I don't have kids. Would I spank if I did? Maybe. Probably very little in any case.
My wife was spanked twice during her childhood. Each time, a couple swats on the butt. She has a normal range of emotions.
I was spanked about twice a week. Drop-your-pants-and-get-hammered-on-hard-multiple-times-with-a-belt whippings. Not only were they physically abusive but emotional abuse was dished out along with the beatings. One time, my dad took a hoe handle to my ass and succeeded in making my want to kill him. I came close but never did the deed. I was about 12 at the time. Who knows how my life would have changed? Who knows what the effect is on a 12-year old boy who ends up hating his father for the rest of his life? As I got older, there were times when my father simply decked me with a closed fist. He was a first class bully and that's putting it nicely, I assure you. What's a 6'2" 270 pound man doing beating up a kid anyway? Rest assured, my mother was no less abusive.
My emotions are still very difficult to recognize, control and even feel most of the time.
My next brother has turned into a carbon copy of my father and abuses his kids similarly. It tears my heart out to know that they are being terrorized as I once was. Unfortunately, you have to handle this kind of thing with a great degree of delicacy and while I await an opportunity to do something about it, it's unlikely that I'll be able to be effective, even if I want to do so.
In retrospect, I believe spanking is a lazy parent's way of disciplining because they are unwilling to take the time to work out an appropriate punishment which fits the crime. Granted, there are parents who simply don't know any better but while that excuse may have worked for mine and others of your parents, it's becoming less and less of an excuse today. There is too much information available now for a parent to be able to say, "That's the way I was raised and I turned out okay." It doesn't fly any more. Equally important, even if a parent is ignorant of better parenting skills, it does not change the fact that the effect on the kids has major negative repercussions.
Bear in mind that any discipline should be a teaching moment for a child and you have to consider what it is you're teaching when you whip out the belt or raise your hand. Also, if a kid's punishment is always the same, the kid will learn only how to cover up his "crimes" better and will miss out on many opportunities for learning good things and will, instead, learn that if you can get away with it, you're doing the good thing. The child will then carry those lessons into adulthood and it will cause no end of difficulty for perhaps a lifetime.
That isn't to say that a judicious swat on the butt when it's called for is not okay. It just has to be a tool used with thought and serious consideration of whether or not it's the best thing given the circumstances. And none of this, "This hurts me more than it hurts you," crap. It might be true on some level but it's emotionally abusive because it transfers the punishment-making decision from you to the child and that's not his or her job. It's yours; take responsibility for it even if it's unpleasant.
It's a complex issue, even when done right. What works for one of your kids doesn't necessarily work with another of your kids.
I guess the point is, don't do it just because. Think about what it is you're trying to do vs. what you're actually doing.
None of this is intended to make anyone feel sorry for me. I only put it up there as something to think about. Raising a kid, as we all know, should never be taken lightly. To my parents' credit, they realized their problems later on in life and because much more passive but their problem from then on was that they didn't discipline at all which has it's own repercussions. Besides, by then, the first five of their 10 kids had already suffered overly much and I had left home some time before that change in their lives. Again, though, it's mentioned for illustration's sake in this thread, not to garner sympathy for myself!
Just some thoughts.
--Wag--
Offer up examples of why not or why if ya like
