Originally posted by NMAmy
No, I'm not saying that only those children who hit are the ones who are spanked. I don't work in a daycare but I had a child who went to one. I can tell you from experience that she was not spanked and she did not hit other children. How can you tell your child "We don't hit" then turn around and spank them without feeling like a hypocrite?
My point is NOT that you are a bad mom because you don't spank and that your kid cannot be possibly well behaved because you don't spank her. I just wanted to make that clear. My point is more that I think whether or not your kid has discipline at home (whatever method that may be) has a lot more to do with how well your child will behave than the actual method of discipline. Kids who know that they will get in trouble if they hit another kid will be less likely to go around hitting other kids. If "getting in trouble" for your kid means losing privileges and that does the trick, great! That's not the case for all kids.
As far as it being hypocritical, there are many things that parents do that kids aren't allowed to do. One of those things is discipline. Are you saying that if you take things away from your child and put them in time out that you are being hypocritical if you do not allow your child to take things away from other children or force them to sit away from the group? You say kids are smart so surely they can understand the difference between a punishment for something that they did wrong and emulating that behavior just because they feel like it.
About the child with the biting problem--if my child had done that I would have had her sit right with me. No playing with the other children if you can't play nicely. Or just leave the party. One ineffective parent does not mean that all who don't spank would behave the same way.
I also bit my sister when I was 3. My mother bit me so hard on my arm that I had the mark for more than a week. Do I remember it as an adult? You betcha. Would I do that to my own child? Just because it happened to me, doesn't mean I want my child to have to go through it.
But your child hasn't done it. Until you have had to deal with a biting child, you don't know what you would have to do to get the behavior to stop. What if the no playing with other children thing doesn't work? What if you leave the party and the kid bites someone tomorrow? What if you have a talk with the kid about it and they say "okay" and then the next day they bite two more kids at daycare? What if you take away privileges (not that a 2 year old has much in the way of privileges) and the kid bites 3 more kids the next day? What if a spanking would once and for all make the child understand that there are serious consequences for what they did?
I'm sorry that your mother bit you that hard but honestly I don't see anyone here advocating any method of punishment that would leave a noticible mark for a week. On the other hand, did you ever bite again? I know my sister didn't after she got a spanking for biting me, and the one bite never turned into a "biting problem." It's understandable that you don't want your child to go through pain, but what about the pain your sister went through by being bitten for no good reason at all by you? What about the pain of all of the kids who would be bitten by a child with a "biting problem"?
Here's another question I've been wondering about as I read this thread. For all those who do spank and feel that time outs, etc, are ineffective--would you want your daycare provider to spank your child? How do you feel about corporal punishment in schools?
I can only speak for myself and not others, but I don't believe that time outs etc are ineffective for all kids, but for some they are. I do believe that what method of discipline should be applied is a decision that the parent should make. I would not want my daycare provider to make that kind of decision for me because it's not their place to. If they do something that deserves a spanking, it's the parents job to administer the punishment... allowing just anyone to strike your child leaves open too much chance of abuse. Of course not every parent is a saint and I know there is abuse that goes on out there, but for the sake of argument let's limit the discussion to parents who only want what's best for their children and who are not abusive.
I really do respect the opinions of everyone who has posted in favor of spanking--I just wanted to present the other view and maybe gain some insight as to why others spank their kids.
Others spank their kids because, frankly, their kids are not yours. They don't behave like yours. They don't respond like yours. I see these kinds of arguments over and over again where people assume because things work out one way for them that they should work out that way for EVERYONE, whether it is about potty training (hey, I trained my kid at 18 months and your kid is 3, what's wrong with you?), eating (hey, my kid eats everything and your kid only eats plain foods, what's wrong with you?) etc.
