A friend posted this graphic on his Facebook feed recently:
It reads:
I have to laugh at people who are against spanking. My parents whipped my butt like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t hate them. I didn’t have trust issues with them because of it. I didn’t fear them… But I darn sure respected them! I learned what my boundaries were and knew what would happen if I broke them. I wasn’t abused, I was disciplined… Repost if you got your butt smacked and survived… This is why kids nowadays have no respect for anyone!
This kind of thinking makes me sad. I am reminded of what Sheriff Andy Taylor said on The Andy Griffith Show. Though Sheriff Taylor is fictional, the quote rings true:
When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he’s gettin’ might really be fear. So I don’t carry a gun because I don’t want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I’d rather they would respect me.
Yeah, yeah. It’s true that we don’t live in Mayberry but respect is still worth more than the threat of violence.
I’ve never believed that adults should hit kids. Spanking kids teaches them that it’s okay to solve problems through violence. That’s not modeling good adult behavior, now is it?
One of the hardest … no, the hardest lesson of parenthood for me was how to motivate a kid when he or she is being bratty and defiant. Smacking your kid might seem to offer relief when the screaming has started but it breaks a bond between you and your kid that might not ever be repaired. It’s far more challenging to deal with the issue in a calm and rational manner but it’s so very important to try. If I resort to hitting, I have failed.
I want my kids to know that they live in a safe home. I want them to know that I respect their bodies and they should respect their bodies, too. I want them to respect me for who I am and not for what pain I could inflict on them. That’s not to say they rule the roost, or that our family is a democracy, because it ain’t! It’s just that my kids respect me and want to be respected, too. Our kids know the value of trust, and the value of giving one’s word. That will serve them far better in life than teaching them to hit someone when that person isn’t doing what they want them to do.
Kids are always watching the adults in their lives to learn how they should act. Adults need to set a good example and model adult behavior instead of hitting kids.
Bonus: Read again about the sad case of Sean Paddock. Sean would’ve been fourteen this year.