Thursday, February 1, 2007

Your Comments on Media Article: Spanking Sparks Debate - and Legislation

Dear Community,

Below are some of the comments I received about the media article Spanking Sparks Debate - and Legislation. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. To see the article copy and paste the url:
http://www.imageryforkids.com/mediaArticles/spankingSparksDebate.html

In the future, because the Imagery For Kids Blog is here, you will be able to post directly - just click on Comment in the little green banner box below the actual post.

Warm regards,
Dr. Charlotte

1. From Marta Uffelmann-Ledezma MA

I believe spanking comes as result of frustration and lack of strategies to deal with a child that is pushing limits and it is not effective or positive, on the contrary it teaches a child that is acceptable to act aggressively when you are mad instead of teaching ways to manage the frustration and anger.
Parenting is a difficult job and it is true that we learn with our children; however in the age of information that we live in it is not excuse to act inappropriately claiming lack of information. For that reason, I am supporting you initiative and please accept my congratulations for being an active advocate of children safety.

2. From Jim Blumenthal DC

In my practice, I work with many kids labeled ADD/ADHD, Asperger's, autistic, LD, BD, etc. Frequently, the biggest challenge the (non-autistic) kids have is that their parents have abdicated the role of parenting. While I am not advocating abusive or cruel behavior on the parents' part, many of these kids exhibit a deep lack of concern over consequences because there have never, rarely, or infrequently been any. Parents who are more concerned with whether their children will like them than whether their children will grow into reasonable members of society, reminiscent of the recently past "self-esteem movement", are creating a self-indulgent and undisciplined group of monsters who either fail to develop theory of mind or are simply so self-absorbed that they don't care about hurting others.

Benjamin Spock is mercifully dead and gone after messing up the parenting of at least a couple of generations, including ours. If a child is raised in a caring environment and receives a swat on the behind for egregious behavior, I cannot believe that this will create a lifetime of emotional scarring nor teach the child to become an abuser. Atty Robert Goldstein made the point that child endangerment laws are already well established and enforced within DFS/DFYS resources. While we all seek to protect our kids and help them grow into the best people possible, this new legislation does neither and probably undermines both goals.

3. From Patrice Fisher

I think it's a bad idea for many reasons, but primarily, it's a slippery slope to a "government" raised society. I'd rather see more parent education and prevention of REAL abuse of all people. Sounds like another scheme to continue to feed the prison industrial complex.
Is there a epidemic of spanking abuse of children under three I don't know about? Of all the laws we could pass to improve the lives of children, it's a very sad statement if this is the best they can come up with.

5. From K.S.

Thanks for sending me this email. I read the article and do have some comments. First the government is going to far here. No we should not spank our children; it does say hitting is okay – which it is not. Is throwing someone in jail or fining them that amount of money going to help – NO! It is an education that is needed to help people understand this issue. I also do not believe that spanking is a parents right!!! And spanking does not tell your child you love them.

Now on the other side – I do understand why people spank. They are not educated to talk to the child to in the way that helps a child understand. Life is a learning process. Patience is another issue. As a human with emotions we tend to get to a level that we feel words don’t work and hitting speaks for us. My son has autism and I know I have felt that way many times. Did it help anyone, no, it only made me feel really bad and to him it was just hitting.

The legislature does not have a place in this issue. No fine or jail time is going to educate parents, it is only going to make then madder and take it out on the kid more and maybe even worse. Parents have killed their kids for wetting the bed, what do you think a huge fine or going to jail would do to them.
My opinion,

6. From Eva M. Spitz-Blum PhD

Spanking is an interesting issue and, as a mother, dog breeder and rancher, psychologist-psychoanalyst, with a byline as cultural anthropologist, I end up with conflicting views.
How do you get a mule to move? Get his attention!
How do you define spanking? There's where the skeleton lies buried

7. From Debbie Devine

I discussed your article with two bright children ages 10 and 12...here is what they had to say.
"It sounds like a good law not to spank little kids...like if they say don't hit mommy but then the mom hits them it is just wrong..."
As a Marriage and Family Therapist in training, and a former early childhood educator, I also agree that children three years and under should not ever be intentionally hit.(I would not support hitting any child)
However, I feel that a jail time of one year would be more harmful to a child in the case that they might be without their parent. (particularly if it is a single parent with the added stigma of the parent being in jail.)

Instead monetary fines and parenting classes sound like a far better consequence to me...even family therapy is a terrific option. In my classroom...my motto was the punishment should always fit the crime. Taking away a parent and all the problems associated with that dilemma would not fit the crime to my mind..it would create another more serious family hardship and deeper pain to the child if enforced.

8. From Melanie Frost (Personal Comments not reflective of any organization)

In response to the article on drawing up a law around spanking young children, I believe this is a situation that does not have an easy one pat answer; therefore, it should not be a law that one size fits all. Having raised four boys who had enough energy for 12 kids, I believe people will take the liberty of taking situations out of context and good parents will be punished for minor displays of corrections to their children. It is a very different situation of a child misbehaving four or 5 times with the parent trying to redirect them, distract them and keep them safe at time and then on the sixth time giving the child a spank on the behind to get their attention. The common observer may not have seen all the times the parent did do the other ways of managing behavior but saw the last time he misbehaved and got a swat. Is this parent in the same category as the parent who does no corrective redirections and uses spanking as the only means of discipline? Is this the same as the parent who in anger hits his child with force and leaves hand marks on their behinds? And what about the child who says mommy spanked me? W here do we go with all of this. Do you put parents in jail? Why not come in the front door and when a women gets pregnant offer or mandate they take parenting classes prior to the birth of the baby. Give them tools to use before the problems begin. How do they discipline a child? Teach them the correct ways of dealing with children’s behaviors for we all certainly have been there if you have raised children. Where do they go for help? Are there resources for them to call when they cannot cope and do we make that easy for them to do? Parenting is one of the only jobs on this earth that is 24/7/life. We are given no direction or training, resources or help. Isn’t this more where we need to start?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

Hi,

Thanks for sharing this link - but unfortunately it seems to be down? Does anybody here at imageryforkids.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?


Cheers,
William