[Havoc]

Hey, I personaly would throw a kid into a wall just for existing. But for the purpose of the discussion I'm pretending to actualy be a human being, okay?

The entire smacking debate has only been around for the last generation of people. It's worked on everyone else! Ask your parents, did their parents ever smack them? Yes they did, it was a normal thing to do when you did something wrong. If you did something wrong then your dad would come out and smack you on the butt. Soft at first, harder if you keep going. And it's not cruel if it WORKS. Ask any guy over 40. You'd grab a pencil and draw on the wall ONCE! ONCE! After that your dad would come out and give you such an earfull that you wouldn't even think of doing it again. It's effective, and if smacking your kids would create evil people then we would be far beyond WWXIII by now.

Raising a kid gives you, as a parent, the responsibility to TEACH the child whats right and wrong. Thats your moral and lawfull obligation when you have a kid. You're not going to teach the kid anything by 'tricking it'. It's not going to learn to be quiet in a restaurant if dad takes him out to the playground before every meal. A kid needs to learn from their mistakes, thats what raising a child is all about. Think about it, go back and check all those things your learned not to do because it gets you in trouble. Touching a hot iron is bad... you do that once and never again. Walking against the edge of a table is bad, you do that once and then you're more carefull. Using permanent marker on your dad's TV is bad, you do that once and then you and your sore ass will know never to do that again.

I have my good share of nieces and nephews to know what is good and what is bad parenting. My brother's kids are great, my sisters kids are absolute hell. My sister and her boyfriend use verbal punishment, doesn't work for shit. I was at my nephews birthday party last saturday and the kids there were told not to splash in the pool to much. Sisters kid was splashing all over everyone and for some reason they thought that telling him over and over and over and over and over and over again was a good idea. Didn't work. Later on, my brothers kid splashed to much too so my brother steps up to him, kneels down to him, tells him normaly not to splash to much and then goes off again. Kids being kids in large numbers, the splashing continues 5 minutes later so he goes back there, raises his voice and tells him one last time that he needs to stop splashing. The kid didn't splash for the remainder of the night because he knew he'd get buttwhipped if his dad had to come back for a third time. The other kid happily splashed away and for the remainder of the night his parents told him: Don't splash, don't splash... don't splash. And at one point, after about the 50th time they told him, I could just see him ignoring his parents all together. They're not gonna do anything anyway so why the hell would he stop.

Children are not as stupid as you think, I know I was perfectly aware of what I was doing at the age of 7. I was also aware of the things I did wrong and what the results would be for me so I tried to avoid doing something wrong on purpose. And if I did do something wrong on purpose, then I knew what to expect and before my dad even stood all the way up from his chair I was already in my room hoping he wouldn't come up and already genuinly regreting what I did. Yes it's a fear based tactic but it does work, works a lot better then constantly telling a kid "not to do that..." Especialy since it's something that, if done right, you only have to establish once. Once the kid knows the routine for doing something bad, he will avoid it at all possible costs. My brothers kid is a perfect example. You smack em once for the first time and when done right you won't have any problems with them untill they reach puberty.