Spanking has been a tool of discipline for centuries. It is even mentioned in the Bible. Yet in recent years, spanking has fallen out of favour. Today’s parents hesitate to discipline their kids in this way, largely because the practice has been demonized in the media. What follows is my personal experience with spanking, and the lessons that it has taught me.
For those of you who don’t know, I am the proud father of a 3 year-old. He’s usually a great kid, but he seems to have issues with dinner time. He’s a finicky eater, and he has protested dinner time regularly since he was old enough to eat solid food. I have taken this in stride for a couple of years, but the breaking point was reached last week.
There are times in a parent’s life where no amount of logic or rationality can calm your child. Last week, Maddox (that’s his name) decided that he was NOT going to eat supper, and that was his final word. The usual tactics were tried – taking away toys, revoking his dinner privileges for the night, and the legendary “time-out.” Despite my best efforts, these techniques met with failure. He was making a huge fuss, complete with out-of-control tantrum and screaming. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.
After 45 minutes of attempting to control the situation, I decided to take a radical new approach. I laid him face down on the bed, whipped down his pants and smacked him on his little three year-old ass. The result? Instant success. He looked shocked, and exclaimed “Dad, that HURT!” I said damned right it did, and if you can’t bring yourself under control and join us at the table, you’ll get another one. He did exactly as he was told, and there hasn’t been a problem with dinner time since.
Right now, many of you are thinking “Of course! More parents should spank their kids.” This is true, but there’s a caveat – spanking is easy to overuse. I mentioned the instant discipline that resulted from spanking. Because of this result, I feel that people could be tempted to overuse spanking as a means of discipline. After all, why go back to time-outs if you can just whack your kid and get the same (or better) result?
I feel that spanking can be an effective tool, but only if it is not overused. It should be an absolute last-ditch effort to restore order. For example, my son can take one hell of a beating. He climbs rocks and escarpments with me, fights viciously (when we play “fighting”) and can take punishing blows from other kids (or the ground) that would knock other three year-olds out cold. To him, spanking isn’t about pain. A mild slap on the ass isn’t going to reduce him to tears, or affect him physically at all. What DOES shock the misbehaviour out of him is the fact that his father, his biggest bestest buddy in the whole world, struck him in seriousness.
Needless to say, the shock would wear off pretty quickly if this technique was overused. What was shocking and emotionally painful at first can quickly become mundane. Before you know it, he is accustomed to being smacked, and it becomes the only form of discipline that works. This is not a place that you want to go to.
Maintaining discipline is an important job for parents. Spanking is a useful weapon in your arsenal of child-control, but it musn’t be the only one. When combined with more traditional forms of child management (positive reinforcement, time-outs, negative reinforcement), spanking can round out your options nicely, but ONLY when used very sparingly.
So parents – you are not less of a person because you spanked your kid. However, if you find yourself resorting to physical punishment all the time, your child will become increasingly difficult to control as he or she ages. After all, you’re not going to spank your 15 year-old, are you?
