Spanking Child With Wooden Spoon Not Child Abuse, Says State Court

[nolabear]

118. Not only is it abuse, it misses a chance to create maturity and self-regulation.

There's a hierarchy of moral behavior. At the bottom is "I won't do it because I will be punished if I do", which admittedly can be strong enough to stop the behavior even when one could get away with it, but very, very often creates the attitude that life is a series of who can control whom. Then there's "I won't do it because I'm a part of the world and I care about the effect my behavior has on others". It's considerably harder to help a child to learn that way of thinking, and when you are in panic mode yourself it's not easy to step back and think of a better consequence to behavior that makes it not just a battle of will and power but a learning about natural consequences of behavior.

Example: My son, when he was in the awful, terrible twos occasionally would throw a fit in the store (and those fits are not mean; a two year old cannot yet control those wild swings of feeling and is miserable and unable to be reasonable). I would ask an employee to let me park my cart for a minute, pick him up and take him outside, and put him in the parked car, where I would let him settle a bit and help him say the words he needed. Sometimes it was "I WANT it!" and no more. "I know. But you can't have it. But I need for you to help me get our supper so we can go make it for Dad. How about if we find something you can give Dad for supper? He'd like that." "No!" "Okay. You don't have to. But we have to stay here til we can go back into the store. If you can stop crying we'll see what you can find for us to make for Dad. I really need your help. Want to be a big guy and help me find just the right thing to make our supper?" Quietly, insistently, offering an appealing alternative and with no giving in. It takes time and effort and the ice cream might get soft. But the child is more valuable. And when the fit never works, never gets what is desired, it doesn't get reinforced. Meanwhile, the psyche matures and the ability to negotiate himself improves. Eventually if he wanted something he could present a case for it and find a way to be effective in getting it. He was fabulous at earning money and planning things by the time he was six.

Twelve? Kids that age are rarely diagnosed with personality disorders because they're all nuts. You can beat the demonstration of it out of them but you can't help them get through it and learn to self regulate their internal world-just not to inconvenience you.

Example: My other son once got mad about some damn thing and slammed a door open hard enough to dent the drywall. I didn't throw my own fit but did hold the line on whatever he wanted, and once he'd settled enough to talk I insisted that he accompany me to the hardware store, learn how to fix the wall (with my help; it was cool for us both to learn) and do that before he participated in any activities. Yeah, he tried throwing another fit or two about it but in the end I did have the power and, during the time we were working, we got to talk about how disturbing and disturbed his adolescent tantrum was. I admitted that it was scary and hurt my own feelings and how hard it was not to yell back, but that "We're not that kind of family." It became part of his identity not to be that kind of person, and to know that I was proud of him for being one of us. He learned that reparations can be made and he can be forgiven.

The guys have not a single "Remember that great time when you beat the hell out of me" story. I have a lot of "I was terrified of my father and my stomach was in knots when he was around" ones. They are considerate people who care about others and go out of their way to demonstrate it. I don't consider that "special". I just consider it human, and humane.

I know I'm being long-winded and believe me I don't think I'm a paragon of good parenting, but I do think beating results from uncontrollable rage and fear on the part of the parent, and in all my years of treating both children and adults in therapy I am often sad at how that gets passed from generation to generation because no one was taught to regulate those feelings and so can only resort to them again and again.