I realize this may be a tad controversial but seeing as I have a tiiiiiiny readership and I need to get some thoughts out of my head I'm going to go for it...
Was on facebook (aka. demon timesucker) and a "friend" asked about what to do with her 2 year old with and attitude problem. The number of people who responded telling her to give her daughter a whack disturbed me. I really felt like saying "bro, that is illegal for a reason!"...but I didn't. Instead I wrote about how I deal with my children in difficult moments then felt like a giant hippy for trying to relate to my children as small people and acknowledge their feelings. I do realize that sometimes children go feral, I know this, for a fact but I often find that distraction/being taken to a quiet place for a chat/a cuddle/being let loose outside works for us more than I could ever imagine a smack doing. I'm not saying people who smack their children are all "bad parents", more like good parents with a bad idea? Disclaimer: I am also in no way claiming to be the perfect parent. At. All.
It got me to thinking though if these adults who regularly smack their children for breaking rules would be so happy to be bent over the bonnet of their car and spanked whenever they got pulled over for speeding. Or whether they think that people who break the law should be flogged instead of being given "time out" in prison. Hey, maybe I'm making assumptions... maybe these people are all law abiding folk, apart from the smacking thing.
I find it strange that people would be against physical punishment in schools, yet happily smack their children to "teach them a lesson" at home. I know most would say we're just talking about a tap on the bum but hitting is hitting man! And don't even start me on the madness of hitting your child as a punishment for them having hit someone else.
A hug doesn't fix everything, but it is a pretty good place to start.
Yeah, I don't understand it at all. It's something people still do and I guess, when you lack the right guidance and tools for raising kids without violence then I can understand on some level that you might make mistakes along the way, but also wonder if parents actively seek to change that? I feel the same, don't want to sound judgy but it breaks my heart. Children die here because parents who are in the habit of using smacking for discipline lose control and go too far. And then for you to feel like you're the odd one out for advocating something different? I really really hope the culture around this continues to change in the years to come, it really makes me sad to see children being bullied and hurt.
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