{"id":925,"date":"2010-03-02T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nogreaterjoychildren.wordpress.com\/?p=33"},"modified":"2014-12-19T12:27:27","modified_gmt":"2014-12-19T19:27:27","slug":"too-young-to-spank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/2010\/03\/too-young-to-spank\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting is Hitting"},"content":{"rendered":"

One day, when my daughter was about 17 months old she started\u00a0whacking\/batting at me while I changed her diaper. So, after telling her to stop and not getting the response I wanted, I swatted her upper thigh with my open hand – knee jerk response. I didn’t connect with enough force to even slightly notice,\u00a0but none the less, in her eyes, I hit her<\/strong>.\u00a0 In fact, she shouted at\u00a0me, “Mama don’t hit me”, in the very same tone I had just told her to stop batting\/hitting at me.<\/p>\n

I had just told her to not hit me.
\nThen, I did to her exactly what I told her not to do to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Do you see the problem here…<\/p>\n

Violence creates violence.<\/p>\n

And punishment\/discipline (spanking) is retaliation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Years later, I came to realize something in addition to the obvious here (hopefully obvious). Somewhere along the way, an awareness came and I realized how it feels to “be told”. My daughter told me once, “ALL I HEAR is you TELLING TELLING TELLING.. but what you’re saying, I have no clue!” \u00a0In our home, we use the word “listen” to mean, “my heart wants to be heard, please let your heart hear”. \u00a0Listening is not compliance or expectation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Some time around this event, I learned how to communicate my needs and preferences, and stop the “telling”.<\/p>\n

If we wish to be heard and treated with respect, then we must first provide respect to others and when we speak to others, speak with them, not at them.<\/p>\n

\n

– > Related topics: Discipline <\/a>vs Punishment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When is a child too young to spank? The answer is obviously dependent on your definition of the word \u201cspank.\u201d … – in her eyes, I hit her. In fact, she said to me, “Mama don’t hit me”, in the very same tone I had just told her not to hit me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[56,5,64,71,581],"class_list":["post-925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-toddlers","tag-childrens-needs","tag-discipline","tag-infants","tag-parents","tag-toddlers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=925"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.childhoodrevered.com\/sentient\/parenting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}