Does spanking children really teach anything to our children in a positive perspective?

I don’t think so, but there is also a difference between a swat, spanking, and hitting. I don’t think spanking and hitting are necessary.

I have never raised a hand to my kids, and neither has my husband. They’re good kids. Polite, considerate, thoughtful, helpful.
How do you keep a balance of control with your children without hitting? This is different for every child. There is no one, correct answer.

Personally, I think the finger point combined with the stern look and the low, serious voice is most effective. lol. (Don’t lecture me, I’m only kidding.)

Sure spanking is good for the kids. It teaches them adults can be the world’s biggest assholes and furthers their entry into the real world.

This is not a black and white issue. I just wrote a whole lot more, but this topic is so volatile that I don’t have the strength to argue with everyone today who will make absolute statements about a very complex subject, so I’ll stick with the first sentence.

Personally, i think corporal punishment should be used in very limited amounts and only when the child’s endangering him/herself, to associate dangerous behaviour with pain. There are other ways to maintain control without having to use violence.

Definetely yes. I had a paddle I called “Woody”. It was the ruler of punishment for our children. Just the thought of being whipped by Woody, was enough to keep our children in line.

Did we ever whip our children with Woody? NO.

The psychological effect of Woody was all that was needed.

I would not say never to spank. I think it depends on the situation. I do think that as adults we should be able to control children without resorting to physical force.

Losing privileges and that in the coin of the child (what the child values) seems more effective to me.

I don’t wish to pick a fight, so I will only say that the pros and cons of spanking depend entirely on the situation and on the child in question.

@john65pennington
Ah, Memories!
Like the shop teacher who kept an amazing variety of paddles on the wall and let you choose your own instrument of torture.
The discussions we had regarding the advantages/disavantages of each style: Skinny vs Wide, Thin vs Thick, Long vs Short (No one ever chose the one with nails sticking out, no visible advantage) and the lengths we went to to avoid having to make the choice.
When the line was crossed, as it invariably was a couple of times a year despite our best efforts, the teacher did not administer the punishment himself, (This part probably verges on sadism but is was effective and as far as I know we all survived into adulthood with minimal mental scars), he chose one of the other students to do it and “woe unto you” if you did not do it well for you received the same number of licks from the original miscreant.

I am not a parent so I am not qualified to say what is right or wrong when it comes to disciplining children. I will, however, say that I believe each child is different and so whilst one child may respond badly to a smack another child may respond positively. My brother and I are prime examples. Both of us were smacked if our behaviour was bad enough. I was smacked about twice in my whole childhood (at least that’s all I can recall) as I quickly learnt that bad behaviour equals a smack and that’s not fun so I always made the effort to be on my best behaviour. My brother, on the other hand, didn’t care whether he was smacked or not. He was very defiant and so being smacked did not prevent him from behaving badly. My parents had to find other ways to discipline him because smacking just didn’t work. Neither of us have any bad feelings or trauma because we were smacked but our reactions were very different.

I think much of it has to do with the spanker, and the handling of the spanking. It should never be done out of anger, and the child should know that they are being spanked to correct their behavior, not as punishment. It’s a very fine line to walk, one that many parents cannot handle. I was occasionally spanked as a child, and I pretty much knew I had it coming each time. I also knew that my mother hated doing it. For the record, I have never spanked or in any other way physically punished my daughters. However, they are intelligent girls who don’t do insanely stupid things without any forethought. I’m not sure how I would handle things if I had to raise a clone of me.

Nope.

No.

As one reader stated, every child is different. Some will require spankings while others may not. As a child if we got out of line we got spanked. If children are allowed to do things with no repercussion other than a “go to your room” where they have everything they enjoy anyway, or I’m putting you in time out, which they know most likely won’t last 15 minutes to an hour at best, what descipline have they received? What will deter them from the bad behavior? If they know a certain behavior will mean they will be spanked then they know not to behave that way. So yes, spanking is necessary for some children. Taking away a privilege rarely works because they have so many privileges so this alone is not always a reliable means for punishment to deter a bad behavior. Personally I don’t like pain and I don’t think many children do either so it stands to reason just the thought of knowing this can be a consequence of bad behavior would certainly deter them from that behavior. I’ve seen mothers in stores trying to make a child behave simply by telling them to stop doing this or stop doing that and that child proceeds to continue the behavior and not only does the child continue but then his/her bad behavior escalates to even worse behavior. I attribute that to what I said before, the child has learned there is no repercussion for his/her bad behavior so there is no incentive to stop the behavior.

Spanking a child does make them behave, but there are so many better methods to do that, why hit them. People who say spanking is not hitting are wrong.

Spanking or hitting a child is against the law in many countries, and I am sure they turn out just find. According to this source, spanking is practiced by a minority of people in the U. S. as well.