Thanks to chemical emotions for sharing her painful experiences.
I wish I knew 20 years ago what I know now. My daughter received not more than 3 "spankings" from me when she was about 3 1/2 to 4 years old. I'm pretty sure the issue each time was her blatantly rejecting parental authority. As a true-believing JW this needs to be corrected or her eternal life could be in jeopardy. The spankings were 2 or 3 bare handed swats to the bottom hard enough to sting a little but not enough to leave a (physical) mark. Never done in anger and always after a boring, long-winded explanation. Almost clinical in the way it was done. After the 3rd(?) spanking my heart told me that this was overkill. I felt horrible. I promised my daughter that no matter what happened in the future, I would NEVER spank her again. I'll have to ask her how her memory of this compares to mine.
My son, OTOH, had an iron butt. He probably got about 12 spankings from me. I can also remember his last one. After the boring speech and the stinging swats he just looked up at me unfazed. Right there I knew this a pointless and wrong-headed exercise. From then on he only got time-outs, natural consequences or loss of privileges.
So now I think I'm ready to be a half-way decent parent. Problem is, I'M ALL DONE. (Well, almost.)
om
