapping, shoving, grabbing, and hitting. The study reports that spanking ups the risk of major depression by 41 percent, alcohol and drug abuse by 59 percent, and mania by 93 percent, among other findings.

 

When my son was little, we spanked him, but not in anger, always with our hand on a clothed bottom. Then we would hold him until he settled down and stopped crying. He usually got the spankings for throwing tantrums or downright disobedience. Timeouts weren't as effective. He turned out fine, no damage done.

I was spanked as a child too - the thing that was an offense to me was when my mom cracked me across the mouth. That made me feel....violated, I guess. I didn't like being spanked (with a wooden paddle on a bare bottom) but the fear of it worked. I got spanked less & less. But getting slapped in the mouth in anger really bothered me. I did that to my son once, apologized profusely and never did it again.

 

spare the rod spoil the child

 

Whoop your kid's ass.

 

If I have kids I probably won't.

 

Very very interesting stuff!!! Thank you for posting this!!! Helps me to see where I get my aggression from. I WISH I was only spanked as a child. I never liked what I went through as a child so I never spanked my child or did anything to him that was done to me as a child. I did punish him and I always explained why so that he could understand what he did wrong.

 

Beat that ass

 

I heard about this study on talk radio yesterday.
I think "spanking" is a term that is very relative. I doubt that an occasional slap on the ass (not to hurt) and an ear yank/slap on hands will not contribute to depression etc. That is just new world softness mumbo jumbo if you ask me.

Having that said, I think pushing/showing/belt etc is not the same as the "attention slap" on the butt/hand etc is the same. There is a diff between stuff that make mental marks and stuff that dont. Did this study define that?

I got that from my mother, it was never intended to hurt (and it never did), it just redirected me. I was a VERY rumbustious kid and looking back, I find it appropriate. It made me stop and re-evaluate but it never, ever hurt.

I condone that, anything that intimidates or hurts (HELL TO THE NO). I have been there too. People that seen my posts about my step dad knows that.

However, If I would be depressed in my 40s do I think there is a link to his abuse when I was a kid??? Absolutely not,. But that abuse causes problems is for sure, but I feel the data is a little undefined and needs more work.What ages do they find depression issues, how fare after etc. I didnt read it in its entirety.

 

Some kids just need their asses beat though.

 

I was a very good, sweet, and obedient child. My parents to this day term it as "compliant". I fucking hate that word. I never got in trouble at school, made straight A's and was extremely sensitive. Yet I got my behind beat for everything they saw as a disobedience. With wooden spoons, spatulas, hairbrushes, belts (Dad's), and hands. On my behind and on my legs, and as I grew to be a teenager they started slapping me in the face. Once my mother slashed me with her nail very very close to my eyeball, and I had a mark on my face for a week. I went to school on a regular basis with my father's handprints firmly imprinted in red welts on my upper legs.

I was once told, when I couldn't finish my peas and carrots (because I hated cooked peas and carrots, but loved them raw), that I had the option of getting a spanking and getting ice-cream, or not getting a spanking and not getting ice-cream. I took the spanking. I thought that was really fucked up logic even as a 6 year old child.

My last spanking was at the age of 17, at the hands of my father, for saying the word "Damn". It was after a 3 hour (brainwashing/torture) argument about a boy. I had finally had enough and screamed "DAAAAMMMMMNNNNN!!!!" My mother watched while my father pulled me over his knee on the bottom step to the stairwell and spanked my adolescent (basically adult) ass. That scarred me for a lifetime because I realized my parents had no appropriate limits, and my mother would NEVER protect me. It has taken me a long time, but I still don't think I can ever forgive him for that. He was in his 40s - he should have known better than to lay his hands on sexual areas of his female child!!!!

On another occasion, I was about 17, and was in a towel, and my father burst into my room, furious about some lyrics on a tape that was my favorite (which he had confiscated). I was in ONLY A TOWEL, having just gotten a shower, and I felt so invaded... I could easily have pushed him over the stairwell (as he screamed and yelled at me and threw my belongings across the room), which did not have any railings at the time, just a sheer drop for about 10 feet, but I had self-control. I did not want my Dad to die. Other girls I am sure would not have been so kind. I did NOT deserve what my parents did to me.

I was tortured and bullied almost every day in Junior High - all because my dad was trying to get a job in the school system and so they would never fucking stand up for me or look into it. I came home crying every day. All they would say was "If you get a spanking at school, you get a worse one at home." No questions asked. Like my words meant nothing - I would never have the option to defend myself to anyone...so I had to be hit and beaten everyday because I was terrified of my own parents, who were too selfish and/or self-absorbed to protect me. If only they would have told me it was okay to defend myself...I could have stopped the bullying on the first DAY!!!!

All of this to say that to spank or not to spank? It depends on the child. My sister to this day will say she deserved just about every one that she got (but she was very naughty). I, however, did not need it. If your child is sensitive, and you can just speak to them, DO NOT SPANK THEM. I would dissolve into a puddle of tears if someone was so much as displeased with me or disappointed in me, so you can imagine just how traumatizing ritualized spanking was to me. IT WAS NOT NECESSARY. It hurt me. I am still feeling the aftershocks.

There is also the kind of "nasty" lol side effect in that your child will associate spanking with love (psychologically), which leads to a whole other level of kink. So if you want your daughter to be 30 something years old and getting spanked by a big buff black dude 10 years older than her and then annihilated by his big black dick until she can barely walk the next day, then beat her ass. Because that's what you will get.

 

In a way, I think a child needs the love a mother.. and the fear of a father.

Doesn't matter HOW the child fears the father, just enough so that the mother can go, "wait until your father gets home..." and the child would be afraid enough that they'll behave so their mother doesn't tell their father.

That's how it was in our house anyways. I was the kind of kid that never listened....

 

Spank the shit out them. Kids are too soft nowadays

 

No spankage in this abode

 

I have mixed feelings on it. My parents spanked me a few times, when I did really bad shit... and if it was really, really bad, I would sometimes get the wooden spoon (Italian mothers, SMH). But, sometimes just the threat of it was enough to stop me in my tracks.

I think BEATINGS are wrong...but I can see the point of the occasional slap for correction. I only told my dad to 'shut up' once because of the crack I got on the mouth as a result. It wasn't even hard..it was just sharp and quick enough to make me go 'WTF just happened?'. I think if I'd gotten the whole 'You shouldn't swear, honey, go sit in the corner. ' I probably would've told my mom to go fuck herself and went back to playing with my Barbies -because that's just the type of defiant pain in the ass I can be (it runs in the family.. lol).

There have been too many people who take it too far. Spanking a child always came across to me as a smack or two on the bottom, not a full out whooping with tools, etc where they require ice or stitches. I did think the wooden spoon my mom used was too much at times - I would never use it - but I cannot say for sure that if I ever had my own kids, I wouldn't use a spanking occasionally if the situation warranted (just like I can't say that I would, either). But, overall, I'm not against it.

 

I slap my sons in the face, the embarrassment hurts more than the slap. If they really fuck up, I smack the shit out of there legs. Actually I have been getting creative, I'm not fond of whoopings I feel like a bad person.

I'll have my 5 year old stand in the corner facing the wall for 15 minutes and if he turns around he'll get a whooping.

Sit on the toilet for 20 minutes and put a digital camera in the bathroom focused on him telling him I can see his every move (I can't lol) so if he gets off that toilet he's getting a whooping.

Make him get a book and hold his arms out vertically with it, if he drops the book or puts his arms down, he's getting a whooping.

lol He never gets whoopings if he disobeys me, I just tell him go to his room and revoke his netflix, videogame, and toy priveledges.

 

Yeah you heard me.

 

Somebody didn't get enough spankings when he was little...

 

No spanking.

 

When I was reading this, I was all like 'whaaaat?' and then I got to the end and I want to tell you..you're an ass. lol