It has really made things easier all around to be instantly accessible and has helped me to be more flexible and understanding with my kids, instead of being overbearing and dogmatic and frantic about where they were going and stuff. In particular with my teenage son. He has been requesting more freedom to go places on his own or with his friends. I feel a little better allowing him the freedom a young man needs now that he has a phone. Before I was very nervous about that and tried to keep him close to me at home.

It’s also a useful discipline tool, because we made it clear to the kids that we would take phones away for poor behavior and/or a drop in grades. It has helped them to learn about budgeting, because we have a family plan with a set amount of minutes and texts. If they go over that, it comes out of their allowance. We had one very large bill once because my son didn’t quite grasp that downloads of special phone add-ons could quickly add up. We had to block downloading for his phone and take the money for the bill out of his allowance. He definitely learned his lesson.

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Spanking to a child is like the current prison system to prisoners: there’s little to no rehabilitation and it increases criminal activity and sneakiness once the punishment is over.

I have 3 children, 2 boys and a girl. My daughter has not been hit in eleven years, since she was seven (she’s 18 now) and my sons I quit spanking about eight years ago. They are now 13 and 10. I do not regret no longer spanking and I wish I had never hit my children. Time out does work, and so does taking away privileges, such as TV time, computer time, video games, late bedtimes on weekends, cell phones, etc. My children are well behaved both in school and at home, and other people frequently compliment their behavior.

Of course when my husband and I started not spanking we were ridiculed by family and friends. However now my father (my old school mean daddy who used to line me and my siblings up and hit us with a paddle or a switch) tells me that I am doing a great job with my kids and did the right thing in not continuing to hit/spank them. He has also told me that he wishes that they knew about non-spanking methods back when he was raising kids, he never would have spanked had he knew and understood the repercussions of spanking and knew other alternatives for discipline.

Children are not perfect; of course they will mess up and misbehave from time to time. They are children! When you hit a child for misbehaving, you are physically punishing them often-times for behaving in ways they cannot help. They do not deserve to be flicked, popped, slapped, smacked, or hit for misbehaving. It is just not necessary.

Time out and/or taking away privileges does work for children, the exception being children under 4ish, who are just not cognitively able to understand time out. When I hear parents of older children saying time out doesn’t work, usually there are other factors involved. Like they may take a 6 year old out all day shopping and running around, not taking into account the child’s ability to handle being out all day. Then when the kid has a melt down and acts the fool, of course time out won’t work…cause the kid is tired!! and just needed a nap or break in the first place. I often see parents ‘going off’ on kids because they don’t understand age-appropriate limits on attention span, stamina, etc.

Plus I think time out doesn’t work for a lot of folks because they are not all-together emotionally or mentally themselves…that definitely has an impact on the kids; a parent’s personality and way of looking/dealing with the world. At my last job I knew this woman who just used to grit her teeth at folks all the time. Getting her to smile or say good morning or just be civil was like pulling teeth. She was/is just a very sour, angry, stressed-out person, I think she was suffering from long-term depression. I knew her kids would be terrors living with a mom like that, and they were. She bought them to work once and they were so bad, throwing stuff at folks and being mean little brats. Pretty much looked and acted like their mom, who probably would have thrown stuff at folks if she could have gotten away with it.

Last but not least: many folks hit their kids without even looking at what they feed their poor children. Many U.S. kids today eat a high salt, high sugar, high grease, high meat diet; and drink funky crap like soda and other processed drinks. Then folks wonder why their kids act as if they lost their minds. I know I would physically feel bad if I ate what the average American kid eats, sheesh. Just feeding a kid more fruit and vegetables, increasing their water intake, reducing or eliminating their meat intake, and definitely reducing their processed sugar intake is going to positively affect how they behave.

Consider this: if spanking works so well then why do folks have to keep hitting their kids? I used to get spanked really bad, I can recall going to school with welts on my legs, and that still didn’t stop me from misbehaving. Children will act out from time to time, that is just normal childhood behavior as they learn and grow. No child deserves to be hit because they make a mistake. Stuff I used to get beat over and over for when I was a kid, my own kids haven’t repeated after once having a privilege taken away. I have personally seen how using non-violent discipline methods works with my children and I definitely recommend you try it for yours.

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One of my major goals in life is to become a gentle mama. I am almost there. After I stopped spanking my kids I continued to yell at them, get in their faces, and in other ways intimidate them. One thing that helps me when I am feeling irritated with my children is to slow. down. my. rate of speech. That helps me to get a grip on my temper as well as reflect on why I am feeling irritated. Most often, it is not even about them. I am really feeling irritated at something or someone else.

Re-direction also helps, sometimes kids can be very insistent on being in your face. If I find myself feeling repeatedly irritated by that, I try to re-direct their attention onto an activity we can do together, because that usually means they are bored and want my attention. As my children got older, I also often strongly encouraged them to find something to do on their own. I feel it’s ok for children to sometimes be bored because it is boredom that sparks their imagination and triggers their creativity.

It is a choice to hit your kids, to yell at your kids, to be mean to your kids. This is something you can control. Once I realized that I chose to yell at my kids, it made me realize I could control whether or not I yelled at my kids. I realized I was not helpless in my response to acting out on their part; I could stop yelling at them.

Something that helps is to treat your children as you would anyone else. Would you hit your husband, a co-worker, or a friend who was learning how to do something and did it wrong? Would you yell at a friend or a co-worker for getting on your nerves? Probably not, because most people won’t put up with a spouse that hits them or a friend who yells at them and most jobs will fire someone who yells at their co-workers. Children have no such protection; they have to put up with it. It may seem to you like there are no negative consequences for yelling at them. But there are…it negatively affects them and hurts them deep inside and affects their whole life. Think about that, and make a sincere effort not to yell at them. It’s a bad habit to break but gets easier each time. Both you and your children will be better for it, and it contributes to having a safe and peaceful home.

You know what else…it took me a while to understand that when my kids were asking me Why? Why? Why? when I told them to do something they weren’t being smart-alecky; they really wanted to know. This still frustrates me sometimes and I will still sometimes snap Don’t question me! Just do as I say! but I try to take a deep breath and calmly answer their questions. Quite often they just want a simple explanation, but because I am grown and it seems so simple to me I feel they are being willfully defiant by questioning me. It helps to remind myself that what is obvious to me may not be obvious at all to an 8 year old or 11 year old, or even a teenager like my daughter.

My cutting back on yelling has made such a difference in their lives. I have noticed that they interact with each other differently too, like they are more patient with each other and less likely to yell and/or get frustrated with each other. When my kids tell me, Mommy I like your nice mama voice it warms my heart and makes me feel like I am truly a good mother.

How do you feel about this? Is there ever a time to be aggressive with a child? and by aggressive I mean hitting or spanking in any way, snatching or jerking them in any way, yelling and/or screaming, talking to them in a mean or hostile way, making mean or scary faces, getting all in their face i.e intimidating them by getting all in their body space, emotionally isolating them by not speaking to them for infractions…let me see what else. Throwing things at them, calling them names, cursing at or around them, putting them down. Disregarding their need for positive attention, pointing out their ‘flaws’ when other people praise them. I am sure there are more examples of aggressive behavior toward children…is there ever any time when it is necessary and/or ok to behave toward a child in any of these ways?

Moved back from now defunct Ultra Mama blog, merging content Let’s talk about this again! I turned comments back on.

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