Well not really…but honestly….

If I thought I was wrong in my approach to parenting I’d probably do it the way of someone else, so at the very least I think it’s right for ME.   That isn’t to say I don’t have a constant barrage of self-criticisms and self-doubts that run through my head and sound something like this “you are not doing this parenting thing nearly as well as you planned, someone else could probably do it much better and help your children reach their full potential, , you are far too impatient, yell too much, are horribly disorganized, don’t do nearly enough with them and don’t take very good care of your family on the whole”.  But when it comes to my position on how I THINK I should parent, well I feel pretty solid about that.  So since this ISN’T Facebook and feels like a completely appropriate place to voice my very strong opinions let me get started with probably one of the hottest (and most beaten to death) topics when it comes to parenting….

Spanking – HITTING

I want to be clear on this, I make the distinction not because I’m judging parents who choose to spank hit their kids but because by definition that is in fact what they are doing (and I have done). And if it makes someone uncomfortable to give it that clear distinction maybe that should be food for thought.  There is of course degrees of hitting, and no I don’t think I need to call the Child Welfare Authorities because I witness a parenting hitting their child on the bum, no I don’t think they are doing irreparable damage, no I don’t think their child is going to have a propensity towards violence or suffer from depression throughout their life – at least not for certain.  But what I feel fairly sure of is that there are better, more productive way to parent and discipline than hitting your child, and that it is sending them the message that if someone isn’t doing what you want them to do it is acceptable to hit them to “correct” them.  Whenever I see this debate come up there are always “those” people who present their arguments in such an aggressive way, that regardless of which side they come down on, I just want them to, well shut-up. And if that’s the effect they have, they really aren’t representing “their side” all that well.  One thing that really irritates me is when some advocates of hitting suggest that parents who don’t hit their children therefore don’t discipline their children.  Now if that’s really their only method of discipline I think those children stand a good chance of having all those issues that I mentioned above.  But, and now maybe I’m giving them too much credit, but I don’t honestly believe for the majority, that is the case.  I think they are just trying to make a point, but quite frankly it’s not working, at least not on me.  I believe that I can absolutely discipline my children without hitting them, I believe they will turn out to be respectable, kind, responsible and accountable citizens without my laying a hand on them.  I already know that I am apparently not above hitting my children, I’ve done it to each of them once or twice, and neither time do I think it was warranted and on every occasion I felt worse for having done it.  The fact is I lost my cool, I lost my patience and knowing me as I do, I can be almost certain that there were mitigating factors that had nothing to do with them.  I also know that I didn’t do any long term damage and that I thought about it afterwards a lot longer than they did, that I still on occasion could return to that moment in time and feel ashamed, and that they probably didn’t think about it again (unless I’m wrong and they are compiling a list of grievances going back several years).  Now I’ve heard the defense from parents who advocate hitting that when they do it they are in control, that it hasn’t been in the heat of anger/frustration and that it’s done out of love.  Now while I understand that under these circumstances they are maybe not hitting their child as hard as the parent who has lost control, it is frankly harder for me to wrap my brain around “calmly hitting your child”.  I suppose that’s because I can put myself in the shoes of a parent who is at the end of their rope and reacts in that moment because that was me, I can never imagine myself calmly and rationally deciding that my best course of action is to hit my child.  All this being said I have only had the experience of parenting my children and maybe there are those exceptions where the only reasonable and fair response to a child’s behavior is to discipline them by hitting them.  One might argue that it would be reasonable and justified to hit your child in response to them hitting you, after all there’s a pretty good chance in the “real” world someone else would be very likely to hit them back, and you could reason that this is a learning opportunity (especially since as their parent you’re likely to hold back a lot more!).  But I don’t think it makes sense to hit your child because they hit someone else.  However if your child strikes back at their sibling you’d be well within reason to give them a pass and let your other child know that’s the consequence for hitting someone, they hit back.  While I tend to encourage my kids to walk away because to retaliate only causes the situation to escalate, I’m not entirely convinced that’s 100% true and I wonder what would have happened in school had I “retaliated” against the bullies who made my Grade 7 year completely miserable (it wasn’t physical, let’s just get that out of the way) But that is a whole nother, and also unoriginal topic, for another day.