Spanking for immediate danger

[CapeTownMommy]

Please help me understand why someone would think this is OK?

This morning, I was walking with my 3yo. She was walking next to me, I was between her and the road, and we held hands. At one point, she stopped to look at a plant, let go of my hand while doing so. And then she straightened up, and walked past me basically into the road - while a car came by at 40mph. I grabbed her arm a little too hard from shock, but kept her out of the road. She told me I hurt her arm, I apologised and explained that I got scared when she almost walked in front of the car, she forgave me . We talked about how fast the cars go and that I want to keep her safe so she needs to stay on my other side and hold my hand.

How in the world would someone think I then need to hurt her further to drive the point home?! I honestly just don't understand this. It's one of the most accepted reasons for spanking, but why would I punish her for something she did without thinking? It's not like she will next time think about it more carefully - she wasn't thinking about the road or the cars. She probably saw something on the road that she wanted to investigate. Hitting her for that won't keep her safe. I need to be as vigilant or more next time, that's what will keep her safe.

I just don't get it. And I'd like to be able to respond when someone tells me that this is a reason to spank, so if you understand the reasoning please help me out!

[Granola_mom]

Seems to only satisfy the parent......

[arymanth]

Because in the parent's mind, it is a comparatively small amount of pain that will supposedly prevent a much more serious amount of pain. (kind of like a vaccination) The idea is that if you can scare them enough to keep them out of the road, they won't get hit by a car. A parent in the situation you described is thinking "what can I do to make absolutely sure that my child will be too afraid to go into the road next time?" They want to do whatever they can think of to make sure their child is safe, and this is the first thing that springs to mind. Hitting the child is supposed to really impress upon them the importance of not going into the road, both from the pain of the spanking leaving a strong impression at the moment, and the memory of the spanking being a future deterrent.Same with touching stoves, outlets, etc. Better to smack them and have them learn to avoid these things than to let them get burned/shocked. It does not work very well... been there, tried that... but this is why people do it.

It was actually a very hard adjustment for me to get used to the idea that you didn't HAVE to do these things in order to teach a child, because that was how I was raised. When someone explained to me how to teach a child what "hot" means through demonstration, teaching and repetition, it was such a weird concept for me. Why not just smack them and get it over with, why go through all that trouble? Fortunately, I did try it, just to see if it would actually work, and I was so impressed by the results, I decided to see if the rest of this "gentle discipline" stuff worked, too. LOL

Most parents who react this way really do have their child's best interest at heart. You can be sincere and still be sincerely wrong.

[saturnfire16]

It doesn't make any sense to me either. I don't want my child to stay out of the road because they fear me. I want my child to stay out of the road because they understand that it's not safe. And I want them to learn how to determine when it is safe to go in the road, under what circumstances and conditions. But that all takes time and growth and maturity. If I make a blanket statement that "the road isn't safe" then I'm a liar and a hypocrite when we cross the road at the crosswalk or when they see me go in the road to get a stray ball.

My 4 year old is very responsive to "a car is coming" and "remember you're in a parking lot" because we've repeated these phrases over and over and over since she started walking. We backed them up with the action of holding her hand, picking her up, getting out of the way of cars, pointing out the she is little and the drivers can't see her.

And I LET her play in the road or parking lot when it's safe. She can ride her bike in our apartment parking lot. There's a dead end road by the park where they can walk in the street. When I say "car is coming" she bolts for the sidewalk. My 19 month old doesn't have a clue what that means yet, so I pick her up and point out the car as it drives by. No amount of hitting them is going to help them understand faster.

[Heather Micaela]

I t doesn't make any sense to me NOW either, but if you were to talk to me about 7 years ago I would tell you exacltly what arymanth said. It is kind of like those invisible fences for dogs. If you get too close, there is a consequence. The idea is the zap is less painfull that what happens if you leave the yard.

I have realized what it is is lazy parenting, and dangerous to boot. Becuase it MIGHT work most of the time, but kids are impulsive and when their favorite Dora the Explorer (or whatever) bouncy ball goes into the street they run first and think second. And whether you have used repetition or spanking, you may not override that impulse. So with a young child you HAVE to be there.

And the advantage of NOT spanking and NOT overdoing a shouted "NO!" or "STOP!" Is that when they do begin to run in the street, if you are just out of reach that loud voice will be so startling, it may just give you enough time to retrieve them

[anotherone]

I don't particularly understand the reasoning either. A couple of years ago my son got lost in a book store. I was frantic by the time we found him. When I took him in my arms I started bawling, like the ugly cry. Sobbing and tears running and unable to speak. I was sooo happy he was ok. To this day I'm still surprised when people ask me if I spanked him... and we were a spanking family. I couldn't fathom taking the time to hit him when I was just so happy he was ok. Another time, I was taking my baby out of the car and ds was just 2 yrs old and standing next to me. He took off running accross the parking lot, shouting "Dory! Dory!" I screamed for him to stop at the top of my lungs, because he was running right in front of the cars coming into the lot. I still remember the people at the other side of the parking lot looking up when I shouted! Once again, I was so relieved that he wasn't hurt! Why would I even think of spanking him in that situation??

[CapeTownMommy]

Originally Posted by anotherone

I don't particularly understand the reasoning either. A couple of years ago my son got lost in a book store. I was frantic by the time we found him. When I took him in my arms I started bawling, like the ugly cry. Sobbing and tears running and unable to speak. I was sooo happy he was ok. To this day I'm still surprised when people ask me if I spanked him... and we were a spanking family. I couldn't fathom taking the time to hit him when I was just so happy he was ok. Another time, I was taking my baby out of the car and ds was just 2 yrs old and standing next to me. He took off running accross the parking lot, shouting "Dory! Dory!" I screamed for him to stop at the top of my lungs, because he was running right in front of the cars coming into the lot. I still remember the people at the other side of the parking lot looking up when I shouted! Once again, I was so relieved that he wasn't hurt! Why would I even think of spanking him in that situation??

I think this is where I am today. The fact that she could have been hurt scared me so much! And I was right there, crouched down next to her to look at the plant she was looking at, she was 3 inches from me the whole time, but still the "what if" gives me shivers. Why would I interrupt my thanks to God that she's safe, to hurt her?

Anyway, thanks for the answers. It does make sense, I suppose, given the worldview. And I'm absolutely convinced I would have thought like this too if I didn't discover GCM when dd1 was just an itty bitty baby. I blame all of you that I don't even understand it now.

[Meli]

I was just thinking about this the other day and thinking that smacking a child in that situation could make them more likely to run further away from the smack - the smack is a known concrete danger (if they have experienced it before) versus the conceptual danger of "if car hits you it could really hurt or kill you". If they thought at all (and as has already been pointed out, they usually don't), surely they would be more likely to avoid the danger they understood and feared (the smack) and run further?

[arymanth]

Originally Posted by Meli

I was just thinking about this the other day and thinking that smacking a child in that situation could make them more likely to run further away from the smack - the smack is a known concrete danger (if they have experienced it before) versus the conceptual danger of "if car hits you it could really hurt or kill you". If they thought at all (and as has already been pointed out, they usually don't), surely they would be more likely to avoid the danger they understood and feared (the smack) and run further?

BINGO! This is exactly how it played out in my family over and over again, and I could not figure out WHY??? All the books/parenting gurus were telling me that if I would just be "consistent" enough, that this method would work, but in my real life, it absolutely did not. My son saw me coming or heard me yell, and all he could think of was "mom is going to hit me if she catches me"... so he ran full tilt the opposite direction, into traffic. I was told that I had to make spanking a big enough threat that they would be too afraid to run away (when I catch you, you are really going to get it!!!) but my kids took that as an even better reason not to let me catch them. This was sooooooo frustrating, and it made me hit them much harder than I intended to when I finally did catch them, partly because I was angry that they didn't listen, but a big part of it was because I was so afraid of what MIGHT have happened, and so determined to make sure that it wouldn't happen in the future. Surely, if I just made a strong enough impression on him, he would be so afraid of getting spanked that it would override his impulse to run in the street? It was and is a flawed idea, but this is what many Christian parenting authors teach. Fear of pain is seen as a method of controlling your child's behavior, especially in "danger" situations where you really need to be able to control them. (at least, that is the idea)

It was a major revelation to me to understand that it was really MY responsibility to keep my child safe, and by using spanking, I was trying to make my young child responsible for their own safety. I had been taught that it was important for a child to "learn" these things, but it wasn't actually an age-appropriate expectation. The explanation that really brought this home to me was asking if you would leave that child in charge of another child of the same age or younger? Would you ask your 3yo to be responsible for the safety of another 3yo without adult supervision? It made me realize that my child just wasn't mature enough for that kind of responsibility... so why was I punishing them for being immature? I figured that out three kids ago, and the way I have handled things is like night and day, so completely different that I can't even imagine why I thought smacking my little ones was ever a good "safety" idea? It really has to be a complete paradigm shift, you have to change the way you see your child and your role as their parent.

I have switched from trying to be a "sheep trainer" to being a shepherd. I protect, I guide, I do not expect my sheep never to stray, no matter how many times we take the same familiar path. Every time, it is my job to keep them safe, not theirs. I am happy when they do stick to the path, but I don't punish them if they wander, I just nudge them back to the path, or if necessary, I go get them and bring them back to where they need to be. Spanking just does not fit into this role, so it is no longer even an idea. But what if I had been told that I was supposed to TRAIN my sheep to stay on the path and punish them if they stray, because there are wolves and they could get hurt if they do? What if I was instructed that when a lamb started to wander off, I should whack it with the rod... what would happen? I imagine that a lamb who was especially prone to wander would lose confidence in a shepherd who is always hitting it and would start to run farther and faster when it saw the shepherd coming. In a small flock, this might work to some extent, but with many sheep to watch, this can be a recipe for disaster. (says the mom of 7 rambunctious sheep! LOL) But that's exactly what has happened... parents are taught that their job is to "train" their sheep to protect themselves. This is why they spank for "immediate danger"... how else can they train their sheep to stay on the path? The goal is good, but the method is misguided and generally results in very frustrated shepherds.

[Aerynne]

Honestly if I thought it would guarantee my child would never run in the road, I would do it. But I know it won't. I think it's based on the premise that kids are dumb and therefore only spanking works, so you at least have to do it for stuff that is important. I think a bigger deterrent for running in the road from my kids has been seeing my terrified reaction, which is completely natural and not meant as a punishment.

[jewelmcjem]

I think the (mistaken) thought is, they are too young to understand "Danger!", but not too young to understand "I'll be spanked if I go in the street" when the reality is if they ARE too young to understand the first, then they are certainly too young to understand the second.

This is the last sticking point for my dh. It makes perfect sense to him that while Fiona won't understand him telling her something is dangerous or unsafe, she will understand being spanked. He is not convinced she won't 'get' the pain and stay with him.

[hey mommy]

To get their attention. I did it. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. And it kept him out of the street.

[Mother of Sons]

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[PurpleButterfly]

To get their attention. I did it. I'm not proud of it, but I did it. And it kept him out of the street.

He wiggled out of my arms and ran into the street before I could catch him. I spanked him and he never did it again.

My reasoning (since you asked) was that talking to him about it was having zero impact. The simple idea that "run in the street" equals "Hurts" worked

Again, I'm not defending, just answering the question.

My personal belief is that children can and should be parented instead of hit to keep them safe from imminent danger. As adults who were probably spanked by our own parents in similar situations, it's natural that it would be our reaction and we would defend it as doing whatever we had to in order to protect the children we love. But when you know better, you do better, and we are blessed with so many more tools and support systems than our parents were.

Will hitting someone stop them from doing something that is dangerous? Probably. Will it permanently damage your relationship? Probably not. But it will teach them something about trust and betrayal, confuse them about relationship, and likely set them up for accepting physical harm from authority/others.

The thing is, there are better ways to effectively keep our children safe. They take more time and effort at least initially, but you can keep your children safe without destroying God-given instincts or teaching them a disappointing lesson about love.

I understand what it feels like to be hugely pregnant and exhausted or just a tired mama at the end of her rope, we have all been there, and nobody can judge unless they are in that mama's shoes and circumstances.

But the purpose of GCM is to help mothers learn how to parent gently under all circumstances, so I hope anyone reading the comments about spanking "working" will stay focused on alternative, relationship and child-honoring methods and ask for help if needed.

[ArmsOfLove]

I employ a "scared/frantic voice" that conveys the danger to them. "COME away from the street! Danger danger!" and they do. For runners I don't let them be near the street where they can get into it. Even if someone can say they spanked for it and it worked that isn't something you can prove. All it would take is it not to work once you are convinced your "street proofed" and your child suffers

Supervision is how you keep children safe--near roads, in parking lots, around water and hot things, etc. Anything else is unnecessary whether it appears to "work" or not

For children that "one spank" works I am firmly convinced *one* of anything expressing firm boundary is just as effective