Rebuttal to The Center for Effective Discipline
If I'm not mistaken, The Center is, in effect,?a proxy for EPOCH (End Physical Punishment of Children), an international organization whose primary goal is that of persuading state government agencies (and activist jurists) to disallow parental spanking. Their position on the topic of spanking can hardly be termed objective.?As do most?No Spankers, they qualify as ideologues.?Having said that, I agree that?the more a child is spanked, the less?impact (pun intended) any given spanking will have. I also agree that?many, too many in fact, parents spank impulsively and fail to follow up with appropriate?instruction. Discipline is not synonymous with punishment. Unfortunately, many parents think that it is. Siscipline is the process by which parents transform a child into a willing discipline: someone who will look up to them, follow their lead, and subscribe to their values.?Because of the nature of the child, this process requires some amount of corrective punishment, but the operative word is "corrective." Punishment without correction is?a waste of everyone's time, regardless of the punishment in question. So, the problem is not spanking. The?problem is that most parents do not understand how to "disciple" a child. This problem is not going to be solved by banning spanking.?Furthermore, the state is not going to solve this problem.?This problem will be solved?through appropriate education. Unfortunately, in the attempt to create?a perfect world, liberal activists (e.g. The Center for Effective Discipline) invariably wind up relying on the most imperfect of solutions: government. I acknowledge their attempts at education, but in the final analysis, they are eager for government to step in and?solve what they have decided is a problem. When CED says "Spanking...teaches children that the only reason to behave inappropriately is to avoid punishment" their proverbial slip is showing. Any form of punishment could be substituted for the?word "spanking." I maintain that in the final analysis?CED is against punishment. And indeed, if the American public allows the state to disallow?parental spanking, the state will begin to disallow other forms of punishment as well. In the final analysis, we will stop punishing children by destroying parental discretion in child rearing. Ah, the best laid plans.
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Our current system of teaching is based on using Physical Violence and Pain to teach our students . This system that condones using fear, pain, force, intimidation and physical violence of the student to teach them is just plain wrong.
We as a society don't even allow that treatment of pets or farm animals but its okay to whip students.. Just try it whipping an animal and you will be in jail by tonight, maybe even serving several years in prison !!!!!
How can we as a so-called civilized society justify, promote and condone the whipping children to teach them?
How is it in OKAY and LEGAL our society to whip a child, but not an animal?
I say all whipping a student, says to the student is, "if you don’t do what I say, I am going to HURT you, or if you make a mistake I am going to HURT you."
If you are using “Physical Violence” to discipline children, then you are teaching the children to use physical violence to solve their problems for the rest of their lives.(i.e. domestic violence, child abuse , teen dating violence, bullying others, etc.)
To me, it does not matter if the “Physical Violence” occurs at home or school , it only creates an atmosphere of anger, resentment, frustration and violence from the child/student. Which in turn creates a dangerous, violence based, non- productive teaching and learning environment for everyone involved, Parents, Teachers and Students alike … Resulting in more violence in our society overall, including our homes and schools .
It is my hope that parents and teachers can learn you don't have to be "BULLY" and beat on children to teach them....
There’s Another Way, Sincerely Bob Allen
I've seen several comments from people on here who are against spanking and have brought up what happened to them growing up. Ive been seeing a pattern where a lot of people have experienced what i would classify as extreme forms of abuse where spanking was used as a form of discipline . One person went into detail on how she was locked in a room for hours after being spanked and another person brought up being spanked till her bottom was red and bleeding and having this done in front of others and being left to stand with their pants down bottom exposed.They seem to use these experiences as evidence that spanking is wrong and immoral.
I guess the point im trying to get at is most people who support the use of spanking as a form of discipline dont go to the extremes a lot of you against spanking have experienced.....couple things i would like to point out.1) you cant beat your child black blue and bleeding...that is child abuse plain and simple 2) humiliation should not be employed in conjunction with spanking and dont do it in front of other people or children 3)dont use other objects to carry it out a couple swats on the butt should suffice(i dont personally support swatting in the face)4.) give lots of love afterwords...kisses & hugs 5) dont use other forms of discipline should not be used in conjunction with spanking...you dont want to go over board
im sorry a lot of you were subjected to abuse growing up and im sorry a lot of you grew up in a house hold void of love and compassion but please dont assume that those of us that choose to spank would ever choose to go as far as what you experienced growing up....we arent monsters and we love are kids with all our hearts just as people who are against spanking do....
dont let what happened to you growing up cloud your objectivity or discount something because of your bad experience....spanking for us is just one tool to use when raising kids not the only one and every child is different and each imaginable way of disciplining will not work on every child in the same way....and lastly we are not looking to raise little soldiers who obey every command but rather children who will listen, children who can disagree respectfully with out yelling or screaming and children who will learn to grow up respecting authority with out feeling like you have to agree with authority.
Perhaps you should take your own advice , and not let YOUR past experiences cloud YOUR judgment.
Just because you didn't experience the negative side-effects of buttock-battering doesn't make the hazard non-existent.
I grew up in a home with lead-based paint, but I never developed a neurological disorder. My parents smoked indoors, and I've always been asthma free.
I think you can trust in the objectivity of the organizations I've already listed.
You may also wish to read some accounts of those with non-abusive parents who utilized child buttock-battering in their household. www.nospank.net archives several such accounts.
That being said. I'm at a total loss as to why people would prefer hanging on to the inherited bad habit of child buttock-battering over DISCIPLINE.
i agree that this organization has an agenda just like any one else and cant be looked at as being objective in their look at whether spanking is effective discipline .
that being said i wanted to add my two cents my stating that i personally believe spanking is okay but it should never be the first resort but it also shouldnt be the last resort.discipline is not the same as punishment so any punishment needs to be followed by a hug/kiss and an explanation on why they were punished. You should never spank out of utter anger and it shouldnt be the only thing in your parental arsenal....also both parents in two parent households should agree and spanking shouldnt be done by just one parent....we all remember stories of being told wait till dad gets home.... kids should learn to respect the authority of both parents...
too many kids are growing up to believe that 1.) they are on the same level as their parents2.) that they dont have to listen. 3) that its okay to yell at your parent or parents and that its okay to be disrespectful.4.) and the last one and the worse that it is okay to hit and cuss at your parents( in a lot of cases i have seen the parent or parents doesnt employ spanking as a form of discipline in the household)
every child is different and because of that i t hink we all find that some discipline works and some doesnt...it is all about trial and error.....
i have my ex wife staying with me due to a domestic violence incident(and we are giving it another shot!!!so any christians pray for us) she has three kids two who are school age...the boy is 5 and the girl is 7....the girl listens very well and only needs a warning every once in a while....the boy yells at his mom, hits his mom argues like an adult would and says in about 50 different ways that she has no authority to tell him what to do....one of his common questions in his typical argumentative fashion is "why are you mom able to do that and i cant.....i.e example why do you get to stay up and i dont....this all being said this boy has been traumatized and to this day believes that his biological father killed his brother because he witnessed him push his mom(my ex wife) into a desk and it put her in the hospital. his brother is alive and well and a happy 1 year old who loves to play with my 11 month old....but he still talks about believing he is dead...he has also mentioned the reason why he yells and gets so angry is because his biological dad was that way to mom...so the cycle has started....
me and his mom are sitting down tonight to talk about if we both feel alright about spanking when he gets out of control.....i dont want him to grow up believing that it is okay to treat women like this or any adult for that matter....i dont blame him for how he acts now but it doesnt mean its okay or that it should be allowed to go on....if we both agree...then spanking will be employed but it will never be the first resort only another tool to use to stop the behavior....
Spanking promotes violence. There are better and more effective ways for parents to achieve the goal of well behaved children. These methods require thought, time and self discipline on the part of the parent. Spanking is the lazy parents way.
What methods would you suggest for teaching a 2 year old he/she shouldn't bit her sibling?
The claim is made that the Center of Effective Discipline is not objective on the grounds that they are against spanking. By this reasoning, anyone who is in favor of spanking is also not objective.
If you want an objective opinion, check out the summaries of the evidence by the various national psychological, pediatric, psychiatric and medical professional associations of the western world. Every single one that comments on the issue (and I'm not counting political pressure groups that require you to have a certain viewpoint before joining) surveys the evidence and concludes that spanking is bad for children.
If Rosemond could demonstrate that the scientific community were wrong, then he could publish in scientific journals and become famous.
Sorry, I've read many of the journals of the psychs, peds, etc. and they are not as objective / scientific as you might think...many have a specific agenda that affects their "research". This is especially true with the psychiatric field. Most of the journals I've read are psycho-babel in scientific theory (which I'm not saying we should throw them out the window....just saying they should be read with understanding and a little bit of caution).
Rearing children is an important thing and heeding to scientific theories is a dangerous way to guide our children. Scientific theories cannot replace wisdom in social matters, no matter what it is. If experience (which is a form of wisdom) knows how the whole thing works...then I say looking back for a couple centuries, with objectivity, for ideas isn't a bad thing.
It's the same in biz...I own a biz and would hire someone with experience over anyone with a degree in how the biz should work theoretically. Should we all learn the theories, yes.
Should we understand how to make things better, yes.....but arm chair psychs can't rule how we raise precious, mold able children.