Michael,
If you asked CW why he hasn't taken the car and stayed out all night or taken drugs or flunked classes he would say, because my parents would kill me. Obviously that is a slight exaggeration and maybe you're hearing the equivalent from your young men. And my guess would be that they weren't responding to the threat of whupping anyway, but to the caring and love that the threat represented.
I don't think spanking is a very productive or desirable response to transgressions. As an ex-probation officer and social worker and the mother of two teens, I have some practical experience in the area and my feeling is that beating or whipping falls on the bottom rung of effective parental discipline; it's a response that arises from frustration, anger, and it indicates an inability to use methods that demand self-control and higher levels of reasoning and patience and consistency on the part of the parent.
If a child is raised equating brute force with caring, as it seems some of the young men you meet do, then I won't say it hasn't had some positive results in their lives. However, I really do believe that if the proper foundations are in place, a child should not and need not be beaten. We have never used physical discipline on our boys (past toddlerhood with CW and never with Ammo) and would never tolerate it being used. Our boys were raised with clear rules and consistent consequences and it is those techniques that work with them. As you know, they are wonderful kids, but there has been a lot of time and effort and agonizing gone into their upbringing. Sometimes it would have been a lot easier to wallop them. (Well-at least CW).
Physical force sends the message that might makes right and that it's ok to hit weaker, dependent,even helpless individuals, that it's ok to lose control in that way, which is too often the way beatings occur. My guess is that as your children get older you will find less need for physical control because you will reason and talk to them. And that if you stop and think about it, the urge to use physical force is a reaction to a feeling of helplessness, anger and either an unwillingness or a lack of knowledge how to take the time to use other methods.
It's just not the ideal way to go and someone like yourself who cares and thinks and is committed to the best for his kids probably won't need to resort to it. |
