Theater of the Soul

Nothing gets peoples panties in a wad like the old Discipline Versus Child Abuse debate. I again bow to the Master of Controversy:

Some people, maybe because of the way they were raised, were appalled, because they don’t understand the difference between discipline and child abuse. And ANY fucking fool who says you never have ANY reason to spank a child is a complete loon.

I recieved 3 memorable beatings when I was a kid/teenager. The first one happened when I was around 7 or 8. We had a Walk-A-Thon at school and I somehow managed to find myself sponsoring one of my classmates. I didn’t fully understand what that meant at the time I don’t think, but when the day came to pay up, I went into my parents checkbook, took a check and filled it out. I even signed MY name to the fucking thing and the bank honored it. About a month later, my mother found out and all hell broke loose. I vividly remember her chasing me around my bedroom with a hairbrush, threatening to beat me within an inch of my life. She got in a few good whacks when my father, ever the voice of reason, realized that (although I had done something wrong) I didn’t realize it was wrong. But boy oh boy did the message hit home.
The second time was shortly after my father died. My mother was stressed out as it was and this wasn’t a time when I should have been fucking around. I skipped school one day with some friends and hid out at a fort that we had in the woods. We accidentally set the fort on fire (it had been built out of dead pine tree branches with the pine needles still mostly intact). We burned down 2 acres of woodland with that little stunt and it didn’t take long for the cops to figure out who was involved. I got slapped around good for that one.
The third incident was for shoplifting…this was the same year that I had taken part in the fire incident, so I must have been 13 or so. I was quickly heading down a path that I shouldn’t have been going and my mother was (rightfully) pissed off. That was my 3rd and final smackdown and it’s not one I’d ever forget either.
With my own kids, I take a much more measured approach. I don’t wait for the shit to hit the fan and then overreact. What my mother did to me was fine, but the punishments always came in the heat of the moment. I decided many years ago what lines I wanted to draw in the sand for my children and I haven’t deviated from what I originally planned. My boys know that there are 3 things that will get their asses warmed: creating a danger to themselves, blatent disrespect of an adult in charge and taking/hurting other people’s property. Everything else is taken care of by loss of priviledges. I always give a warning, but ONE is all they get. If they still refuse to listen, than that’s their choice and they can deal with the consequences.
My oldest son has always been very EASY to raise. But, as luck would have it, puberty is sneaking up on him. He’s only 12, but the eye-rolling and heavy sighs have already started. I can tell you one thing though, I’ve raised him with an eye towards this period of time and I’ve always known that I wanted discipline instilled in him BEFORE this period of time. There’s nothing worse than trying to retrain a kid that’s in the midst of puberty when he’s been allowed to run wild his whole life. I’m fairly certain that he’ll eventually choose to pick a fight that he can’t win with me. I can also be fairly certain that if he EVER raised a hand to me, I’d open up a can of whoopass on him the likes of which he has never experienced. That’s the key to raising kids right there: you save that can of whoopass until you really need to drive the point home. If you’re opening that can every time the kid does something wrong, THAT is abuse.
There’s always been a huge difference between abuse and discipline in my mind. I’ve worked in both the child protective services field and the juvenile justice field. Ask any veteran of those fields and you’ll hear “CPS workers deal with the children who are beaten too much and JJ workers deal with the children who weren’t beaten enough”. There are HUGE swaths of difference between the two mindsets wherein lies the truth of the matter. Occasional physical discipline is NOT abuse. I’ve never actually met a CPS worker who believes that NO CHILD should EVER recieve a spanking. I know that there are those types out there, but most hold a much more realistic, middle-of-the-road approach.
Yes, there are children out there who have never had a spanking in their lives because they’ve never needed one. That’s wonderful and I’ve even met a few of the anomolies myself. Every child is an individual and needs to be treated as such.

It’s time that the world got back to common sense parenting.