Corporal Punishment

While having dinner the discussion came up on spanking. The comment was made, "You have another daddy here, ask him about spanking." (referring to me).

I can't remember exactly what my reply was, but here's a more detailed response:

You don't spank a child to inflict pain. Kids don't respond to pain. As I see it, you spank for two reasons:

1. Get their attention. A little pain in the rear will get any body to pay attention. Think about it, when you feel pain you try to focus on what is causing you the pain. If its another person, you try to figure out why they are causing you pain and try to get them to stop. Spanking is a quick end to what ever the behavior was that caused the spanking in the first place.

2. It will hurt their feelings. Having pain inflicted by someone you love dearly hurts you on an emotional level. You know you have done something wrong. And hopefully you will try in the future to avoid that behavior that caused the person you love to have to hurt you.

However, you can't stop at the spanking. You must always, always stop and explain why you had to give the spanking. A spanking without followup is pointless. I know many children that after a while the spanking is just something to deal with, not a behavior modification technique.

Would you, as an adult like to get a spanking? No. If you received a spanking from a loved one, would you change the behavior that caused it? You bet. Should adults get spanking? probably not. Why? Because they are adults and should be able to understand someone discussing an issue with them and be able to correct it. Kids cannot make that reasoning just yet. That's why we need to keep corporal punishment in the schools and in the home.