You are still making negative physical contact with your child in an effort to retrain him. Get a shock collar--it would probably work faster.

How often did you have to swat them on the bottom? More than once or twice? If it was any more than that, I think you should have come to the conclusion that you method wasn't effective.

IMO spanking a child is swatting them on the bottom with your hand when you are calm, hitting a child is completely something else.
to pilot..I will pray for you

It is completely ludicrous to think that parents are only going to hit their children when they are calm and rational.

If they were calm and rational, THEY WOULDN'T BE HITTING THEIR KIDS!

There is a difference in hitting someone when you are angry and spanking or paddling them when you are calm and rational.

It is absolutely by the grace of God that we have our children. The are among the most very precious things he provides for us.

Why would you purposely mistreat your gift by hitting?

It is by the grace of God that we have these children. I may have carried them but it is He that created them, therefore they are His children. He has blessed me with the opportunity to be an earthly parent, who will make mistakes, but one day there true Father will claim them for His own. When I am claimed I will have to answer to Him and Him alone for my discipline.

Scarlett,

Can you share how that conversation went?

In my head I am hearing, "Son, you know it is not right for you to call your sister names and hit her. You know we don't hit girls. Now, I am going to spank you and I want you to remember that hitting is bad, so don't ever do that again."

And on loan from God? Are you Rush Limbaugh's mother?

And discipline is to train, redirect; punishment is, well, punishment. There is a difference. If you are disciplining your child, for yourself or for God, physical force is not indicated. You are instructing, training.

If you are hitting your child, you are punishing him, and I am going to guess you are not happy with him at the moment, and most likely somewhat angry.

I am a big fan of The Prophet as well as his prolific poetry

I remember loving this little poem as a teen and then thinking it was silly when I became a mom. But now, as I mellow out some, I like it again: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/other...

Reminds me of Khalil Gibran. "...They come through you but not from you...you may house their bodies but not their souls..." My mom gave me a copy of one of his books when I was a teen and I loved it.

"We would sit with them afterward and talk about how God had loaned them to us and that He expected us to discipline them when they did wrong"

God is an absentee Father?

I was spanked, as well as my siblings, some us had run ins with the law, some of us didn't. Some of us are more aggressive, some of us aren't. I don't think that is due solely to the spankings. A large part of it was our genetics in the first place. Yes, my husband and I spanked our children when they were younger. BUT we never did it when we were angry. We also talked to them before hand and explained exactly why they were being spanked. We would sit with them afterward and talk about how God had loaned them to us and that He expected us to discipline them when they did wrong. That does not mean that we used "spare the rod and spoil the child" as an excuse to beat the heck out of them.

Two further observations. While I was occasionally spanked as a child, I never spanked my child, although I will admit to being sorely tempted on serveral occasions. So, at least in my case, the cause and effect relationship does not hold.

In the physical sciences (including medicine), unlike the social sciences, the gold standard is considered to be the double blind test. The researchers do not know which of the subjects are the object of the study and which are controls. In the social sciences, including psychology, double blind tests are the rare exception to the rule. I have long suspected that the reason for this is that the social scientists are frequently clueless in the absence of a knowledge of which of their study subjects should exhibit the behaviour they want to find.

An interesting note about the "spare the rod, spoil the child" phrase - although it closely resembles a phrase in Proverbs the exact phrase is from Samuel Butler in a poem, "Hudibras" about the British civil war in th 17th century. However, if I remember correctly, Butler's use of the phrase was a double entendre.

Sandwichh, thank you for putting so much though into your comment here.

First off, the study concerned 2461 three year olds that were spanked. The study had nothing to do with children NOT being spanked. The study was not to determine if the spanked children had manners or not; it was to determine if spanking and physical punishment led to a more agressive child.

What does this mean: "If corporal punishment did not work, all you would have to do is talk to Osama and it would all be over. I actually saw a Doctor'd Professor say that after 9-11."?

You said: "don't take them to court, just talk and reason with them." What, instead of spanking them? In court? I have never seen anyone spanked in court. Have you?

Educated folks are less likely to hit their children because they are more likely to be open to more EFFECTIVE parenting techniques. I know you know several folks who have complained that no matter how much they spank their child, the child keeps doing the same bad behavior. Who is the dummy here? The parent or the child? The parent is for not being smart enough to recognize when something isn't working...duh! If physical punishment was effective, a parent wouldn't have to hit their child but once.

Corporal Punishment has been around for centuries.
Great leaders and inventors,...humanitarians...
And for some reason NOW it is bad. From where we came from to what things are now with the admonishment of that punishment nowadays,..
I would take the general civilized of the past over bad manners and all of the vast of what we have to put up with today.
What makes it all the worse, nowadays is a large group of parents will not discipline their children. From a guilt or something I don't know, but it is wide spread.

We spanked when needed, not beat our children and I will put them up against any in manners, knowledge of right and wrong, etc.. Yes,...there is a difference. And I have seen kids who were not spanked beat the heck out of other kids.

Looking at stats from the different decades, nothing shows a spanking does bad things. Murderers, rapist, etc. come from both sides.
And of course a Phd is going to tell you how much smarter he is than you.
If corporal punishment did not work, all you would have to do is talk to Osama and it would all be over. I actually saw a Doctor'd Professor say that after 9-11.
Next time someone steals something from you, shoots up your house, etc. don't take them to court, just talk and reason with them. No need to go to jail. Just put them in time out and they will be totally change for life. Never do bad again. Different offenses are to be dealt with differently.

I am not a science guy. But I am accused much of watching what other people do for like my father I find it interesting. I see good and bad on both sides, and I see good and bad of yesteryear and today. Are kids, or should I say young people less violent today with less spankings being done than yesteryear. I haven't seen it, especially females.

Obvserver, the jury may be out for you, but I have never had anyone successfully explain to me how you get a child to stop being physical with others by being physical with the child.

I had the opportunity to have as a professor in college, a woman who had done her PhD. work at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey, and at Attica in New York. These are two of the most violent prison, and both are maximum security. She made one statement that forever changed the way I looked at parental discipline. She said educated people don't hit their children.

I wasn't spanked more than a couple of times as a child, and I really never spanked my children. The point of discipline is to encourage the child to make better choices. Making the bad choice a painful one, and therefore undesirable, is certainly one way to help the child make better choices, but what did it do to help foster thinking and reasoning? Nothing!

Yes, you eventually reach the desired result, but the child has not clue how he got there.

Thanks, Crobar. Thought provoking.

Can't believe you went there. You are brave!

"They f**k you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f**ked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself"

This be the verse - Philip Larkin

Between the lack of an exclusive definition of corporal punishment and my suspicion that the researchers embarked on their study with a considerable bias as to the outcome they desired, I think the jury is still out on this one. Another good and thought-provoking post, Crobar.