Spank that ass

Ahem.....

You might want to be careful with that. http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/aug/24/child-abuse-conviction-hot-sauce-case-ar-702748/

Focus:My parents hit/spanked me as a child, and quite frankly I think I'm probably better off for it. The boundaries for my sister(younger) and I were established early and only if we were really being little shits did it end up in physical punishment. However there may be a good reason for that, my mother hung her sorority paddle over the door leading to our laundry room and all she had to do was to reach for it and there would be nothing left of my sister and I but a vapor trail to our rooms. Rarely did she even have to resort to that though, usually all she had to say was "Just wait until your father gets home" and we'd straighten up pretty quick.

 

I know I heard some story in the news, I don't see how it is abuse. I know some people get very excited about it being abuse, I don't believe the way I do it is. For the record, I haven't even had to do it more than THREE times. It was effective, it's food and it's not too traumatizing.

Some people feel liquid soap is more humane and that makes ZERO sense to me.

edited: the case being referenced indicates sauce being "poured into the boy's mouth then forced to stand in a cold shower." I don't do that shit. WTF.

 

He liked the tobasco and sriracha, he requests them. I will reiterate that I drop ONE drop on his tongue. I don't pour it in his eyes or nostrils. He's not traumatized, he knows that being a complete brat will be uncomfortable. It doesn't leave marks, he is allowed to have milk or water after he apologizes and we are done.

I just don't understand why a childless bleeding heart liberal would worry about it. There are lots of cases far more severe to be concerned with. (Sorry if I am being defensive, got into a major debate with a friend about this recently. Her parenting style is to NEVER discipline, thusly her children are completely out of control. She thinks its "mean.")

 

I don't have much problem with my kids. They're well behaved, respectful, and generally good people. I don't think there's anything wrong with boys being boys, and I make a distinction between boys who are rough and tumble and boys who are problems.

I've only spanked the oldest boy once since he was diapers...it was at the beginning of summer. He went out side of our well established and defined boundaries, crossed the fence at the apartment complex and was riding a pocket bike in the street with some other boys.

Hell. No.

The Guy couldn't find The Boy when it was time for baseball practice, and came back to the gym to tell me that The Boy was out and about.

Double Hell. No.

I found The Boy and told him to go to my room and grab a belt. He did, and he said he knew he deserved it. He was spanked, grounded, and exceptionally remorseful. He KNEW he broke my rules and he knew why they were in place. The pain that caused me, to see him with tears in his eyes and know that I caused them, was indescribable.
That said, for his own safety, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.



I rarely spank. I don't rule it out, but I'd rather teach them every day through example and expectations than do anything else.

 

You're not worried that repeated green sauce exposure isn't going to have some adverse effect? Do you really want your child growing up to be Mexican?

 

Whenever I misbehaved as a kid, my parents usually just sent me to my room for a while or grounded me and wouldn't let me watch TV. That was usually punishment enough and I would typically stop before they had to escalate to spanking me.

One memory that stands out is from when I was around 6 or 7. My sister and I were calling each other names and after I after I refused to stop, my dad got a paper towel full of soap and tried to wash my mouth out with it. I wouldn't open my mouth, so he tried to force the towel in and knocked my two front teeth out. Cue me screaming and crying in the middle of the kitchen with blood pouring out of my mouth as my mom frantically tried to calm me down.

That was the last time either of them ever threatened to wash my mouth out.

Edit: For the record, my teeth were already pretty loose. It's not like he punched me in the mouth with the thing.

But they would always get uneasy when someone would see me and ask how I lost them. Probably didn't help that I always answered "My dad knocked them out!" Leave him to explain his way out of a DYFS investigation.

 

They're already white trash, I am trying to help them!

 

I think there is a line that separates spanking and beating, as someone has said already, my parents did not see it that way. There were 8 adopted kids in my family and being one of the older ones we were beaten often and hard. The weapon of choice was a 1/2 inch dowel about 36 inches long and it was administered to a bare ass laying over a bed, if you kicked while you were being beaten you had to endure another 10-12 lashes, beatings were usually proceeded by a lecture and finished off with a bullshit speech about how what you just endured was done out of love.
To make things more awesome, as I got to be 12-13 years old, my dad decided ass beatings were not enough and began to give my older brother and I lashes on the back with either the same dowel or a belt, followed by rubbing oil on said lashes to help them heal. Nothing like going to school and having to take change with scabbed beating lashes acrossed your back.
The last time I got one was when I was 15 for what I don't remember but it was with a belt and it was a good one, so much so that my dad would have done a nice amount of time if I had the know how to contact law enforcement.As a kid I remember the screams of my siblings getting their asses beat, it is not pleasant.

My younger brother, I found out in the last year, got his last one when he was 12, after which he told my dad that if he ever touched him again he would kill him and he was so angry that he would stand outside my dads room with a machete some nights ready to hack him up, this along with 2-3 attempts at slashing his wrists made for a few nice teenage years for him.

My opinion would be that there are probably other forms of discipline that are effective, although a smack on the ass is probably called for at times, but on the other hand, if you want your kids to not speak to you once they leave home at a very early age by all means, beat the shit out of them.

 

Truth. I have not spoken to my father since I was 13, that's about 18 years ago now, for essentially this reason. The last memory I have of him, other than one time when he called the house and asked to speak to my mom post-divorce, was him telling me how much he wished he could hit me during what became the last of my weekend visits to his house.

I don't always know where the line between discipline and abuse is in easy to explain terms, but I know a certain look in the eye of a parent that means what is currently happening is definitely not discipline. For the most part, if you hit your child primarily because you're angry or frustrated or stressed out then you're probably either at or over the line.

 

Discipline is a consequence.
Abuse is an emotional response.
Consequences are generally natural to an action - sometimes unnatural consequences have to exacted (as in The Boy taking off and being away from the apartment and completely OUT of bounds) because the natural consequences are so grave. Clean your room or you won't be allowed to watch television. The work isn't complete, so the leisure can't happen.

Once emotional response enters, the line between discipline and abuse is more than likely crossed.

 

Or worse, like BlueDog.

We were "disciplined" with beatings growing up. Open hands, belts, fists. Some of them might have been appropriate...had I raped a nun, murdered somebody, or took a shit in the Thanksgiving gravy (tho with my mother's cooking, that would have either gone unnoticed or made an improvement). Anyway, I don't have any funny stories about that part of my childhood.

That being said, we have never, and never have had to hit our kids. Suspension of privileges has worked pretty effectively with our girls when punishment is warranted, but for the most part, it's been rare.

 

That would NOT work in my family, as we're Mexican, we eat that stuff for dinner. My mom and sister actually will drink the spicy brine straight out of the jar. When I cook, it infuriates me to no end is the first thing they do at the table is slather jalepenos or hot sauce on whatever I've made.

Back to focus. My mom is very old school, my sister and I would be spanked. Hard. Usually, because we deserved it, but she was not ashamed of taking a swing at us in public if we messed up.

Now that my sister has children, she has and uses an old school wooden paddle with holes drilled in it. That hurts to watch when she'll spank them in front of their brothers and sisters.

 

Focus: I think corporal punishment is a very effective tool to use on children of appropriate age, approximately 3-7 years old.
The reason is this: At those ages, children do not have an appropriately developed concept of time, or an understanding of consequences. Telling a 5 year old that if he doesn't knock off what he's doing he'll be grounded for a week doesn't usually get through as well as a spanking.
Pain usually gets through to them, and pain is something that he can easily remember.
One thing I cannot stress enough is this: The child has to be old enough to understand WHY they are being spanked. Otherwise, they will never learn their lesson. Also, it ensures that you aren't spanking a child who is too young for such punishment and might be injured.
Almost like clockwork, every few months I read in the local papers where some dipshit was arrested for putting their baby/toddler in the hospital or the morgue because of beating them (usually because they wouldn't stop crying).
I don't think that spanking older kids/teenagers is going to be very effective for a couple of reasons. Number one is that I think there are much better punishments for older kids. Another is that as they get older, their pain tolerance goes up. If they are real brats, it's probably not even that big of a deal to them anymore.

Alt Focus: I spanked Li'l Bandit from the age of 4, and I used my hand on his bare ass. His last spanking was when he was six, and I did that because he lied to me. I usually gave him ample warning before the spanking, and 9 times out of 10 when I told him he was going to get it if he didn't shape up, he did.
I'd guess he got maybe two or three spankings a year ("spanking" meaning one lick for each year of his life at the time, with the intensity increasing as he got older). Since then, he really hasn't done anything spank-worthy, just the usual 10-year-old BS like not wanting to do his homework or cleaning his room. But he always ends up doing it, so I haven't had to resort to spanking .
The "best" part of giving spankings occassionally is that you have the option of threatening to spank. If they know that you aren't full of shit, they usually shape up. But if they know you aren't serious, then they won't listen. A lot of my friends who have kids never back up the threat (and have never actually spanked their kids), and their kids are brats.

For the record, I was always the one to spank Li'l Bandit; my ex-wife would just yell and ridicule him.
These days I think he's probably too old for spankings. I think doing things like taking away privileges/assigning work duties/etc. will get through to him a lot better.

Alt. Alt. Focus: My mom was the disciplinarian of the house, and supposedly she was VERY hard on my older brother and sister. Like border-line child abuse hard. I don't know, because she wasn't that bad with me, but my dad says it was true. I did get spanked when I was acting like a smart-ass, and she would use this cutting board with a handle that measured about 18" x 6".
It looked like a miniature version of the paddles that fraternities use for their homoerotic shenanigans.

"Funny" part: When I was about 12, I pissed her off somehow, and she went to get the cutting board. I had an idea: I ran to the nearest bathroom and locked myself in.
My mom came up, pounding on the door and yelling loud enough to wake the dead, and told me that if I didn't open it that instant that she was going to double the usual amount of swats.

"I wonder how long I can stay in this bathroom" I thought.

After thinking about it, I came out and had a sore ass for the next few days.

 

Fuck spanking. I never had it as bad as many of you all did, especially in regard to the severity, but up until I was twelve or thirteen, my parents were religiously religious Baptists. As such, my dad being the enforcer was quite fond of "thou shalt not spare the rod". Most of the time, I wasn't given warnings. I was expected to behave and if I fucked up, I got paddled. For some reason, my parents stopped when I was 13. Unfortunately, that wasn't soon enough - since I was old enough to know what porn was, I'm rarely able to jerk off to porn/fantasies that don't involve spanked women.

As for my own children? I doubt I'll ever have any, but if I ever do, I'll do my best to rely on teaching them instead of relying on a piece of wood to do most of the work for me.

 

I was spanked as a child, and I turned out fine!
~every member of a message board dedicated to anti-social behavior

 

I'll start this out by saying at times I was an absolute prick of a kid and those times were more often than not. Mum broke countless wooden spoons on me and ended up giving up and Dad inavriably used his foot though had used a broomstick and poly pipe as well.

Did I deserve it? Most of the time. Did it affect me? I hated my Dad for a while but once I moved out of the house and got on with my life I realised I was an absolute shit and we now get on like a house on fire. At times he was a bit excessive but in the end it hasn't adversely affected me.

For some reason my younger siblings, cousins or friends kids really don't like my authority voice and stop being a shit as soon as I use so hopefully if I have any kids I won't have to give them a flick across the backside.

Alt Focus: Looking back the funniest instances of punishment would both involve the farm bike. Both times here I am as a skinny little 10 - 11 year old running for my life from my angry father who is riding along behind me trying to boot me up the backside and keep control of the bike at the same time. First time he did it he ran out of room and ended up driving the bike over the side of a gulley and ended up hurting his knee. Second time no such luck for myself as it was in an open paddock.

Plenty of other odd stories but usually the reason for the flogging was the funny bit.

 

Again, the difference between discipline and abuse.

My Dad did it right. Removed me from where I was being a dick, told me what was going to happen because of my behavior, and then let me stew for a while once we got home. A good half hour to think about what was coming and why. Worked wonders, and he rarely had to do it.

My Step-Dad, on the other hand, would only delay punishment so that he didn't get arrested for doing it in public. One Easter I got seperated in the crowd at the end of church. For that, I got spanked with a shoe when we got home. When I went into the kitchen, I was still crying. My Mom asked me what happened, so I told her. This angered my step dad to the point that he took me out into the garage, slapped me down hard enough that my principal saw the marks at school, and hit me with a 2x4 instead of spanking me normally.

So, yeah, there's a difference.