Parents Council: Sparing the rod

From the Parents Council blog:

“There’s been plenty of discussion about the Coeur d’Alene mom who got a ticket for injury to a child during this year’s Fourth of July parade.

“Nancy Shute of U.S. News and World Report recently wrote about this topic. In “A Good Parent’s Dilemma: Is Spanking Bad?” she noted that many parents think it’s OK to occasionally swat your child on the bottom.

“But corporal punishment is actually considered illegal in many countries – including Sweden, Spain and Germany.

“What do you think?”

– Posted by Virginia de Leon

“I remember watching an Oprah episode about spanking long before I had kids and the pro-spanker said that he would sure rather his kids went to the store and thought to themselves that they wouldn’t shoplift because they might get a spanking rather than because they might end up in time-out.

“It didn’t occur to him that the alternative was to teach his children that they shouldn’t shoplift because it is wrong and while that is often the harder and longer road, it certainly pays off in the end.”

– Posted by Jennine

“Personally, I see spanking as a tool of control rather than a teaching tool. I’d rather teach my kids to think things through and understand why a certain action is wrong than to teach them that they must do what I want or I’ll hit them.

“Many people I’ve talked to about this don’t realize that kids can start thinking these things through at a pretty young age. I’ve been using this method since my kids were 3. Of course, the conversations have changed, but I still use the same method.”

– Posted by Stephanie

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