Spankings were the way to discipline children when I was a kid. No one complained about child abuse and spankings were something you “earned” and “deserved”. Belts, wooden spoons, and spatulas were completely fair game.
When I was 9 years old I said something cocky to one of my parents friends — he grabbed me, kicked me in my ass, and told me to never talk like that again. When I say he kicked me in my ass, I mean he actually took his foot and kicked me in the butt in every literal sense. It wasn’t a light kick either, I went staggering forward and caught my balance at the last minute before I would have smashed my face on the concrete.
If this happened today, parents would be outraged and the police would be involved. Somebody would be getting sued.
If I had gone and told my parents what had happened, they would have asked me what I did to the guy. If I told them what I had said to him I would have gotten another beating. Back then, people had common sense. If there kid was getting disciplined by other adults, they probably did something to deserve it.
So what did I do?
I took my punishment, took the lesson, and told no one — except for everyone on the internet just now — oops my bad, I hope my parents aren’t reading this right now. I’m kind of old to get a spanking.
On my parenting journey I have stumbled upon three different methods of parenting. They can be summed up as: Persuasion, Coercion, and Physical Discipline.
Physical discipline has been the most effective and traditional punishment for thousands of years. But it is quickly becoming illegal and frowned upon.
Coercion is the act of verbally threatening or physically intimidating a person to get them to do what you want. There are many independent studies that claim mental abuse on a child lingers into adulthood while physical abuse tends to subside.
Please don’t take this out of context, obviously putting a child in an occasional timeout is less traumatizing than beating them senseless with a wrench while drunk.
I am not asking you to consider extremes, only regularities — if my child talks back to me do I put them in timeout or give them a spanking.
My parenting strategies have changed a lot over the last 13 years as my children grow older and I become more patient and perhaps wiser.
When I was younger I leaned more toward spankings and physical discipline. As I got older I tried coercion with varied success. Now that I am 13 years into being a parent, I no longer give a fuck what my kids do.
Just kidding.
I am beginning to consider persuasion as my method of discipline but there is a fine line to walk between being their friend and their parent. Persuasion is the act of communicating with another individual in attempt to influence their behavior.
I don’t treat my kids like property and I don’t think that I own or control them. They are free spirits that I brought into this world. My job as a parent is to give them guidance to keep them safe. I want to do my best to teach them a philosophy that will help them on their life journey. I only get 18 years to do that and then they will be on their own.
My reward is watching them grow. On this journey I am not only the teacher but the student. They have taught me a great many things about life and myself.
This is my introduction to a four part blog post. In my next post I will talk about my experience with Physical Discipline and why I am now against it.
being the proud parent of a 22 year old son who works hard, respects his parents, grandparents, and women, who graduates with a BA in 3 months, Ill tell ya, persuasion and cohersion only works up until bout 5-6 years of age, “do you want a time out” or “Ill take you for ice-cream if you do this” only works so long….asswhoopings, or a slap across the mouth when warranted work from 6 to 50. this world wouldn’t be the cesspool of evil, foul mouthed, lazy, no respect, no honor, no work ethic, mattress backed, SSI claiming bags of shit if they knew respect early on, if they knew that If they fked up, they wouldn’t sit right for a week. They’d know that if they raised up, mouthed off, they’d be picking themselves off the ground. Every time they chewed gum the next month, they’d be thinking about how bad of an idea it was to mouth to mom or dad.