Yes. Especially when you're bigger than the person you're hitting. ETA: No, really, sleeppro (betcha you're all about cry-it-out, too). Hitting children is not the most effective way to teach them anything.

No because then the child will think that when they are mad or frustrated, they can get away with being violent. Remember: Monkey see. Monkey do. Children watch their parent(s) a lot to know what to do or how to act. Giving them the idea they can use violence while being bad or frustrated may cause to bigger things to happen, like guns in schools, hitting siblings/cousins/friends, etc.

Yes it does. If you take the time to show that you care by actually talking with them about what they may have done, you will find them more willing to listen. If you spank them they may see it as " if they can, i can" as well as " Violence solves things, talking does nothing" - which they should see as the opposite. Just talk with them, if you dont, your making a mistake. Let me point out some evidence-( At war times it is against International Humanity Laws to hurt prisioners for misbehavior - including spanking, hitting, slapping.) Does it dound right to you ? Hear Spanking at ... cddungan0.tripod.com/Report_Card.htm

Well, if you are expressing anger and frustration, yes. If that's what you're expressing, I would recommend that you step back and reconsider. Spanking can be done in a controlled and loving manner, and does convey the idea of authority and consequences for rebellion. It's over and done with quickly, and allows the relationship between parent and child to be restored. It is paradoxical that you can avoid anger and frustration by being quicker to spank, rather than by hesitating until until it builds. Childish behavior in a child need not be an occasion for anger, it is an occasion for training in love, of which physical discipline can be a constructive part.

let me give you two examples- both real: example 1 when john messed up his dad would hit him while telling him not to do that, and how that disgraced the family. they would fight. johns in prison no for manslaughter. example 2 Robert was raised not to fight. but when robert would messup his dad would warn him of his actions and how they could lead to a spanking. when robert was hard-headed and did it any way, roberts dad would sit him down and TELL him what he was being punished for much like a judeg reads off the charges and sentences, the punishment would be delt (usu. a spanking) afterward he would wait for robert to dry his tears and he would explain that he did not like doing it but that when you mess-up you will have consequences to deal with, he would have robert give him a hug and that would be it. the two boys are brothers one was raised by a over worked father in his mid twenties the later (robert) was raised by the same man after dad had retired. what i'm saying is that it is wrong to beat you child, but you need to give the constructive consequences for negative actions.

Normaly, I would just be "direct-minded like a hot knife cutting through margarine" (Somebody once said that about me.) and say yes, but I'll add on. You have a good point. I think your theory is true. You should just give them a time-out if they're bad or whatever.

No, No and No, it's not ok to spank a child. Have alternatives.

No, it doesn't teach them violence. If a child touches a hot stove they learn not to touch the hot stove again, not to go out and set fires to people's hands. Spanking works for some kids and not for others. Spanking is the only thing that works for our oldest son. However, our youngest son gets punished by us messing up the shoes in his closet. He is a VERY clean child and his shoes are lined up perfectly. My brother, sister and I were all spanked and not often because...the stove was hot and we didn't want to touch it again. We all hold degrees, have families, have never been in trouble with the law, etc. Notice that the generations that we spanked didn't have the problems that the generations since spanking became some type of sin among men started. Spanking if fine, beatings are wrong.

Yes

We have only spanked out six year old one ime. This was because she was hitting others quite often. When she hit my wife, she was hit back so fast she was in shock. She has never hit another child since. I guess she got the message!

No! But hopefully you are not spanking due to frustration and anger. Of course kids can be upsetting, but if you are getting frustrated and angered, you obviously don't have control of your house. But Spanking does not teach violence. My brother and I both grew up getting spanked, and we are big athletic guys, and neither of us have ever picked a fight. If anything, it teaches respect. Does taking away their favorite toy as a punishment teach the kid he or she can steal from those who upset them?! Of course not, a child knows that it is punishment and that you have the right as their parent, to punish.

This is not violence. Spanking is not lashing out in anger. Violence is fighting, terrorism, and murder. How about we address the parents who yell at their children and out of anger pronounce a ridiculous length of time to be "grounded". Spanking discourages misbehavior and acting out. The opposite of violence. My parents always held me and explained everything after they spanked me. I am a psychology major, and current pop psychology says that spanking is bad, but I would much rather trust the Bible and 1000's of years of practice, rather than a century or less of research.

I was spanked as a child until i was old enough to not care about being spanked. When i have children some day, will i spank them when they act out of line? YES! My parents sat me down and talked to me about it calmly either before or after i was spanked. This was not always the case, sometimes they did it out of reaction to the horrible thing I just did, after which, they always apologized. Believe it or not, i still have a loving relationship with my parents, I have not broken any laws, and have a clean bill of mental health. My friends growing up were not spanked, instead their parents would scream at them and ground them. They ended up getting into trouble with the law and drugs. Is there a direct correlation? Maybe. Children simply do not possess the mental ability of reason that adults have. That is why they act CHILDISHLY, and cannot be reasoned with and parents must resort to the simplest form of correction. Adults are not spanked because they have the ability to reason out the negative and positive with every action. For adults, there is prison. For children, there is spanking. Its very simple. Finally, spanking is not violence. In the dictionary, the meaning of the word violent is 1 : marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity or 4 a : emotionally agitated to the point of loss of self-control. Spanking under the right conditions is none of those things.

I believe it does. Here is my answer as given to a similar question: A leather belt was used by my mother and his own belt was used by my Dad....sometimes his had a metal end on it. The only other 'corporal' punishment was a slap to the face. NO, NO. I do not think that in any way it made me a better adult. I know that it did not make my older brother a better adult because he used corporal punishment on his sons and worse on 2 of his 3 wives---"the third wife laid down the law" so he never hurt her physically when he was drinking. (In every way he acted out at his family as an alcoholic just LIKE our father did. My younger sister was 'spanked', beaten, more than once with a belt and there is no doubt that it DID NOT make her a better adult. In fact, it led her to hate herself, have very poor self image, believed that she was no good in every way and she could never find peace with/from God. Her 2 worst "spankings" beatings with a belt were: at age 7 by our young 24 yr "saintly" mother; and, at age 17 by our father. Nobody remembers why she was 'spanked for doing something wrong" at age 7. I remember every blow and the yelling at her and her fighting to get away from mother's hold on her with one hand and swinging the belt with the other.At age 8, I was powerless as were my brothers, age 6 and 9. At age 17 in 1957, she still lived at home aand bought a car after getting a great job after her June 1957 graduation. Most Saturday nights she and a girl friend would go to a movie, bowling, skating, and similar activities that were available to teenagers in the 1950's over 30 years before the sexual revolution and ease in buying beer, and the use of heroin primarily in the NE U.S. One night she and her girl friend did not just 'drag' (as in the movie, "American Graffitti" that was filmed at the favorite drive-in, round, at one of the street that was crowded by teenagers every Fri and Sat nights) the street and yell at the boys, but they left town and drove 60-plus miles away AND she arrived home at 8:00 a.m. When she opened the front door father demanded that she go to her room...our mother and I were in the kitchen and, as at age 9, I could only listen to her screams because my interference at 18 would just have meant that he would become even more angry and beat me too. Same for our mother. (That evening she called our grandmother and was on the plane to travel 5 states away the very next morning.) What he had done: Made her remove her clothing all except bra and panties, used his stiff narrow belt with a metal end to beat on her so hard so long. The incident was not mentioned by our parents. You see, he had decided that she was out there having sex with one or more boys---being liki him probably several times a week when at his favorite bar owned by the woman he had slept with for several years before alcohol killed him at 47. How "in God's green earth" could those 'spankings' have made her a better adult. She never spanked her own kids who are 3 fine adults now. She died at 57. God was merciful for she was happy one minute and dead the next, before her son could walk around the table, when an anyourism broke in the front of her head. Sadly, the laws making such treatment Child Abuse did not come until the 80's. I realize that some adults can bury such memories so deed that they do not realize the power those buried feelings have on their adult lives.

Why, of course it does. That's what the anti-spanking zealots are always preaching, and they know what's best for everyone's children, so how can there be any doubt about it?

Yes. That's why I don't do it and I don't let my husband do it.

i don't think that spanking should be used when your mad and frustrated. Who ever gives the punishment (or really it should be consequences to actions) then they should have a calm levelled mind. Nothing major just a quick tap on the bum just more for surprise than actually trying to hurt them. That may be the key...

No. My brothers and I... Well pretty much every child in my family has been spanked. My brothers and I are fine, when we were in school we didn't fight, we didn't talk back, nothing. We just knew we'd get spanked whenever we did something wrong. That's it.

Oh most definitely! (Spanking... For consenting Adults Only!)

i dont think so. my parents didnt spank me because they were frustrated..they spanked me so i would "learn my lesson" by fear of the consequence. and i would get spanked for being violent with my siblings, so id say no

No more than sending them to their room teaches them that taking someone hostage taking is OK or sending them to bed without dinner teaches them that inflicting starvation is OK.

If you spank your child when you are frustrated with him/her... then YEAH! It shouldn't teach them violence either, unless you are giving them full-fledged beatings. I grew up with a healthy fear of my parents. I wasn't spanked often, but when I was it was on the behind or on the arm, not hard and not with an object. The healthy fear that was instilled in me gave me respect for them and their rules. I have never thought they were violent and they never acted out in frustration. Although I went through rebellious teen years, the respect I had for them and their rules kept me from getting into a lot more trouble than I did. I still have respect for my parents and much gratitude for the way they raised me. I hope I can do as well as them whenever I have kids.

Spanking your kids because you chose to be mad and frustrated will land you in anger management classes after a brief jail stint. Discipline is not nearly effectively if it's served as a side-effect of you acting out of control due to anger and/or inability to handle a situation. That being said, physical discipline dame sure can be effective when the kid knows their getting their ass beat because they fucked up and did wrong...not because they made mommy or daddy mad for reasons they may not even be mature enough to understand or because you had a bad day :p.

Nearly anything is open to interpretation. If you're saying that children only get spanked when a parent is mad & frustrated, then its likely that the kids would react in a similar manner, eventually. However, I believe that when my child has been repeatedly told not to do something, but continues to do it, they should suffer the consequences. Spanking can be one of the consequences, if it suits. Yes, I did occasionally spank my child, but I seldom had to because I was consistent with disipline & she believed me. More often a threat of lack of privileges worked better.

No, "appropriate corporal punishment" actually doesn't. That's a myth...

Rule # 1: Never hit a child for any reason when you are angry. Always calm down. Rule # 2: Spanking should convey dissapointment, not full fledged anger. Rule # 3: Never cause bleeding, minimum welps. Rue # 4: Talk to your children and tell them why they're being spanked. Never just do it. Even if you may not be in the mood give your child a hug and let them know that spankings do not mean you don't love them, just that you are very disappointed in them. If you follow all of these rule your child should be okay, unless you or someone in your family has violence or anger management issues. If so, then you should not be spanking your child.

I was whipped for reasons I still think are unjust. I was whipped with belts and extension cords just because I got bad grades. I don't appreciate my parents outsourcing me to government school and expecting me to make some grade because some WASP says so. A way of teaching that's still based on some system that was implemented over 100 years ago from a country that doesn't even exist anymore is completely asinine. I resent every time it happened to me and I won't do that to my children. As for disciplining my kids for other things, I still don't see striking my child in any way necessary.