I have read Ann Clemmons blog post Spanking Where Do You Draw The Line? and these are my views and Thoughts. It is a great post with a great example of how you shouldn’t discipline your child.

anyway these are my thoughts…

i was slapped once by my mother that I knew of (i think she might have swated me when i was in diapers, but it obviously wasn’t traumatic) she slapped me when i was a teenager. It was only once and I deserved it.

My daughter is 9 and I have swatted her leg in the car in front of my mother when she was about 5, because she was being abnormally difficult and I lost control. I gave her a small welt and I was horrified. I kept apologizing to her. Since then I have popped her in her mouth a couple times for talking back or saying something she shouldn’t have said. But that is the extent that I have used physical discipline.

She is a good kid, but I don’t attribute that to her being scared of being spanked. I have used time outs and taking material things from her and she will behave if she wants those luxuries.

I don’t believe (and I have learned this the HARD way) that there is any benefit of hitting whether it is an adult or a child. I believe the woman in the story described by Ann Clemmons used brute force and humiliated that poor child. I think the most painful of it all is the humiliation. The humiliation of being hit by a raging parent in a public place is too much for a child to take.

I think in all abuse humiliation is the main weapon. It imobilizes the victim and gives power to the attacker. I have been the victim and the perpetrator. I haven’t seen any good from either side.