kazoo

Thanks to everyone for their great reponses! The definitions for punitive were especially helpful -- I think those are the very reasons that I first started to consider GBDing. I found that not only was I angry at ds, but that after I'd spank him, I'd think "now we're supposed to make up," but I didn't WANT to, and I seriously doubted he did either -- to have forced attachment after forced detachment (to use Crystal's words) would be superficial and unreal. I also didn't like who I was -- I felt "incosistent" -- hypocritical. I didn't like that being punitive made me more angry instead of less angry, and I dreaded every encounter because I didn't want to deal with the anger I would feel. Maybe that's one reason, too, that parents become permissive.

Raisa, that is so true, I think, about a punitive mindset being afraid of the child's happy feelings, since it relies on bad feelings to "work." I found that to be true just today when I said "come" and he started to run away, and I said "stop!" and he ran faster, laughing. I caught up with him and was not very nice about making him come back with me, and he still thought it was a game, which really irritated me because it was rendering my "discipline" useless!