I’m not one of those mothers who believes all the new age junk, that time outs and positive only parenting is the way to go. To be honest I believe this leads to a huge let down for children when they enter the real world, which is full of huge let downs. It’s really a balance in my opinion. Children need to learn early that there are disappointments in life, that you take them and deal with them properly. They have to learn that they can’t have everything, nor are they due everything and have to work hard to get it (something which I think is severely lacking in our current generation of teenagers). And they have to learn that there are consequences to behavior, good and bad, some which may hurt (I think it’s especially important to relate dangerous activities with pain because I think some young people don’t realize how hazardous their behaviors can be).

A study was released recently which contradicts the studies that say spanking causes kids to be aggressive. First off I’ve never understood this “spanking makes people aggressive” junk. I was spanked as well as most of the people of my generation (you know before it became taboo) and most of us are not aggressive people. Most of us are productive adults.

This new study says:

The research, by Calvin College psychology professor Marjorie Gunnoe, found that kids smacked before age 6 grew up to be more successful, and that there was not enough evidence to say that smacking harms most kids. But those who were smacked after age 6 were more likely than other kids to have behavioral difficulties, such as getting into fights.

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This is actually interesting. I think there is a time to stop spanking, and six doesn’t seem unreasonable. There comes a point where spanking does become ineffective. Perhaps as children become older the lessons that go with spanking just don’t work the same as they would with a younger child?

A few weeks ago I had to spank Kaylee. She was behaving badly, and no amount of punishment worked. I did everything known to man, except for the spanking. I purposely avoiding spanking, hoping she’d stop after a few days. But her behavior went on for too long and obviously hoping it would go away wasn’t working. My last resort was spanking.

I took her into her room and sat her on my lap. Explained what I was doing (that she would be getting 3 spankings on her butt because she gets one for each year she is old), told her why I was doing it (what behavior was bringing on this punishment), what I would like to see from her in the future (basically what was to be learned from this experience), that this was happening because she didn’t listen to me and was continuing her bad behavior and that if she didn’t want a spanking in the future she’d just not have to behave in the way she had been. I asked her if she understood and she said yes. I asked her to tell me why this was happening and she told me what she had done so at least I knew she knew what behavior had been responsible for the spanking. Then I spanked her, with her clothes on (I don’t think bare butt is necessary). She cried a bit, but not much, I gave her a hug and a kiss and that was that.

Oddly enough even though I felt like crap for doing it, it worked. Do I want to do it again? No and I hope that maybe this one experience will be enough that I never will have to do it again. But it actually worked. People say it doesn’t or it’s short term, but it’s been well over two weeks and I’ve not seen the behavior at all. She doesn’t seemed to be scarred in any manner, she’s actually behaving a bit better than she was before. I mean she’s 3 so her behavior is going to be not good sometimes. But for the most part she’s doing really well.

So perhaps, just perhaps, spanking isn’t always as harmful as people would like to think? It’s important to realize what works for one child may not work for another. I think that’s often lost on people, they just assume it works for every child, but not every child is built the same.

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