Spanking children as a form of discipline is very common. You may have been spanked or hit as a child. Your parents may have been hit.
Your grandparents and great-grandparents may have been spanked or hit, too.
You may be told by friends and family that you should spank or hit to discipline your child.
Many parents feel spanking is part of being a parent and teaches children discipline.
Other parents decide that they don't want to discipline their children by hitting them. Many parents who
were spanked or hit as children want to parent their own children differently. But it is hard. Many parents don't
know what else to do when their children act out. They may try not to spank, but end up spanking out of
anger and frustration. Then everyone feels bad. Many parents who try not to spank or hit get pressured by friends
and family who may disagree. There are so many
opinions about hitting and spanking. It can be very confusing for parents.
How do you decide what to do? It is important to think about your goals and strategies for
disciplining your child. Talk about them with other important people in your child's life. Ask yourself some questions.
Looking back, if you were spanked or hit as a child, how did it feel? What did I learn/not learn from the experience?
What do I want to teach my child by disciplining him/her?
What are my goals for disciplining my child?
How do I want my child to behave and why?
How do I want my child to feel about him/herself?
How would spanking my child make me feel?
How might my child feel if he/she were spanked?
What does spanking teach a child?
Many experts and parents agree that hitting children as a form of discipline does not work well.
Child often do comply right after being spanked, but it doesn't seem to make them more compliant in the future.
Sometimes they just become sneaky to stay out of trouble. There are other effective ways to discipline children
that you could try, like using time-out or taking away privileges. Spanking may send a hurtful and confusing
message to children. There is research showing that spanking teaches children to hit and be aggressive.
This makes sense because children want to be like their parents and act the way their parents act. Spanking
could also hurt the parent-child relationship. It may leave your child scared of you.
You will have to decide how you want your child to see you and what kind of disciplinarian you want to be.
