The Death of Parenting
 

Is the bribe.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/05/22/family/doc4636453c52747189559389.txt

Wholeheartedly agree. The other real negative trend I see is the "negotiation". I see kids all the time in my town (hi avg. income area) negotiating with parents.

Parent: "Sit still and pay attention"
Kid: "But I dont wanna".
Parent: "I'll give you an ice cream later" <--there's the bribe.
Kid: "But I want a plastic red-rider repeating action BB gun insteeeead". <-negotiation
Parent: "Well only if......"

Makes me ill. I'm pretty partial to "I SAID SO." and the occasional "'so I don't smack your butt"

the problem today is the majority of parents do not discipline their kids.......
when i did something really stupid when i was young i'd get a well deserved smack.
nowadays you're a child abuser if you do it......the majority in this country have turned into pussies and it's only going to get worse.

I think you're bang on about the lack of discipline and correct in you're observation of how you get viewed if you smack a child today. I think this is another case of generalization for the sake of simplification, meaning that it a lot less effort for someone to accuse you of being a child abuser if they don't have to analyze the circumstances. I am positive that there are situations where a quick whack on the back of the legs will restore order and teach the kid a valuable lesson, but that isn't to say that you routinely beat your kid.
Instead you have to train your kids like you do your dog with treats for good behavior. Then we wonder why kids expect everything to be handed to them when they get older.

WE are currently raising a second generation of "Praise junkies". What do you expect?

I'm not sure where the death of perenting comes in. There have always been bad parents. There should be no nostalgia for imagined better times in the past. I grew up next to a kid whose father beat him with a belt.

If you over praise your kid, you get a kid who only does things for praise. If you bribe your kid, you get a kid who demands rewards for everything. Surprise?

Parents should do the best they can, given their overall circumstances, the circumstances of the moment, their personalities and their kid's personality. There are no absolutes, as many people without kids of their own who post on web forums don't seem to realize. ;)

What's wrong with a belting? I got it once or twice and I sure deserved it. My folks didn't give me money for A's on my report card either. I can't imagine asking my old man what was in it for me if I did what he told me to do. He'd have said "You won't get smacked, is what's in it for you." We had corporal punishment in school too and I never got any of it because I knew I'd face far worse punishment if I brought home a form for my folks to sign, acknowledging that I had needed "paddling" by one of my teachers. Some kids really are good and will never need physical disciplining. But most do need a smack once in a while. What the hell does a "time out" or taking the Game Boy away really do to anyone?

In fact, while wrenching on a Pelicanite's car a few yrs. ago, his small kid was misbehaving in the garage. Father warned him once and the kid asked if he was going to get a time out. Father said (I love this) "That time out ***** is for school. Here you get spanked." Kid had no illusions about continuing his behavior.

I have no kids, but I had the most well behaved dog in the world for approx. 12 years (via bribery), and she now "knows" that she's in control, has me wrapped around her finger (paw), and as a teenager, she does pretty much what she damn well pleases... yep, just like children :)

You reap what you sow. Why does the kid need the threat of a beating to behave?

OTOH, once a parent screws up, the parent needs to get back in control by whatever means necessary. If you find yourself with a little bastard of a 10 year old, it doesn't do much good to try to figure out where you went wrong--you have to deal with what you've got. Kind of like Iraq.

I think that trying to reason with a young kid is insane. A quick spanking will make them remember that if they do whatever they did again, they will get spanked. Reasoning with them comes later.

Yet another example of how politically-correct bull***** is destroying our culture.

Reasoning isn't the right word. With a little kid, I find that herding is a better metaphor. Misdirection, distraction and managing choices works. Butting heads or reasoning doesn't work at all, since a little kid often won't negotiate or give in even when it's in their best interest.

When do you find you need to hit a small child to get your meaning across?

my son hears, "what part of *no* did you not understand?" from time to time...

When they continue the undesired behavior despite using all of the tactics described above. Also, in some situations, you do not have time to run through the list and need an immediate result.

None of those euphemisms meant anything to me when I was 10 yrs. old. A swat across the butt was an instant attention getter and behavior corrector. If you want a long conversation with your kid, to explain to him why he'll thank you someday and see the error of his ways, go ahead. My guess is such kids will only run into more trouble as they age and try to argue with superiors instead of doing what's expected of them. I have three cousins who were the worst kids I have ever seen and have not turned into stellar adults either and they absolutely controlled their parents while growing up.

I think we're talking about different things here. My son is 2, not 10. Different definition of little kid.

You are able to spank your kid and immediately get them to do as you say? Impressive.

Admittedly some "armchair quarterbacking" here, but it seems to me that reciprocity works well for kids as well as adults. If someone starts acting like an unreasonable pain in the ass, they get treated as such in my response and dealing with them. If they're reasonable, they get treated reasonably.

If your kid is being a bratty pain in the butt, they don't deserve explanation, IMO - I'd give them "my way or the highway".

I think I heard from my dad a time or two something like "I don't need to explain it to you" or "Because I said so. That's why." I'm not really interested in debating a child either. I can only think of one or two big flare ups I had with my folks as a kid, where I still think they were wrong and would never do what they did to my own kids.

When I was about 10, I became a bit.....well, rebellious. My dad took me aside, made a fist and stuck it under my nose, never hitting me with it. He said: "You will do what I tell you to do for one of two reasons. Either because you love me or because you fear me. Your choice."

I made my choice, grew up and in my dad's last few years we were the best of friends.