I haven’t had anything inspire me enough or stir me up enough in the past few days to blog.  That is, until this afternoon.  It started innocent enough.  A friend posted a link to an article of a study against spanking and why she liked it and I shared my opinion in support.  Then, there was a very defensive post, pointed at me, as if I singled this person out, and I don’t even know the guy.  I even apologized if I offended him.  I got a snarky comment back so it was obvious I hit a nerve.  Ah, the spanking debate…

      Really, is there anything left to debate about?  I have yet to see one study saying that it’s ok and doesn’t do any damage.  If you are familiar with Alice Miller, she explains why it continues to be a somewhat ambiguous subject among parents.  Particularly among those that were spanked, in turn spank their own kids and continue think that it’s not only acceptable but are thankful of their own parent’s abuse.  I tend to appreciate her works, being raised by an abusive step-parent, and a father who would spank with a belt, bare bottom, military-style every time no one would admit to really dumb things like who ate the chocolate chips.  To me, it is never ok to hurt a child.  I teach my children, hurting someone else is called assault and people go to jail for that.  It’s not that I want to scare them but I want them to know what the societal boundaries are and not only that “it’s not nice.”

      I think the problem lies in not only getting through to the parents that still think it’s ok because they are subject to a neurosis because they were spanked, but the problem also lies in giving parents resources and ideas of what to do instead.  I will admit that I am far from perfect and have given a swat or two to my kids for absolutely asinine reasons – like “You could have seriously injured your brother.”  That makes sense right?  A swat in the butt for hurting someone else as a “don’t do that” message?  It’s quite the opposite if you think about it isn’t it?  In the moment, I was angry with my child’s behavior and mortified that they did something they knew better than to do.  In the moment, I really didn’t know what else to do.  I was more afraid of what would happen if I did nothing. 

      I have learned a lot in my 13 years of parenting and I know how challenging parenting can sometimes be.  The most important lesson I have learned is to always check with your emotions when it comes to your kids.  If you feel like you are going to do or say anything you would never say to another adult, then you need to calm down and think a little more.  My best way of working out an issue like this is telling my child what I’m not happy about and why, and that I will have to talk to their dad about what else I can say about it.  This has been working amazingly well since I am lucky enough to have a husband that is on the same page as I am in striving to show respect to our kids even when it comes to some tough issues that come up.  The issues just get more complicated as they get older so you need to find your own peaceful method of dealing with things.

      I will post some great sites that suggest different ways of parenting through conflicts and none of them will be the “tough love” garbage that a lot of us had to grow up with.  Click on my Recommended Resources the tab above and check back periodically as I will try to add more as I find them.  You can also suggest resources using the form at the bottom of that page.