is it ever right to hit your child?
okay mabye not beating your child, is it ever right to hit your child? if not why? if yes? why?
i think that no matter what a situation could arise where physical punishment is needed. not that these situations are common, but i think that when ti comes down to it. it should be legal to do as long as there are good reasons for it.
Frighter, you may be interested in this section of the Anarchist FAQ, What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?
meh. anarchist ramblings tend to irritate me. i think in my mind a situation where say you have a kid that is really smart for his age and lets say he is like 5 years old or something. and he gets a pair of guns. and he goes on a shooting spree. with no care for anything. asking this child nicely to stop i dont think would work.
I doubt that situation would arise. I think that it is only acceptable to use physical force against a child if one would do the same with an adult. And what’s so irratating about anarchist “ramblings”?
Consistent reinforcement of good behavior is the best way to go! There a lot more appropriate ways to bring up your child and it can all be done successfully without ever laying a finger on your child. Check out Operant Conditioning.
Metavoid Said:
because it isnt likley doesnt mean that it cant happen. and i totally agree with you Skeptic that operant conditioning would work well if ya started it from beginning to end. but lets say your a parent. and your child has had no problems up until the point where he becomes a gun toting maniac. its hard to suddenly emerse him/her in a conditioning reg-a-min ( ← thats what i do when i cant spell, sound it out). in a situation like that i would see no other alternative but to use physical force.
and i think the police would agree too!
and i dislike anarchist ramblings mostly because they usually try to portrey it as a wonderful utopian society that would suddenly emerge if we let anarchy rein free. i think most people agree that without government of SOME kind. that world would descend into chaos. now if you ask me, that isnt nessicarily a bad thing… but thats just me… and isnt really relevent to this thread.
Well, theoretically, conditioning should prevent any such anti-social behavior, but in such a case, no need for punishment; I would just turn them over to the police and let them handle it. Right? 
But I see where you are going. In cases where the problem is already too large to deal with in a reasonable manner, there is not much you can do because it is out of your hands. Punishment wouldn’t do a bit of good either. So professional help is necessary.
— I know a single parent who failed to discipline her kids . They are now on home arrest with the electronic ankle bracelets. It’s amazing that a license is required to drive a car, run a business, etc., but anybody whether qualified or not is granted free rein to raise a child in any way S/he sees fit!
—(I don’t think it ethically advisable to physically punish your children)
yes, why not? - it must though be kept in moderation, not any hard beatings,
just enough that the child learns its wrong. Basically on rare occasions when your child has really annoyed you. only looking at the state of the kids who get away with murder or are just phychologically destroyed by there parents, gives me the incentive to use a certain degree of force.
Kesh wrote:-
When you are in an unstable emotional state (annoyed) is exactly when you should not beat your child. I cannot see any justification for beating a child, or even for giving them a gentle slap.
We do not allow adults to use force against one another so where is the justification to use force against a child? When a stronger person uses physical force against a weaker one there is a simple name for it - bullying.
The only time when physical contact is needed (apart from hugs - lots of them are absolutely necessary in nurturing a child) is when a child is restrained from a situation for long enough for it to calm down and be reasoned with.
Quoting parents who distance themselves from their responsibility or those who mentally abuse their children does not give you the right to physical abuse your child.
— I agree. Also, someone (including a child) can annoy you and still be right and within the bounds of propriety.
im not talking savage beatings here 
i just mean, if my kid was at the stage where he/she started to understand a sense of right and wrong and then starts developing those morals; then when they understand that there in the wrong (in the wrong i mean) theyve been throwing stones at someones window, or hit some kid, set fire to barbie etc. All the trouble kids can get into (kids naturally find trouble) i wound allow his mam(or she would anyways) to smack his/her arse in front of his/her friends id slap him/her(not brain damage or a bruising slap) just something little to let them know there been bad, and been noticed. how long do you think yelling would last? you & they would just get sick of your own voice.
“Beating your child!!!” sounds Way over the top, i like everyone else will try and not hit my child ever but if someone said
I wouldnt be laughing
If you mean abuse and beating your child in a serious and nasty way, then no i wouldnt; saying though, that i slapped my childs backside when he/she was climbing over the fence at the Zoo (or something) then no.
That’s the biggest load of twaddle I’ve heard for a long time.
I take it your child is deaf and dumb? Are you not able to talk to him/her to explain that what he/she had been doing was wrong? Why do you have to publically humiliate your child before his/her peers to get the idea across that his/her actions are unacceptable?
Finally, I said reason with your child, as in discuss, not YELL!!! I wouldn’t let anyone yell at me, I don’t yell at other people, why would you yell at a child? If you wanted someone to stop listening to anything you said you certainly know the right way to go about it.
Kesh stated:
Kesh, most of what I want to say will mirror what I believe Lizzysue was trying to say. I hope you will hear me out anyway, for I plan not to speak to you in the way Lizzysue did.
I come from a family who, at first, had much the same conception of punishing a child as you do. This notion is still prevalent amongst many parents. I only wish to say, in my opinion, that all forms of punishment against a child are damaging and unwarranted. This may sound idealistic, but I believe that punishing a child is a weakness of the punisher. Just as in fighting between adults, especially physical fights, is a sign not of trying to make the other understand something, but rather, it is a sign of last resort where the person lacks any intelligence in rationally making the other understand. Which leads to upset feelings, frustration, annoyance, which easily and quickly lead to blaming the other person for not understanding, which also quickly leads to insulting them, and finally leads to a climax of emotions that results in a physical attack. I will use one of your examples to further illustrate my point, you said that if a child who knows right from wrong was to throw a stone through another’s window that this would be enough to warrant a slap or a butt smacking. Now, if I was to say that you could do that or you could take a system of communication that would make your child understand without you having to embarras him/her or physically punish them, would you choose my system or would you yell and/or give them a light physical beating (slap, butt smack, etc)?
I would hope that if you were given the option of making your child understand something without being humiliated or hurt in any emotional or physical way that you would take it. Assuming this to be true, I have the following to say. Taking your scenario, a child who TRULY KNOWS right from wrong, and assuming they do not have a mental disability of some sorts, is to say that they have some other reason for choosing wrong over right. It is this reason that should be the chief impedus of your interest and not punishing your child, in my opinion. It is this reason that fails to appear within your post. It could be that, although your child knows throwing rocks at someones window is wrong, they felt compelled to do so because of the hurt they felt inside that was the doing of another child who happens to reside in the residence with the broken window, who attends their school and greatly embarrased your child at recess in front of everybody that very day. Should you have chosen to inquire first, you would find that you need only explain to your child that when their feelings are hurt because someone has done something to hurt them, they should not refer to breaking their window. More importantly, you should explain to your child that just because someone does your child wrong, it doesn’t make it right for them to do a wrong back to them. The concept of ‘Evil begets evil’ may be important here.
The important principle here is that you are replacing fear with logic/understanding/rationality and you are doing it in a peaceful manner that your child may one day come to respect. Though, as you may already know, this is difficult to do, nor do most people have the patience for it. But it is important to make note, that punishing your child is not their weakness but yours. If someone tries to explain something to me, and I try to do my best to understand them, but fail - it is not my fault but the fault of the one explaining, for they have not explained the topic well enough, possibly because they themselves don’t understand the topic as well as they thought. For a person who truly understand a topic can make even the most dimwitted understand.
Now onto the paradox and possibly the hypocrit…
Lizzysue,
you advocate reasoning with a child when they have done something wrong. Much like myself. Yet I am in great dismay with a great majority of your post. Kesh, having expressed her opinion is observed by yourself to be wrong. A person who believes in reasoning with children but acts in demeaning others, belittling others, for not having the same view as you is a contradiction and presents a paradox. Do you mean to say that children should be dealt with by using reason, but adults should be dealt with sarcasm, insinuation, labelling, and demeaning behaviour? Just because Kesh doesn’t agree with you doesn’t make her opinion…
…I’m sure if you really tried hard to think about it, you would come of with a plethora of examples that were much more the biggest load of twaddle you have ever heard. If you are a humble enough intellectual, you may even find that the greatest load of twaddle is something you have said yourself. I know and I freely admit it, cause the greatest twaddle I have ever heard was something I have said myself. Unjustified and unexplained questions such as…
…serve no purpose but to harm anothers feelings. They also show that you have no interest in understanding the person you are speaking with, but instead are wholly entrenched with the task of belittling them for their opposing belief. Worse off, you are compelled to jump to conclusions and fail to pay close enough attention to what was actually a very short post, otherwise you wouldn’t have said…
…cause you would have known that her scenarios had assumed in them the idea that the child already knew right from wrong, but had chosen to do wrong anyway (which Kesh clearly stated). Which is also the answer to, according to Kesh, your following question…
While it is this very question that you pose, that leads us to find the reason for why a child would choose wrong over right when they understand the two concepts, I am led to wonder why it is YOU have to publically humiliate Kesh before us ILP members to get the idea across that his/her notions of bringing up a child are wrong? Do you see the paradox? The hypocritical behaviour?
Lizzysue stated:
To put words in capitals and to put exclamation points is understood to be yelling on any message board on the internet, maybe not both, but it’s either one or the other. You have committed them both, so either way you look at it YOU’RE yelling. Why? You just stated that you don’t yell at other people. Yet here you are yelling at Kesh with words. I imagine, should ILP be a face to face conference, that you would actually be yelling the above words at Kesh. What’s worse, is that Kesh hasn’t yelled at you, but you are yelling at Kesh. When you figure out for yourself why you are yelling at Kesh, you may also come closer to the answer of your question to Kesh…
Especially dismaying is the fact that you are aware of the affect yelling has on many, though not all, people. Yet you do it anyway…
What’s your take?
Thanx, you should read my other posts.
Yes hugely from the savage beatings inflicted upon it daily. 
No! – what do you think? Yes of course. I still believe (especially a boy) needs to know that if he does wrong he’ll have a angry father figure there. Ok, telling your child its done wrong and your very annoyed, now go to bed; This is the usual, but there are times when a little “now you know what you’ve doneâ€, “was it bad?†and “don’t do it again†aren’t appropriate for some of the things he would do growing up (well, maybe not your children) but some kids are more boy stress then others, getting up to mischief in there phases; I may not understand children as well as you “almighty one†but sometimes a slap or just the fret of a slap is needed.
[then again I suppose you’ll easily be able to reason with your child/s when there coming around there teens, telling you how much they love/hate you]
Well I would naturally find out the reason why my child did what they did, and of course I wouldn’t physically abuse the kid if I found out what lead them to smash the window. But sometimes they don’t have a reason.
I did write quite a lot down at first. Magius you wrote i better than i could
Kesh,
though children will say “I don’t know why I did it” or “I didn’t want to do it” or “It just happened”, there still is a reason. Remember that children aren’t as good as articulating their feelings as adults are. Heck, even adults have a hard time putting their reasoning into words. The important thing, in my opinion, is to be comforting to a child - this will help the child feel confident and secure in telling you things, or trying to even when it is hard. If you approach a child with a accusative tone you can be assured they won’t be very willing to sit down and talk about what happened and why. One thing that my father taught me, which worked, and I still remember till this way was “no matter what you do I want you to know you can come to me and tell me, although what may ensue will not be to your liking, I guarantee you it will be less than what you will get if I find out you haven’t told me, or worse, that you lied to me.”. Needless to say, as a kid I always came home and told either my mother or my father what I had done. It’s also been true that it hasn’t been that bad. You see, when a child/kid does something wrong they begin to imagine just how bad things might be when they get home to find their parents have already found out what had happened. If you don’t have a close or trusting relationship with your child, they will not be likely to open up to you, nor to be honest with you. You may experience your child giving you lies upon lies upon lies. It is with this trust that you can help your child talk through and dig deep into the ‘why’ they did this or that bad thing. It is also through this trust that you can come to make your child take you seriously and reasonably, especially when you are telling them why it is that they shouldn’t do what they’ve done ever again.
Try to remember that next time, “There is always a reason” and try to approach a child, your child, with comfort and patience no matter what they have done. Talk with them without any hint of punishment in your voice, or of anything to come after the talk. One thing children are extremely good at, is feeling things out. They sense everything in ones tone, volume, and physical demeanor. Many of them don’t even know they do, they simply find themselves reacting to it without even knowing why. Be sincere with your child, love your child for better or for worse, attempt this the next time they have done something to annoy or frustrate you. Remember to stop yourself from becoming frustrated or annoyed. If you have trouble doing this, one thing that usually works is to do the opposite of what you want to do. When your child really annoys or frustrates you, hug them. Kiss them. Smile at them. Laugh. Anything, just to get yourself out of the habit of reacting negatively to things they do wrong. Children have been doing wrong things since the beginning of humankind, they will continue to do wrong in the future. One system that has been tried for thousands of years is yelling, beating, punishing, threatening, etc - what hasn’t been done yet, or atleast seldom, is that a parent should approach their child as an equal, as an intellectual, as someone who is worthy of knowing and whom holds rational reasonings for what they do. I’m sure we can all relate to scenarios where we have done something wrong, but the situation called for it, or the facts that were presented to us lead us to believe something that any normal human being would believe in the same situation, well children work in the same way. Respect your child, love your child.
Lastly, please don’t take my posts to mean that I think you abuse your child. That is not what I am saying, detach all negative meanings implied by Lizzysue from my posts. I mean only to speak with you on the topic as a rational human being. I mean nothing personal.
What’s your take?
I apologize unreservedly to Kesh if my post caused offence, it was not my intention.
Thank you, Magius, for pointing out the error of my ways. I can now see the hypocrisy therein.
Magius wrote:
You’ve succeeded in proving your point.
Lizzysue,
my intentions was never to beat around the bush and suppose that you were dimwitted. Not at all. I don’t think you are. My only point was to get you to realize you were doing the very thing you were complaining about. Worry not about hints, or vague meanings behind my words, the people here at ILP will tell you, that I am blunt and to the point. So if I thought that you were dimwitted, believe me I would have told you in plain words. I am very glad to hear that you saw the hypocrisy within, I believe it happens to all of us, especially when we are emotional or read something that is the complete reverse of what we believe. But such a habit is a vice, not a virtue. More importantly, it is a vice that transcends into all aspects of one’s life, from conversation, to debates, to how you think of yourself, how you think of others, how you treat others, how you treat your loved one, how you treat your children, etc, etc. So I think it is a big and important step for anyone to admit they have done something hypocritical, from which point they can move on to work to make sure they don’t continue to be hypocritical. Since hypocrisy doesn’t make for a happy, good, or coherent life.
What’s your take?
I totally agree with everyone that if you bring a child up right then there will never be a need to hit your child.
But if you are confrunted with the crazy gun toting child who is shooting people on site, are you still going to try to reason with him? extreme scenerio be damned, of course its not right in some situations, but its hard to draw a line in such situations.
The threat of violence- physical and emotional- is essential to a parent’s authority. Whether that authority is used correctly is a different matter, but you need to discipline kids somehow if you want to teach them anything, and what makes shouting, grounding, punishments like being sent to their room (enforceable only by threat of the adult’s superior physical strength) any different from physical violence? Personally I don’t think slapping a child is such a bad thing in itself, provided you do it with very good reason, and I certainly wouldn’t say it was as morally inferior to, say, docking a child’s allowance as everyone else seems to think. I’d far rather be slapped than grounded for a month.