Pope Francis: parents can smack their children for bad behaviour

[RGCheek]

I don’t doubt RGCheek meant what he typed (sorry, RGCheek, for constantly referring to you in the third person now). It seems to me he is attempting to somehow ennoble hitting our kids (correct me if I’m wrong), and I have to disagree.

The Pope certainly meant what he said too, except he isn’t here on this forum to clarify. If he meant smacking a kid on the bottom is better than hitting them on the face, I could agree with that, though it hardly seems an ideal worth aspiring to (why not just not hit them at all?). If he is actually endorsing hitting our kids on a regular basis as some program of love and discipline (setting limits, in RGCheek’s words), then I very much think we can do better as parents.

And I think that 6000 years of parental experience across the globe and stored in the traditions and moral values of the vast majority of the worlds cultures and the teaching of the church far outweigh pop psychology and the latest whimsical fads.

No one is advocating ‘hitting’ our kids. Why do you critics keep falling back on overly broad terms instead of specific terms? What does it benefit you to obscure the actual act under discussion?

We are talking about ‘spanking’ not whacking a child over the head with a 2x45 or a sledge hammer.

Why do you persist in ignoring the difference? You think the Pope might have been implying that hitting a kid with a hammer is OK?

 

[RGCheek]

Pope Francis is nothing, if not chatty.
This is probably a good thing, because it is changing the relationship that Catholics have with the pope. Just because the pope says something, it doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree, or that what he says carries a lot of theological weight.

For too long, Catholics have had the tendency to take the pope’s position on any given matter as the Catholic position, and if the pope said it, then those Catholics who disagreed have been put down in arguments as taking a non Catholic point of view. I think that with this chatty pope who weighs in on everything, like someone in the neighborhood who comes over to drink coffee everyday, it is impossible for everyone to agree with him all the time, and it is a bad idea to do so at any rate.

The point is the conversation, and not who is right or wrong. The best answer comes out in having the discussion.

But we have had the answer for nearly 4000 years; ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is the summary of it.

Why is that answer suddenly not acceptable to you? Have you evolved beyond the values of God’s Word?

 

[RGCheek]

Good parenting does not include much corporeal punishment.

In your opinion.

 

[eatpraylove11]

Disappointed in what the Pope said.

Me too. I agree with him on most topics, but not this.

I was never spanked. My boyfriend was and he turned out great. My father was spanked and I have to say it deeply affected him.

It’s not how I was raised and, having been a nanny and a teacher, I have learned other methods of discipline without instilling fear of physical punishment. I want my children to do the right thing because it is right, not because they will be hit if they don’t. I also do not want my children thinking that confrontation ends when one person is beaten, on the ground, etc. (not saying spankings are always violent!). I would not feel right telling my child not to hit and then swatting or smacking them…I would feel like a hypocrite.

What if it escalates? What is too much? There is too much gray area for me. There are cultural reasons for spanking and that’s fine. I just won’t/can’t do it to my own kid.
Check out these videos:
youtu.be/Bq6VX_iRRbg
youtu.be/5IalPvNCC3k

 

[eatpraylove11]

But we have had the answer for nearly 4000 years; ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ is the summary of it.

Why is that answer suddenly not acceptable to you? Have you evolved beyond the values of God’s Word?

The rod was not used to hit sheep - it was used to guide them when walking with the shepherd.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

The rod was not used to hit sheep - it was used to guide them when walking with the shepherd.

Ever herded sheep? Or Cattle?

 

[RGCheek]

The rod was not used to hit sheep - it was used to guide them when walking with the shepherd.

lol

Proverbs 22:15

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him.

Proverbs 23:13

Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.

 

[SuperLuigi]

I was spanked. I deserved everyone of them. If I have a kid, they will be spanked. Time out doesn’t always work.

 

[Jeanne_S]

I was spanked. I deserved everyone of them. If I have a kid, they will be spanked. Time out doesn’t always work.

I agree! Six kids in my family growing up.We were spanked on our bottoms with my Dad’s belt on occasion.Spankings were doled out when we really misbehaved.Not often.We were loved and knew it,so an occasional spanking wasn’t the end of the world.
I never used a belt or anything else on my kids,but they got a paddling on their bottoms with my hands a few times.
These days all that would be considered abuse.

 

[Jeanne_S]

**

Being Irish this was our method of being ‘tortured’.

http://www.tickld.com/cdn_image_content/231136.jpg

My Mom used a hairbrush!
Reminds me of a cute story that my Mom shared about one of my brothers.Tom was probably about three,took of on his tricycle and went beyond his designated boundries.
My Mom called out to him Thomes Lee you come home right now…you are getting a spanking…
When my brother got home he looked up at my Mom and said"Wif a hairbrush or Wif a stick?
Needless to say,he didn’t get spanked after all!

 

[Mystical_Seeker]

No animal analyzes anything as they do not have the concepts to do so.

Your assertion is lacking a dose of reality.

Oh, I’m sorry. Why don’t you add some “reality” by sharing some of the reference materials you used in your research to come to this conclusion?

 

[TEPO]

With my four daughters, a stiff pat on the butt has a serious humiliation effect. Inflicting actual pain isn’t required. For other kids, who have less emotion, maybe pain is all that works.

…I know when i was young i got the ‘belt’. If not adjusted properly, a direct center hit, while being bent over a piece of furniture, can be more painful than imaginable. But im still able to have children. . After that, a struggle for hand blocking becomes a natural reaction -so the arms get it.

 

[simple_soul]

Thank you so much for sharing this! I personally grew up without being spanked and I have very good manners.

No problem. Thank you for reading and sharing your experiences. I have to say I was very much spanked growing up. Never fully understood the reasons or dynamics for it but I do know that the mentality of spare the rod spoil the child was taking quite extremely literally and at time the rod could not be used enough nor inflict enough pain. I remember the last spanking my father gave me was with a belt strap we got one hit for each year. I did not cry or flinch. To this day I could not tell you what it was for. I just remember taking it from him after he was done like it was just a part of any normal day. it was like I was used to it or something. I remember him looking at me to see if it had effected me at all and I just calmly looked back at him took the strap from him as he handed it to me and walked away. He never spanked me again.

I was taught to be polite. My father did have a temper and raised his voice a fair amount, which instilled terror in me. (We haven’t gotten into yelling here.)

No we haven’t. but on a quick note I know and understand that yelling can be just as abusive and in some cases it can actually be worse and then there is just the going on and on in lamenting, complaining and just plain talking down to a child, with or without yelling or getting angry, that I can see as being abusive to the child also. My father resorted to this also and it intensified after the spankings stopped.

Maybe that was just keeping me in line, but he later told me when I was grown up that the worst years of that had been the worst in his life (he had been stressed and unhappy). I would ask him to please not do it, even when young. (He was moody; wonderful to terrifying.) My stepsisters (of about 5 years; we are still close) were both firmly convinced my father was “abusive.” I am not sure I agree with that assessment. I am much better mannered than they are and I never got in trouble; they were bad news before they hit our doorstep. My point is that parents do carry out bad tempers and moods on children. This can be a fine line with appropriate discipline.

I so totally agree with your point but I also believe and in my parents case, mostly my father’s, he just wanted to do better than his father had but just did not know how to go about it and unfortunately he ended up getting some very misguided advise for a while there. I can see this in my other’s case too.

And I do think that physical discipline is basically just monkey see, monkey do. My dad/mom did it so I do it…unless any of you can point me to a case where a parent who wasn’t spanked took it up with his/her offspring…I’d be surprised…

I am not sure. I can see in my son how he started to become a hitter. I also saw how he handled stress or frustrations and realized he was just learning to handle things the way he saw Mom and Dad handle things. I still think having children is God’s way of putting a mirror in front of my face. The one thing that made me vow to not want to spank my children was because of how I was disciplined growing up. So in my case I did not want to be a money see monkey do. But I also believe that the monkey se monkey do can also go with good behavior. I know my father chose to not be as extreme with us as his father was with him so in this way I did follow him in trying to be better than he was with us so I guess I was copying what he showed me through his example. As for my mother, I’m not sure, I do not recall her sharing any stories of how she was spanked growing up so now I am kind of curious as to what got her to start choosing to spank us. Again, I think it was because she was trying to do better than her parents but again was given some very misguided advise. Will have to ask her next time I see/talk to her.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

And I do think that physical discipline is basically just monkey see, monkey do. My dad/mom did it so I do it…unless any of you can point me to a case where a parent who wasn’t spanked took it up with his/her offspring…I’d be surprised…

I would think you are wrong here.

About half of the parents in the US spank.
politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/17/donald-trump/trump-more-half-parents-spank-their-kids/

So, that means that about half of people grew up spanking and half didn’t. The thing is that most people get married, or at least become parents themselves. And wouldn’t you know it? They sometimes don’t discuss parenting discipline tactics before marriage or conceiving. (perhaps they should)

With my wife and I, we have both spanked our kids. But only one of us was spanked by our parents. So I think it is probably just as common to spank when not spanked or vice versa.

 

[simple_soul]

With my four daughters, a stiff pat on the butt has a serious humiliation effect. Inflicting actual pain isn’t required. For other kids, who have less emotion, maybe pain is all that works.

It’s amazing what one remembers when you start retracing your steps. There was one time I did swat my daughter on her bottom when she was a toddler. It was seeing how mortified or humiliated she was that prompted me to never do it to her again. Are you sure we should be humiliating our children?
In my experience I do not believe inflicting pain is what works. Well not the physical, mental or emotional kind of pain. With my son it was when he was on his bed throwing a fit yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs throwing himself around I would spank his bottom and it seemed to get him to kind of “snap out of it.” At this point we are both angry. It just seemed that things would escalate with him. I would tell him to do something that he did not want to be doing and as he started to throw a fit I would come back at him telling him to stop and then it would start. It was like we were trying to “one up” each other. It was like me telling him to do his homework was a personal attach against him and he would then do something to retaliate. I really did have to fight back and struggled with what I call the “alpha-male” syndrome. It was like “how dare you rebel I’m going to teach you your place” and at six and seven years old he was ready to take me on and take me on he did. What I started to do instead was to just bear hug him until we had both calmed down and from there we learned to talk things out apologize and reconcile ourselves with each other. Eventually I did not have to hold him any more and he was able to go to his bed but the verbal digs at each other continued. I would take away privileges to try and get him to do things and he would react with saying or doing things knowing it was not what I wanted him to do or that he knew annoyed me. It took my husband saying something to me one day that made me take a deeper look at what was going on. I realized how we, my son and I, were in a serious power struggle of sorts. He felt like I was hurting him and did what he could to hurt me back. I am not talking about physical pain but what would stop it from going there? When I realized he was literally pushing my buttons with intent and purpose in his own rebellious little ways and that I was reacting to it with the “I’m going to teach you a lesson to not take that attitude with me” attitude was when I finally started to stop reacting to him and would refuse to get into the yelling matches with him. No matter what he said or what he did as he stormed off to his room. I have heard it all from him. That was a start but what I realized was he had my temper and my husband’s temper and I struggled to keep my temper in check and barley understood how to keep myself that I realized I needed help in teaching him how to manage himself or control himself. So we have kind of been learning it together. One of the best forms of discipline I have come across was a CD a friend of mine shared with me. It explained for me for the first time the difference between punishment and discipline and it talked about a thing called do overs. It is when he chooses to react in a rebellious and belligerent stubborn way to have him immediately do it again in a loving and respectful way. It is these redoes that we have had the most positive growth in. No inflicting painful digs at each other anymore and we are so much better for it. So no I do not believe inflicting pain is the right way for me to teach my children. It did not work for me. By not causing him pain by being respectful to him, not humiliating him or making him feel bad about himself or taking some privilege away from him because I know it will get to him the most and showing him how to discipline himself so that he does it the correct way through practice and he earns his privileges now and this has been the best way I have found so far. I will say it’s not always easy. I do still slip up and find myself reacting sometimes. My husband and I are trying to start a tag-team system now were if I get to the point I just start reacting he will step in and give mom a break and take over and I will do the same for him. Not sure why I rambled on about this? Oh yes. it was because of your comment about pain. What I have found out is that the pain of just going through the redo steps of disciplining ourselves to do it the correct way has had better and more positive results than inflicting physical, mental or emotional pain.

 

[TEPO]

It’s amazing what one remembers when you start retracing your steps. There was one time I did swat my daughter on her bottom when she was a toddler. It was seeing how mortified or humiliated she was that prompted me to never do it to her again. Are you sure we should be humiliating our children?
In my experience I do not believe inflicting pain is what works. Well not the physical, mental or emotional kind of pain. With my son it was when he was on his bed throwing a fit yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs throwing himself around I would spank his bottom and it seemed to get him to kind of “snap out of it.” At this point we are both angry. It just seemed that things would escalate with him. I would tell him to do something that he did not want to be doing and as he started to throw a fit I would come back at him telling him to stop and then it would start. It was like we were trying to “one up” each other. It was like me telling him to do his homework was a personal attach against him and he would then do something to retaliate. I really did have to fight back and struggled with what I call the “alpha-male” syndrome. It was like “how dare you rebel I’m going to teach you your place” and at six and seven years old he was ready to take me on and take me on he did. What I started to do instead was to just bear hug him until we had both calmed down and from there we learned to talk things out apologize and reconcile ourselves with each other. Eventually I did not have to hold him any more and he was able to go to his bed but the verbal digs at each other continued. I would take away privileges to try and get him to do things and he would react with saying or doing things knowing it was not what I wanted him to do or that he knew annoyed me. It took my husband saying something to me one day that made me take a deeper look at what was going on. I realized how we, my son and I, were in a serious power struggle of sorts. He felt like I was hurting him and did what he could to hurt me back. I am not talking about physical pain but what would stop it from going there? When I realized he was literally pushing my buttons with intent and purpose in his own rebellious little ways and that I was reacting to it with the “I’m going to teach you a lesson to not take that attitude with me” attitude was when I finally started to stop reacting to him and would refuse to get into the yelling matches with him. No matter what he said or what he did as he stormed off to his room. I have heard it all from him. That was a start but what I realized was he had my temper and my husband’s temper and I struggled to keep my temper in check and barley understood how to keep myself that I realized I needed help in teaching him how to manage himself or control himself. So we have kind of been learning it together. One of the best forms of discipline I have come across was a CD a friend of mine shared with me. It explained for me for the first time the difference between punishment and discipline and it talked about a thing called do overs. It is when he chooses to react in a rebellious and belligerent stubborn way to have him immediately do it again in a loving and respectful way. It is these redoes that we have had the most positive growth in. No inflicting painful digs at each other anymore and we are so much better for it. So no I do not believe inflicting pain is the right way for me to teach my children. It did not work for me. By not causing him pain by being respectful to him, not humiliating him or making him feel bad about himself or taking some privilege away from him because I know it will get to him the most and showing him how to discipline himself so that he does it the correct way through practice and he earns his privileges now and this has been the best way I have found so far. I will say it’s not always easy. I do still slip up and find myself reacting sometimes. My husband and I are trying to start a tag-team system now were if I get to the point I just start reacting he will step in and give mom a break and take over and I will do the same for him. Not sure why I rambled on about this? Oh yes. it was because of your comment about pain. What I have found out is that the pain of just going through the redo steps of disciplining ourselves to do it the correct way has had better and more positive results than inflicting physical, mental or emotional pain.

Thanks. I think I’ll keep the redo method in mind. I’ll tell my wife about it. We’ll try it…

 

[LongingSoul]

I would think you are wrong here.

About half of the parents in the US spank.
politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/sep/17/donald-trump/trump-more-half-parents-spank-their-kids/

So, that means that about half of people grew up spanking and half didn’t. The thing is that most people get married, or at least become parents themselves. And wouldn’t you know it? They sometimes don’t discuss parenting discipline tactics before marriage or conceiving. (perhaps they should)

With my wife and I, we have both spanked our kids. But only one of us was spanked by our parents. So I think it is probably just as common to spank when not spanked or vice versa.

I’d agree. Personal observation of my family ie. siblings and many first cousins all growing up in close proximity to each other and all experiencing the strap hanging off the teatowel rack… we really do have a group of well bred and non violent people. There may have been times when a distinct red stripe was left on the skin but none of us have ever identified spankings as detrimental to us in any way.

Of course we were all aware of other kids who were genuinely abused by their parents but that generally came with a package of all round abuse and lack of love.

 

[FollowChrist34]

I’d agree. Personal observation of my family ie. siblings and many first cousins all growing up in close proximity to each other and all experiencing the strap hanging off the teatowel rack… we really do have a group of well bred and non violent people. There may have been times when a distinct red stripe was left on the skin but none of us have ever identified spankings as detrimental to us in any way.

Of course we were all aware of other kids who were genuinely abused by their parents but that generally came with a package of all round abuse and lack of love.

Well, ok, I’ll take your and others’ anecdotal evidence under consideration; I suspect you have a good point in the end. All I would add is I am thankful I came out well-bred and non-violent without a strap!

 

[Jeanne_S]

Well, ok, I’ll that your and others’ anecdotal evidence under consideration; I suspect you have a good point in the end. All I would add is I am thankful I came out well-bred and non-violent without a strap!

Again I think it depends on why the spanking it being done .Whenever I was spanked(on occasion) I usually had it coming to to misbehavior of some sort.I knew I was bing disciplined.However,My Mom hit me over the head with a hairbrush when I was around nine because she was frustrated with me for not getting my math problems,while she was trying to help me.Now that incident hurt me more than any spanking I ever received,obviously,since I still remember the details at 62 years of age!

 

[Bookcat]

catholiceducation.org/en/marriage-and-family/parenting/the-problem-of-spanking.html

It is an extensive article - one can get to his closing remarks in the least:

Closing remarks

The family

"CP is no universal elixir for family discipline. It is just one of many tools that can be used rather effectively by parents who so choose and are themselves relatively well-balanced. Most evidence points to the efficacious effects of the moderate use of CP in conjunction with consistency of discipline, affectionate (but not indulgent) relationships between parents and children, and parental vigilance over their children’s behaviors. This being said, we don’t dispute the fact that CP has been misused by too many parents, as has the indiscriminate use of rewards. As in most of life, it is the balance between competing influences, punishment on the one hand, and affection and reward on the other, that we desire…etc "

They go on from there…interesting reading