Hitting an 18 month old child is wrong

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 5:47 pm

amother wrote:

Well, what did you mean then, by the bolded?

I read it as, "Some of us follow our mesorah, which we feel as valid...unlike others, like yourself, who clearly don't".

I didn't write this. Why are you putting words into my mouth?

I'm sure there's more than one valid path of mesorah, and I'm completely agreeable to everyone following their own path. Just clarifying MY position. I'm not sure how that could be construed as an attack?

simba

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 5:48 pm

Teomima wrote:

I am so disturbed by this thread.

I am of the school of thought that hitting is never okay. For what it's worth, my mother hit me twice: once when I ran out into the street, and once when I called her a b*tch. I don't hold either time against her. But otherwise I was raised in a house where children were never hit, and I do not believe it is ever necessary.

We teach our children by example, and I don't want my kids to think hitting is ever permissible, so I don't hit them. When they are young, I repeat instructions like a broken record until they learn or, if necessary, physically remove them from a situation. As they got older, time outs gave them that much needed break and willingness to listen and learn from their punishment. Now that the oldest ones are outgrowing time outs, they're of an age where they fully understand right from wrong, and can understand consequences without needing any sort of punishment (so, no, you don't need to hit to raise nice, pleasant, polite, helpful children).

As for extreme situations, like running out into traffic or getting too close to fire, that's when my yelling voice comes out (as it does when I've repeated something, and been ignored, 3 times. My kids know this).

I suppose, if you have trouble regulating your tone, and tend to yell often, you might feel there's no choice other than to hit occasionally. But if you struggle that much with impulse control that you can't even keep your yelling under control, how can you trust yourself to hit your child without anger?

My children are the most precious thing I have. I worked very hard to make them. I spent nine months growing them. I've kissed and caressed and cared for them. How could I ever imagine physically hurting them???

I like everything about your post.

dancingqueen

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 5:57 pm

alis_al_kulana wrote:

I have. A light potch only in those occasions is very important.

You remind me of the friend who, upon seeing my extremely child proof kitchen, asked me " why don't you just tell them they're not allowed to open the drawers? ""

Actually you have it all backwards. I feel like it’s on the parents to supervise and ensure a safe environment for their toddlers. So if my toddler was unsupervised cvs and ran into the street that would be my fault not theirs. And yes I do look into their eyes and strongly say we do NOT run into the street. Dangerous!

But generally it’s on the parents to set limits to keep very young children safe.

amother

Ruby

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:08 pm

leah233 wrote:

Points (1) & (3) are anecdotal

While one can argue that the posuk in Mishlei does not refer to today's situation, a scepter is a שַׁרְבִיט not a shevet.

You will be doing all of us a tremendous favor if you share how you managed to raise children with significant behavioral challenges so well that you get complimented all the time on how well-behaved they are. Can you please share specific tips with us?

#3 is not anecdotal, it has been extensively studied. #1 is anecdotal, although I highly doubt I'm a unicorn. Obviously I can't tell you al regel achas, but I will say a few things: because of the issues, I had services which included parent training and I learned a lot of things that I found helpful for both my challenging kids and my typical kids. I also in general use the more positive interactions as a time for instilling the concepts of right or wrong. In the moment, I aim only to stop the behavior immediately, whether by removing the child from the situation or taking away something or ending the outing etc. For danger, I either remove them from the situation, or if it won't be too serious, let them get hurt once. They learn not to do it again.

I still don't believe mishlei needs to be taken literally. Either way, shevet/sharvit is something leaders have that denotes their authority over the people. The most important thing is that the kids know you are the parents and therefore the one in charge. There are a million and one ways in which to assert that, not all of those paths involve corporal punishment.

amother wrote:

So let your child run wild, play with fire, punch other kids, good luck with that.

For the record people have always complements me on my kids good behavior becuse they remember when on particular child was always getting into trouble bh with Hashem's help we have been able to teach him in a loving way what's right from wrong. My other kids never needed it for they simply were good kids from day one.

Learn a little reading comprehension, why don't you Rolling Eyes

I specifically said I have managed to raise my children to know NOT to do those things without resorting to corporal punishment. Believe it or not, most of us who don't believe in hitting also don't believe in letting our children run wild and hefker Rolling Eyes

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:11 pm

amother wrote:

Also, you're saying this after having grown up in a society that was itself already influenced by his views. It's not really possible to say that on an individual level, you haven't been influenced.

I think it would be wrong for my husband and I to say that we will raise our children exactly as they were raised in the 1800's. Obviously, society's views do have some influence on us, and it should. Rightly or wrongly, there are norms in every society and no-one should deviate too much from the norms.

It made sense to raise children more strictly when society in general was more strict, but it is best to be somewhat looser in our parenting standards when society in general is much more lenient. We are not parenting in a vacuum, and we don't live in a bubble. We do have to interact with the society around us. So we have to raise our children to be able to live normally in today's society.

As for Dr. Spock's views - how do you know that I have been influenced by his views? I don't think I have, honestly. As for parenting intuitively being a direct influence from Dr. Spock - I read this in the book "Reb Simcha Speaks" that Rabbi Simcha Wasserman (Rav Elchonon Wasserman's son, he and his Rebbetzin never had children of their own) advised parents when asked about how to raise their children to follow their heart. He said that people think that a child is born without any instructions, but actually this is not so, all babies are born with instructions - the instruction pamphlet is written in the mother's heart. I am pretty sure that R' Simcha was not influenced by Dr. Spock.

amother

Ruby

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:22 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Could have fooled me. That is NOT what I am seeing.

How do you know the exact parenting techniques going on of every wild and out of control kid you see? How do you know their parents don't potch them? FTR, I know several families where the kids are nuts and the parents do hit. Basically, they do nothing while the kids run around like Tasmanian devils until they do something that the parents just can't ignore and then they come out and smack them ten times on the bottom. And this happens again and again, the kids learn nothing. I also know many wild kids whose parents don't hit, but also don't do, well, anything at all. And then there are the ones who I don't know well enough to know what they do or don't do. I don't think this is a parenting philosophy, it's just laziness or overwhelm. People who have a philosophy of not hitting generally have a plan for what to do instead.

SuperWify

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:24 pm

Shlomo Hamelech said spare the rod spoil the child- which I take to mean be mechanech your child. And it doesn’t have to get physical.

To those parents who do hit their kids- please make sure it’s not out of anger but PURELY for your child’s chinuch. I have witnessed close family members hit their children out of anger and it wasn’t pretty.

I also heard that it’s assur to hit your child if you have even a trace of anger when you do so. It must be purely for chinuch sake.
I can’t say I will have such intentions and therefore don’t plan on raising my hand on my kids.

leah233

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:47 pm

amother wrote:

(1)Obviously I can't tell you al regel achas, but I will say a few things: because of the issues, I had services which included parent training and I learned a lot of things that I found helpful for both my challenging kids and my typical kids.(2) I also in general use the more positive interactions as a time for instilling the concepts of right or wrong.In the moment, I aim only to stop the behavior immediately, (3)whether by removing the child from the situation or taking away something or ending the outing etc. For danger, I either remove them from the situation, or if it won't be too serious, let them get hurt once. They learn not to do it again.

(1)If you are going to be vague about it then you can't expect others to follow your example

(2)Most children with significant behavioral challenges don't usually care about right or wrong. They will or won't do what they want. Unless they believe they have what to lose for it.

(3)When a defiant child comes to their parents looking for a fight and power struggle , demanding whatever, refusing whatever, there simply is no way to "just remove them from the situation"

But a little "potch therapy" works wonders with some of the above.

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 6:56 pm

amother wrote:

I certainly don't know the exact parenting techniques of every wild and out of control kid, but I do know SOME of them. The ones who terrorized my children, to be exact. When I complained to the mother she said "there is nothing I can do". When my husband complained to the father he said "there's nothing I can do." Um... why not? Why is there nothing you can do? And I know for a fact that the parents did not believe in hitting (and probably any kind of punishment, for that matter), they believed in talking and explaining things through stories. I'm all for stories, etc. but there's a limit to everything, IMHO.

To be clear, I am certainly not advocating that hitting should be the only parenting trick in the tool box. It takes a tremendous amount of patience, love, tefillos, and just plain hard work to raise kids. I'm only saying that SOMETIMES, kids who know that there are limited consequences can SOMETIMES be out of control. And I'm also saying that it should not be something that is a NEVER. A kid should know, in the back of his mind, that there CAN be consequences for bad behavior, even if the parents rarely does it.

And of course, there can be a lot of reasons for wild and out of control kids (this is not the only one). Life is complex, if everyone's behavior would be as simple as A=B, there would be a lot less parenting books being written.

amother

Firebrick

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 8:07 pm

SuperWify wrote:

I agree with every word and you voiced my beliefs.
IF you are on the level to hit a child once in a blue moon for the sake of chinnuch then ok but unfortunately most of us aren’t and therefor we need to find other ways to be mechanech our children.

I have a family member who strongly believes in hitting to “put children in place”. Her kids get hit as young as 1 year old on a daily basis. It’s abuse plain and simple cloaked in “chinnuch”! I cry for these kids who incidentally are still so young yet are from the most misbehaved and chutzpahdig kids I know.

amother

Ruby

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 10:18 pm

leah233 wrote:

1. What do you want, that I should explain every detail of every situation I've come across with every kid over many years? I'm happy to be more specific if you're more specific.

2. Is simply incorrect. Anyone who can't eventually figure out right or wrong is in need of serious professional intervention. If it's not at that level, they can be taught, and without physical punishment. Teach them by example, and they learn. When they're doing something wrong you have many options for consequences depending on the situation. Again, feel free to bring specific examples and I will tell you what I do.

3. See above. Obviously removing from the situation is only for a limited amount of circumstances. But ammunition can be removed (both physical and verbal), privileges can be revoked, etc.

BTW, I really don't care that other parents hit. I don't think it's automatically abuse or that those who do it are terrible people. But don't you dare insinuate that those who don't do so are bad parents or that kids who aren't hit must not be disciplined, because that isn't true.

amother

Ruby

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 10:22 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Well your exact words when I said that not hitting b'shitta =/= not disciplining b'shitta were "could have fooled me, that's not what I'm seeing". Implying that all those little hellions you're coming across are not hit and therefore they act like this. Now you admit that you don't actually know that. And your example doesn't mean that all wild kids are not hit nor does it mean that all those who don't hit don't discipline. It means one family you know is too lazy to parent at all. Which is terrible, but doesn't tell you anything about how other families choose to handle misbehavior.

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 10:32 pm

amother wrote:

I said that I don't actually know that? Where oh where did I say that? I said I DID know that. Obviously, I do not know every single family on the planet, I just know the ones that I have come across. And I said, very clearly, that the parents DO parent, they prefer to use persuasive techniques such as storytelling, reasoning with their children, etc. Many other parents do try to discipline, but their discipline methods are obviously not effective, and are not working, which is exactly what I was saying.

You seem to have completely twisted my words, I'm completely bewildered as to how you managed to read all of the above from my posts.

I would like to mention, as well, that I'm sure there are plenty of parents who raise wonderful children using only positive and more positive, but you DO have to realize that this doesn't work for all kids, in all kinds of situations. The Torah viewpoint is to give more love than discipline, but I do believe that there should be room for some sort of corporal punishment in the parental toolbox in the possible scenario that it might be necessary. And for some kids it just might be necessary. That is all I am saying.

Mommyg8

Sun, Mar 04 2018, 11:14 pm

I just wanted to add something here that has really been bothering me - maybe I should start a spinoff....

I know someone (who shall remain nameless and faceless) who does something that bothers me very much. I have been in her house, and I have watched her deal with her kids. No, she does not hit, but the behavior I have seen is definitely abusive, IMHO. Not borderline abusive, but out and out, fully fledged abuse. I don't want to go into detail, as I don't want to identify her, but every time I am there, I have this overwhelming urge to drag her kids home with me, shower them with lots of hugs and kisses, and somehow make up for all the craziness that they are now exposed to. I actually did try to help her in a roundabout way, but otherwise, my hands are tied.

I know someone else (and I have watched this happen so I know it's true) who was emotionally abused by her mother. I don't know if her mother hit, but certainly not past a certain age. She did all kinds of things (including playing mind games with her), up until this girl got married, to make her daughter's life a living h*ll.

To me, this is much, much worse than the light hitting we are talking about here. Yet, for some reason this is never addressed. To quote the old adage "sticks and stones may break my bones by words will never hurt me" NOT TRUE. Words can kill. They can destroy worlds. They can destroy children's lives. They can destroy adult lives.

For some reason, everyone seems to focus on the light potching that those of who potch will do in today's world, but I have never heard a word about this kind of crazy, emotional abuse. It is time to change that.

InnerMe

Mon, Mar 05 2018, 1:30 pm

Teomima wrote:

Teomima, Your whole post is absolutely beautiful, and the bolded almost makes me cry, so poignantly expressed.