by Priscilla Benfield

Created on: June 20, 2009

Spanking is a form of discipline that many of us grew up with. When spanking gets extreme, it can border on being abusive. Is spanking an effective method of discipline? Probably not. Children learn what they live. If you spank your child for hitting another child, you are sending mixed messages to the child. You are saying that it is okay for Mommy or Daddy to hit but not the child. The act of spanking can confuse a child.

Often when a parent feels the need to spank a child, it is because a situation has gotten to be so out of control that the parent feels a need to get control back and spanks in response to the child's misbehavior. Removing the child from the situation, sitting him down and talking firmly to him about what he has done wrong is more effective. Spanking a child may stop the child from what he was doing wrong, but it is not teaching him anything positive. A parent does need to maintain a level of control over the child but controlling a child by threatened violence is not healthy.

Building fear in a child is not going to help you to have a positive and loving relationship with your child. You need to build respect and trust but spanking is not the way to go about it. Children need to learn that there are boundaries that they cannot cross. There are rules and consequences for their actions. Discipline methods such as time-outs and grounding them from playing a video game are much more effective. Of course, a parent needs to communicate to the child the reasons why they are being punished and they need to discuss the behavior and why it warrants punishment. Without the communication the child is going to repeat the behavior.

Spanking as a means of controlling you child's behavior can be damaging to their self-esteem and excessive spanking will make them fearful of you. A child should not fear their parent. A parent is the child's guide to life. Your child needs to have someone that they can go to and who makes them feel safe. A parent who spanks is not going to be able to build a healthy relationship when the child secretly fears them.

Parenting is a hard job. Any parent can admit that there are days that are very stressful and lack of sleep and other outside influences can wear you down. When a child or children start to misbehave and you feel the urge to react in a violent manner, like spanking, you need to walk away and calm yourself down and then deal with it. Separate the children and give a time-out. Then after the cooling off period you can deal with disciplining in a more mature manner. Spanking is a loss of control by the parent and ultimately is not an effective disciplining tool.

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