Amen!
I was spanked as a child, and I actually don’t have any emotional scares today. I have a very, very close relationship with both my parents.
Today I am a parent myself, and yes, I do spank every now and then. But I have to add - my child is very well behaved, so I hardly ever have to spank her. As a matter of fact: I don’t think my child has had a spanking this year.
Or maybe it’s because she gets a smack on the bottom every now and then that she is well behaved?
For some reason people don’t understand the difference between spanking and child abuse.
(My guess is I just made myself very unpopular with a lot of people)

I think that there are better ways to discipline your child.
What do you do when your child hits another child or yourself?
For me,I try to avoid spanking because I want my son to learn that it is bad to hit other people,and what kind of example would I be setting if I spanked my son and then told him not to hit other people?

Kids are like sponges they take everything in,it doesn't matter what you tell them to do or not to do,the important thing is to model the behaviour that you want them to follow.

If a child sees his/her father beating the mother than chances are the child will see that and think 'oh it's ok to hit because daddy does it' and vice versa with the mother.

I don't think that a simple smack on the bottom is child abuse,I just think that parents should find other ways to discipline.

To shorten my response I will just refer you to ‘Disciplining your child - what works for you?’ I explained how I go about it there. I hope you don’t mind.

And again, I was spanked as a child, and I never even entertained the idea of raising my hands to my parents. Nor did I ever hit another child.

I basically raise my child the same way my parents raised me (I’m not quite as strict though) and she has never hit another child either. As long as a child understands that he gets spanked because he was naughty or to stop them from doing something dangerous as Benc152 said, and not because you hate him, there should be no problem.

Just because you were spanked as a child and don't think you have any scars doesn't mean:
That you don't have any
or
that it's a good idea to spank.

It’s not as if I ‘think’ I don’t have any scars. I know I don’t have any. I have a wonderful relationship with my parents. Always had. They are the most amazing, loving, caring people you can imagine. Whenever I went through though times in my life, they were always my soft place to fall.

I aim to be that kind of parent for my own little princess. I guess everybody has their own parenting style, and what works for one child will most definitely not work for the next.
I don’t think my mother ever spanked my brother because it just wasn’t necessary. He was a good child. As for myself, well, I think I deserved a couple of more hidings than I actually got. Lol. But it taught me that there were consequences for bad behavior.
It shaped me into a responsible person that always thinks about the consequences of my decisions. And of course I have a very strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. Thus the career I followed as a fraud assessor.

I was spanked as a child and I remember thinking at the time that had to be the worst punishment in the world. I didn't get many spankings. I'm by no means scarred

I agree that it isn't the best way to deal with your kids, but I did spank my daughter, but rarely. I saved spankings for things that were very unsafe (like going in the road, going near the river, etc) luckily she didn't need many either

when my son tries to run out into the road I will pull him close to me get down on his level and tell him that it is dangerous and that he should not run out where the cars drive.
I think this is a better approach(for me anyway) than spanking because it teaches him communication as well.

This is all just my opinion and I don't want people to think I'm saying spanking is child abuse,because I don't think it is unless you are smacking with the intent to seriously harm the child.

I wasn't talking about physical scars.

Study: Spanking may lead to sexual problems later


http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-0 2-27-spanking_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

I have to agree with both Sweetmom and Mommy35. Spanking should be a last resort. I never spank my child for being naughty if I haven’t taken the time to explain why she shouldn’t do something. And as Sweetmom said: get down to their level, explain in a soft tone, and don’t make them feel guilty for doing something wrong, because they didn’t know that it was wrong.

Rainstorm, I understood what you meant with ‘scars’. If I had physical scars I would be the first to admit that I was abused by my parents. But I wasn’t, and I will never physically abuse my precious little princess.

I don't think anybody should "smack" their kids. Even the sound of it turns my stomach. The title of this thread gives me disturbing mental images of parents beating their children fiercely.

As far as physical dicipline, I think in most cases there are better alternatives. My daughter will be 2 in August and is a very stubborn and willful little girl, and so far we have had no need to spank her.

I was spanked quite a bit as a child. There's only one I really remember, and that was because I had run away.

If you kids are well behaved and sitting in the corner makes them understand they did wrong, then there is no need for spanking. But I know I will surely spank my kids if they behave badly.

I give my son time outs.
I think that when you say "I know I will surely spank my kids if they behave badly" is not the best thing.You are saying that you will spank your kids without even trying the other options.Some children don't respond well to spanking and would do better with timeouts.I think that you should try the timeouts and talking with the child before you resort to spanking.

I definitely agree. I think there are better methods of discipline than physical, and they're worth trying. Your baby is only a couple of months old and you've already decided to spank her? You don't even know for sure if she would respond better to alternative forms of discipline.

I do hope you'll take the time to research different methods of discipline and find out what works for your child before resorting to hitting them. Making your mind up now to raise your hand to your child is, in my opinion, disturbing.

Shoot I completely agree with smacking the kid...if i was crying in a restaurant for no reason..my mom took my butt to the bathroom and gave me a reason to cry! and after one trip to the bathroom that shut me right up next time she said she was gonna take me back there! Theres a fine line between abuse/dicipline but i cant say that every spanking I got when I was little I didn't deserve..after multiple warning and "no's" sometimes you just gotta take it to the next level to get the point across...i was spanked as a child..and i have no problems....i deserved it haha

Ah! The voice of reason. But careful though, Worrywart! Just now Rainstorm will insinuate that you participate in masochistic sex.

AyaMiyaki, most parents do the best they can when raising their children. We all make mistakes, but still - we do the best we can with what we have. To some it is taking personal experience as a guide line, others read up on the matter, and some go by logic and intuition. Don’t call people’s ideals to be a good parent ‘disturbing’. That is just harsh and rude.
If Lily Ivy feels that one day she would consider spanking her child if necessary, it’s her prerogative.

And no, I don’t believe there is a fine line between spanking and discipline. It’s an enormous difference. I would never abuse my child, but I do spank. My little girl is a well mannered, sweetheart with a lovely disposition.

but the way lily ivy worded her response,it sounded as though she had already made up her mind and had decided that she would spank before trying any other method.
In my opinion spanking should be the absolute last method,after using timeouts and verbal reprimands.

I do think that she made up her mind already, and there is nothing wrong with that. I did before my daughter was born. So did my parents, and their parents etc.

If you could see the relationship my daughter and I have you would understand that she is my world and vice versa. We are much closer than any other mother/daughter that if encountered the past year or two. We do everything together.

The point that I’m trying to make is that I personally don’t agree with time outs. My daughter is too sensitive for that and she interprets it as rejection. It just doesn’t work for my little sensitive soul.(but again: to each his own)
I spank her bottom, give her a hug, dry her tears, and we go play. The nice thing about this is that I can take her ANYWHERE - to a restaurant, friends, church - and she never takes over. She is well behaved, and is welcome everywhere because she is so well behaved.

I lost a lot of friends because they believe in alternative forms of discipline. I personally can’t stand children that throw temper tantrums. They just make my blood boil. And because of these little brats I hardly have any friends left. They are just not welcome in my home, and it is my home after all. I don’t want to clean up after other people’s children or want to endure their shouting matches. I think people that shout are lesser mortals anyway. If you can’t control your temper, you won’t be able to control any situation, let alone raise a well adapted child.

You misunderstood me. I wasn't calling her attempts to be a good parent disturbing. I said that, in my opinion, the idea that she's decided to spank her child before even TRYING other methods that don't involve physical violence... THAT is what is disturbing to me.

There are so many forms of discipline out there. Many experts today believe that physical discipline does not work and can actually be damaging. I understand if you found that physical discipline works for you, but I assume your daughter is still young. I wonder what you will do when your daughter is too old to spank?

Discipline is about teaching your children right from wrong. It isn't about punishing them. Causing pain to a child for doing something wrong makes my heart hurt. I would much rather TEACH my child, whether it be by time-out (Go sit down for 10 minutes and think about what you did), writing lines (I will not hit my brother because it hurts him), or what have you. And afterward, getting down on their eye level and calmly explaining why they were disciplined and that I know they can do better next time. We're not supposed to hurt our children and make them fear us physically. We're supposed to mold them into better people and teach them right from wrong.

If you've found that physical discipline works best for your daughter, then that's fine. Lilly Ivy's daughter is only a few months old, and she has already chosen an aggressive (in my opinion) form of discipline without even considering or trying the others. And yes, to me that is disturbing. I would personally exhaust all other options before I would raise a hand to my child.