Let me start off by saying that I appreciate everyone’s input in this matter. I still have much to learn about child-rearing and habits training. We have eight children, 3 boys, five girls.
In our home, the girls have been much easier to train gently, only one of them have we ever spanked.
The boys are the opposite – only one have we NOT spanked. I don’t believe we’ve had to spank the same child more than a couple of times. It can be a good correction, for some children, in some situations, in my opinion.
I was raised in a home where my mother spanked in anger. This never worked, and I honestly never had any idea what I had done wrong. My father was more the time out in a corner type – like coralloyd’s post. Generally we find that highly effective also – including the no speaking, no eye contact, etc. Haven’t tried the van-when-in-public idea, but I like it.
We have three children who are the push-the-limits types, and a well-timed and well-understood spanking has been of value there.
So, in my experience, I would not push the spanking is always wrong idea, nor that it is the only way to discipline. Children are very, very different and have different levels of sensitivity. From what I have seen, this is frequently a heart matter, and the “harder” ones need a lot more character training alongside the discipline.
The only thing I will say without hesitation is do not spank in anger. It will not help.
I am interested to read the rest of the responses.
