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Do you think being hit straightened you out as a kid?

I was hit and it did help. 0.34939759036145 34.9% [ 29 ]
I was hit and it did not help. 0.4578313253012 45.8% [ 38 ]
I was never hit, but I think it would have helped. 0.024096385542169 2.4% [ 2 ]
I was never hit and I think it would have only done harm. 0.16867469879518 16.9% [ 14 ]
Total Votes:[ 83 ]
This poll closed on July 31, 2014.
No longer accepting new votes.
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Profitable Gekko

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Paprika Muffin
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and dancing ensued


well it's more like i'm asking if you've been thinking about this topic this whole time lol

i'm opposed to hitting in general, so that includes hitting kids.
i usually tell my step-siblings to treat people respectfully if they want to be treated respectfully, because if they mistreat people they're probably going to get mistreated as well.
hitting kids just leads to more problems.
According to a lot of the people here it's quite the opposite. Evidently being hit did them good, and I can't say that that is untrue. Maybe it really is true that both have a time and a place.



I feel like this is a 'means justify the ends' kind of argument. Sure, the kid won't ever sleep in rather than going to school anymore, but was it really worth kicking them in the stomach five times? It's a bullshit argument to justify beating the hell out of your kid, and in the end the parent could've figured out a different way to discipline their child.

I'm a respectable adult now, but the mere sign of my father starting to lose his temper is enough to send me into a panic attack because of his choice of punishment when I was a kid.
I mean but that's such an extreme xD. Nobody here advocates abuse to get a point across, and that's clearly abuse. I mean I'm hesitant to agree with people who say that they got hit regularly and it straightened them out, because I don't know if their parents actually tried reasoning with the kid, and if so how well before they decided to hit them? That being said, I can't disagree that it doesn't have it's time and place and that it can be used appropriately. I've just been swayed like that :V.



I guess so. I never really saw it that way, so this is kind of eye opening for me. Because I was a difficult kid and I had ADHD on top of that, I would get in trouble all the time, biting people and stuff like that. I was a dumb impulsive kid. And I would come home with a slip saying I bit someone and then my dad would beat the hell out of me, cause you're not supposed to bite people. I guess it's more of a 'I needed to be punished but he took it way too far'. But corporeal punishment does have a time and a place, I just think talking and explaining should have first dibs. Because that's how people solve their problems in the real world, by talking it out.
For sure, and I agree with you bruh. Talking over hitting is always the best way to go, when you can do that.

dazzel_almond's Senpai

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I agree with you. I just...have a lot of strong feelings about the subject matter. Corporal punishment should be a last resort, and never done in anger. I'm just extremely adverse to it. There's also walking a very fine line between 'hitting your kid because they did something wrong' and 'hitting your kid because they did something wrong and it pissed you off'.


I understand where you're coming from, and I'm really sorry that you had to go through such an abusive lifestyle. :c You are a strong person for being able to effectively deal with that kind of dad and being able to grow up into the good person you are today. That's real strength there, seriously. My dad was like that, too---ever since his parents abandoned him he was raised by an abusive aunt, abandoned by said aunt, moved back to his parents and abandoned AGAIN, and it's a miracle he lived through his childhood to the kind (and pretty badass) parent he is to me today.

I agree with your last statement---that's pretty much I wanna get through to some people who automatically assume that hitting is a form of pure abuse to instill fear.




Yeah, thank you. emotion_facepalm I'm just a little embarassed. I got pretty emotional back there.

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GhostlyMark
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i dont know...
i have a little bitterness against my mom cause she beat me for literally anything and i felt like she never understood my side of the story
Yeah that's abuse for sure, and I share that past with you, so I know how you feel. Sept I'm extremely bitter towards my mom for handling the situations the way that she handled them. She wants me to just forget, but she hasn't changed, so that's a big no.

This is of course the problem with parents who think that hitting first is the best course of action. In my case it was taught to my mom by her mom, and her mom to her mom. That's part of the reason I don't approve of it, it feels like an archaic and more ignorant form of discipline passed down from a more ignorant time. But as we've learned in this thread today, it still has it's uses.


This is exactly like my parents. I hear that in my parents home country, they've made a belt specifically for beating kids. A strap for your wrist and everything.. emotion_facepalm
******** s**t man...this planet is ********. This is the sort of thing that makes me feel like culture propagates ignorance sometimes. That being said I don't know if it's a cultural thing or something else in specific that made your mom's country feel that whipping was such an effective means to raise a child that they created a belt for the abusive parent on the go. What is your mom's home country if you don't mind my asking though?


Haiti
i'm not sure if its true but the way the culture is..i wouldn't be shocked.
I think its a culture thing...at least with my parents it is. Its such a strict culture...they have their child's life planned out for them and other means are unacceptable. I mean they won't disown you for taking a different path but they are so stubborn with their "fool proof plan to succeed in life" that any other was is wrong for them.

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It was always clearly the adult just taking out their frustration too.

Yesss, I agree with this. I never believed at the "We're just teaching you a lesson" type of excuse when it came to severe beating/spanking. Maybe they probably were but I was convinced that they were also taking their anger out.

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Ah, thank you. You're way too kind. redface

Lucky Star

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Faerie Dreams
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I'm sure a lot of the spoiled a** self entitled brats these days probably wouldn't be so obnoxious and disrespectful if their parents spanked them once in a while
But that's a pretty huge assumption that the answer to these spoiled kids would have just been being spanked as opposed to like serious flaws in the parenting. If the kids are spoiled, bratty, obnoxious, self-entitled then there were serious holes in the way that they were raised, and spanking them doesn't automatically fill those holes.

The flaw in parenting that usually causes that is no rules or no consequences to being a little brat.
Hence why spanking would solve it.
I agree, but that being said the solution is too simple. It's not simply spanking would solve the problem, because if your answer was to simply spank the child when they did something wrong as a consequence, then that's kinda abusive and you might crop up a whole new set of problems. Now your kid is only going to respond to violence, and may implore it when it comes to their own problem solving skills, now you've got a bully. And now your parenting is spilling into another family's life.

Spanking should be used as a last resort if time outs/groundings/removing privileges does not work first
A 16 year old isn't going to respond to spanking when she's screaming.that she needs to take the.car to see her boyfriend, that's where grounding or suspending car privileges for a week will come in handy.
A 9 year old who is constantly talking back to their parents and isn't slightly fazed by being told they can't watch tv, or play with friends, would need spanked.

Tipsy Kitten

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I believe in spanking.
I was spanked as a child for doing bad stuff. Coloring on the walls? A swat on the butt. Dumping an entire bottle of dish soap in the toilet? A swat on the butt.
I'm not going to have children but if I wanted them that's what I would do.

However anything above that is just violence. There should be no need for belts, etc, or more than one slap on the tush, or on any other part of the body.

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and dancing ensued
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and dancing ensued
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and dancing ensued
is this inspired by our last conversation?
No no no, this isn't about you ;p. I had an interesting debate with a friend the other night and I just didn't know what to think. So I decided to come out of my shell and ask LD :V


well it's more like i'm asking if you've been thinking about this topic this whole time lol

i'm opposed to hitting in general, so that includes hitting kids.
i usually tell my step-siblings to treat people respectfully if they want to be treated respectfully, because if they mistreat people they're probably going to get mistreated as well.
hitting kids just leads to more problems.
According to a lot of the people here it's quite the opposite. Evidently being hit did them good, and I can't say that that is untrue. Maybe it really is true that both have a time and a place.


i'm not convinced.
my brother and i were both spanked - it worked for him, but not for me.
hitting, spanking, i see them as acts of aggression.
hearing someone try to justify hurting me with "it's your fault i hit you because you were misbehaving" just made me not trust them. i knew they didn't like what i did, because they hit me, but it never taught me how to act; it just taught me to avoid the source of the pain.
I get what you mean, but I don't know if I agree that spanking is automatically or inherently an act of aggression. And it sounds to me like when you were spanked or hit, your parents didn't also talk to you and help you understand why it is they did so , and what it was they were trying to teach you. Like I said to me it's not a first thing to go to, if you do then you're abusive and don't understand how to raise a child. There IS a proper way to spank your child, and have them learn from it, without causing the child any mental anguish or harm.


spanking isn't gentle. you are taking the control out of their hands, preventing them from running, bending them over your knee and slapping their butt. if there are others watching it can be humiliating.

i was paraphrasing that quote, my mom always explained.
hitting or spanking made me mad and stubborn, so i refused to listen anymore. i learned how to act in public from people outside of my home, people i trusted because they didn't punish me physically.

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I don't think it's a particularly good idea. Theoretically it works, but it's super easy to do it wrong. Particularly given the cathartic nature of hitting something that's recently pissed you off, it's far too easy to put too much zeal into it.
There are perfectly viable forms of punishment that don't carry the same level of risk in that regard.

As for me, I was actually beaten as a kid and it did nothing but turn me into a ball of anxiety and frustration, terrified of my dad and with few memories of my mother, with no safe place to be, terrible at social interaction due to a deep-seated fear of angering someone and getting hurt (this is why I never asked for anything or knocked on people's doors, etc.). It actually made me even more poorly-behaved -- due to the stress of that environment and the fact that I had no place to let it out, I ended up becoming prone to bursts of anger, shouting and breaking things. Of course, if my dad caught me I'd end up just crying and terrified. I grew up with no sense of what a family was; I didn't grow close to anyone in my life until high school, and I'm still not much of a family person.
So, the effects of that form of punishment taken too far in my case were:
-- Stunted social ability
-- No sense of home or family
-- Incredibly flinchy and timid nature
-- Inability to grow close to others
-- Emotional instability; susceptibility to anger and stress; fascination with the macabre from a very young age
-- Long-term pessimistic worldview and deep mistrust in humankind
-- Extremely submissive nature
-- Extremely low self-esteem
-- Bitterness
-- Temporary resentment towards those with better lives
-- Deep immersion into fantasy worlds as a means of escape during formative years; adoption of related goals and values discordant with the actual world
-- Etc.

All in all, probably not worth it.

Profitable Gekko

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and dancing ensued
Gay African Mammoth
and dancing ensued
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and dancing ensued


well it's more like i'm asking if you've been thinking about this topic this whole time lol

i'm opposed to hitting in general, so that includes hitting kids.
i usually tell my step-siblings to treat people respectfully if they want to be treated respectfully, because if they mistreat people they're probably going to get mistreated as well.
hitting kids just leads to more problems.
According to a lot of the people here it's quite the opposite. Evidently being hit did them good, and I can't say that that is untrue. Maybe it really is true that both have a time and a place.


i'm not convinced.
my brother and i were both spanked - it worked for him, but not for me.
hitting, spanking, i see them as acts of aggression.
hearing someone try to justify hurting me with "it's your fault i hit you because you were misbehaving" just made me not trust them. i knew they didn't like what i did, because they hit me, but it never taught me how to act; it just taught me to avoid the source of the pain.
I get what you mean, but I don't know if I agree that spanking is automatically or inherently an act of aggression. And it sounds to me like when you were spanked or hit, your parents didn't also talk to you and help you understand why it is they did so , and what it was they were trying to teach you. Like I said to me it's not a first thing to go to, if you do then you're abusive and don't understand how to raise a child. There IS a proper way to spank your child, and have them learn from it, without causing the child any mental anguish or harm.


spanking isn't gentle. you are taking the control out of their hands, preventing them from running, bending them over your knee and slapping their butt. if there are others watching it can be humiliating.

i was paraphrasing that quote, my mom always explained.
hitting or spanking made me mad and stubborn, so i refused to listen anymore. i learned how to act in public from people outside of my home, people i trusted because they didn't punish me physically.
If spanking wasn't the answer for you and it didn't fix anything, then your mom was being unnecessary. No one propagates spanking where it isn't necessary or teaches a really good lesson. Someone in the thread spoke about spanking your kid on the hand if they stole something to show them that there are severe punishments for doing this sort of thing, and that later on in life the punishments are far worse. I can get behind this sort of thinking.

Also I don't believe humiliating your kid is an effective means of discipline.

Profitable Gekko

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I don't think it's a particularly good idea. Theoretically it works, but it's super easy to do it wrong. Particularly given the cathartic nature of hitting something that's recently pissed you off, it's far too easy to put too much zeal into it.
There are perfectly viable forms of punishment that don't carry the same level of risk in that regard.

As for me, I was actually beaten as a kid and it did nothing but turn me into a ball of anxiety and frustration, terrified of my dad and with few memories of my mother, with no safe place to be, terrible at social interaction due to a deep-seated fear of angering someone and getting hurt (this is why I never asked for anything or knocked on people's doors, etc.). It actually made me even more poorly-behaved -- due to the stress of that environment and the fact that I had no place to let it out, I ended up becoming prone to bursts of anger, shouting and breaking things. Of course, if my dad caught me I'd end up just crying and terrified. I grew up with no sense of what a family was; I didn't grow close to anyone in my life until high school, and I'm still not much of a family person.
So, the effects of that form of punishment taken too far in my case were:
-- Stunted social ability
-- No sense of home or family
-- Incredibly flinchy and timid nature
-- Inability to grow close to others
-- Emotional instability; susceptibility to anger and stress; fascination with the macabre from a very young age
-- Long-term pessimistic worldview and deep mistrust in humankind
-- Extremely submissive nature
-- Extremely low self-esteem
-- Bitterness
-- Temporary resentment towards those with better lives
-- Deep immersion into fantasy worlds as a means of escape during formative years; adoption of related goals and values discordant with the actual world
-- Etc.

All in all, probably not worth it.
I agree with you if at any point the situation can be delt with without the need to use force. Because force is a last-step type of deal with your kids, or should be. I'm still not sure if it's not entirely viable when dealing with an unruly teenager as I'm not sure anyone addressed that here yet.

And I can relate heavily to what you described that you went through, sept I didn't break anything I just wanted to retaliate very badly, but miraculously kept myself in check until I couldn't anymore.

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I was hit as a kid, but only for a short amount of time because appearently one day when my mom did hit me, I shouted back at her to not hit me and to just explain to me what I did wrong, and she tried that and I guess it worked. I don't remember this event happening, but that's what my mom told me, and I didn't turn out as bad as I could have.

I still got whooped and yelled at by my grandparents who I only saw on weekends though which is probably why I became such a timid and unconfident, unassertive child, and adult that I am today. I feel like I was so damaged by that kind of dicipline.

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I don't think it's a particularly good idea. Theoretically it works, but it's super easy to do it wrong. Particularly given the cathartic nature of hitting something that's recently pissed you off, it's far too easy to put too much zeal into it.
There are perfectly viable forms of punishment that don't carry the same level of risk in that regard.

As for me, I was actually beaten as a kid and it did nothing but turn me into a ball of anxiety and frustration, terrified of my dad and with few memories of my mother, with no safe place to be, terrible at social interaction due to a deep-seated fear of angering someone and getting hurt (this is why I never asked for anything or knocked on people's doors, etc.). It actually made me even more poorly-behaved -- due to the stress of that environment and the fact that I had no place to let it out, I ended up becoming prone to bursts of anger, shouting and breaking things. Of course, if my dad caught me I'd end up just crying and terrified. I grew up with no sense of what a family was; I didn't grow close to anyone in my life until high school, and I'm still not much of a family person.
So, the effects of that form of punishment taken too far in my case were:
-- Stunted social ability
-- No sense of home or family
-- Incredibly flinchy and timid nature
-- Inability to grow close to others
-- Emotional instability; susceptibility to anger and stress; fascination with the macabre from a very young age
-- Long-term pessimistic worldview and deep mistrust in humankind
-- Extremely submissive nature
-- Extremely low self-esteem
-- Bitterness
-- Temporary resentment towards those with better lives
-- Deep immersion into fantasy worlds as a means of escape during formative years; adoption of related goals and values discordant with the actual world
-- Etc.

All in all, probably not worth it.
I agree with you if at any point the situation can be delt with without the need to use force. Because force is a last-step type of deal with your kids, or should be. I'm still not sure if it's not entirely viable when dealing with an unruly teenager as I'm not sure anyone addressed that here yet.

And I can relate heavily to what you described that you went through, sept I didn't break anything I just wanted to retaliate very badly, but miraculously kept myself in check until I couldn't anymore.

I feel that force is only necessary in response to force. If a kid tries to throw a lamp at you or something, feel free to restrain said kid. Even in situations like that, though, I don't believe that actually hitting a kid is necessary; restraint is sufficient until they have calmed and can be released. I think a suitable punishment for the sort of extreme offenses people generally think are a good example of why we need to hit kids more is simply the addition of chores or other unpleasant work. I was once in the position of having to punish my nephew for hitting other kids; I walked him in circles around the block without resting until his dad came to get him and then had him write letters of apology. Obviously I'm not gonna do something like that with everything he does wrong, but when he does something extreme, it serves the purpose perfectly well, doesn't involve violence, and doesn't involve traumatizing anyone. I don't see how it's not the superior option.

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LilPinkCandy
I got spanked. Back in my day we got the belt and the spoon. My dad even made a paddle once.

Spanking never taught me to be afraid but it did teach me to be afraid of the punishment itself which is what it's supposed to teach you- to fear the consequence. Like, if you touch a hot stove you should be afraid of being burned.

I really don't believe that spanking and beating are the same thing. Beating is abuse and spanking, if done properly isn't the same. That's not to say they couldn't be the same. If a kid is being beat then that is abuse. I believe that there is a clear difference between a swat, a spanking, and a beating.
The problem to me with this is that if it was the immediate course of action for stepping out of line or messing up, then it wasn't right. Even if they did talk to you and tell you why afterwards. It shows impatience, intolerance, a lack of empathy and reasoning towards the kid as well. But this is only under the assumption that this is where they went first in terms of responding to your misdeeds.

I don't agree with it being the first thing you try. But I don't see it as a wrong way to punish though.

No, it was never the first thing they went to. They would tell me not to do something multiple times and then warn me multiple times that the repercussion was a spanking. They never just picked me up and just started beating on me.

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I personally think it depends.

Hitting a child sometimes is needed but it shouldn't be the only method to use to correct your child. The reason is that, when you hit your children for every single thing they do wrong, it eventually stops having impact on them and it really doesn't correct their behavior. From what I've seen, a lot of children who grew up in households where hitting was used as the only method to correct their behavior, didn't really learn from their mistakes and instead keep doing s**t that was wrong. It also had a negative impact in the way they developed in society. Some of them have issues due to being hit as children.

Hitting should only be used in an instance where the child has really, seriously done something wrong, because I feel like if you do it only when it's truly needed, the message you're trying to convey has a bigger impact than if you did it all the time.
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