Why do some people (Catholics too) think it's ok to smack children but not animals?

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Rozellelily

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I’ve never really understood the reasoning that people are outraged when a person hits an animal but not when they hit a child.
I understand that a lot of people who are “smacker supporters” are this way because they were raised being smacked (as I was) and then they do the same when they become parents without giving it too much deep thought.

When you think about it though,doesn’t it sound odd that a person would be against punishing a “naughty” dog by hitting it but would be fine with punishing a child this way?
 
Me too. I usually see it the other way around. People are okay with smacking a naughty dog but not a child. I would presume that people feel the dog isn’t intelligent enough to understand the reason why he can’t play in the garbage, so the best you can teach him is “no”. Whereas a child needs to learn about germs and courtesy so they can make good choices in similar situations.
 
I am a life-or-death situation only “smacker”

I do not have to bring my dog out grocery shopping. I can keep her on a leash at all times so she doesn’t run into traffic. But I have to bring my kids when I go out of the house…and when you have more than one kid and one of them thinks their sole purpose in life is to run after that “cool” semi, sometimes you have to be so much bigger and stronger than that child that they fear you more than they love that danger. I do not want my children to fear me overall, so it’s used rarely.

Same with other sort of things–touching the wood stove (after being burned once already!!) or climbing the refrigerator (just whyyyyyy?) With the stove, the dog learned quickly and she can’t climb the refrigerator.

At the end of the day, however, if my dog dies, she dies. If my child dies or is badly injured my world will end.
 
This topic brings to mind a good 'ol Father Brown (protagonist of GK Chesterton’s “Father Brown Mysteries”) quote: “I always like a dog, so long as he isn’t spelt backwards.”
People in our society have a tendency to treat animals as if they held the same dignity as human beings.
 
lol, probably cause they like animals better then people not to mention animals get treated better then people at times
 
That makes sense because you are doing it in situations to protect/care about the child and not because it’s the “easy option”.
 
My mom just spanked my dog several times last week for waking her up at night constantly.
 
Really?In Australia this could draw the attention of something like the RSPCA.
 
I don’t know about US laws, but the dog wasn’t injured and she has tried everything else to get her to shut up.
 
The dog barks at nothing. We try letting her out, giving her food and water, taking her on longer walks to tired her out, etc. She’s almost 12 and think she might have doggy demencia. And she’s also spoiled and thinks we bend to her whims.
 
You might want to find a foster home for your elderly dog. Speak to your vet, let it’s last days of life be spent without spanking.
 
My mom spanks her maybe once or twice a year. She’ll be fine.
 
You can still train a dog by smacking it. You just have to do it correctly so it knows exactly what it is being punished for. But you are correct, punishing a dog after the fact will only make it afraid of you as it won’t understand why exactly it is being punished.

Honestly it’s kind of the same with children. Spanking is ineffective as far as simply preventing behavior unless several conditions are met: Namely it has to be impersonal (parent isn’t angry and yelling and taking out their frustration on the child) and it has to be more or less immediate. For young children it has to be almost exactly immediate. For older children I think “when your father gets home” still works and counts as immediate, as they were notified of impending punishment immediately. But I digress.
 
Isn’t “when your father gets home…” still fear based though?
Also,how many parents are able to smack without any anger or loss of emotional self control?
I usually associate people who choose to smack in the first place,as either doing it from habit (they themselves were smacked as children) or as having poor emotional self control/self management.
Maybe though there are calm smackers too that I don’t know of?
 
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Rozellelily said:
Isn’t “when your father gets home…” still fear based though?
Also,how many parents are able to smack without any anger or loss of emotional self control?
I usually associate people who choose to smack in the first place,as either doing it from habit (they themselves were smacked as children) or as having poor emotional self control/self management.
Maybe though there are calm smackers too that I don’t know of?
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When I smack (on a diapered bum) for life or death reasons (toddler running into the road). I do so knowing full well I have tried everything else and this is my last option. It’s not emotional and it’s not panicked.

If I was panicked or wasn’t thinking straight I could not deliver such an impactful message. With all my faculties I am able to change my face into a scary one, lower my voice, and provide the swat that went done together scares the toddler and overrides the desire to do that potential the fatal action.

I think many parents act on the level that I do. A spank or swat is reserved for only the most grevious offfenses And only done after practical safety measures have been in place and pushed to the limit.

There’s not much more you can do, for instance, if you heat by woodstove and your toddler insists on trying to touch it and they’ve already been burned once. You’ve already installed a strong gate that is bolted to the wall and hard to climb. You monitor that child constant room which is tough when you have other children. You punish by timeouts and other reasonable means. But if that child continues to disobey you need to come up with another plan. That is where a spank can reasonably come in. And as a note a spank is never a threat or warning. It’s swift and immediate and sets a totally different tone than others discipline techniques.
 
My grandfather wasn’t very mentally stable. When I was young, I guess about 6 or 7 I saw him whack the poor dog on his side with his leash really hard. I heard the dog make a whelping sound, and my grandfather had an angry look on his face.

I’m a bit afraid of dogs, but that moment stayed with me. I felt bad for the dog.
 
I’d say that a child, being capable of rationality, is likelier to understand the reason for the smacking, and so likelier to profit by the lesson.
 
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