Dear Parents With Young Children in Church

[BobLoblah]

It’s a nice article, but to be honest, my problems are with some parents and not the children. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, it always bothers me when moms are playing cars with their 2 to5 year old sons during the homily (worse yet, during the consecration), and saying things like “zoom, zoom”. Not long ago, a mother and a girl who looked to be 5 sat in front of me and played cards for most of the Mass. I think they were flash cards of some sort.

???

25Sep13…The kid should have been smacked on the arse once and the mother smacked on the arse twice.

Ps:…and because you didn’t tell the mother to take the child ‘out’ because it was interrupting your prayers…you should be smacked on the arse thrice.

 

[manualman]

There are religious people who read HuffPo?

On the actual subject, I’m surprisingly about with BEL on this one. I think spanking is the nuclear weapon of parental discipline. It’s a resource of last resort. If you, as a parent, develop skills of consistency and discipline, most kids will come along nicely without it.

That said, I don’t have BOYS…

 

[BlueEyedLady]

26Sep13…Yes they are.

Ps: What are you going to do when you have kids???..and your husband ‘run’s off’ on you???

Probably turn to a life of drugs and prostitution. If the kids are old enough to hold a sponge by the time that happens they can help support mommy’s habit by cleaning stranger’s houses and pickpocketing.

 

[Serap]

There are religious people who read HuffPo?

On the actual subject, I’m surprisingly about with BEL on this one. I think spanking is the nuclear weapon of parental discipline. It’s a resource of last resort. If you, as a parent, develop skills of consistency and discipline, most kids will come along nicely without it.

That said, I don’t have BOYS…

The problem with spanking is that once you use it, it’s very easy to keep using it and it can slowly become harder and more intense as time goes on. It can quickly turn into abuse if done in anger or too much.

I experienced this first hand myself. I spanked my son a few times and then a couple of times I spanked him in anger and after that I vowed to never spank again. It scared me and I do believe that I stepped into the realm of abuse. I slipped up a couple of times with a smack on the bum a couple of times, but after a few weeks, I had gotten out of the habit and now I am using other forms of discipline. Spanking did not work for me at all. It only made my son fear me and become more aggressive with his sister when they had a fight. It made my son more aggressive over-all when he was being spanked.

I noticed that when I stopped spanking him, he also in turn, stopped losing his temper over small things or it became less severe. He also doesn’t hit his sister as often as he used to. His temper tantrums are also not as severe now b/c instead of smacking him when he’s having a tantrum, I hold his hand and tell him it’s ok and I love him. I encourage him to tell me what is bothering him and once he gets it all out, we can talk about it.

THIS ^^ is what has really improved his behaviour more than the spanking ever did.

I’m not against spanking, I’m just sharing my experience with my rather spirited son.