- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Toddlers: 24 Months+
mooke
member
Spankings?
mooke
member
What are your thoughts on spanking and do you spank? I keep saying I'm not going to spank because I don't feel like I'm getting any results, however I get caught up in the moment and find myself spanking my 3 year old often. I'm having a really hard time with him listening to anything I say. I've tried time outs and they don't work either so I'm starting to feel hopeless!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Spankings?
When you spank because you are "caught up in the moment" you aren't teaching- you are punishing out of anger. You are hitting your kid because you're mad. If you did that to an adult, you could be charged with assault. This is the opposite of what I want to teach my child. So no, I do not spank. I've tapped his hand a couple of times and instantly felt terrible and apologized.
If time outs don't work and redirection doesn't work- you aren't doing it correctly. Think of these things as teaching- not as punishment. Also, you have to be consistent. If you are trying to correct a behavior, you have to stop him every time he does it.
If my LO isn't listening, I could down from 3-2-1. He figured out really quick I meant business when I count down. So I'll say "If you don't pick up that toy, I'm going to put it away" and he'll ignore me so I'll count 3-2-1 and he picks it up. If he doesn't, I pack it away somewhere where he can't get to it for a while.
Make the consequences fit the crime. If he runs away, you pick him up. If he won't pick up his toys, he can't play with them for a while.
We do not spank, and we don't plan to. DD is also 3, and if she doesn't listen to me the first time, I'll go over and get down on her level, make eye contact, repeat my request, and make sure she acknowledges me. We also praised a lot when she followed directions the first time. She's much better now, usually, all I have to say is, "DD, Mommy asked you to _______." in my strict mom tone, and that does it.
I have to agree with PP. If you're spanking because you're caught up in the moment, you're doing it out of frustration, and that's not really teaching your kid anything. Plus, it's not working, so maybe work on another outlet for you when your kid is being difficult. Walk to another room, take some deep breaths, whatever you need to calm yourself down so you can deal with LO more rationally.
We don't spank and don't plan to. DS is willful and smart, but we discipline him consistently and because of that he's well-behaved. Read up on positive discipline methods and the proper way to do timeouts, and do it EVERY SINGLE time. Consistency is key. Good luck
I'm just transitioning over here...hope you don't mind me chiming in.
Here's what works for us. I get down on her level, look in her eyes and explain in as few words as possible. "We only kick balls. We don't kick people. Now let's go give a hug to X person and apologize."
Also, I'm big on fixing the mistake if possible. I get on her level and do the talk thing again. Then I make her fix it. So it looks like, "We are gentle with books. We can't throw them. Now go pick it up please and put it away nicely." If she doesn't oblige, I take her hand and show her. If she does it again, it's mine for awhile.
And yeah, I redirect like crazy still. If she starts acting up I know it's either a) nap time b) time to move on to something else.
I've also learned that positivity in my word choice helps a lot. I think it's just so engrained in me from teaching. It sounds completely stupid but it does work to change everyone's attitude to focus more on what's right instead of what's wrong. "We kick balls, not people" is just better than "I said stop KICKING!" Praising jobs wells done also seems to prevent acting out for attention at least for my kid. Just thinking about how to word stuff more positively when I'm feeling frustrated stops me from overreacting.
Also, like babies. Out of sight. Out of mind. There are certain things that cause her to act out so I put them away unless I'm willing to sit right there with her or we avoid it all together. It's still about prevention at this age around here.
I'm not the biggest fan of time out. My kid just doesn't quite get it. I'm also all about let's fix it and move on at this age. By the time I carry her back to her time out spot 3526325 times just so we sit, we both forget what the problem was in the first place. I'll revist it when she's old enough to understand it better.
We don't use any form of physical discipline in our house and I hope we never do. It's just really a tough age, no doubt about it (I know my LO is younger than yours, but I was a nanny for a lot of years so I get it)! Here's what we do:
Natural/Logical Consequences: You want to go outside in the frigid cold without a coat? Go ahead, see how far you get! That's natural consequences. Logical Consequences would be something like, you decided to pound your fork against our wood table after I asked you to stop, now you can eat without a fork.
Choices: This one is key and we do a lot with it. It's a way of making them feel more in control which is something all toddlers crave. "Do you want to leave the park now or one minute from now?" "Do you want to leave the park walking or with me carrying you?" Either way we are leaving the park, but LO gets to decide how. It really helps to take the focus off of what they can't control and lets them think about what they can. You can turn virtually anything into a choice.
We try to say 'yes' as often as we can. "I want a glass of milk." Instead of saying, "No, you don't get milk with lunch" I say "Yes, when you wake up from your nap."
We use time-outs for things like hitting and pushing. There is no warning we just put her behind the gate and walk away for 2-3 minutes. To me that is where a time-out is useful because it is still a relevant lesson. If you treat people badly they will not want to be around you.
We also try to pick our battles. Today DD was spitting some of her food back on to her plate. Not sure why, maybe it was fun, maybe it didn't taste right? Just totally ignored it, if it becomes a habit I will probably address it, but at that moment I just thought, whatever!
When I feel like I'm losing my cool I find a spot on the wall, a leaf on a tree, crack on the sidewalk to stare at and take a few deep breathes. It works wonders! I don't feel like there's ever a 'right' reason to spank, but in particular spanking out of anger is never a good thing! It takes a lot of courage to realize you are going about things the wrong way and try to find other approaches so I commend you for that!
Don't feel bad. I would have done the same thing. My DD is sweet and polite and very well behaved most of the time. I get a lot of compliments on her behavior. But I don't agree that the only reason that kids act out is because they are confused or overstimulated or whatever. Sometimes(and you can tell as a mother (and I can as a teacher)) the difference between exploring/pushing limits and straight out defiance. When people tell me that theydon't think that their kids ever do anything bad on purpose, I want to laugh in their faces and wish them luck for the teenage years. Kids need to learn that they are not in charge and there are times that I don't mess around with time out. Flat out defiance like that and I would have spanked her. To each her own, and I know this is an UO. Each kid responds differently to different "punishments." But I want to scream from the rooftop, sometimes kids are naughty/bad, however you want to say it, and you need to make sure they know that that behavior is not acceptable.
We don't spank and never will. It's a loss of control on the parents' part, IMO, and it doesn't work, in my experience.
3 year olds are hard. 4 year olds are worse. It gets better.
No. And I won't.
Hitting someone when you're angry is exactly the sort of behavior we tell them is inappropriate. Hitting someone when you're not angry is also the sort of behavior we tell them is inappropriate. Hitting someone "for their own good" is... well, if you do it to an adult, it's abuse - even when it doesn't leave a mark. (No, I'm not labeling you a child abuser. Our culture has managed to separate out intentionally hitting-to-teach-a-lesson with someone who is under, say, 10 years old versus someone who is, say, 30 years old. The former isn't considered abuse by most people, the latter is. I acknowledge that. But I cannot explain it. I cannot figure out WHY that difference should exist. Other than the 10 year old cannot possibly get away from it and the 30 year old could?)
I do not believe most kids - certainly at 3 years old - are intentionally defiant while knowing the full extent of that defiance - the adult definition.
Are there a few cases of kids with mental problems that are? Yeah, probably.
Are totally normal 3 year olds defiant? In the primary definition of the word ("a daring or bold resistance to authority or to any opposing force") sure. That's pretty much their job. To find boundaries - which requires resisting authority - and to test out all of their world. Doing it boldly is just good character.
In the secondary definition of the word ("open disregard; contempt"), however, they don't. They don't understand the idea of contempt - and the implied insult behind it - that adults do.
I feel like most parents who say their kids are defiant feel that their kid is openly saying "dude, you're a moron and I don't like you so I'm going to ignore whatever you say". They're not. They're saying "dude, I'm totally smart, and I like to do this thing over here, so I'm going to do what I want to do." Please count the difference in "you" versus "I" in those two sentences - parents feeling their kids are reflecting on the parents, versus kids really only thinking about in terms of themselves. And I think parents get mad at the feeling of how it relates back to them, even though it doesn't really. It's just a parental mis-representation of a toddler - crediting them with adult thinking that they are not yet capable of.
Don't get me wrong - after years of living in an adult world, that's how we all instinctively react. Someone is defiant, and we think it reflects on us because - were it an adult - it would. So we get offended, and we get mad. But we aren't dealing with creatures with that sort of reasoning capacity. It's a fairly natural human instinct to respond to an attack (or assumed attack) with violence. It's just not very helpful.
And, don't get me wrong, after the household I grew up in, I completely understand that instinct that is to respond with hitting. Personally, I understand it. And I've taken years to work on getting out of that habit, because it's not healthy for me, or the people around me.
Of course, it's easy to say "no, no, don't do that!" and not give any useful stuff with it. (But hey, don't we do that to our kids all the time? Or at least, we have to work at not doing so.)
For what it's worth, I sympathize with time-outs not working. They don't do much for us here either, so we stopped using them. I will use a "break" - for either of us - if either one of us is so worked up that we just can't process things straight. I've used it on myself more often than her, but I prefer having the same basic rules apply to both of us. Much like other people have suggested, we use the following:
1) saying "yes" a lot - if we can do something she asks (reasonably), we do. why not? if she wants to go to the park before preschool for 10 minutes and we have time to do it, why not say yes? if she wants to jump in puddles and is happy getting washed down afterwards and taking off her shoes so she doesn't soak them, why not? but this also means finding ways of saying yes - if she wants to draw on the floor to make paths for her car, that's not ok, but we can tape a big piece of paper to the floor that she can draw paths on. if she wants to help me make muffins, I'll say no to measuring the vanilla, but yes to her pouring it in the bowl. it requires creativity to get good at turning something to which you'd say no into something to which you can say yes, but it gets easier with practice.
2) choices - as many times as possible, even if it's for little things, give choices. we let her pick what clothes she wants to wear, what books she wants to read, what she wants for breakfast (from a few choices we offer, of course), what she wants to do if we don't have other plans, whether or not she wears her jacket, when she puts on her shoes (as long as it's by the time she needs to), what color plate she wants to eat dinner off of, which table she wants to eat lunch at, whether she says, and so on. they can be little things, but they make her feel that she has control over things in her world, and helps her know that we only set hard limits on things there really are hard limits on.
3) consistency - if you expect a certain behavior, you must be 100% consistent with it. if I tell her she can't jump on the kitchen table chairs, and she does, she gets one warning, and then is taken off the chair and removed from the table (whether she's finished dinner or just started). if I tell her that she cannot run into walls (or people or dogs) with her riding toys in the house, it gets put away if she does. period. there are no "it's too hard for me to deal with this time" excuses. (and yeah, I've stuck my foot in my mouth a few times saying "no, you can't do this" out of habit, when really she could have, but consistency is important.)
4) calmness and reasonable expectations - I'm not saying don't show any emotion, but don't take things personally. kids this age are weird, annoying, funny, and generally not composed adults. (sometimes, maybe we'd have more fun if we were more like them, eh?) it's ok, and if you EXPECT your 3 year old to behave like a 3 year old, you'll be less disappointed and less angry.
5) logical/natural consequences - basic behavioral modification here. the response to an action must be appropriate to the action and immediate to the action. it's not logical to get spanked 10 minutes after running away from mom, or right after throwing something in the house. it IS logical to immediately lose the privilege to walk by themselves after running away (if you can't walk appropriately, you can't walk). it IS logical to immediately lose a toy that isn't being played with appropriately (if you can't play with the toy properly, you can't play with the toy period). natural consequences are great too, but obviously not practical for everything. (but they are great for "you didn't play with the toy properly, now it's broken and you can't play with it at all" sort of thing. you don't go buy a new toy; you live with the natural consequence of the behavior.)
6) related very closely to #5 - unrewarded behavior will extinguish itself (and, conversely, rewarded behavior will be reinforced and increased). kids get "rewarded" from all kinds of bad behavior - because it's FUN, and fun is a reward. climbing up the bookshelf? yeah, against the rules and dangerous. but if left unchecked, it'll keep happening because it's FUN! so, throw in a little of #5, and you take them out of the room their climbing in (a correction to undesired behavior). adding in a little of #1, though, and find somewhere they CAN climb instead (outside, on pillows, on boxes, etc.) and you've just corrected undesired behavior, but then created a self-rewarding behavior - not only is the climbing fun, but finding a NEW thing that is ok (doesn't get you in trouble) to climb on is totally fun for kids. (of course, this doesn't work if you're not consistent in enforcing climbing rules.)
Anyway, I'm tired. I've rambled. I hope this makes sense to someone who is less tired than I am.
But no, we don't spank, won't spank (yeah, I used a "I will never" in parenting, and I plan to honor it much as humanly possible), and will keep looking for other ways to deal with inappropriate behavior that do not require fear* or hitting.
*If your child is human, and not a masochist, and doesn't suffer from disorders which prevent him/her from feeling physical pain, there is, without question, fear and anxiety involved in spanking, because spanking causes pain, and the human body doesn't like pain and produced stress hormones in response to it.
I'm not a fan of spanking because I'm pretty sure that when I want to beat the crap out of my kid, the spank will be more for me than him.
Plus, he's aggressive and destructive. We struggle the most with hitting and pushing and throwing toys, pushing furniture over, and other aggressive behaviors. If I hit him when I'm not happy with his behavior, I feel like that teaches him that it's okay to hit when you are unhappy.
We do a lot of redirection, choices, natural/logical consequences, and timeout. We reserve timeout for hitting and pushing.
it saddens me that someone who is a teacher could be so ignorant about child development.
Oh, and everything tiffanyberry said.
read 1,2,3 Magic. Follow it to the letter and you will feel like you have more control.
good luck
I agree with KC here as well. As a teacher I just can't agree at all. Do I believe 10 years olds can be defiant for the sake of it? Yes. But they're 10, they're old enough to know better, understand more things etc. We're talking about 2-3 year olds here. The only thing they understand is what's immediate. They're still learning about cause and effect. It's our job to help them with that.
Also, a home setting is so much different than a school setting in a lot of ways. The comparison is not at all the same.
Yes, this. I will never spank. I don't think it would be sending the right message to my daughter. Sure, I get frustrated some times and I definitely yell more than I would like, but I will not spank. Three is difficult. I have two main issue with my daughter: listening and doing what I ask her to do. For listening, I have found that she responds much better if I hold her hands or her shoulders and look right into her eyes and then talk to her. I think that forces her to focus on me. As far as doing what is asked - like stop playing and get dressed - it works better if I make it a game. She'll race me or a timer, and if she "wins" I reward her in some way - an extra story or cartoon or a treat. For truly bad behavior (hitting her sister or something) she sits in time out until she is calm (no crying or whining) and then we talk about why she's in time out.
Our family blog
I grew up in an abusive household. I told myself growing up and into adulthood that I would never spank my children. Fast forward to age 2.5, and I did. I tried redirection. I tried "I will take XYZ away" and then followed through with taking the toy away. I have tried counting to three. I tried what I thought was everything, and got no results. One day, I spanked him, and I got results. A while later, I spanked him again and got results. I continued to spank him, not all the time, but when I felt at the end of my rope.
Then there was a moment where I told him that he was going to get spanked, and he said, "No. Please Mommy. No." and my heart was broken. I realized I had set out to do so much differently as a parent than my parents, and I was resorting to negative physical contact on a child that fully depended on me for affection, guidance and knowing right and wrong. What was I teaching him? I stopped spanking him and began utilizing "1-2-3" and redirection more. I have seen a lot of improvement in his behavior since. Are there still days I want to spank him? Aaaaaabsolutely. But I don't want him to look back on his childhood and remember that.
I also tell myself, "This too shall pass." This is such a small fraction of their life. In no time at all, it will feel like a million years ago.
Thank you so much for being able to relate to my situation. I have been working hard to improve on discipline but it is very very hard at this age. I made a pact to myself to not spank anymore no matter what. I do still feel so bad about the times I have spanked but I'm going to try and forget about that and move on and find new ways to deal. It's so nice to know that I'm not alone. For a while there, I was starting to think that I was the only one who's every gotten angry and spanked my kid or that I was the only one with a 3 year old who doesn't like to listen! THANK YOU!!
Definitely do forgive yourself. You are trying, and not giving up, and listening to your inner voice (and others) to seek improvement. That, kinda by definition, makes you an awesome mom. Everyone makes mistakes and does things they'd rather not - whether it's spanking or yelling or something else; you are definitely not alone! I really, really applaud you for deciding you want to change it and making realistic attempts to do so!
I have done a quick, light swat on the butt if I need his immediate attention/redirection. Nothing painful, just enough to get his attention to make him stop doing whatever he's doing.
Other than that, no spanking around here. We mostly use the count to three method and the time-out method. I haven't had to give a time-out in weeks though, because the count to three thing is working for us.