dargscisyhp said:
A few questions on this.
To all: What are you guys' opinions on corporal punishment? I would love to see the discussion that stems from this.
To retired, and other Christians who are against corporal punishment: how do you interpret "spare the rod, spoil the child" and other such verses?
So there are a few key concepts to this: situation, disposition, and age.
1. Situation - you should have no qualms about corporal punishment when the world's consequences are worse than yours. Think running into a street or running away when you tell a child to come. If they run into a street and get hit by a car, that's far worse than a spanking. Or what if they're playing hide and go seek with you while you're camping but don't come when you repeatedly tell them it's time to go. It's an important lesson to learn early but cognitively they can't understand it, so this will impart importance and gravity to commands. I'm not suggesting you spank them for not eating peas or making a mess.
We use it when we have exhausted other forms of discipline. We try to start with timeout but our oldest doesn't care about that. Then we escalate to toy prison for prized possessions for a day. If those don't work and it's a serious issue we'll go higher.
Also think about timing. If you have kids in bed do you want to pull them out for timeout (they may want to stay up anyways so this has the opposite effect of what you want)? Will they miss a toy put in prison? It's not ideal but it's understandable for a time.
2. Disposition - all children are different. Some will not be able to handle spanking consistently so you have to find other ways as soon as you can. Once they master important lessons move on with punishment. My youngest opens doors without permission and unlocks them. We spanked for a while but it makes her pretty hysterical so we've advanced more quickly than we did with the first who is super willful and needed it.
3. Age - they should age out of it. By five you should be moving on to other disciplines. They can talk and reason and have attachments to toys or shows that you can withhold. It's more ammunition but it's so rare that we have to use it with our five year old.
We also try to tell them consequences before they occur so there are no surprises. I do make exceptions for hitting or being spiteful and defiant, in which case consequences are immediate timeouts or other discipline if it warrants it. No discipline is administered without explanation either. There are defined expectations and we connect actions to punishment.