Have you ever spanked your child (or any child under your care/supervision)?

[hunter]

125. I was indifferent to punishment or reward as a kid. Ask my parents or teachers.

Maybe I still am.

Fortunately I tend to be fairly good natured and mostly a danger to myself, not others.

I'd get angry at my own children and physically remove them from dangerous situations.

Nothing distracts a reckless toddler like scooping them up off their feet when they are running toward traffic and then holding them until the temper tantrums stop. I only got bit a couple of times.

One of our children would wander off, sometimes deliberately, so we had to use a toddler leash.

One of my brothers was like that and still is. As soon as he was old enough to get a job he saved enough money to buy a motorcycle and was gone.

When I was teenager we lived in a place where the school vice principal would paddle kids. It was legal there at the time. The worst trouble one of my brothers got into was laughing at this vice principal as he got the paddle out. He was paddled much harder than the other kids but it didn't change his behavior.

It seems to me that authoritarians carefully train their children to accept punishment. If that doesn't work they simply cast them out or kill them.

"Because I said so!" works to remove a child from immediate danger but as soon as a child is old enough to understand this "Because I said so!" has to be followed up with a frank discussion of the danger.

And no, "Because God said so!" is not a discussion, nor is it honest. That's just passing the buck.

Raising children is hard work and some children are much more difficult to raise than others.

When my wife and I were raising our own children I could always look back (with a shudder...) at the hell I put my own parents and teachers through and maybe I learned something from that.