choosing not to hit November 13, 2004
My friend Hilary Flower is working on her second book for La Leche League. Her new book is about gentle discipline, and she asked me to write the foreword. You should definitely buy Hilary’s new book (as well as her wonderful first book).
This is the foreword I wrote for her:
The Discipline of Gentle Discipline
by Katie Allison Granju
Sometimes, I really, really feel like hitting my kids.
There, I’ve said it out loud.
It’s not something I felt comfortable telling people in my earliest years as a mother. I was afraid that my occasional urges to grab, scream at, shake or whack my children meant that there was something wrong with me. I was afraid these urges meant that I could never be the kind of gentle, attached mother I wanted to be. And mostly, I was afraid I might lose control and actually do the things I sometimes felt like doing.
Now that I’ve got some parenting experience under my belt –my children are 13, 9 and 6 years old – I am less afraid of the powerful and angry feelings each of them can sometimes evoke in me. I am also less afraid to admit those feelings. I have come to discover that virtually all mothers, including the ones whose mothering I most admire, sometimes feel the urge to smack one of their kids upside the head, or at least turn them over their knee.
The problem is that far too many people give in to those urges, and that as a culture, we continue to believe that “spanking†— our benign-sounding euphemism for hitting children – continues to enjoy widespread acceptance as an effective and humane way of guiding children.
But spanking isn’t effective or humane. Study after study has demonstrated that parents who spank do not raise healthier, more productive, or more mentally sound adults than those who do not. In fact, the opposite is more often true. Yet many otherwise thoughtful and loving parents continue to buy into the myth that spanking offers important benefits, and that it’s an inevitable part of parenting.
I knew before I gave birth for the first time that I didn’t want to use corporal punishment to guide my kids, but when I would tell people this, they would respond with, “Oh, you say that now….,†with a knowing grin, assuming that I would eventually give up on this ridiculous idea of gentle discipline. But I didn’t give up on it.
I readily admit that I have not been perfect in my goal of gentle discipline. I have screamed at, threatened, and come very close to hitting my children on more than one occasion, but these behaviors have never found a permanent place in my parenting toolbox.
I will never forget the one time I did totally lose it and hit one of my children. It happened when my daughter was about three years old and had decided she would no longer wear clothing. At all. Ever.
We were late for some event and I had gotten her completely dressed, but when I went to scoop her up and dash out the door, she was stripped back down to her underwear. At this point, I snapped and smacked her on her rear end. Except I missed her very small bottom and my hand instead landed on her lower back, where it left a red, hand-shaped mark.
She stared at me in horror, having never been struck in her life. I stared back in equal horror. Then she said to me in a small, quavering voice I will never forget, “Mama, why did you hit me?†I burst into tears and held her and rocked her and assured her that I was very, very sorry and that she could trust me to never hit her again. I told her that it was never okay for anyone to strike her.
That night, as I tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind. I realized that I certainly did not want my daughter to grow up believing that sometimes, under the “right†circumstances, she deserved to be hit by the people she loves. I reaffirmed my vow to myself that I would raise my children without violence.
Despite several near-misses over the years – times when I have had to leave the room, scream into a pillow, or take deep breaths and count to ten to avoid lashing out at my children – it’s a vow I have managed to keep. And wonder of wonder, it’s working.
My children are polite, well-behaved (most of the time), thoughtful people. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding, and when people compliment me on the kids’ behavior, I always make a point to say that I don’t spank them. And on the days when one of them is making me feel like sticking my head in the oven, I find that it helps for me to vent to friends who have children even older than mine – parents who also avoid physical punishment - so these mothers and fathers can remind me how well their kids have turned out …without spankings or other harsh disciplinary methods.
This is why I recommend that parents of very young children who want to avoid punitive and physical discipline methods spend time around parents of older children who hold the same views. On the days when your toddler is making you insane and you feel ready to pull out the wooden spoon for a few swats on a diapered bottom, it helps to see the end product of gentle discipline: kids who behave well because they trust and believe in their parents’ guidance, not because they are afraid they will be slapped, spanked or worse.
As for whether spanking is a humane method of discipline, it is not. The fact that so many parents continue to employ corporal punishment doesn’t make it any more humane. After all, it wasn’t so many decades ago that many people believed that, should a husband feel it necessary, he had the right to strike his wife.
One of these days, our attitudes about hitting kids – the most vulnerable members of our families – will similarly evolve so that we will look back on the practice of “spanking†as another form of domestic violence. These are strong words, but I believe them.
Getting through the days, the weeks and eventually, the years of parenting without using physical discipline is, in itself a discipline. I find that having made the promise to myself that I will not resort to hitting provides me with the parenting “North Star†I can use to re-orient myself when I feel angriest. And I have also found that when I am feeling most out-of-control in my parenting, it’s a signal to me that something else is going on in my life, something that needs some of my attention and reflection.
In picking up this important book by Hilary Flower, you have taken a first step in finding your own parenting “true north.†In it, you will find many specific ideas and strategies for raising healthy, happy, well-behaved children using gentle discipline that really works.
And remember, on the really hard days, there’s always the tried and true method of finding a place in your home where no one can hear you, closing the door, and screaming at the top of your lungs until the urge to throttle your child passes, at least for the moment.
Copyright Katie Allison Granju — 2004 — All Rights Reserved
What a beautiful, beautiful foreword you wrote! I will definitely buy this book. I love my La Leche league meetings and as a mom of a 6 month old I’ve not yet hit the time of having to worry about discipline, but surely it is coming. I too hear from the people surrounding me comments like “sometimes kids just need a good swat on the behind” and I SO SO disagree with this! It is so refreshing how honest you are about your feelings, admitting to your successes as a mom as well as the times you don’t manage to live up to your own ideals, yet keep trying. That too is an important lesson to pass on to our children - that you will sometimes behave in ways you are not proud of, but to be a big enough person to admit your mistakes, apologize, and then keep on trying!
What refreshing, thoughtful and reassuring words about non corporal punishment. Even better was the admission of the urges to use physical punishment on your child or children when really pushed. I wish more parents were so honest!
I have a very intense and passionate son who is almost 4 years-old. He can push me to places of incredible anger and frustration. I admit that I have lightly swatted him on his bottom when I’ve absolutely had it. Of this I am ashamed and frankly disgusted that I didn’t pull myself together enough to go in to another room and compose myself.
I’ve also had too many shouting and screaming matches with him. It never fails that after one miserable day, he will show me the most tender, innocent and loving parts of his personality, making me feel just horrible for ever being uncivil and impatient with him.
Your words gave me such pause and I must remember them in my most trying moments of parenting.
I am not writing with the intent of changing your mind, but rather to educate. First, we need to define spanking, explain when it should be implored, and lastly how it should be performed. The definition may be best understood by contrasting what spanking is not. It is not shaking, it is not hitting, it is not screaming, it is not losing one’s temper. It is the calm, firm, swatting on the behind. This is not done with the parents’ hand, by the way. It needs to be done with something that will not injure the child, but at the same time will produce discomfort. The reason an object should be used is so that it is clear to the child that neither mom nor dad directly did this, but rather the paddle did it. When to spank? Again, contrasting may help. It is not done when a child is mereely acting like a child. For example, spilling their milk, sticking a rock in their mouth, etc. It should only be done when the child deliberately, knowingly, rebels, or disobeys a clearly defined rule. How should spanking be performed? It should be done in private, only by the parent, with a clear explanation as to why it is being done, it should be done calmly, and not in anger. No more than 3 swats should ever be done. When the spanking is concluded inevitably the child will be repentant and want to be comforted by the parent. This is when yummy, big hugs are implored. I am a father of 6. All of our 6 children are highly successful well-adjusted leaders. I used spanking sparingly over the past 21 years of parenthood. In fact, I did not use it at all with 2 of our children, who by nature were compliant children. On a couple it was used more frequently. They were the strong-willed type. I did not like to spank our children, but it works. I am a highly educated teacher, but I have not figured out how to reason with a strong-willed, 2-year old, boy. It ain’t going to happen.
I have seen more than one study indicating that there are higher incidents of child abuse in non-spanking households. The reason appears to be that some parents finally break trying to reason with an unruley child, disobediant child who is running the family instead of the parents. Good luck to all. Hope this helps.
I must say that the anti-spanking crowd reminds me of the Prohibitionists. The latter couldn’t distinguish between having one glass of wine and drinking to oblivion, while the former equate a swat on the rear with child abuse. The last poster made a good point about “gentle discipline” parents who lose it (like Ms. Granju, Elizabeth Bauchner et al.). They remind me a bit of Jimmy Swaggart and his kind, who succumb to “temptation,” sob about how “sorry” they are, and continue to preach against the behaviours in which they have indulged. Can’t take them too seriously.
The Pro-Spanking crowd can’t seem to be reasoned with at all. “Spanking works!”
Uh, not spanking works. Plenty of evidence out there supports that it does. (Look around, you’ll find it.) Spanking, actually, does NOT work. (Lots of evidence backs this up.) I know it looked like spanking worked for your families — but guess what? Lucky rabbit feet look like they work, that’s why folks carry them.
Not only does spanking NOT work, it does actual harm. (Lots of evidence out there for this too.) Probably not the sort of spanking the poster above described — two or three swats — that kind probably won’t do a great deal of damage. (It also won’t do ANY good, either. It’ll just seem like it did. Check the evidence.)
But the kind of “spanking” most Americans do? Whopping your kids with belts, sticks, switches, battering them with hands and paddles, usually on a daily basis? Yeah, that does harm. Lots of it. You want to know why we’re a diseased culture, hey, look no further.
And so long as folks like the two commenters above are telling people it’s a good thing to “spank” their kids, this is going to keep happening.
I used to belong to a church that advocated severe spanking for kids, and I can tell you it does not work. What you produce is mindless, terrified little robots who are afraid of you and don’t know how to make decisions for themselves. The problem with spanking is you have to escalate the pain to keep it effective. I’ve seen parents whip their kids with belts and sticks on bare skin. I even walked in on a woman in the church restroom who was whipping her son’s bare penis with a belt. She stopped as soon as I came in, and quickly said ‘he just doesn’t respond to normal spankings.’ I thought, if you’re ashamed of what you’re doing then why are you doing it? And what are you going to do next when this brutal form of whipping no longer works? Better not to start spanking at all.
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