Hype About Potching

listenhere

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:38 pm

amother OP wrote:

No, I really don't, and I know that I have a temper that is fairly easily activated, so it would not be a good place for me to go.
I'm asking from more of an intellectual perspective. Because I read some of these posts and I can't handle when grown women start throwing titles like abuser at each other without talking cold, logical facts.

My response, and some others, were very logical. We can have a conversation if you respond to them.

Which part doesn’t make sense to you?

behappy2

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:38 pm

amother OP wrote:

You sure you don't want to get into an argument? Because it kind of looks like it.

amother

Lightgray

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:46 pm

You’re lying when you say people haven’t explained it logically on other threads.
It has been explained and discussed very extensively.

Would you tie your child’s hands?
Would you put them in a dark room as a punishment?
Would you pinch them?
Would you put soap in their mouths?

All of these have been used as forms of chinuch (read obedience) in the past. As has hittting.

The reason it’s wrong? It’s mean.

You don’t hurt a child because you want him to do obey.

Instead talk to them. Model the type of home and person you want them to be. Empathize and be kind. Kids are not animals and shouldn’t be trained. Don’t run your home like a military camp, where there are rules and consequences. Don’t be rigid. Don’t turn everything into a federal case. Give your children a home that runs on love.

Raising kids is hard. There will sometimes be tantrums and fights. Try to diffuse with a positive attitude. Tell your kids you love them. Sweat it through.

In no time they will grow up and into adults who’s mere existence will show the world what type of environment they were raised in.

amother

Forsythia

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:47 pm

Giraffe wrote:

How dare one have emotions. Suppress the emotions. Horrible emotional people

HYSTERIA HYSTERIA

I AM A STUPID HUMAN BEING. HYSTERIA I AM A VILE HUMAN BEING!

I’ve seen you pop up on various threads recently.
It seems you went through a lot of trauma. I’m so so sorry that you went through that. It’s an excruciating place to be. Are you in therapy or working through it?
Taking it out on others in a thread isn’t productive though

amother

Saddlebrown

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:57 pm

I actually don't have a problem with a parent, who grew up being hit, who gets angry and hits their kid. And then profusely apologizes and vows to do better.

That's a cycle breaker.

I dont understand being okay hitting a kid to begin with, as a method. Calculated and on purpose. Lightly, hard, on face or whatever. Ie as a chinuch tool. It's not a chinuch tool.

amother

Peach

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 9:58 pm

OP, let me just share this:

I grew up being hit. Excessively. By both parents. For very minute and trivial offenses. It was abusive, I suffered terribly because of it - and I don't even mean physically, and vowed I wasn't going to be that kind of parent.

Then I had kids. And I really tried to not be that parent. But one day I lost it with my most challenging child when she was about 4 or 5 years old. I gave her one really hard smack on her behind. Just the one, that one time. I felt badly but reassured myself I wasn't like my parents. It was only once. I didn't whack her until there were handprints or scarring.

Then a short time later I overheard her talking with her little friend who came over to play. Her friend asked her if she ever got potched and she said yes, once. Her friend said, "that must be so scary" and my daughter said, "Yeah, I was really scared. It's still scary."

I can't even think about this and not cry. How is this anything but bullying. A big strong powerful person hitting a tiny defenseless and weak person? To teach them something? To make them better? It's a sickness to believe this. It should never happen.

scintilla

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:17 pm

amother Peach wrote:

You just reminded me of a similar story I had. As I said upthread I was not hit as a child, and I don't believe in hitting my children. There was one time I snapped and hit one of my children to make them go to sleep (child was around 3). In the middle of that night he woke up crying and when I went to him he was standing in his crib and saying over and over again, "Mommy be gentle, Mommy be gentle!" broke my heart... Of course I held him for a long time and told him Mommy would be gentle 😭 and the next day I spoke with him about it and apologized and told him Mommy would be gentle next time. I cry just thinking about it.

I don't need any empirical evidence...

amother

Poinsettia

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:20 pm

Plenty of people tell me they only hit for chutzpa. Well guess what, hitting will not make your kids respect you, they might fear you but I doubt they'll respect you.
Self control when ones authority is being questioned is hard but however you react is the way your children will regard you in the future.
I have a hard time respecting my mom. She'd demand total obedience and then bully us physically if we didn't behave in whatever matter she decided was derech eretzdik enough. So we towed the line, not out of respect but out of fear, and as soon as we left the house she has no influence on my life because I know she can't hit me any longer.
So think how you want the relationship with your children to be like and what it should be based on.

amother

Yarrow

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:22 pm

Hey I'm also highly intellectual and your posts makes me want to vomit.
Go ahead and hit your kids. Talk to me in 25 years and let me know how you all are doing.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
All hitting is either abuse or totally unwarranted and ineffective.

Btw I personally gave many other good options so either you're lying or you don't want to see them.

BrisketBoss

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:22 pm

tichellady wrote:

It may not be abusive in every case but it’s lazy parenting. Parenting isn’t about getting your kids to listen to you because you are bigger and stronger, it’s about raising people who will go on to be confident, healthy adults without you

Exactly! So many parents are convinced that their job is to 'make' their kids do things. They believe this is called 'teaching' and is very important. But then, if they succeed, the kids are acting based on what they believe their parents' response will be. They're not acting on the values we actually want to teach them. When they grow up they will likely come into those values because of exposure and maturity, but despite all the behaviorism, not because of it.

I think just withholding things until you get a 'please' is pretty cringy. And that's to say nothing of potching.

Last edited by BrisketBoss on Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Firebrick

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:27 pm

All I know is that my mother hit me and I can’t stand her. I answer her phone call on Fridays but can hardly bear to talk to her. I am much closer with my mother in law than I am to her.

My father never hit me and I love him and have a warm positive relationship with him.

So whose example will I try to follow?

Redbird

Sun, Dec 24 2023, 10:54 pm

OP, I absolutely disagree with potching, yet I agree with your skepticism about it being abuse no matter what.

There seems to be a strong need do define abuse and put it in a box, and that's why there's a debate if potching is abuse.

But there isn't a simple definition, because abuse is not really a behavior, it's a pattern of behaviors.

Like if a kid is potched on all the time, for reasons that are not reasonable, if the expectations are not normal for a kid that age... If the kid is made to feels on always edge in their own home... If they startle easy because they don't know when the next potch is coming. Then it's clear abusive. If a kid is potched occasionally then its really not clear if it's "abuse."

Same with yelling, emotional neglect... Etc If you don't have the emotional energy for your kids for a day or a while, and you snap at them, that's not the end of the world. Especially if you apologize or at least explain to your kids that its not their fault.

But if its constant, with no attempts at repair, that can be very damaging.

Anyways I wish we weren't questioning so much what's "abuse," and rather be asking whats emotially damaging vs whats emotially healthy, because only caring if something is abuse is such a non nuanced, non productive way of thinking.