Spanking JW children can lead to Problems

by is there help out there 28 Replies latest jw friends

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  jwfacts

  Spanking let's a child know who is boss (when used appropriately).

  Children are not stupid, they know who is boss. Would it be appropriate for your work boss to spank you, to let you know he is boss?

  Some children are little devils. I know that if I wasn't spanked, I would've gotten away with a lot of things. I grew up very disciplined and learned to never talk back to my elders.

  There are other forms of discipline to let a child know what they are doing is wrong, and to learn respect. A child is not afraid or put off by a small slap. They are only going to be intimidated into stopping something in the future if it is a violent beating.

  Teaching a child why something is wrong is by far the best way. Since the child loves you, letting them know they are upsetting you or withholding things they want, are also better ways than violence.

  Spanking to get a child's attention to avoid a dangerous situation might be appropriate--it hurts less than getting hit by a car, for instance. - WTWizard

  Since the age of 3 my child never dares goes near the road, because he is afraid of getting injured. His little 4 year old friend still runs out on the road, despite getting screamed at and beaten by his mother. The hitting does not help him know why not to go on the road. When he gets hit for a range of things, many far less important, it all just falls into the same basket in his mind of not being that important.
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  Band on the Run

  I was rarely spanked. It was very embarassing. Rather, I was beaten, kicked off walls, pinched, kicked off walls. People seemed to fly around the air in violence in my home. If spankiing is harmful, imagine brute force backed up by Jehovah God and a Witness culture. Others have repeatedly written here about beatings and other punishments.

  Spankiing is innucuous in comparison.

  What was shocking, compared to my present church which has too many children to please me, is the attitude about discipline. The Witnesses egg each other to beat. Beating is a good thing. A righteous thing. Children are a hindrance to the Kingdom message. I have never seen any child spanked ever in my church.

  I'm from NY which has only a nominal number of children b/c of the cost of a decent education. The presence of children is refreshing. My former priest used to assemble the entire parish on Sunday ams and not send the kids to Sunday School. Rather than write a mediocre sermon aimed at adults, she turned the main service into Sunday School. The first ten to fifteen times, it was delightful. If you were n ot a parent of a littke kid, you hated it.

  I feel her salary should have been discounted. Look, Sally, look, there is Noah, a righteous man who saved the animals in an ark. Look, ducks! Watch the ducks enter the ark. etc. What a treat!
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  reneeisorym

  I have an 18 month old and am just now having to discipline. We are doing time outs so far. I don't have it all figured out yet. I just can't understand how you teach your child not to hit others if you hit them. I remember hitting people at school when I was angry because that's what my mom did when she was angry at me. I want to teach self control and be an example of how to keep your temper in check. I don't know how you would do that if you spank. My dad would get angry and then use his belt on me. I don't want my child to see me with that kind of anger.
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  jwfacts

  I don't really have that much problem with a small controlled smack, but what I notice is that most physical punishment is done on the spur of the moment and out of control.

  Reneeisorym, I like your approach. When Zac was a baby, I sometimes would get very frustrated with him and not know what to do. Eventually I realised that he was not bad and needed discipline, he was in need of something. It was always either a wet nappy, hunger, boredom or pain. None of those should be addressed with violence. I could satisfy every reason he cried and stop the crying, once I could work out the issue. By the time a kid is two and starts working out their independence, and start misbehaving as such, they are old enough to understand what you are saying to them and can be reasoned with.
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  Norcal_Sun

  I personally think that physical punishment is the lazy way to discipline. It is easy to hit a child, but a lot more difficult to try to explain to them why it is wrong in a manner that will encourage them not to do it again.

  By the time a kid is two and starts working out their independence, and start misbehaving as such, they are old enough to understand what you are saying to them and can be reasoned with.

  This has been my experience with my son too. He has almost never been bad on purpose. I have rarely had to punish him. When they are little they usually need to be redirected from the behavior, if its getting into something they shouldn't or fighting over a toy. If you remove them from the situation then its usually cleared up. And now that he is almost 2 we have started doing time outs in his playpen for 1 or 2 minutes. He will test the boundary a few times but then we put him in time out and he cries but usually stops his behavior. The only time he has acted up is when he is really tired or teething. When he gets older we are going to use more logical and natural consequences for bad behavior. Children do not enjoy being humiliated and it really f***s with your self esteem. Spanking at the meeting is the ultimate humiliation.

  Now lets compare my JW nephews and niece. They have been spanked since they were 6 months old (yes, swatted at 6 months old!) Spanking does NOT equal good discipline. The kids are bored, unruly and the youngest one has NO respect for his parents AT ALL. Not an ounce. Spanking no longer works on him and hes only 5. He doesn't care if he gets spanked, it becomes a challenge to show that it doesn't effect him. Also he has a lot of anger already and I know that the poor kid is going to have a hell of a time.

  Here is another relevant study:

  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1983895,00.html
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  PaintedToeNail

  jwfacts-wikipedia isn't an infallible source of information in all things. Years ago, I worked at a police department, we often dealt with Childrens' Services, it was a chargable offense to hit a child with an instrument, but not with a hand. I know there are some societies where caning people is accepted, as is stoning people to death.

  Americans seem to have a very high rate of child physical assault, to the point of killing children, than do other countries. How much of this is related to the lack of social services from child care to medical care to birth control, I do not know. One child being abused is far, far too many. Smacking your kid because she just put some strangers used gum she found stuck on a shelf, in her mouth is another.
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  kathrin

  Reminds me of an experience I had in Florida. A "sister" saw bruises on my youngest son. So the next thing I know I'm in an elders meeting. I tried to explain how my son got those bruises; he was on a tire swing in the yard and fell out of the swing onto some tree roots. They of course didn't believe me so I was "reproved" and they said I should be glad they didn't call DFCS. All this just on what this sister thought I had done and on her word alone. Needless to say, I stopped going to that particular KH. My respect for the elders dropped many notches that day.
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  jwfacts

  I am in agreeance with you PaintedToeNail. The point I was making is that different people have different concepts of what spanking means or what physical discipline includes. When people refer to spanking, they quite regularly include more that an open hand on the buttocks, and that can also be the legal definition of some countries.
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  talesin

  I was peed off at my friend the other day; she was really being stupid! She was driving carelessly, and could have gotten us into a car accident!

  So I slapped her on the arm,, it didn't *really* hurt her!

  For some reason, she took offense at that, and called the police and reported me for assault.

  What a bitch! Doesn't she understand that I was just showing her how wrong it was to act stupidly?!

  Yah, it's okay to hit your kids,,,

  NOT!!!

  tal