Category: Parent Talk
How do you, as parents, feel about nanny Jo's methods of discipline. Since I grew up with spanking in the home, I am against using spanking or yelling as a form of discipline.
Hmmm, undoubtedly a lot of her methods do work. As a parent I am not against smacking per se, but I do feel that there are more effective ways of disciplining a child,and time-out is quite effective. However, I do think that some of her methods tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive, e.g. having a “naughty” step/corner/room/bench.
I tend to favour the Tanya Byron approach, she does use time-out, but she uses it more as a time for both child and parent to calm down than as a punishment, eg take the child out of the situation, put him somewhere quiet and walk away, and when you come back in 2/3/4 minutes depending on the child’s age you’ve both had a bit of space and have calmed down and can talk without the shouting/screaming/hitting/kicking etc. Whereas with jo’s approach it’s “you’ve been naughty therefore you will sit here” which gives a very negative message to the child IMO.
Children absolutely do need to know when what they’ve done is unacceptable, and boundaries need to be set, but there are ways of doing that.
Yeah, same here Sugarbaby. I don't think very much of the naughty step technique, buyt for slightly different reasons. With the naughty step, the child knows he or she can play games with their parents and give them the runaround and the parents're consgtantly running after them chasing after them and setting them back in the naughty spot/circle/chair, whatever for at least an hour if not longer and the punishment's very long and drawn-out, so by the time the parents come back and they want an appology from the child when they eventually stay put on the chair, circle or step for between two and five minutes, the child's forgotten what he or she has done which made their parents put them on the step, therefore, the step isn't a very good deterrant. The naughty/time-out room is better in that the child is not in control at all, however much they want that control of their parents, and it doesn't take many timeouts in a very boring, quiet but safe place in the house for the child to realise why they keep being put in that boring but safe room all the time, because the message has still to sink in that the behaviour they're displaying, really is not at all acceptable to the parents and sibblings who unfortunately, have to live with the child in the same house, poor buggers, so timeout is certainly going to be used to great effect, hopefully in my house, when eventually, I have Aled, Sirius, Emilia and Taliesin, my own future four children, lolllol.
The point of using those techniques is to always be consistent. Consistency is the key. He or she is going to test you, as a parent and a figure of authority. To them, it's a game, until you enforce the punishment. Yes, it is very drawn out, long, and may seem pointless at first because you're just chasing them around the house, but eventually, they'll get it. Each child is different, but they will understand. Remember, be firm and consistent in using the naughty corner, chair, or where ever time-out is located.
As a youngster, I was spanked rather frequently, I thought. So, when my kids were born I said I would never ever spank them. That lasted until the first one ran into the street. I had two rules of spanking, 1, never spank when you are angry, and 2, use your hand (nothing else) so you know how much pain you are inflicting. It's surprising how much a couple of swats hurt.
However, my most often used tortures were time out, and loss of privilidges such as tv.
It's funny, you think you know the answers until you have the kids. Then, it's too late, and you flounder all the time.
Bob
I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I could bring myself to use the naughty room, no matter how old the child is. I don't want to be chasing naughty children round and round and round the house all day because I might have other things i need to get on with, such as feeding the baby, getting the older childrens, book bags, lunch bags, coats ETC sorted out for School the next day, several loads of washing to be done, guide dogs to walk, feed and groom, so the naughty/timeout room would be a short, sharp shock for the child when they've behaved in a way which is unacceptable, and "children won't last for many timeouts" (Tanya Byron, Little Angels.)
I think I'd use the naughty room, now that I've thought it through thoroughly, just because it would be easier for me to tell whether or not the child being sent there had left it or not. If the child knew I couldn't see, he or she would get away from me easily if I just sat them in a chair.
This is just my opinion, but I don't think anyone can learn how to parent by reading a book. That just ain't gonna happen. For one, your child is an individual. Things that work on other children might not work on yours. I totally believing in spanking. Kids need discipline, and not just "oh no, bad baby don't do that again. sit here for two minutes and then you can get up and play." To me, that is not effective at all. Spank the child and they'll learn that if they do it again, well their going to get spanked again. We wonder why the kids are so out of control these days? It's because everyone is so afraid to spank their child. I was at the sink doing dishes the other day and we have one of those old wooden spoons. I just picked it up dried it off and then just like smacked my hand with it not too hard and that thing stung realllly bad! I told my husband, "damn, no wonder older people behave and expect things out of us youngsters." because back in the day, they got spanked alot, if the mom was busy using a wooden spoon she would use that to smack them. So I think spanking will eventually get the point across and your child will know what you expect out of them. My husband got spanked a lot, and he damn well respects his parents too. But back to the point, no book or methods or whatever can teach you how to be a parent. It's all trial and error, see what works your own self instead of going out and paying for a book that probably won't work anyway.
It’s easy to say what you think will work, and even to say what you think you’ll do when you’ve never had a child.
“spank the child and they’ll learn that if they do it again they’ll get spanked again”. But equally hb if you put a child into time-out they’ll learn that if they do it again they’ll get put into time-out again. And as you said, not everything works for every child, some children don’t respond to reason and some don’t respond to a smack, so you can’t have a “one punishment fits all” approach to every child.
Also it’s incredibly easy to have an opinion on how things should be done when you’ve not actually had to do it. Even if you’ve had experience with other peoples’ children it’s completely different when those children are your own. Before I had a child I had all these ideas of how things were going to be, and I didn’t see anything wrong with smacking, but then I had a child and to be brutally honest, the idea of raising my hand to that child to cause him physical pain filled me with horror. I have smacked him twice, and afterwards the guilt I felt for doing it was immense, because he just cried “mummy you hurt me”. How can I hurt my child who I brought into the world, who I’ve promised to protect, who I promised I would never let anyone hurt? There are more effective ways of disciplining than smacking IMO, and my child is a very well-mannered, polite, well-behaved child, and he is also very sensitive and responds much better to explanation than to physical violence.
Also, we teach our children that hitting is wrong, so how do you justify that it’s not ok to hit your friends, but it’s ok for mummy to hit you?
furthermore, the art of reason does need to be learned, as we now live in a society where smacking in public is simply no longer viewed as acceptable, so smacking your child in a public place could quite possibly end up with you being reported to social services.
Well said! Many people have written about the negative effects spanking will have on children, and I think they're right. I mean, my mom did most of the spanking, and I can honestly say she's left me--- *crying* --- emotionally scarred for the rest of my life. I'm just scared that I'm going to see a lot of her in the way I parent in future. I don't want to do that.
To amend my last post, here's how I feel spanking will have an effect on the child or children. They get spanked for misbehavior, and they obey. ... But, they're only listening out of fear. They know mom and dad care about them, but they're only listening and doing what they're told because the parent has shown them what will happen every time they disobey, and they're afraid. I'm not telling you how to raise your kids, just sharing my thoughts about this subject.
Spanking hurts them physically, mentally, and emotionally. I would never forgive myself.
You spank your child but tell them not to hit others...so? When they are an adult and a parent, they can spank their child too. That is just like any other rule, kids can't do it but adults can. Anyway. I'm not hurt physically emotionally or whatever else you said, and my parents spanked me. And you also said that the kid isn't going to do it out of fear. Isn't that the point? You don't want them to do it again. You want them to think " oh no, last time I got a spanking...I don't want another one of those." I mean if the spanking didn't scare them then obviously it wouldn't work. I'm not saying beat the daylights out of your child, but don't just tap them and give them something to laugh at. And if you do give your child a spanking be sure to still show that you love it or whatever. I mean the kid will not be mentally effected unless they think that you just hate them and that is the reason you spank them. But if you balance it then they'll respect you. Just wanted to comment on the part that it hurts a kid. I'm not hurt and neither is my husband. Sure it may have hurt at the time that the spanking happened, but we're not mentally affected by it still. So that's just crazy thinking.
I know you're not trying to deliberately hurt him/her, but I'm just saying, for me personally, I just wouldn't do it.
Those of you who are pro smacking then and who see nothing wrong with it, can I ask, do you hit your partner? Does your partner hit you? After all, surely your partner must do some things that annoy you or the other way around? So why don’t you just hit him when you get angry with him, or why don’t you think it’s acceptable for him to hit you when you’ve done something he doesn’t like?
Generally we don’t hit each other as adults because we respect each other too much to do that. And because these days, one adult hitting another is viewed as violence.
So how is it then that:
It is unacceptable for one adult to hit another
It is unacceptable for one child to hit another
It is unacceptable for a child to hit an adult
But
It is acceptable for an adult to hit a child
How do you rassionalize to a child that “hitting is unacceptable on all levels except for when I do it to you”. And don’t think that you child wouldn’t ever ask the question, because children are growing up in a society where smacking is considered unacceptable, so it’s not like when you or I were children and all your friends were smacked, if you smack your child you are likely to be in the minority now, so your child will be well aware that most parents don’t smack their children.
I absolutely agree that firm boundaries need to be set, and that children need to be disciplined, but I do not agree that this needs to be based on fear. And “the child gets hit, so he knows that if he does it again he will be hit” is a fear tactic IMO. The child needs to learn and be told why the behaviour he has exhibited is wrong, and needs to learn from that.
Also I think it’s important to think about when you hit a child. If you do it on the spur of the moment, eg when child has run across a road/put his hand up to the cooker, it’s a shock response and can often not be avoided. And at that point it’s often hard to reason “you mustn’t touch that cooker because it’s hot, now please take your hand away” you have to act now and so a tap on the hand is the quickest way to get a response. But if you are hitting a child out of punishment, eg when the child has misbehaved while out and you then get the child home and give him a good walloping, you have to consider that you have actually sat down and deliberately made the decision to inflict physical pain on your child. And it is physical pain. And IMO there is never any justification for doing that.
That's what I won't do, no matter what. Inflicting pain on a child, even just by smacking them. In the UK, even just a sharp ta on the child's hand these days if they were naughty would have the parents up before the courts. Smacking with kitchen utensils, canes, belts and slippers is banned, so parents wouldn't be allowed to use those methods anyway and I think smacking a child only teaches them they can hit other children and even grown-ups when they're not happy with them, which could lead to both injuries and serious trouble.
Here! Here! *smiles*
Where's the sense in spanking kids? To me, there isn't any.
I think personally 1. I got spanked and am not still affected today accept for a very strong since of what is acceptable behavior and what isn't; at least in my Mom's opinion. 2. I think spanking should only be used as a very last resort. 3. One should never spank out of anger. As to why it is ok in extreme circumstances...Parents are responsible for teaching right from wrong, and if the child is unwilling or unable to learn through talks, time-outs, loss of privilages, etc, there may only be one option left. A story...An old friend of mine has a 7 year old son. Her and her spouse tried many times to explain why he was not to go around strangers or into the parking lot at their apartment complex without one or the other of them. They also tried time-out, loss of privilages, showing him graphic pics of kidnapped and or traffic accident victums. Nothing was seeming to get through to him. Finally, after his mother saw him in the middle of the parking lott climbing on a complete strangers motor bike she spanked him and sent him to his room until supper was ready. To my knowledge, he hasn't done it since...
I say go with the military approach and make them stand at attention or do pushups.
I'd do that, but i'd rather not scare them senseless. lol interesting thought though
And about learning how to parent from a book? of course the book's not going to teach you everything. Those are suggestions only.
okay I have been reading this topic for awhile now, and here's my thoughts on the matter. I think, if you spank your kids, you are teaching them vilance. now, if they were to say, put a hand near a stove, a timeout can disiplen them. then after you do that, or better yet, while you are doing that, have a talk with the child. explaining that he or she should never put there hand in front of the stove. but I would never spank my kids!