What's the problem with non-smacking forms of discipline? The removal of toys, television, favoured foods etc as a method of punishment, combined with positive reinforcement for good behaviour?

Hi, BD,
Your cute grand daughter seems to be at that age where she’s just starting to discover that she is her own person and not an extension of the carer and that is quite a discovery for a little one to find out that she has this power to refuse or reject things.
She has no proper verbal skills yet to express what she wants or doesn’t want so she can only use actions and body language.
We have a son and a daughter and have never resorted to smacking or vebally abusing them.

There are far more positive ways than smacking or verbal abuse to teach children (both boys and girls, Unusual Support!) what is acceptable/unacceptable.

I’ve used NO but only when there is a real reason to say no.
Some parents say NO all the time and then it loses its effect.
E.g., the kids ask for an ice-cream an hour before dinner. “Sure… you can have one after dinner”.
Can I have a pony? Sure, after you have saved up enough money to buy one.
Can I climb upon that wall? Sure, the 1st aid kit is in the car if you need it.

Both my children, now teenagers, turned out very responsible and have never reacted to any situation with violence. They have never even hit or pushed each other at any age.

Both my children were awarded the Citizen of the Year Award upon leaving Primary School and people used to comment on how well behaved they were when they visited their friends.
I now look like a big fat bragger- but I’m telling you only because I want to ensure you that your granddaughter won’t necessarily end up in trouble (or jail or in the gutter) when you don’t smack her.

SUSPECT... what a bode of thanx we owe you for that incredible post:)

I had not actually considered the difference between boys and girls in that way...but I believe you made a great point!

Vanilla then comes in with a very pertinent statement

<<the story you tell has nothing to do with punishment styles. It is about abuse.>>

Of course this leads directly to another aspect of 'smacking' (not that I want to divert the thread down that alley), i.e.. that it can be 'disciplinary' and loving.. or..it can be brutal and abusive ..exactly like the verbal 'thrashing' that U.S. demonstrated.

We are still not quite tweaking to my intended subject for debate though.

VALUES.... "NO" I'm still hoping that someone will come up with the appropriate 'moral value' to attach/connect to the word "no".

All I can do here is refer you all back to my last couple of posts, where I try to outline this issue.

No.. because...?

Fractelle..no.. no road to Damascus on the smacking bit, I absolutely believe in it being correctly applied in love, with reason.. but if I've changed at all, it would be more because of U.S.' post about boys and girls.

If a child inflicts pain on another child,

...and they have already been verbally warned a couple of times, denied TV...or sent to the 'hole' to no avail, then I see no reason not to inflict at least some kind of 'pain' on them as a disciplinary measure... with the stern rebuke "Do you like that?.. well?.. is it nice? THAT is what you are doing to Jimmy, but much worse, now stop it..or you will get more from me, but harsher next time...you have been warned"

Much more preferable to Jimmy grabbing a half brick after the nth assault and letting fly at Johnny's head.

I'm with Celivia on this one. Cannot see the need either for smacking or the "No" thing?

I used to laugh at my mother who, as I mentioned before, had an affinity with animals and indeed bred dogs. She used to say that training a dog and training a child were both the same thing.

After all, a small child does not understand the intrinsic meaning of the word "No". Its a code. You could just as well shout "Table" or "Goat" at them each time you didn't want them to do something.

Children, animals and those who speak another language react to the tone of your voice rather than the words said. Thus, if a child is about to shove a knife in a toaster it doesn't really matter if you yell No or their name or Bloody 'ell. Its the panic and urgency they will react to.

A child/animal who is treated with love, reacted to with gentleness and shown understanding reflects those qualities. Remember children (and dogs) initially WANT to please. To this day,if either of my boys discusses a proposed course of action with me it is my disappointment that they will react to if it is a bad choice.

And "Do unto others?..." Its always been pretty self-explanatory to my kids, there has never been a need to bring anyone other beings into it.

Like Celivia, I'm proud of my strong, gentle boys. One of whom received a Young Australian of the Year award in his area without recourse on my part to smacking or shouting.

David what's the plan? Get the non-thiests to accept that terms like good and bad are relevant and then get all distressed because we don't need a god picked our of a selection of thousands(millions) of possible candidates to back that up with some kind of "absolute" basis.

You may need that piece of gymnastics in your life, mamy of us don't.

I'm happy to use those terms without an imagined god to give them authority. I accept that at the end it's a viewpoint but so is your choice to follow a particular god idea. Neither is actually absolute and both depend on choices that we make.

I doubt very much that you are just after a straight discussion of the merits of positive only parenting vs a combination of reward and consequences. This looks far to much like one of your contrived discussions where you try and use your own world view to claim a logical victory for what is really some quite distorted thinking.

R0bert

Of course we need to be realistic about this. If you've got a two-year-old who repeatedly runs into the street, your only alternative may be to use punishment. Administer a pat on the bottom low and hard until they learn to stop this dangerous behaviour. You have to impose your more mature judgement on the youngster until their judgement becomes mature enough to handle the situation. But in the main we can teach our children most of the things we want them to learn without having to resort to punishment.

Why avoid punishment? Because the only real effect of punishment is to suppress a response temporarily. No permanent weakening of the punished behaviour has taken place. When the suppression effect wears off, as it is bound to do in time, the behaviour will recur.

There are additional reasons for using punishment as little as possible when teaching a child. Whenever we punish the learner we are teaching them to hate us and fear us. We don't want to teach children hate or fear unless it it absolutely necessary for self-protection.

Whenever a teacher for example punishes a learner, he becomes an "aversive stimulus," just like an electric shock. The learner will want to avoid contact from then on with both the teacher and whatever they are being taught.

Instead of punishment, when you want to get a child to stop doing something undesirable, use "extinction techniques." Take a four-year old who has discovered the electrical effect that the use of four-letter words can have on his parents. They come home with these four-letter words for the first time. Do they get reinforcement for them?
You bet they do!

In fact, their mother usually acts as though she's been given the special job of reinforcing these four-letter words so that her four-year old will continue to sue them. How can she get them to stop?
Merely stop reinforcing the child. Ignore the four-letter words and play it cool. Sooner or later, when the child sees that they don't irritate mum any more, they will stop using them.

That's all for now.