I can't tell you just how much contempt I have for this perspective

[Stefan Molyneux]

 

Various reports show that up to 90% of parents think a good swat on the behind is okay; one 2010 survey, according to Child Trends Data Bank, found that found 75% of women (and 64% of men) agreed that kids sometimes need a "good hard spanking."

http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/blogs/parenting/spanking-leads-aggressive-depressed-kids-191000663.html

 

[Waster]

All those comments. "I was spanked, but i turned out to be OK."

[nathanm]

The spanking apologist only wants to look at non-spanking as a parent's ambivalence towards abberant child behavior which is the result of a long line of parenting mistakes, rather than as the basic ground rule at the beginning of a long line of positive interactions with kids.  No concern is given for laying the groundwork, only in how people react to disasters.  If the kids are going apeshit and the parent feels the need for beatings, well they've already screwed up a long time ago.  It's their fault it got this far. 

But hey, I don't have kids so just disregard this entire post. []  No kids, no credentials.  Just like how people who have never shot anyone in their life before have no right to criticize people who have.

[Chaoticoli]

Just curious about your view on this topic. Sorry if this is too broad of a question, but do you hold the parent accountable for any act the child does (before this vague definition of "adulthood")? 

[Al]

 Dead right, NathanM!  You know, I am a parent, and I agree whole-heartedly with your analysis.  When my older daughter was a toddler, I noticed that I didn't feel the impatience and irritation that leads to yelling and spanking when I was spending more time with her.  I understood what she was going through and what she was trying to say.  And at that time I was a believer in Biblical teachings about spanking.  As a result, when I felt that impatience, I stopped and thought.  Then I settled down and tried to spend more time with her and figure out what was going on.  The result of that was that I spanked my daughter only one time.  When was looking for reasons to obey the Bible.

No, I can't claim perfect virtue.  I also smacked her on the head once for "smarting off" to her mother, and hit the younger one twice the same way for the same reason.  That's how you teach respect, right?  I feel nothing but deep contempt for that mindset now, but it's been my own.  And I raised two boys (stepsons) while entombed in it.

Face your damn demons.  Face your wrongs.  And fix the damage you caused.

[nathanm]

I hear lots of bellyaching about the various kids in my family circle, about their lack of motivation and apathy, getting in trouble for underage drinking etc.  but you look at their parents and it's not too hard to see why.  The pattern has just repeated itself.  There's not a big pro-spanking attitude that I can see, but they are big on guilt, snarkiness and putting people down.  You can see the framework for the negativity when we are together in a social gathering but I can tell it must be much worse behind closed doors.  It can be very painful to realize that you have to act the way you want others to act, rather than just complaining about their behavior.

From what I can tell children can get extremely passionate about something and the friction comes from parents trying to mess with that.  Yes, maybe the kid just wants to build his Legos and not socialize so much.  So what?  His mind is working and growing and it's focused hard on something.  Just let that process run its course.  It's not a bad thing.  I don't like it when outside people try to dilute someone else's obsessions and turn them into their idea of "well-rounded".  Well-rounded people don't necessarily make the cool shit we have today.  Obsessive nerds did that.

I haven't seen a whole lot of kids just acting outright mean and destructive, but I've seen them get upset over being pushed to not do whatever thing they are currently enjoying.  Isn't that what adults want too?  Don't we want to come home and do whatever the hell we want?  And that's with the decreased passions and motivations that seem to come along with getting old.  Now with kids they're on fire about the things they're into, so if you mess with them those passions can flare up into anger even moreso. 

These are just a few thoughts, I don't spend that much time with kids, but when I do I see that conflicts arise over really unimportant, easily avoidable shit.  Now what I've just said translates to the hostile spanking apologist as, "Oh sure, just let kids do whatever they want, them them steamroll right over the parents! Blah blah blah!"  I can't change their minds, but suffice it to say that they've probably grown up in a negative household and didn't see enough positive alternatives.  I saw a number of examples of home environments in my youth that were consderably different than my own and I think that's what helped me out.  I saw that the same 'crime' that a kid could do was met with vastly different reactions.  Maybe these people have never seen a kid NOT get spanked for doing X, or they never saw a kid not even get near to doing X because it just wasn't part of their world.

[nickhk]

 

Well-rounded people don't necessarily make the cool shit we have today.  Obsessive nerds did that.

 

Like it.  Like it a lot.

[Roberto]

 

 

[stigskog]

I regularly look at the brillkids forum. Its pretty good and full of parents who really get it, but there are some who i can only describe as bullies.

A couple of days after watching the very excellent Bomb in the Brain series, someone was talking about how long they intend to use the 'paddle' on their kids. 

wow, wooosh how fking medievil ahole and a half, so i said if you can spare 10 minutes, this is a really good video about what hitting does to kids.Someone else replied straight away with something like ... "thats just culty nonsense".. just the sort of response you'd expect from the violent ones.

It's put me off the forum a bit.. feels a bit dirty to go there now. But I will go back because, there are lots of great and constructive people there who have found out through experience that the best way with kids is cooperation.

there wasa similar story in the UK Dailymail not long ago. Same sorts of reposonses. I turned out ok blah blah. Kids today need a good kicking thats why they are so out of control  they dont get enough. The violence loving answers were all the most popular, the peaceful ones were red arrowed to oblivion.yesterday there was a childs response to her mums article about why it was ok to hit kids.. its quite a good read , and the comments are much more pro child than the original article 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2274725/In-Tuesdays-Mail-Shona-Sibary-admitted-slaps-14-year-old-daughter-Here-furious-Flo-hits-Mum-doesnt-smack-love-She-does-loses-control.html#axzz2KJt41SbU

and the orginal

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2273565/SHONA-SIBARY-I-know-horrified-But-I-slap-14-year-old-daughter.html#axzz2KJt41SbU

 

[MysterionMuffles]

Wow those were some really interesting articles. That mothers justification for smacking kept me feeling horribly uneasy while reading. I wish I read that first and then the daughter's pov. Violence out of love...what is this demonry?! I felt bad near th end of the daughters article because she started out as sounding very rational but slowly declined into a state of cowardly retreat. She can love her mother all she wants but should she in no way defend her. It was as if her mother started hovering over her shoulder as she wrote it...

[Rick Horton]

 

Wow those were some really interesting articles. That mothers justification for smacking kept me feeling horribly uneasy while reading. I wish I read that first and then the daughter's pov. Violence out of love...what is this demonry?! I felt bad near th end of the daughters article because she started out as sounding very rational but slowly declined into a state of cowardly retreat. She can love her mother all she wants but should she in no way defend her. It was as if her mother started hovering over her shoulder as she wrote it...

 

Oh, I remember so fondly, lol, pushing my parents to the point of spanking me to see how far I could get them to go before they put there foot down. They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries. I don't remember every thinking a spanking was abusive when given to me. I remember thinking, "shit", I guess this is where the line is drawn in my disobedience. That's only my perspective. My sister and I would giggle, and sneak out of our rooms and crawl down the hallway to peek at the late night television my parents were trying to watch in peace, and as husband and wife, and they'd keep telling us to get back to bed. We'd retreat and then like little buttheads we would giggle and keep scootching down the hall. Shit, man, we knew we were testing them, and we knew what was coming. I often think my mother was right, in reflection. She'd finally end up saying "It looks like you need your nightly spanking before you can fall asleep"  Why we didn't listen is probably becaue we were very curious on testing boundaries. I've tested boundaries my whole life. That's me. I've never feared my parents. I mean we'd keep doing the same stuff and trying to test, test, test, and we were stubborn, and in no way interested in a lecture about why we should do this or that. We thought that boring. We just wanted to find the edges of what we could get away with.  I've talked to so many people that remember the same thing. And in the common family it seems that most people remember that when they were kids they also weren't looking for lectures, or truths. They were looking for boundaries to work. And as I, most of them don't remember there parents in fear, although when they tested the boundary to the point of finding it, they'd run like hell from the coming spanking, lol. But THEN proceed to fight the next small battle of will.  Kids have will too, y'know...

[Andersfilosof]

The degree of irrationality displayed in the comments section is pretty astounding to me....though it's probably because I generally don't read articles like this.

Blind assertations that just as many experts could look at the same data and come to the exact opposite conclusions, things like "Child psychologists are so stupid these days," blind assertations that kids drinking soda pop is "more likely" the reason kids are getting depressed than because of physical abuse, another commenter claims spanking is useful in "extreme" cases like when her husband accidentally almost hung himself as a child, one person even says:

" My mother made us look for the correct belt for our punishment. The act of looking for the correct belt was what I remembered not the swat I got from the belt."

Well that's lovely, how warm and considerate to let the victim choose the tool of abuse...

One person says he was spanked twice and a proud victim speaks up: "You only being spanked TWICE, means in reality YOU WEREN'T "SPANKED" as a child. When you got the belt to your bare #$%$ on a daily basis, get back to us."  The replier has obviously built up a tough-guy identity based on the fact he was abused so much.

 

[Rick Horton]

 

The degree of irrationality displayed in the comments section is pretty astounding to me....though it's probably because I generally don't read articles like this.

Blind assertations that just as many experts could look at the same data and come to the exact opposite conclusions, things like "Child psychologists are so stupid these days," blind assertations that kids drinking soda pop is "more likely" the reason kids are getting depressed than because of physical abuse, another commenter claims spanking is useful in "extreme" cases like when her husband accidentally almost hung himself as a child, one person even says:

" My mother made us look for the correct belt for our punishment. The
act of looking for the correct belt was what I remembered not the swat I
got from the belt."

Well that's lovely, how warm and considerate to let the victim choose the tool of abuse...

One person says he was spanked twice and a proud victim speaks up: "You only being spanked TWICE, means in reality YOU WEREN'T "SPANKED" as a
child. When you got the belt to your bare #$%$ on a daily basis, get
back to us."  The replier has obviously built up a tough-guy identity based on the fact he was abused so much.

 

 

Wow man. It sounds like your parents were real assholes.

[masonman]

 

 

From what I can tell children can get extremely passionate about something and the friction comes from parents trying to mess with that.  Yes, maybe the kid just wants to build his Legos and not socialize so much.  So what?  His mind is working and growing and it's focused hard on something.  Just let that process run its course.  It's not a bad thing.  I don't like it when outside people try to dilute someone else's obsessions and turn them into their idea of "well-rounded". 

 

I think this stems from the fact that people have this idea of what they want to "shape" their child into, and they get upset when the child doesn't act in accordance with that idea.

[MysterionMuffles]

 

 

Wow those were some really interesting articles. That mothers justification for smacking kept me feeling horribly uneasy while reading. I wish I read that first and then the daughter's pov. Violence out of love...what is this demonry?! I felt bad near th end of the daughters article because she started out as sounding very rational but slowly declined into a state of cowardly retreat. She can love her mother all she wants but should she in no way defend her. It was as if her mother started hovering over her shoulder as she wrote it...

 

Oh, I remember so fondly, lol, pushing my parents to the point of spanking me to see how far I could get them to go before they put there foot down. They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries. I don't remember every thinking a spanking was abusive when given to me. I remember thinking, "shit", I guess this is where the line is drawn in my disobedience. That's only my perspective. My sister and I would giggle, and sneak out of our rooms and crawl down the hallway to peek at the late night television my parents were trying to watch in peace, and as husband and wife, and they'd keep telling us to get back to bed. We'd retreat and then like little buttheads we would giggle and keep scootching down the hall. Shit, man, we knew we were testing them, and we knew what was coming. I often think my mother was right, in reflection. She'd finally end up saying "It looks like you need your nightly spanking before you can fall asleep"  Why we didn't listen is probably becaue we were very curious on testing boundaries. I've tested boundaries my whole life. That's me. I've never feared my parents. I mean we'd keep doing the same stuff and trying to test, test, test, and we were stubborn, and in no way interested in a lecture about why we should do this or that. We thought that boring. We just wanted to find the edges of what we could get away with.  I've talked to so many people that remember the same thing. And in the common family it seems that most people remember that when they were kids they also weren't looking for lectures, or truths. They were looking for boundaries to work. And as I, most of them don't remember there parents in fear, although when they tested the boundary to the point of finding it, they'd run like hell from the coming spanking, lol. But THEN proceed to fight the next small battle of will.  Kids have will too, y'know...

 

 

congratulations, you're a closeted masochist

[Rick Horton]

 

 

 

Wow those were some really interesting articles. That mothers justification for smacking kept me feeling horribly uneasy while reading. I wish I read that first and then the daughter's pov. Violence out of love...what is this demonry?! I felt bad near th end of the daughters article because she started out as sounding very rational but slowly declined into a state of cowardly retreat. She can love her mother all she wants but should she in no way defend her. It was as if her mother started hovering over her shoulder as she wrote it...

 

Oh, I remember so fondly, lol, pushing my parents to the point of spanking me to see how far I could get them to go before they put there foot down. They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries. I don't remember every thinking a spanking was abusive when given to me. I remember thinking, "shit", I guess this is where the line is drawn in my disobedience. That's only my perspective. My sister and I would giggle, and sneak out of our rooms and crawl down the hallway to peek at the late night television my parents were trying to watch in peace, and as husband and wife, and they'd keep telling us to get back to bed. We'd retreat and then like little buttheads we would giggle and keep scootching down the hall. Shit, man, we knew we were testing them, and we knew what was coming. I often think my mother was right, in reflection. She'd finally end up saying "It looks like you need your nightly spanking before you can fall asleep"  Why we didn't listen is probably becaue we were very curious on testing boundaries. I've tested boundaries my whole life. That's me. I've never feared my parents. I mean we'd keep doing the same stuff and trying to test, test, test, and we were stubborn, and in no way interested in a lecture about why we should do this or that. We thought that boring. We just wanted to find the edges of what we could get away with.  I've talked to so many people that remember the same thing. And in the common family it seems that most people remember that when they were kids they also weren't looking for lectures, or truths. They were looking for boundaries to work. And as I, most of them don't remember there parents in fear, although when they tested the boundary to the point of finding it, they'd run like hell from the coming spanking, lol. But THEN proceed to fight the next small battle of will.  Kids have will too, y'know...

 

 

congratulations, you're a closeted masochist

 

Congratulations, you're showing the personality of your movement by congratulating victims of what you deem to be abuse. Essentially you are being a sarcastic prick to somebody you "should" consider to be a victim who has been broken so much that they have lost the ability to understand they were abused as a child.  That makes you really attractive to the victims...

[Rick Horton]

 

 

 

Wow those were some really interesting articles. That mothers justification for smacking kept me feeling horribly uneasy while reading. I wish I read that first and then the daughter's pov. Violence out of love...what is this demonry?! I felt bad near th end of the daughters article because she started out as sounding very rational but slowly declined into a state of cowardly retreat. She can love her mother all she wants but should she in no way defend her. It was as if her mother started hovering over her shoulder as she wrote it...

 

Oh, I remember so fondly, lol, pushing my parents to the point of spanking me to see how far I could get them to go before they put there foot down. They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries. I don't remember every thinking a spanking was abusive when given to me. I remember thinking, "shit", I guess this is where the line is drawn in my disobedience. That's only my perspective. My sister and I would giggle, and sneak out of our rooms and crawl down the hallway to peek at the late night television my parents were trying to watch in peace, and as husband and wife, and they'd keep telling us to get back to bed. We'd retreat and then like little buttheads we would giggle and keep scootching down the hall. Shit, man, we knew we were testing them, and we knew what was coming. I often think my mother was right, in reflection. She'd finally end up saying "It looks like you need your nightly spanking before you can fall asleep"  Why we didn't listen is probably becaue we were very curious on testing boundaries. I've tested boundaries my whole life. That's me. I've never feared my parents. I mean we'd keep doing the same stuff and trying to test, test, test, and we were stubborn, and in no way interested in a lecture about why we should do this or that. We thought that boring. We just wanted to find the edges of what we could get away with.  I've talked to so many people that remember the same thing. And in the common family it seems that most people remember that when they were kids they also weren't looking for lectures, or truths. They were looking for boundaries to work. And as I, most of them don't remember there parents in fear, although when they tested the boundary to the point of finding it, they'd run like hell from the coming spanking, lol. But THEN proceed to fight the next small battle of will.  Kids have will too, y'know...

 

 

congratulations, you're a closeted masochist

 

Put it this way, what you just said is the same as telling a woman whos husband beats her that she is a closet masochist because she confides in you that she feels she deserves it when he beats her up, rather than to be gentle and explain why she feels the way she does. Pretty jerkish if you really believe what you say you believe, to talk to me like that, so yeah, no manners to you from me after that kind of statement.

[MysterionMuffles]

So you DO admit to some level of victimhood of abuse after all? Meanwhile you flooded my thread with your justifications for children deserving a little smack--because you know it's NOT assault--thus causing a giant derailment from my intended topic at hand. Now I'm not saying you're not allowed your opinion, but I just want to put it out there that after you posted in my thread, I felt like it has gone off topic and because of that, may not receive the advice I'm looking for on my particular problem.

 

 

[MysterionMuffles]

Oh and boohoo! No manners from you to me? As if you're someone whose acceptance I seek. It's not like you were speaking to me in a mannerly way to begin with and that's fine. I don't know if what I said touched some emotional scar tissue of yours, but rest assured I think it's best that we let bygones be bygones and choose not to interact with each other from now on. I can already feel ugly interactions between us welling up, and I already know how irrationality reactive I will be considering how much our conflict is escalating over nothing.

[Rick Horton]

 

So you DO admit to some level of victimhood of abuse after all? Meanwhile you flooded my thread with your justifications for children deserving a little smack--because you know it's NOT assault--thus causing a giant derailment from my intended topic at hand. Now I'm not saying you're not allowed your opinion, but I just want to put it out there that after you posted in my thread, I felt like it has gone off topic and because of that, may not receive the advice I'm looking for on my particular problem.

 

 

 

N,n,n,NO.  This has nothing to do with me, at THIS point.  I don't believe it was abuse. I don't believe wrist slapping, or spankings are abuse. YOU DO. And since you do, it's pretty fucked up for you to be sarcastic to me, and meanwhile claim I'm a victim who's "probably" been so abused that I have lost the ability to know what abuse is.  Yeah, so don't try and turn this away from your statement which to me was just passive aggression, but looking into what you said and knowing you claim to believe what you believe, what you said was a horrid way to treat a "victim" of long term physical assault, violence, and stone cold abuse. Hey, it's not my fault I feel I deserved it, right?   

   BUT, look, the reality is that if you can't distinguish between a spanking, rape, beatings, murder, etc... you have a deficit in moral cognizance. 

[MysterionMuffles]

I know you're just trying to test my boundaries now by trying to confuse me all the same. You claim NOT to be a victim, and yet you're using my own beliefs against me to make me think that I SHOULD still view you as such. The contradictories your presenting are unverbalizable that I had to make up a word to make up for the mental fart I'm getting from all this. If you truly weren't a victim, you wouldn't be getting this defensive. I mean it this time, I really don't feel like engaging in this with you. Trust me, I've had my share of endless troll battles from video game forums. Video game forums for shittake sakes!!! Those are THE breeding grounds for trolls! I can tell when a block of text is meant to provoke some kind of reaction from me, so I'm not gonna give you that satisfaction.

[Nathan T_ Freeman]

 

I hear lots of bellyaching about the various kids in my family circle, about their lack of motivation and apathy, getting in trouble for underage drinking etc.  but you look at their parents and it's not too hard to see why.  The pattern has just repeated itself.

 

Honestly, my only surprise is that you're still engaging in a relationship with these people.

[Mister Mister]

 

They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries.

   That's very interesting.  It seems to me you're still trying to do the same thing here.  Where do you think this personality trait comes from?  What do you hope to achieve by pushing people's boundaries?  Do you think your parents were justified in telling you to sleep when you obviously still wanted to fool around?  Can you imagine imposing these conditions on anyone except a child, with the threat of hitting them to back it up? 

    I used to be a little similar as a kid, not so much with my parents, but with my brother and teachers.  I often think kids see the world kind of like a video game.  If you start a new video game you will spend time exploring, seeing how the environemnt reacts to various inputs.  As children get to different stages of development, they want to test the reaction of their environment and of other people to certain actions.  It is natural for all children to begin to question/resist authority at some point.  I remember Stef mentioning that he would ask his daughter to do something, she would say "no" then 20 or 30 seconds later she would do it anyway.  It's obvious to me that the child just wants to know that they CAN say "no", is not necessarily motivated by a desire or lack of desire to do the thing to begin with.  By resisting this, either with spanking, hitting, yelling, insults, or even bribery, parents do not allow the child the ability to develop negotiating, choice-making skills.  Until the child realizes this, they will make decisions based on these habits rather than pursuing their true self interests.  Just my thoughts on the matter.

[Andersfilosof]

 

Wow man. It sounds like your parents were real assholes.

 

 

They were but I don't understand the connection between that and anything I've said in this thread.

[Wesley]

Reading the comments on this article are making me sick for the future  of the world. I am working on my own stuff and going to therapy and will do better in my family I choose later.

When I see that I am up against this, I am getting quite sad for the fate of the world. It can seem that we are working against the world in such a fundamental aspect of wanting to treat children at least with as little violence as we show to random people on the street. The "children are everything" as we treat them as less people than we treat strangers.

Its a crazy cognitive dissonanace I cannot understand.

[nathanm]

Honestly, my only surprise is that you're still engaging in a relationship with these people.

I made one comment, that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story.  Besides, these are very rare conversations concerning people which I see approximately three times per year, so I wouldn't really call it much of a relationship to start with.

[Wesley]

I continued to read the comments. There are some I felt I had to post as ridiculous. (All very positively rated)

 

I also had a daughter who was becoming a real brat, and I started using a
wooden spoon on her. It was getting to where I didn't want to take her
anywhere. But with a lot of work on my part she is now the most decent
and loving person you would ever want to meet. I am very proud of her.
I really do think if you spare the rod you spoil the child. One also
needs common sense when correcting their child.

 

 

 

I was "spanked" almost daily for a while growing up. Bare-butt, with
the belt. Bruises AND blisters. Yes, I have problems. Unending hatred
for my step-mother's beatings, unending hatred for my father's
tolerance of the beatings. I haven't talked to my parents in YEARS. So
there IS a possibility people can take it too far. This is what leads
to people saying you shouldn't do it at ALL. If it was always a SANE
spanking with a SANE amount of pain and force at a SANE age level.
Nobody would have a problem with it.

 

 

Hows this for a testimony. I was beat as a kid by my father. The same
man who sexually abused my sister. I was told I was stupid and would
never amount to squat. I would never measure up. The mental torture of
things is by far worse. I always hear that SOB in the back of my mind
and that is the most damaging. The mental abuse and constant trying to
over come the feeling I wont amount to anything. My anxiety kicks in
when at meetings and I am being counseled for something I didnt do
right. Depression from the constant feeling of not measuring up to
squat. 13 years in the military and I have not lost my mind completely
yet. I think you need to reassess the spanking to if there was emotional
insults flung at the same time. That I could see being damaging the
spanking helps instill the lesson,The insults and mind games does the
long term damage...

 

 

Blah, blah, blah.... I'm sure there are just as many "experts" who could
look at the same data and come to completely different conclusions. If
spanking leads to all these problems and leads kids down the path of
emotional problems, how come some of these new generation kids, that
have never been spanked, are still committing theft, shootings, drug
related crimes, etc.... ? It must be truly terrible to be part of a
generation that is so super sensitive that a slap on the behind, when
deserved, will turn them into a serial killer. Weep for the future
people, it is a downhill slide that is quickly going to reach the point
of no return.

 

 

 

that is a lot of BULL

The Bible says spankings are good SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD

 

 

We coddle our kids too much these days..how else would the Video game
industry be larger than both the music and movie industry combined?

 

[Rick Horton]

 

 

They' try to reason with me, but I wasn't interested in reason. I just wanted to test boundaries.

 

   That's very interesting.  It seems to me you're still trying to do the same thing here.  Where do you think this personality trait comes from?  What do you hope to achieve by pushing people's boundaries?  Do you think your parents were justified in telling you to sleep when you obviously still wanted to fool around?  Can you imagine imposing these conditions on anyone except a child, with the threat of hitting them to back it up? 

    I used to be a little similar as a kid, not so much with my parents, but with my brother and teachers.  I often think kids see the world kind of like a video game.  If you start a new video game you will spend time exploring, seeing how the environemnt reacts to various inputs.  As children get to different stages of development, they want to test the reaction of their environment and of other people to certain actions.  It is natural for all children to begin to question/resist authority at some point.  I remember Stef mentioning that he would ask his daughter to do something, she would say "no" then 20 or 30 seconds later she would do it anyway.  It's obvious to me that the child just wants to know that they CAN say "no", is not necessarily motivated by a desire or lack of desire to do the thing to begin with.  By resisting this, either with spanking, hitting, yelling, insults, or even bribery, parents do not allow the child the ability to develop negotiating, choice-making skills.  Until the child realizes this, they will make decisions based on these habits rather than pursuing their true self interests.  Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

Yeah, you're definitely right. I do push people's boundaries. Now I do it based on their test on my boundaries. It is the same thing, really. I've always had the personality that makes me question all authority. 

[Mick Bynes]

Spanking is one of the worst things (if not THE worst) you can do to a child.  I was spanked as a child, unfortunately and I'm a bit depressed from time to time.  I'm not really aggressive though and if I am aggressive, I have my ways of calming myself down.  I know someone who is depressive and aggressive towards me.  They told me they were abused as child, physically and verbally too.

 

I am appalled at the comments on Yahoo... a lot of idiots on that site.  They're actually a lot of thumbs up for the people who are for spanking.  Are those people daft?  Spanking is not the answer.  If I were to have children, I would never ever spank them.  We need more people like you (Stefan) who don't spank their children, so this vicious cycle will end and end for good.

[MysterionMuffles]

I don't know if anyone knows of this internet icon named Maddox who runs [link=http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com]The Best Page in the Universe[/link], but some of his articles are pretty funny. They're kind of hit or miss, but always consistently obscene. The first article I was ever exposed to by him was one that satirically condoning why you should beat your kids. Even as a 14 year old I thought the arguments he put forth were full of crap and for a while avoided his site. I eventually got into his other articles that poked fun at pop culture and a few things that truly were BS about it, but I dunno...looking back and remembering this one and only article, I kinda feel compelled to take him off my Facebook friend's list or likes (can't remember which one he has) since I've kind of outgrown his obscenity noticing it's just a pathetic crying out.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=beat here's the article that condones physical violence towards children.