[QuiltinGramma]

I think the word "repeated" is what turns a switching into a beating. As one of the mom said earlier, that when swatted or switched repeatedly in one place it becomes very, very painful and soft tissue damage is done at the least. Even if you would take your thumb or fingernail and just rub it back and forth repeatedly on the backside of your hand or on your arm, you would soon get a raw open wound. And I think that breaking a child's will and breaking a child's spirit...there is a very fine line between the two of them.

Now if I may ramble for a minute or two.
I was spanked growing up. That's how my parents were raised. Their parents and my parents did not know any better. DH & I raised our DC that way, I hated the yelling , I hated spanking but I didn't know what else to do. I only knew to spank. I didn't really know any other techniques. I apologized to our DD just before she left for her 2nd year of college. I asked her not to raise her dc like we had raised her and her brother. I told her to follow the example of a young couple in our church who never raised their voice or their hand (or at least it was very rarely) to their dc. I didn't know anything about gentle discipline or grace based discipline at that time. But I saw how well this young couple's rambuncious dc obeyed and I was so impressed. And now DD has introduced me to GCM and I have read and read and read...how I wish I could do it all over again. There would be no yelling. There would be no spanking. I tend to overheat (react) quickly and this forum would have helped me learn self-control so much more quickly. It would have help me to see children as real people and that I should give them the respect they deserve. I would have learned aids and tools to help me and have the support and encouragement when I needed it. I could have been one of Pearl's or Ezzo's moms who possibly/probably would have stepped over the line had I followed their writings because I lacked the self-esteem, the patience and the self-control that I needed in parenting. Had I followed their writing, my switchings or spankings would have turned into beatings. Not because I wanted to but because I needed to do everything 100% right. I'm sure my poor self-esteem really came into play in all of this because I truely believed that the only reason people were kind or nice to me was because they felt sorry for me or because of who I was related to or married to or a mother to. It took until my kids were in high school, no it was more like when DD was in her 1st year of college that I really began to gain self-esteem and see that people really liked me for me, for who I was and am.

In women with low self-esteem, we want everything to be perfect. We try to earn respect from others by what we do because we don't have any respect for ourselves. We make perfect targets for the Ezzos, Pearls, and Dobsons of this world. We take their word without questioning even though it may sound a little "off" or "wrong" we go ahead and do what they have written because these people have titles and degrees and we are nothing. Today is different (largely in part to DD ), now only once in a while does that ugly head of poor self-esteem rear up and I just have to stomp on it really hard and go on with life.

Now DD has a DS and another on the way. I don't ever want to spank my DGS because if I do it once, it will be so much easier to do it the next time and the next time. Spanking is too easy of an out and would become addicting to me, so that's why I'm here...to learn how not to spank and all the options available to me when I am with DGS.