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Of course it is hard for you, Venen, since you haven't actually raised any kids.
You get grouped right in there with the rest of the morons who have never raised their own children but
absolutely know the best way to do it. You know the ones I am talking about. Those people in a restaurant who bitch about
someones kid who is crying and how they would NEVER allow their child to act like that in public. Yet don't know that the child may
be teething, snatched up a bug (as kids do almost instantly) or have a sock or a piece of clothing that is pinching or pulling enough so as to be uncomfortable...
"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." I think that pretty much sums up your input into this thread. Thanks for sounding off though.
We enjoyed the laugh.
Nice assumption(I must not have kids because I'm a... liberal, or something!). Although for once your assumption here is correct, I don't have kids.
I wouldn't claim that it would be akin to the observations I would attain by having kids, but I do believe my experience was a bit unique. I ended up living with several different parents/guardians growing up - there was a time when I had to live with my aunt and 2 of my uncles(that's right, 3 different households, 4 counting my parents), and I had the experience of watching them raise their kids(now, granted I was not that old, but I was old enough to make casual observations about how they raised their children at a young age). My aunt was the one who hated spanking, and got by pretty well without it. But my observations of how my uncle raised his kids I think are a bit more pertinent at least in terms of one of the reasons(besides emotion) that people do it. There were countless different times where one of his kids simply would not do anything he told him to do, and the uncle without a second thought would spank - this was ESPECIALLY apparent and the case when he was short on time, or had a short fuse(emotion), or lacked the patience(impatience).
One thing people like Caladaar are missing that's mucho important here is spanking out of *impatience* is stupid too, not just emotion. This includes not looking at all of your options before making the decision. My uncle(this particular uncle), honestly, was never really a smart man. Dropped out of high school, truck driver for most of his life, etc etc. Conversely, my aunt was incredibly gifted in many different areas and worked for several law firms. I saw a contrast here, especially right before my uncle was about to carry out the punishment. More often than not - he was not emotional, he just never thought of another way to deal with the problem. Put simply, he was a bad problem solver, and never used what could be considered a unique method to solve anything in particular.
This is far from hardcore proof, but these observations(with my biological parents/siblings) still feel like geniune indicators of a type of mindset that people go about when making the decision. I still don't get much of a response when I ask people what other options they tried and thought about before they ended up spanking, and that to me is the most telling indicator of all. The real question that should be asked is: What does spanking offer you that other methods do not, and are you incapable of producing a similar level of impression on your kid with psychological methods?
Surely we can at least agree that it takes a lot more effort(and a shitload more patience) and thought to use psychological methods than it does to place palm onto buttox. It seems only natural which method a stupid person would elect. You could have a smart person who does it, but the natural tendency seems to me to be in the opposite direction.
I really don't need to have experience to tell you that there are countless parents out there that have succeeded without spanking and have had not one ounce of issue. You might suggest there are issues kids have, such as lack of discipline, due to not being spanked. That seems a little silly on the face of it, since I think we have probably all met someone who has never been spanked and is quite disciplined. There are parents still who had kids, and had previous inclinations not to spank their kid well beforehand and stuck to it. Where did these parents succeed? Even if these kids have some sort of issue, at the very least the parent was able to get their kid to stop say, throwing things indoors over and over. Somehow, these parents prevailed in stopping those little fits - to suggest that there are just some bad kids is a bit of a copout when you have so many parents who have overcome these SAME little issues that some claim are not stoppable without spanking without spanking.
And if I needed further evidence, Xkhanx pops up and identifies himself as the dumbass to which I described to the T. Thanks for calling yourself out. Coming from someone who runs straight to the Lanys boards when his kid constantly gets in trouble in school, this is really reaffirming to me.
I salute Shareef, though. I cannot imagine how difficult it is to raise an autistic child. Like you said, it would be very difficult to come up with good methods of discipline in that situation.