Questions About Not-Spanking

[Think Free]

So I've been listening to some of Stefan's videos about not spanking, and I still have a lot of questions. I thought I'd post them here and see if I could get some good answers:

 

1. All of the studies I've seen that suggest spanking is destructive don't seem to take the short-term and long-term goals, methods, and parenting environment into consideration. It seems that, given the complexity of human relationships, such information would be very important. My own experience as a spanked child reinforces this--not all spanking is equal. We wouldn't say that belittling and insulting your child is good because studies find that talking to children is good. Does anyone know of any studies that look into spanking in more detail? (The one that I found seems to support certain kinds of spanking.)

 

2. Are there any good studies that compare spanking to things like time-outs and other forms of discipline?

 

3. Can anyone point me to an anti-spanking advocate who had/has at least three children that are close in age? Likewise, does anyone know of an anti-spanking advocate who has adult children that they never spanked? It seems to me that a surprising number of anti-spanking advocates have one to zero children, that are frequently very young. I hope that someone who has multiple and/or older children might be able to give me a better idea of what spankingless parenting looks like and what the results are.

 

4. Other than Parent Effectiveness Training (which I am planning to read), are there any other good resources that explain a philosophically sound positive (ie. more than just "don't spank," what do I do instead?) parenting philosophy and methodology?

[tasmlab]

I can sort of chime in on number 3:

 

I have three children (2, 5, 8) and neither my wife nor do I spank them and would be horrified to do so.  Things seem to just go along fine without it.  I can't imagine what a 'spankful' household would look like.  Sounds awful.

 

Our only (relatively) severe discipline problems have come with the youngest of the kids biting people at age 2-3 and we have had to resort to a handful of timeouts, largely because the incidents happened with overly spazzy play.  They also got a talking to in a very stern voice on the biting occasions.

 

All other bad behaviors we just solve calmly, sometimes with negotiation, sometimes with incentives.  My kids are superbly behaved just naturally though, so maybe I just got lucky.  I wouldn't mind taking some credit for good parenting.

[Think Free]

tasmlab, thanks. I have a few questions for you. Please don't feel like you have to answer these, but if you have some good insights I'd appreciate them. These are not "undue burden"-type questions where I'm requiring an infallible solution.

 

1. What did you do about bedtimes and naps in the 2-3 age range? I have a two-year-old and a going-on-four-year-old, both girls. The conventional wisdom is that children need to be forced to go to bed early and to have naps to not start losing it. Sometimes I am able to negotiate or coax my kid into taking a nap, but the younger one, in particular, seems to hate it and will typically cry and protest even though she's so tired that she falls asleep after a few minutes of yelling.

 

2. What do you do about conflicting goals between young children in the 2-3 age range? When I try and negotiate conflicts between my daughters, the best success I seem to have is where one child forgets about their original desire.

 

3. Almost all of the little boys I have met seem to be more wild, aggressive, and violent than girls. In your experience, is that completely the result of spanking?

[Wuzzums]

Let's say you own a dog. And the dog just did something you don't like. And you want to teach it not to do that thing anymore. Do you:

a) beat your dog every time it did that thing

b) explain to the dog why it shouldn't do that thing

c) try to persuade the dog into doing another thing whenever it wants to do the thing you don't like

d) ignoring the problem, dealing with the problem, etc

 

If you answered a) and you spank your kid then why do you feel it's ok to teach your kid as if you're training a dog?

If you didn't answer a) and you spank your kid then why do you feel it's ok to apply the non-aggression principle to dogs but not to kids?

[Think Free]

Let's say you own a dog. And the dog just did something you don't like. And you want to teach it not to do that thing anymore. Do you:

a) beat your dog every time it did that thing

b) explain to the dog why it shouldn't do that thing

c) try to persuade the dog into doing another thing whenever it wants to do the thing you don't like

d) ignoring the problem, dealing with the problem, etc

 

If you answered a) and you spank your kid then why do you feel it's ok to teach your kid as if you're training a dog?

If you didn't answer a) and you spank your kid then why do you feel it's ok to apply the non-aggression principle to dogs but not to kids?

 

This is a pretty horrible argument. Maybe you can figure out why.

[tasmlab]

tasmlab, thanks. I have a few questions for you. Please don't feel like you have to answer these, but if you have some good insights I'd appreciate them. These are not "undue burden"-type questions where I'm requiring an infallible solution.

 

1. What did you do about bedtimes and naps in the 2-3 age range? I have a two-year-old and a going-on-four-year-old, both girls. The conventional wisdom is that children need to be forced to go to bed early and to have naps to not start losing it. Sometimes I am able to negotiate or coax my kid into taking a nap, but the younger one, in particular, seems to hate it and will typically cry and protest even though she's so tired that she falls asleep after a few minutes of yelling.

 

2. What do you do about conflicting goals between young children in the 2-3 age range? When I try and negotiate conflicts between my daughters, the best success I seem to have is where one child forgets about their original desire.

 

3. Almost all of the little boys I have met seem to be more wild, aggressive, and violent than girls. In your experience, is that completely the result of spanking?

 

I'll do my best!

 

1.   We haven't had to force naps, they usually want them at the 2-3 age.  But my wife often lies down with them at napping age.  Same with bed time, our toddlers have typically slept with us which I know is unconventional.  I'm not sure what we would do if they gave us a hard time.

 

Nap failures usually result in not requiring them to take a nap.  This can be rough if you have something to do later.

 

Nothing to ever lead to hitting, though.

 

 

2. Ugh, this happens constantly if I understand you.    We try to encourage the older child to find an alternative for the 2 year old if they both want the same thing.  Sometimes ask the older child to concede to the 2 year old for a few minutes until they forget like you say.

 

 

3.  Boys are violent spazzes from the get go, IMO.  We've never struck him and he'll wrestle and hit his older sister, hit me, hit the boys he plays with (who hit too).  He's five.  It's like living on the set of Jackass.  Obsesses over guns and swords.  This said, he almost never hits with the intent of hurting someone but it is almost all play.

 

So I wouldn't and couldn't attribute it to spanking.

 

I don't know if this is sounding too rosy.  We have to correct bad behavior a dozen times or more per day.  The two year old will have something to protest cry about a couple of times a day or more.  Just not with hitting or yelling or anger involved.

 

I know in your OP you ask for something more comprehensive than 'don't spank', but that may be a great place to start.  And not just start not spanking, but treat it as an absolute and in-violatable discipline.

 

I'm going to spend the weekend extra-paying attention to how we solve disputes and bad behavior over the weekend.  Maybe I'll write another note if figure something out.

[Think Free]

tasmlab, thanks. This is kind of helpful. I look forward to any tips you have after paying special attention. Here's another question for you or anyone who wants to answer:

 

Do you use any non-spanking coercion, like moving the child against their will, taking things away from them (against their will), or confining them in rooms or locations that they don't want to be in? (Edit: And when/why do you use it?)

[Existing Alternatives]

1. What did you do about bedtimes and naps in the 2-3 age range? I have a two-year-old and a going-on-four-year-old, both girls. The conventional wisdom is that children need to be forced to go to bed early and to have naps to not start losing it. Sometimes I am able to negotiate or coax my kid into taking a nap, but the younger one, in particular, seems to hate it and will typically cry and protest even though she's so tired that she falls asleep after a few minutes of yelling.

 

@tamslab obviously has a lot more experience than I do and he does a superb job answering your queries, but beating a child to sleep? I sure hope it’s not conventional. In my experience, kids fall asleep, maybe not at exact time but eventually at least. It is never fun to stop playing and go to sleep, but clean sheets, snug pillow, favourite toy, dark room and eventually built-up habit usually do the trick. Btw, by the age of 4 you are supposed to wane them off naps anyway.

3. Almost all of the little boys I have met seem to be more wild, aggressive, and violent than girls. In your experience, is that completely the result of spanking?

 

Why would you assume that?

[tasmlab]

tasmlab, thanks. This is kind of helpful. I look forward to any tips you have after paying special attention. Here's another question for you or anyone who wants to answer:

 

Do you use any non-spanking coercion, like moving the child against their will, taking things away from them (against their will), or confining them in rooms or locations that they don't want to be in? (Edit: And when/why do you use it?)

 

Personally we need to do the moving and taking against the will pretty frequently with the 2 year old.  If she is goofing around in a busy parking lot, we pick her up.  Brushing her teeth almost always involves a bit of coercion (holding her head and brushing her teeth) and she resists frequently.  I'm not sure how to get around this.

 

We'll use a timeout with the two year old very infrequently (e.g., biting incidents) where we make her sit in a chair in the same room we are and she is forbidden to get off for a few minutes.  The other kids have had these with severe issues like biting but almost never anymore.  The boy got one for slapping my face a few months ago (there's more to the story)

 

The biggest gray areas in peaceful parenting, for me, are teaching accountability, consequences, good behavior and that parents can be angry within the model.  If a child does something that is bad, they need to be taught what it right.  When they do something wrong in the world, they must learn that there are consequences.  At what point do these lessons look less like peaceful teaching and more like authoritarian-power-differential-hypocrisy can seem subjective to confusing to me.

 

(Note: I don't claim to be a perfectly peaceful parent - still learning!)

[Gnostiphile]

Personally we need to do the moving and taking against the will pretty frequently...  I'm not sure how to get around this.

 

The reason you haven't found a way to get around this is because you have force on the table.  It's the same as with spanking.  Take the force off the table, then you can negotiate.

[wdiaz03]

@tamslab obviously has a lot more experience than I do and he does a superb job answering your queries, but beating a child to sleep? I sure hope it’s not conventional. In my experience, kids fall asleep, maybe not at exact time but eventually at least. It is never fun to stop playing and go to sleep, but clean sheets, snug pillow, favourite toy, dark room and eventually built-up habit usually do the trick. Btw, by the age of 4 you are supposed to wane them off naps anyway.

 

Why would you assume that?

 

I have a 9y old boy that never did the nap thingy, We never forced him, We figured if he is tired he'll sleep. He never urinated in bed either. That was shocking to me because I remember doing it as a child and my mother having to change the sheets.

 

I see parents forcing their kids to sleep at 9pm while my kid is wide awake past 11pm....he is up like a clock at 7am everyday and shows no sign of being tired.

So I'm no expert but I'm playing it how I see it. and never tried to force things.

It has not affected his learning one bit.

[Josh F]

tasmlab, thanks. I have a few questions for you. Please don't feel like you have to answer these, but if you have some good insights I'd appreciate them. These are not "undue burden"-type questions where I'm requiring an infallible solution.

 

1. What did you do about bedtimes and naps in the 2-3 age range? I have a two-year-old and a going-on-four-year-old, both girls. The conventional wisdom is that children need to be forced to go to bed early and to have naps to not start losing it. Sometimes I am able to negotiate or coax my kid into taking a nap, but the younger one, in particular, seems to hate it and will typically cry and protest even though she's so tired that she falls asleep after a few minutes of yelling.

Does she sleep in bed with you or separately or in another room without you?

[tasmlab]

The reason you haven't found a way to get around this is because you have force on the table.  It's the same as with spanking.  Take the force off the table, then you can negotiate.

 

We certainly try when we can.  There still certain interactions where there's only a second to act and we have to pick up the baby against her wishes.  I've been trying to catalog the interactions to a degree to see if I could've acted differently.

[MysterionMuffles]

I dunno if I'm just talking out of my ass here, but in the case of sleep training and brushing teeth, much like with feeding, I think you just have to find creative ways to get it accomplished.

 

I've been babysitting my neice every weekend for almost a year now, and it just doesn't work when I try to get her to sleep. The coaxing methods I've used in the past were absolutely fallacious. There was only one time where I held her down (gently don't worry lol) with my arm over her body and she struggled to get up, but after a few attempts she fell asleep without a whimper. The second time I tried that, she struggled to get out of my hold with tons of resistance and I noticed she was getting frustrated with that so I stopped.

 

That was a method I used before I started babysitting her, but the one I have been using since day one was taking her out on a walk. And prior to that, more importantly, is to exert a ton of energy playing with her. It will energize her and make her pretty hyper for that next little hour or so, and once I'm tired, for another hour or two she will still have that pent up energy to do more crazy zany things. But once I've expressed that I don't have the energy for it anymore, she will inevitably get upset, try to pull my hand to stand up and continue playing. That's when I get on one knee and to her eye level and explain to her that I'm too tired to keep playing.

 

Even if she's pre-verbal I think it's very important to teach a kid to know when it's "time to talk." 

 

It's only a guess, but I think the only reason why spanking and nagging "gets the job done" when you do it is because there's a change of tone in the interaction that the child fears. But it's like what Stef says, when you're close with someone, all you need is the lightest touch. "A whisper is a sonic boom." So to show my neice play time is over, at least for me, I'm still peaceful with her and a bit playful, but a subtle change in my movement and craziness, she's starting to understand that when I get on the one knee to talk to her without making faces or goofy sounds, that means I'm trying to reason with her.

 

She usually just shrugs it off and starts playing on her own, and eventually tires herself out and signifies that by rubbing her eyes, yawning. I will then try to pick her up and put her to sleep, but she will resist getting picked up. Less and less though I have to get resistance as she is now getting used to the idea that I've followed her cue and she just knocks right out in my arms. It's the darndest thing.

 

Anyways, I'm sure I could've explained that more shortly and concisely, but I wanted to emphasize how many little things go into one goal being achieved, at least in the case of sleeping. As for her brushing her teeth, I DONT DO THAT THANKFULLY that's what her parents are for when they take her home lol. So I don't know much about how to deal with that.

 

Just be creative and patient. Try new methods and see which ones your kids are more receptive to. Then you can relish in the comfortability of repetition and habit if for a long time, that kid really enjoys a certain approach to getting their sleep, milk, and what have you.

[stigskog]

"The reason you haven't found a way to get around this is because you have force on the table.  It's the same as with spanking.  Take the force off the table, then you can negotiate."

 

I completely agree. Once you remove the possibility of force things change. You might get situations where its really inconvenient for the parent, but it absolutely forces you to look at the reason why  your child doesn't want to do something, and fix that issue.  Also, once force is completely off the table, you get the chance (in fact you have no other choice) to discuss what is the cause of the conflict.   My eldest is 3.5 now, so is very capable of having a discussion.   Another thing I have noticed is that when force is off the table, you have to listen to your child, and they understand that and start talking to you. After all what is the point in talking if whatever you say is going to be overruled anyway.

 

My youngest is 20months. He can't talk much. He understands though. In my opinion (and I would love to hear of others experiences for a kid of around that age), he is just crossing in to being able to reason with, and its no longer ok to pick him up against his will.. or rather if I pick him up and he is not happy about it for moore than about 2 seconds, then i rewind.

[MysterionMuffles]

"The reason you haven't found a way to get around this is because you have force on the table.  It's the same as with spanking.  Take the force off the table, then you can negotiate."

 

I completely agree. Once you remove the possibility of force things change. You might get situations where its really inconvenient for the parent, but it absolutely forces you to look at the reason why  your child doesn't want to do something, and fix that issue.  Also, once force is completely off the table, you get the chance (in fact you have no other choice) to discuss what is the cause of the conflict.   My eldest is 3.5 now, so is very capable of having a discussion.   Another thing I have noticed is that when force is off the table, you have to listen to your child, and they understand that and start talking to you. After all what is the point in talking if whatever you say is going to be overruled anyway.

 

My youngest is 20months. He can't talk much. He understands though. In my opinion (and I would love to hear of others experiences for a kid of around that age), he is just crossing in to being able to reason with, and its no longer ok to pick him up against his will.. or rather if I pick him up and he is not happy about it for moore than about 2 seconds, then i rewind.

Look at my post above you for an example of reasoning with a preverbal toddler.

And if I may add another example, there was one time my neice was throwing around a bunch of DVD's out of the case and onto the floor. It was pretty loud and reckless. She was about 20-24 months old by this time btw.

 

Anyway, I was actually pretty tired and although I have spanking completely off the table, I did want to yell at her to stop, pick her up even and pull her away, but I didn't.

 

Instead, I sat beside her and held her wrist so she can maintain eye contact with me and said, "if you want to play with the DVD's you're gonna have to be careful okay Be gentle and place them down like this, one by one." And then I started showing her how I take DVD's off the case. Her way was just pulling them out and throwing them behind herself without even looking back. I showed her my way and the way I prefer that she played with them if she wanted to be able to continue--and so I just pulled them one by one and showed how to slowly place them down on a neat stack on the floor. I even put emphasis on how the less distance there is between your hand and the dropping point, the better.

 

Then, you wouldn't believe it, but she actually listened! She stared at me for a second and I thought I was wasting my time, but she pulled a DVD out of the case, actually turned around and slowly bent over to place it down as gently as she could. It dropped an inch to the ground, but it was better than them flying around. Eventually she got better the more I applauded her success in putting them down quietly and as straight as possible on the pile. Every time she grabbed too many at a time or threw them, I would just lose enthusiasm.

 

Peaceful Parenting podcast, THANK YOU! Lol, I forget which one it was, but Stef said enthusiasm is a good weapon to enforce positive behaviour. You show it when they succeed, keep encouraging them if they fail, but show your genuine drop in enthusiasm.

 

Anyways once again, I hope my examples help, if not please give me feedback on why they might be faulty approaches I use,

[stigskog]

Look at my post above you for an example of reasoning with a preverbal toddler.

.......

Then, you wouldn't believe it, but she actually listened! She stared at me for a second and I thought I was wasting my time, but she pulled a DVD out of the case, actually turned around and slowly bent over to place it down as gently as she could. It dropped an inch to the ground, but it was better than them flying around. Eventually she got better the more I applauded her success in putting them down quietly and as straight as possible on the pile. Every time she grabbed too many at a time or threw them, I would just lose enthusiasm.

 

 

Thanks, this is useful. It would be nice to get daily ideas and inspiration for creative parenting.

[Think Free]

Thanks, tasmlab and company for your helpful insights.