Spanking

My parents got divorced when I was 8 years old. Prior to that time, my brother and I had the fear of Dad put into us when we misbehave with the ever classic, "Just wait till your father gets home...". We weren't beaten or anything, but we were spanked, and I don't ever recall getting spanked with just a bare hand. My father spanked us with a leather biker glove on, the paddle (a wooden cutting board with a handle), a hanger and a belt when we misbehaved. I don't remember much of my childhood before age 8, but the memories that I do have are definitely not the fondest.

Luckily, after my Mom took us and left my Dad, the spanking stopped. I was only hit one time after age 8 and that was when I was a teenager, mouthing off. My Mom slapped my face, I said it then and I'll say it now, I deserved that one. I was a horrible teenager and pushed WAY far over the limits MANY times.

Fast forward to when my son was born. Now my husband and I had to decide how we would raise our children. We talked it over a bit and really just came to the conclusion that neither of us were better people because of being spanked. It really is an ineffective punishment.

When my son was 2 years old and I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, that conviction was put to the test. He is and has always been a very good kid. The problem was at bedtime. I could not keep lifting him back into bed countless times every night. First, he was literally the size of a 4 year old; second, I was pregnant and exhausted; and third, I was the only one on bedtime duty since my husband and I worked opposite shifts to avoid having daycare. I ended up swatting him as a punishment for getting out of bed. He is has a "people pleaser" personality, so it didn't take more than a light swat on the tush to get through to him. That was pretty much the only time we ever employed spanking with him. During the daytime, a simple time out was sufficient to get his behavior back on track.

Fast forward to when my daughter was 2 years old. She is extremely stubborn and hard to get through to. Take away her toys? She doesn't care, she's got such an active imagination that she's content to play with anything or nothing. She's not all that attached to any one toy or doll anyways. Take away TV time? Doesn't matter, not that my kids watch that much TV anyways. Raise your voice? She laughs or just ignores. Time outs? No big deal. So, we opted for the "tried and true" spanking with her.

It didn't work.

I'm sure (though I've never tried it) that I could spank her as many times and as hard as I could and it would not phase her for more than a second. Literally. She does the little whine right after the spank and then gets right back to her antics before you're out the door.

Bed time has always been a challenge for us and a few months before the baby was born, the older two became roommates. We kept spanking, with no real results and didn't know what else to do. My sister-in-law suggested that we use a paddle on her, because that's what she does with her kids. She only wants them to associate love with her hands, so she "avoids" the negative by using a paddle. Absolutely absurd, if you ask me. I think that using anything but your hands is cowardly.

From the time the baby was 2 weeks old until she was about 8 months (in December), she was a very difficult baby, especially in the evenings. I kept racking my brain, trying to figure out what to do to get those kids to have a smoother bedtime. We have always done a bedtime routine and that hadn't made any difference. Spanking wasn't working. On top of that, I just felt horrible about spanking my kids when I never wanted to do it in the first place.

And, I was becoming a hypocrite. My son and daughter were hitting each other when the other wasn't doing what the first wanted. How could I talk to them about that effectively when I did it myself?

Fast forward to January 4, 2009. I lost control. I had never spanked in anger until that night. The kids were messing around after what seemed to be 100 warnings. I spanked them hard enough to leave bruises on their butts, and I'm not proud. I called my husband (who was working), in tears. I hated myself and I hated that in that one moment my children feared me. He talked me down and agreed that we needed to sit down and figure out a more constructive way to handle bedtime battles.

I went into my kids' room and apologized and hugged them for a long time.

That was the last time I spanked my children. I will never do it again.

I truly hope that in 20 years or so, that they won't remember that awful night. I want their memories of childhood to be better than my memories of mine.

Its only been about 2 months, but it feels like another person in another lifetime. And for that, I thank God that we were able to work through it as a family and come to a positive resolution. Yes, there are still bedtime battles, but we have minimized them and bedtime is pretty easy most nights now.