Do you think hitting children should be illegal?

Not true. Children are not gods, they are people. People who are sometimes difficult to deal with; parents do the best they can. I'm not a parent and I recognize this.

Yes, I agree they are people. and I would never hit another person. Unless they were larger than me and trying to kill me. :P

I said people in order to clear their varied temperaments. They're not adults though and don't start out understanding right from wrong. This is important due to the dangerous situations they often find themselves in due to childhood curiosity. My cousin ran into oncoming traffic chasing a butterfly. Her mother spanked her in order to help her associate doing such a dangerous thing with pain - as she ages she will come to understand that what should did could have caused her death. Her mother had previously used time out and talking for the behavior with no success. Since the spanking, however, my little cousin has been great about asking her mom to hold her hand and take her where her curiosity leads her.

My daughter ran into very busy traffic as well. It was terrifying. She's adhd, and nothing stopped her either. It was Hard, but from then on we held hands everywhere, including sidewalks. It sucked for both of us but it was a lesson she never forgot either.

The key is that the spanking caused my cousin to change and ask for permission, she also initiates the hand. holding. We don't want her to be dependent through; we love her free spirit. However, my brother has adhd and I realize that children with that disorder require different techniques and tend to be dependent for much longer on average.

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I guess, the question boils down, to, do I agree with the government imposing itself on the spankrl v. Not spank debate. Answer is No.

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I should add that I know of several adhd kids who turned out fine and were spanked.

The reality of life is as an adult if you act like a **** you well find yourself getting a slap if you cross the wrong person. A slap round the ear by a parent is telling a child just that, that you can't just act like an idiot without their being possible consequences.

Saying that, there's a difference between giving a child a smack and beating the living daylights out of them. Hitting children with objects or kicking them in the ribs is beyond reasonable and is abuse.

Ok, then you have a child with special needs. It depends on what a child's special needs are, some special needs require medications, some require special help with behavioral specialists.

I raised a child who struggled with dyslexia, if she got frustrated with learning or achieving, she could have tantrums. I am not going to hit her because of that, instead I sit with her and have helped her calm down. I also had to learn that if I gave her a list of things to do, she was only going to remember a few and simply not remember the other things, it would have been "wrong" for me to spank her for that and think she was lying when she really did not remember.

I grew up with an older brother who had ADHD badly, he was severely punished and hit way too much, it only made him worse and even now as a man pushing 60 will suck his thumb in his sleep when he is stressed, that sure goes all the way back for him, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was treated badly "abused" for something he could not help.

I did not want any hitting in my home and my daughter knew that, yet she also knew she had to behave too.

Some children can be challenging, yes I know, so it's important to get to the bottom of "why".

Mine has developmental delay, with a communication disorder. The time out, was preventing him from running out the door because he wasn't getting his way about a last minute bday party, with people I've never met, without a phone number and 10pm end time. That wasn't a spank worthy instance. Shoving his brother out of the yard, into heavy traffic, that was a good smack on his butt.

If he doesn't do his homework, school gives detention. Wants to be defiant, it's a take away of a privilege. For the amount of spankings, that have occurred, I'm hard pressed to lose sleep, nor be called an abusive bully.

Edit to add: i have another special needs son, youngest, articulation disorder with developmental delay (order of label matters in prevelance of severity) and an older son who is 2.7 years older than my first mentioned son. He's actually the one who has emotional outbursts that do rival the patience of most any parent. My special needs sons are cakewalks. Spanking is far from routine around here.

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posted by healingme4me
I agree. We don't need the government micromanaging parenting.

I'm going to come down on the unpopular side about spank vs. no spank. As several others have said there is a HUGE difference between a quick swat on the fanny and abuse. I'm not in favor of spanking as a first line of discipline, but think that on occasion it has a place. rouge198 gave a real life example of a time I believe it's appropriate. As a toddler is about to run into traffic is not the time to have a discussion about safe behavior. A quick swat on the diaper clad bottom is not abuse.

Someone mentioned verbal and emotional abuse by parents. I was rarely spanked by my father, but the man could tear the hide off me verbally. There were times when he was raging about what a worthless piece of shite I was that I would wish he'd just clout me and get it over with. The scars from the verbal and emotional abuse took me most of my life to heal from.

My mom, spanked me a couple times, in my life. Think it was a danger concern, I'm going based on what she'd told me. My dad refused to ever lay a hand, he's been the same objector in discipline in raising my half sister. He would talk, but I grew up feeling I could do no right, it was a ho hum to the critique, best I can describe. I grew up, close to my mom. There's a rift with my dad. I knew where I stood with mom. It was an honest and close relationship.
My half sister, couldn't collect disability for her diabetes I was last told, because the doctor noted she wasn't compliant with her meds because she has mh issues in need of being addressed.

Just had a GAL interview this summer during a custody investigation when I wanted to move. In it, she'd asked all three if mom or dad hit them. Report said, they said No. That he nor I hit them.

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I think abuse should be illegal, but hitting and abuse are two different things. I'm personally against spankings, and I always have been, but I don't think they should be illegal. It's a parent's choice as to whether they spank or not. It's not something a government should decide.

My mother was the disciplinary figure so she did spank my brother and I. He was spanked much more often than I was, however, because I usually didn't get in trouble and when I did, I mainly remember her using the "time out bench" or standing in a corner or something.

However, I do know that studies have shown that children who are spanked are more aggressive than children who have not been spanked. This is why psychologists tend to recommend time outs (only up to about age 7 or so) instead of spankings.

I also agree with those who brought up verbal and emotional abuse - I received plenty from my mother (and still do occasionally) after my father left when I was a child. The words I hear and the things I remember hearing - those are the things that make me not want to interact with her - not me remembering, "Oh, she spanked me that one time." Consequently, my brother, who received less emotional abuse overall, interacts with her much more than I do (and I live in the same house with her - he doesn't).

I was adopted by Aunt because we were gong to sent to and orphanage when I was 3 months, but saw my biological parents and family events or met them for a BBQ everynow and again. I hated it because you knew that smack in the head, being beaten with piece of electrical cord etc would come eventually. runk or not it didn't matter to my biollogcal parents
I gave my children just a small tap on the bottom and I always explained why. It was intended to get my child attention if words didn't work.
I feel a light smack, not with whole hand is ok its when household objects like the leather razor strop, electrial cords, wooden spoons etc are used thats when it becomes abuse along with smacking with a force that knocks a child down.

I do think that having classes about child development should be mandatory in high schools. There can also be some things discussed with younger children to help them understand their own development too. There should be discussions on verbal abuse as well. I don't feel that someone should "just" become a parent without proper education so they do not verbally abuse or hit a child and understand child development better.

Unfortunately when I was growing up there was not as much guidance available to parents as there is now.

My mom beat me and was verbally abusive her I feared. My dad would spank me and I NEVER feared him. He was consistent and I knew what the rules were. If I didn't want to get spanked then I didn't act a fool.

My brother and I discussed it once because one of my friends made that ridiculous statement that spanking teaches children to hit Dogs don't have to be taught to bite and people don't have to be taught to hit. But we discussed spanking and he said "You know it never really hurt when you spanked me. What got through is that you were so disappointed that you spanked me. Also what if the next spanking did hurt?? I just knew I needed to straighten out." Well I started laughing because I told him it was the same for me. Dad never spanked hard enough that it actually hurt. It was just that for some reason it got through where him simply saying I'm disappointed didn't.

Raindropvampire,

Your mother should have spent quality caring time with you instead of beating and verbally abusing you.

Children can behave badly, yes and can be a challenge. However, answering that with hitting and verberally putting them down is not the answer. It is important to use the mind instead and communicate and have a structure that rewards good behavior.

I spanked my daughter once when she was three and I absolutely hated it, I hated how I felt too. I decided in my home there would be "no" hitting and I did use a naughty spot.
Years later I watched the program called "the nanny" where she too used the naughty spot and she NEVER HIT and also showed the parents how to get more "structure" in their home and also spend more "quality" time with the children, it "does" work. I was glad I saw that because that is exactly what I did myself.

It should definitely be illegal. If someone walked up and hit you, no matter the reason, you could press charges. So if two adults of equal size and strength can't just swat each other, why can a larger parent hit a small child?

Will someone who supports spanking explain this to me?

Well that's another debate. If an adult walked up and hit another adult for no reason then that's wrong. But if an adult hit another adult because he was being an asshole, such as let's say, spitting in your face, then that shouldn't be illegal.

As an adult, you can be put in jail for violating the rights of another adult. If you destroy something that is my property, I can get you locked up and I can sue you for reimbursement. If you punch me, I can get you arrested.

Children enjoy quite a bit of immunity from these repercussions. If one 6 year old deliberately breaks the toy of another 6 year old, he really won't face any repercussion, other than what his parents impose on him. He won't be arrested, or sued. (Though parents of the child wronged can sue parents of the child who did wrong.) Parents are held responsible for restraining their children from violating the rights of others. Bare in mind that a child of 6 is quite capable of killing another small child. So the law has traditionally deemed it wise and appropriate to leave parents free to restrain their children using the means they chose, but not permitting overt abuse. (Overt abuse being judged based on the broad consensus of societal norms.)

The argument that a child should have the same right to freedom from physical coercion that an adult enjoys is failing to recognize that the child already has rights and freedoms that adults don't enjoy.

Thank you.

My Father didn’t just physically abuse me when I was young. He spent years emotionally abusing me for having Asperger’s, ADHD and OCD and he would call me names like a retard, spastic and a ****up and it ****ed with my head for a long time and when he wasn’t abusing me he would expose himself to my sister and touch her inappropriately at night and it wasn’t until my sister was older that we got away from him and that was one of the best days of my life. Child abuse is one of many offences that are often swept under the rug here in Australia because most people rather not talk about it and like to pretend that it doesn’t happen even when they see the bruises on the kids’ bodies and I know the attitude only too well and I sadly don’t see it changing any time soon.

It has been the same way here for the past thirty years and I know many other victims of child abuse that were subjected to regular beatings from their parents and some of them suffered from very low self-esteem while others were so traumatised it made it very difficult for them to trust anybody later in their lives which lead to them being alone most of the time. I still have trust issues and I can’t trust anybody unless I have known them for a while but thankfully I had a very kind and caring older sister that was like a Mum to me and she helped me through a lot over the years and I trust her more than anybody in the world with the exception of my Wife and daughters. Not everybody that has suffered from child abuse was as lucky as me though and I think a lot of people judge them without really understanding them.

Now this I definitely disagree on.

My Wife never smacks my step daughter and one of the things that stood out the most to me when I met her was how well behaved and good mannered she was. She is Autistic and is very advanced for her age and she can currently speak in three different languages and do Year 10 English, Geography, History and Mathematics and we are very proud of her. My Wife chose not to enrol her into a public school because she was worried she would be bullied like she was when she was younger and when I look at the bullying and suicide rates for young people with Autism in Australia now I think she made the right decision because my step daughter is very content with her life which is very different than most of the stories my Wife hears about children with disabilities at her support group meetings.

You don’t need to hit a child to teach them morals and values – you need to spend time with them and not throw them in front of a TV or a computer which is what a lot of parents are doing these days.

Too triggering for me to share my experience, but I have been a victim too.

One time my child ran into the street while a car was coming and I yanked her back and smacked her butt. Felt horrible and cried about it later , but I was crazy with fear and wanted to impress that she never do that again. I learned a lesson from it, too. You have to watch your kids every second and have hold of their hand in a vice grip (figure of speech) when crossing the street while constantly intoning "look both ways, then look again".

I don't believe I should have gone to jail for that, but abusing is different with a different dynamic. A SO who looks away and doesn't report it is guilty too.

As much as I am against spanking, I would rather not live in a Nanny state where the government dictates every aspect of how we live.