Hitting your kids

Today while at the park with a couple of friends, I witnessed one of the most absurd and tumultuous tantrums ever.
A kid, of about 9 or 10 years of age, was accompanied by 4 adults, a younger child and one slightly older.
One of the men from the group, who I assume is one of the kid's father, was in line for ice cream. Upon his return, he gave the three kids the ice cream then rejoined the rest of the adults in the group.
Suddenly, the 9 year old kid gives the youngest child the coldest death stare he could produce, then shoved him to the ground. All of this after he snatched the cone out of his hand. (my friends laughed hysterically)
They happened to be chilling near us and a couple of feet away from their parents.
The younger kid began crying unbelievably loud, so much so that everyone in the park noticed. The adults responsible for the kids hurried to them.
"He didn't want to switch flavors with me and I hate chocolate", said the perpetrator while staring defiantly at his father.
His dad explained to him that this was no excuse for what he had done and asked him to apologize to the sobbing child.
"NOOOOO!!!", the kid exclaimed at the top of his lungs before throwing both ice creams to the ground.
His father picked him up over his shoulder and tried carrying him away to the parking lot while his mother and the older kid followed, at which point the boy began kicking and yelling something along the lines of "its not fair".
The man then placed the kid back on the ground, and now relatively far from the crowd, smacked him flat across the back of his head.
I was quite far at this point, but my friends said it was somewhat of a hard smack.
They proceeded to get inside their car and leave while the rest of the pack consoled the younger boy.

Do you guys think this was justified?
Is physical discipline the best course of action or are there better ways to get children to understand empathy and manners?
Would you have done the same thing?

I probably would have, the kid was being a grade A ass hole.
Mean looking kid too.

 

I was "spanked" as a child, and personally I believe it to be the right way.

So long as you don't let a child learn the wrong way from an early age then try to change the child's way of thinking with physical assault then I see no problem with it..

As long as the parents keep in mind the severity of the punishment and don't get carried away. Generally one smack on the back end would change a lot of youths way of thinking and hopefully bring some respect back in the next generation.

 

Some kids just won't get it. Pain is a good teacher. Should only be used when the kid knows what he's doing is wrong, of coarse.

 

Im indian man, it happens to us every now and then and our parent later on forgive us , I was justified esp if that kid was a jerk. I would've done the same except not in public. Harsh to do it in front of people,

 

Its the best form of teaching them to behave I find at a young age (to a certain extent obviously). My parents beat me but not too hard. It thought me shit... some of the kids that didn't get beat when they were young are some punks now. I know some kids never got beat and are proper people but more kid who got beat than not have better manners I found.

 

As an asian, its the only way.

 

Agreed. Very minor physical pain such as a spanking or a pinch at most would probably teach them not to do it. Anything more, is unjustified un my opinion. Punishments (grounding) and stuff in that context work just as well also.

 

Not necessarily. I was grounded once and absolutely loved it because I preferred to stay indoors and work on my hobbies.

 

"Let me teach you how to get things done, why aren't you lisening to me *smack*, it's wrong to hit others and you won't do it any more *smack*. It's was wrong to hit that kid, because he did nothing to you *smack*."

There is no excuse to hit someone, espcially a child. It's sad how children are the 1 group that you are allowed to hit although they are the most defenceless group. If you hit your gf/bf/wife/husband then he/she can leave you, but if you hit your child then he can't do anything about it. It's a giant vs a dwarf, the only thing a child will learn from it is to pick on kids smaller than him/her. People justifying hitting a child might aswell be preaching how good it is to hit your wife because it builds character.

 

I feel there's a fine line between punishing and beating your children, but this instance was on the punishment side. It was a single smack upside the head, kind of as a "Now you listen here" kind of thing.

I was spanked as a child, and it taught me real fast not to fuck up again. As others have stated in the thread already, a little physical pain makes you stop and think about what you had done, and reconsider your actions/decisions.

Personally, I would have spanked the child rather than smacking him upside the head, but it gets the same point across.

 

Spanking is fine, beating and causing physical abuse is not.

 

The only point to make is that those parents scrued up. Because hitting a child that you scrued up raising makes total sense. It's a fact that physical punishment (spanking) lowers children IQ (http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2009/sept/lw25straus.cfm).

Instead of teaching their child what is wrong and right with words they chose the easier way out and went down then intimidation and physical punishment rode. You don't need to teach your child the art of negotiation because it's easier to hit him right? It's something along these lines "Look I got the shit beaten out of me when I was a child but I grew up just fine, it doesn't matter that I did a lot of shit while growing up but looks I'm a "normal" person so I will hit my child also cause that's normal". That's what I call a fucked up logic. Just because you had bad parents who weren't willing to invest the time to raise you and chose the easier way out doesn't mean it's the right way.

Just to make it clear, hitting a child when he does something bad will not teach him not to do it. It will just give him the message that if he does it again then he will be hit again. I'll make this example: Child A won't draw on the wall because he knows that his mother will have to clean it and that his mother will be unhappy. Child B won't draw on the wall because he knows that he will get spanked if he does. There is a clear difference but most of you seem to think that the end goal of not drawing on the wall is the most important because it's not. Hitting a child is never okay, never!

If you want your child to have no negotiation skills and a lower IQ then yeah it's totali fine.

 

In that situation I don't have an issue with it. It's only when it happens continually and leaves damage in the child that it's unacceptable imo.

If someone wants to smack their children then it's their choice, as long as it's nothing brutal obviously. If you smack the child and tell then "dont steal/dont push your brother" then they do learn.

My parents gave me a smack or two and I wouldn't say I have a low IQ or have bad negotiation skills. Nor did I ever fear being hit, I knew that being hit meant the action I did was wrong.

 

Now let's replace "children" with "wife" and see how everyone loses their heads. Why is it accepted to hit a child?

 

I would assume because they don't understand the world like adults and it's the most effective way to shut them up and show then what they did was wrong - chances are they wont try it again. You cant teach a toddler morality, but if it gets a small smack on the wrist they learn what's good & bad pretty quickly.

I personally wouldn't using smacking as a punishment because I think time outs have a better effect but I think people should be able to use it if they want.

 

Ofcourse it is the easiest way but how about not having a child if you aren't willing to do the work that comes with it.

I just don't see how can hitting a child at an age where he is curious about everything in this world be anything other than plain retarded. He is like a learning machine that eats, sleeps and shits, then suddenly a giant appeares and starts hitting him and it blows my mind how so many people think that its okay to do so.

I think that an ideal way to raise a child would be to never use your size to intimidate or punish your child. Also you should never say that something is just because you know best. Explain in a way that the child gets it too else it's just lazy parenting. I don't see that a child, who is raised like this, would go around pushing other kids because he wanted another sort of icecream. Maybe if the parents wouldn't hit their child for talking back to them then the child would have told them upfront that he wanted another sort of icecream and wouldn't have used physical violence on the other kid. The incident wouldn't have happened and everything would have been just fine.

 

Can't judge because i dont know how hard did he hit the kid.. but i guess the kid won't do it again anytime soon :huh:

 

It's just human conditioning. You don't want pain? You don't do anything that will cause it. Great way to teach kids.

 

As many of the above said, our parents teach us the right way, if they think we're crossing a line between good and bad they do need to get our attention so we don't do it again. This is the way my father and mother taught me and my brother and now we don't regret it, even if when we were kids we were saying that we "WOULD KILL THEM" we didn't, since when you're 21 and 23 those things are the ones that are in your mind and even if he hits you hard one time just because you didn't listen isn't something bad at my eyes, it's just something when people needs to behave and the people who have children aren't made of iron too. As a Russian family, my parents were taught like this, they taught us like this, and I will taught my children like this. This is just my lifestyle and I don't see anything bad about that. But raping and bullying your son isn't the best way.

 

I'm assuming you've not got kids or looked after one for a long time period.