What separates spanking from abuse?

[Soso]

I would choose multiple of the results to be fair. I believe it comes down to where one is being spanked, what is the person being spanked with, and why. To be fair, I could just choose all of these answers.

In my experience, the very few times I was corporally punished by my dad was that I got slapped. To be fair, I don't think it was abuse since I was being a very mouthy shit to him. But he really avoided hitting because how awful of a person my grandfather was to my grandmother (I never knew either of them, and only saw my grandfather on death's door from dementia shit). It was two to three times he did, and he never did it again because he really regretted it, and apologized. However when your kid cowers around you, and you are grabbing switches, belts, and wooden spoons then I believe that is certain abuse. Not to mention if you cannot control your anger around a child and constantly have to spank them, you should not be a parent in the first place.

I don't think my upbringing was wrong, and admittingly I was spoiled sometimes and grew up very comfortable despite having a single father. However I can realize how some of my family members were brought up was pretty much fucked from various things from what I heard from my oldest relatives. My great grandfather being emotionally distant to his children due to a mixture of Great War trauma, and hating his wife (who loathed him back and didn't want anything to do with the marriage) being in a marriage he was practically forced into. My great grandmother spoiling the hell out of the oldest brother and grandfather, and not giving a shit about her two youngest, my great aunt and great uncle after the oldest died in Korea. How my great grandfathers parents were emotionally distant in their own way, (and how their marriage was forced together too). And the 1800s is no excuse, even for my great-great grandfather's dad being a dick to him from what I gathered, and what was considered "bad" for what he did to get horrible treatment. Not just the switch, but fists.

What I really learned is if you cannot handle kids whether that's being unable to be emotionally there for them, unable to restrain yourself, and have a tendency to bring harm, then you should not have kids in any moment. Children should be protected and well cared for. It isn't just being a retard by hurting your kids physically, but a dangerous retard who destroyed someone's emotions for most of their life. Lord knows how my great aunt was one of the kindest people in the world, god bless her.

 

[Lingering butter taste]

However when your kid cowers around you, and you are grabbing switches, belts, and wooden spoons then I believe that is certain abuse.

Unfortunately some people unironically think like this

Growing up, my parents (and plenty of their friends) would brag about how scared their kids were of them. It was like some fucking pocket monster game, “My kid flinches when I lunge at them! I’m cooler than you!”.

I think this is a good way to tell if you’re being abusive or not. No matter what you’re doing, if your kid is cowering then you’re doing shit wrong.

Spoiler: Powerlevel

As a kid I took that pose on constantly, I was fucking terrified of my parents yet. The last time I cowered before them I was still in high school, after that I vowed to have it never happen again. If they raised their hand today I think I’d just legit pop them in the face and not even feel bad.

As for spanking, another point I see brought up is how it isn’t something to really be proud of even if it’s not abusive, and should always have the goal to eventually be stopped as soon as physically possible. I can agree to that.

 

[Thiletonomics]

I really think it depends on the child. I have relatives who were raised "soft" or "modern" who came out perfectly fine because they never really had an attitude that needed spanking-level adjustment. I never needed it either because I was aware enough to realize that my parents held all the cards.

(Frankly, I wonder if spanking seems to be more common among blacks because black children need it more often. Weirdly feels more racist than the usual discussions of "niggers" here.)

Black person here, I can confirm that’s not it at all.

The reason why black kids are spanked more is because black parents like to spank kids. Because they were spanked as kids and have lived their whole lives feeling powerless and waiting for “their turn” to fill that hole in their heart. As for the origin of abuse spanking in black culture, I suspect it comes from slavery

Would spanking be more common with East Asian parents in comparison to Blacks? East Asian cultures also emphasize the "you must listen to you elders no matter what deal", and maybe that's what pushes them to use spanking.

And which East Asian culture would most likely be the spankers? Chinese and Koreans would be the most likely ones, given how the CCP destroyed people's morals in China (although I don't know if this is the case for Taiwanese people, or Chinese people that left China before the CCP fucked it up), and Korean culture has been a mess for ages.

 

[Lingering butter taste]

Would spanking be more common with East Asian parents in comparison to Blacks? East Asian cultures also emphasize the "you must listen to you elders no matter what deal", and maybe that's what pushes them to use spanking.

And which East Asian culture would most likely be the spankers?

I’m not sure honestly, I grew up around blacks, whites, Hispanics, not many East Asians. I do know they get spanked but I wouldn’t know how their culture’s like.
Only other culture I know really anything about is white culture and I gotta say I don’t get the pro-spanking argument of “They won’t turn out right if you don’t spank them” from a white person POV. I know a lot of whites who were never spanked and turned out exceptional, very successful. What shocked me most is they obeyed their parents cause they liked their parents, not just to get them to shut the fuck up.

 

[Übertroon]

Would spanking be more common with East Asian parents in comparison to Blacks? East Asian cultures also emphasize the "you must listen to you elders no matter what deal", and maybe that's what pushes them to use spanking.

And which East Asian culture would most likely be the spankers? Chinese and Koreans would be the most likely ones, given how the CCP destroyed people's morals in China, and Korean culture has been a mess for ages.

Might be different depending upon gender, my wife was never spanked, but was pinched on her arm and had her ear tugged if she misbehaved

Personally I was spanked by my parents, but looking back at it, it didn't hurt that much, so the act was mostly a ritual to enact shame

 

[G.G. A-Log]

Physical discipline is the last measure for disciplining a kid. If a kid is doing something irresponsible or inappropriate (swearing, insulting, lying, screaming, disobedience, disrespecting, stealing), it should start by telling them to stop. Don’t bargain, that shit is so fucking useless and only enables bad behavior. Tell them calmly to stop that. If they listen, tell them to make things right, and why they don’t do that. If they don’t listen, then you order them to stop. A bit of a vague distinction, but it’s basically raising your voice. Same thing if they comply, but maybe follow it up with a lesser punishment (grounding, taking something from them, time out, whatever is appropriate).

If you order them and they still don’t listen, then you threaten them to stop. I call it threaten cause now they’ve earned a punishment (not listening twice), though this time you don’t say it, you go over to them and make them stop. No hitting or spanking, you just go right up to them and force them to listen by forcing them to stop. At that point, they’ve earned a lesser punishment and maybe a spanking. But the spanking never comes immediately, and never happens publicly or even in front of anyone else in the family. Everyone knows what’s happening, they don’t need to see it. You tell them how many strikes they’ve earned and let them stew on it til you get home.

Cool your head off, call em over, and don’t talk or let them beg their way out of it. Give them the strikes, then you can set them down and talk to them about it. Never EVER send them away without talking about it (if their really upset and remorseful, it’s really beneficial to console them afterwards; but if it seems like they’re holding it together, a stern talk is probably all they need). It’s the measure of last resort, and hopefully it’s awful enough to never happen again.

All of this needs to be tempered with the expectation that every kid is a bit of shit every now and then. Sometimes they just can’t help themselves, and you need to be emotionally smart enough to know when it’s appropriate to escalate.

I grew up the youngest in my family, and I’m very grateful to have learned what not to do from my older siblings. I only had two or three spankings in my life. I know this was also because my parents learned this sort of gauging system from the others, and realized they couldn’t just spank kids all day long and expect it to work out.

It’s probably for the best that corporal punishment is shunned nowadays. Most people are emotional retards and wouldn’t understand the appropriate and healthy ways to use it. As much as I despise the bargaining and passive negligence a lot of parents do nowadays, it’s better that they’re no longer beating the fuck out of their kids regularly and creating a culture conditioned to pure violence. A lot of the shit spankings get is because it was the easy way to get a kid to behave, in exactly the same way bargaining is now. Kids ain’t easy. It requires a lot of attention, care, and thought.

 

[Lingering butter taste]

You tell them how many strikes they’ve earned and let them stew on it til you get home.

This is where you lost me. Maybe it’s cause clearly my childhood was very different than everyone else’s but knowing I was going to get beat but having to wait made me so anxious and genuinely sick in the stomach I considered running away multiple times. I still remember spending hours just crying under my bed cause I was so scared of when my parents would come home and dull out the punishment promised. Again, I clearly had a different experience though so maybe that’s just me

 

[G.G. A-Log]

This is where you lost me. Maybe it’s cause clearly my childhood was very different than everyone else’s but knowing I was going to get beat but having to wait made me so anxious and genuinely sick in the stomach I considered running away multiple times. I still remember spending hours just crying under my bed cause I was so scared of when my parents would come home and dull out the punishment promised. Again, I clearly had a different experience though so maybe that’s just me

In my experience, it was never more than an hour or so. Usually before bed, mostly because our ability to behave was inversely proportional to how late in the day it was. Mind you, the punishments were never just from my dad. Mom had a wooden spoon she’d threaten us with when we were out and about, and we’d get a few smacks pretty shortly after getting home. Very rarely in public bathrooms when we were really out of line. I don’t really remember that bullshit “wait til your dad gets home” thing. The waiting on it really was to instill just a bit of dread, cool the head, and wrap up whatever else was going on politely.

Edit: Thinking on it, the spoon was like a smaller step before the belt. Still bad, but never as humiliating or painful. I think that the distinction between disciplining and abuse is pretty heavily tied to using a tool vs barehanded punishments. If dads got the belt or moms got the spoon, it’s a pretty quick sign that this is a different situation. There is something deliberate being done. And honestly, half the scare factor from being smacked with a belt or a wooden spoon was the sound they made. Whereas if they’re just hitting you with their hand, pinching your ear, or smacking your head, there is never a distinction; that shit could happen anytime, anywhere. It blurs the good cop/bad cop distinction a kid really needs to understand that people can play different roles in different situations.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Intent and extent.

 

[Divine Power]

Deep thots

 

[Soso]

Unfortunately some people unironically think like this
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Growing up, my parents (and plenty of their friends) would brag about how scared their kids were of them. It was like some fucking pocket monster game, “My kid flinches when I lunge at them! I’m cooler than you!”.

I think this is a good way to tell if you’re being abusive or not. No matter what you’re doing, if your kid is cowering then you’re doing shit wrong.

Spoiler: Powerlevel

As a kid I took that pose on constantly, I was fucking terrified of my parents yet. The last time I cowered before them I was still in high school, after that I vowed to have it never happen again. If they raised their hand today I think I’d just legit pop them in the face and not even feel bad.

As for spanking, another point I see brought up is how it isn’t something to really be proud of even if it’s not abusive, and should always have the goal to eventually be stopped as soon as physically possible. I can agree to that.

You have my condolences, you should have never gone through this. I've heard of some families thinking that (mostly the very white trash ones since we didn't really have many black people where I lived growing up), but I always thought they were joking until one day I found out, "Oh shit they are serious." The amount of memes that normalize child abuse sicken me in a way. It's not funny that someone has to dodge a belt or be chased around the house by an angry parent.

Some have this excuse of "well your parents went through it too", but I always found it bullshit. You should never become the abuser, no matter how shitty you were treated. Again, if that person shows a risk of being an abuser, never have children or get married. There's already too many broken homes out there. Even the excuse "It's different back then" is flimsy to me. Why the hell should someone be punched by their parents if they do something wrong?

 

[Otterly]

It’s always abuse. You’re a grown adult hitting a child. If you did it to an co worker or another adult they could charge you for it, so why is it ok to do to a child?
Either you’ve lost your temper and are taking it out on a child or you’re doing it in cold blood deliberately. Both are wrong.
The only situation you could hit them and it be ok is something like hitting something out of their hand, to bring them back to reality or roughly grabbing them to prevent them doing something extremely stupid. All those are brief in the moment interventions in extreme circumstances.
Parenting is hard and kids will push you to your limit. It’s completely normal to want to throttle them but you can’t. At the end of the day you’re an adult. If you’re at the point you’re ‘needing’ to hit a child then something went wrong a long time ago. Discipline is something that’s a long, ongoing process. It take years of modelling behaviour, and firm boundaries and natural consequences, and sometimes it takes a bit of yelling and punishment. That punishment should never be you hitting them. If rhey act up when you’re out, you warn them you will go home if they carry on and you follow through. Never make a threat you won’t carry out. You do that for a decade or so and you’ll end up with reasonably behaved offspring.
Never, ever hit them, it’s always wrong

 

[Lingering butter taste]

Some have this excuse of "well your parents went through it too", but I always found it bullshit.

That was always retarded to me. It’s the same “happened to me and I turned out fine” excuse. Except you didn’t. The fact that my parents now feel the need to do it to me is proof that this fucks people up.