I beg to differ Goshin. I think that by kicking their ass, all you'll be teaching will be that conflicting situations can be resolved through physical violence. When they grow up, they might avoid kicking your ass, but they will continue to solve their conflict through violent means. "if my parents did it, then it's right, so I might as well use the method also".
Okay, I'm assuming y'all realize that I was engaging in a little deliberate hyperbole, and that when I said
beat that ass I was referring to a controlled and deliberate spanking of no greater intensity than was necessary to restore order.
I have raised children by this method: three parts love, one part corrective criticism, consistent rules, impersonal spankings as necessary. I half-raised two nieces and have a son of my own, who at 13 is nearly six feet tall and has shoulders a college-football-star would be proud of. He has plenty of "means" at his disposal for "violence" if he so chose, yet he is a gentle giant who likes small children and babies and is very patient with them. He could pick most of his peers up one-handed, yet is tolerant of the little jerks almost to a fault. :mrgreen:
If you establish discipline early, by having consistent rules with consistent and appropriate discipline applied for breaking them, toddler-fits will be a rarity. With smaller children, corporeal punishment is "the big stick" (not literally, I mean as in "the carrot and the stick".) Their lack of intellectual reasoning and impulse control is such that most small children need an occasional dose of butt-whuppin to internalize the concept of "being bad is not good." The realization that corporeal punishment is a possibility goes a long way toward establishing parental authority. It can be the difference between your child stopping when told "STOP!" rather than ignoring the command and running out into traffic. Establishing firm authority.
Most of the people I know who grew up in homes with established consistent discipline ultimately backed by corporeal punishment, grew up to be productive adults who stay out of jail. Some of the most useless POS's and thugs I've known grew up unspanked. I'll stick with the old ways, thanks.
Hmm...this philosophy is all well and good, except that with "child abuse" being such a social hot button nowadays, you're likely to be thrown off the bus for hitting your child AND have Child Protective Services show up at your door.
I'm not talking about child abuse, I'm talking about spanking. A child that has been disciplined properly will often respond remarkably well to a quick singular smack on the bottom to get their attention: the brain resets when they realize "oops, I went over the line!"
I suppose some of it depends on where you live. I've given my child a smack on the bottom in front of hundreds of people at the mall. In the small town where I live, it is nothing unusual for a parent to take their child to the restaurant bathroom and spank them for misbehavior, and most of the patrons will literally smile and nod their approval at the parent for correcting their child.
I don't live in Dixie by accident. :mrgreen:
G.