Hello. I would like to just put in my little bit on 'is it violent to spank children?'

When children are young, it is the parents aim to teach them that rules violated can have serious consiquences. They are taught this by being punished for voilations of 'small' rules (eg: household rules) so that they will get it into their heads that violated rules mean unpleasant situations (eg: time out, spanking). Therefore, when they are adults they will be less likely to violate 'big' rules (eg: federal rules) and end up in yet another unpleasant situation (eg: jail).

Correct?

Does it matter if you punish those little angels with lectures or spankings, so long as they know you love them and they are going to grow up to be a successful person?

Spanking with love is not erotic. Spanking with love is not an act of anger. Spanking with love is not abuse. Spanking CAN be abuse if the parent is not careful. That is why the site is here. So parents who CHOOSE to spank know how to do it without giving any lasting damage to the kids.

Now I am 13. When I grow up I will spank my children with love. It IS possible to pull it off. If you don't want to believe that then go ahead. You are merely doing what you think is right. We are doing what WE think is right. No-one needs to change unless kids are running wild or are abused.

Mostly, they are not.
 

Your website does a good job at addressing a controversial issue. I agree with most of your recommendations, except on teenage spanking. The teens are when I really needed to be spanked, but never was. I was horribly rude and disrespectful to my mother, especially. I certainly would've never agreed to or chosen to be spanked, but it would have left me with much less guilt now. I received two swats on the seat of the pants at age 15, which only confused me. I wasn't sorry. But a bare bottomed spanking over her knee which actually stung would've made me listen. It also would've dissipated the air of arrogance I had. That is one reason I feel the bare bottom aspect is even more important for teens, with or without their consent.

And as far as feeling "violated", my mother saw my bare bottom at the doctor's office several times during my teens. I received a lot of shots, always in the bottom, and my mother was always right there with me, even at age 18. My pants and underwear were always at my knees, if not further. Noone accused her of any sexual perversion. And I never felt violated. People don't seem to differentiate between a loving parent and some weird stranger.

I would suggest to especially the mothers of teens that they be involved, show interest and encourage your teens, but certainly don't stop spanking them. The teens are the years when they can have the most impact. And don't be afraid to bare their bottoms; these are your children. I wuold feel much better today if my mother had spanked me that way in my teens, instead of letting me get away with being so mean to her. It also would've made transition to adult life much easier, because I never learned respect for authority. Treating my bosses like I did my parents when I was a teen made me learn that the hard way. (I now have a successful career, however.)
 

We came across your website, and are very impressed with it. Scripture tells us to chastise our children, and it works well.

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Because we start very early and spank consistently (ie., for every disobedience or rebellion) we find we hardly ever have to spank children over 4 years of age.

We have children aged 5, 2, and 1 year, and are expecting twins in about 3 weeks. We were very "liberal" with our oldest until he was about 3 years old (demand feeding and no spanking), but we were run ragged by his constant demands and misbehavior. We started spanking him, and put him on a strict schedule, and we were amazed by the results.

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Spanking early is important (usually starting around 6 months of age), and the child accepts spanking as a normal consequence of disobedience or rebellion. If you wait until 3 years old or more to spank for the first time, your child will wonder what has come over you. It is fine to start late if you have just realized the need for spanking (as we did with our oldest boy), but both parents will have to be very committed to making the new discipline program work.

We have taken a relaxed attitude toward crying with our second and third children. We make sure their needs are met, then let them cry it out if they are fussy. We then reward them when they are happy by holding, playing, singing, or giving other attention. If fussing starts, Baby is put down again. It doesn't take long for babies to realize that crying is not very productive. Pacifiers are a big mistake: Baby may be crying for necessary care, he may just need to cry it out, or (in the case of a tantrum) may need a spanking.

We don't really agree with using a specified number of spanks. We never use more than 3(not very hard) spanks on a baby less than a year old. What we want to accomplish is a repentant child who is completely submissive to his parents' authority. This may be done with 2 or 3 spanks, or it may take several more. One older book said that it is better not to start a spanking than to end it too soon, and have the child still angry and rebellious.

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We find that by disciplining early,we do not have to do much spanking after our children are 4 or 5 years old. Other parents have assured us that their parenting works the same. The advice in your site about caning teenagers suggests that early discipline eliminates the need for more severe measures later on.

Thanks again for your excellent site. We hope to exchange ideas through your feedback section with other parents.
 

Dear Spank w/love

I absolutely love your website. As a child I received spanking and I can honestly say I deserved every last one of them and I thank my parents for caring enough to spank me. I am now a mother and I also "spank with love".
 

Note: this letter is not anonymized by special request.

My daughter, who is now 10, was spanked by my wife when her behavior justified punishment. My daughter and I have always had a close relationship and last year, during a time when we were talking about life in general, she asked me why I never spanked her. I discovered that she believed that I didn't care as much about her upbringing as her mother did.

I was very surprised by this and asked her if she would prefer that I do the spanking. She did, and she asked me if I thought that she should be spanked if she was "just thinking about doing bad stuff". I told her that I would never know her thoughts. Se confessed that she often thought about being naughty or disrespectful when she was frustrated with the rules of our family and then she would feel guilty because, deep in her heart, she was sure my wife and I love her very much. I asked her if she thought confessing these disrespectful thoughts, and being punished for them, would help her to stay focused on how much we love her. She was not sure so we tried a little experiment. She "confessed" her latest disrespectful and uncharitable thoughts to me and I told her that a spanking was certainly appropriate for the things she was thinking of doing. since she was a co-operative child, I used the recommendations I have read in your web site and she was required to take her own panties down and position herself across my lap. We decided that tears of remorse would be the best indicator that the spanking was sufficient. It took about 5 minutes of firm application of my hand to achieve this result. I then held her in my arms and told her how much her mom and I loved her and wanted her to learn to live a proper life.

The results of this experiment were wonderful. She was relaxed and happy for a couple of weeks before she again needed to confess to me again. We now have our "preventive" sessions about every 2 weeks. We have added occasional use of the cane for shorter but more severe discipline when needed. She continues to remove her own panties and, when the cane is to be used, she is required to go and get it from the closet shelf and present it to me before taking the kneeling position, which I have found is more effective for use of the cane.

Keep up the good work and perhaps God will help us all reverse the decay of our family system.

A Missouri Spanking dad
 

Hi,

I found your site "Spank With Love" this morning and spent some time looking through it.

I'm a 26 year old single mom who has one son, 6. I very definitely want to give Brad a Christian upbringing, and I think reasonable spanking can be a part of that. I spank with the open palm of my hand, usually sitting on the edge of the bed, with his legs tucked under my right leg to stop him from kicking. When my son is going to be punished, I always explain to him why and give him an oppertunity to state "his side of it" before anything happens. Brad always gets the chance to pull down his pants and undies, but he knows mom will do it for him if he won't cooperate.

After getting his punishment, Brad is always cuddled and reassured "Mom loves you." No good parent wants to do this, but you know and I know that sometimes it's really necessary. I don't really punish with anything extra when he's spanked, like time in the corner, although once or twice he's been sent to bed early after a spanking. Usually, 10 or 12 slaps on his backside is enough punishment !

What struck me as really interesting was your support for the idea that teenagers should get spankings only if they agree to them. After the age of 14 that's how it was between my mom and me, and I agreed to get two, one at 15 and when when I was 17. The last one I received was one that was really deserved, because that summer I was caught trying to shoplift. I was given a choice between being grounded for two weeks or taking a spanking from my mom, so after thinking about it for 30 minutes I finally gave in and pulled down my shorts and panties and went across her lap for the hardest licking I ever got, about 20 or 25 smacks with her palm that made me cry hard but really succeeded in getting the message across.

I also noticed you address somewhat the issue of spanking/paddling in schools. in Crossville, Tennessee, where I live, paddling is still done, and I received it three times.

My opinion on spanking is simply that it can have a legitimate place in rearing a child, provided it's done moderately, in the right way and for the right reasons. I like the fact that you stress the idea of a spanking as an act of love between parent/child, because that's what it always should be!

I am glad that you support Christian ideals in parenting. I attend Salem Pentecostal Assemblies here, which is a really vibrant and Spirit filled church. My brothers and sisters and me were all brought up with spankings, and none of us were ever abused.

Take care,
 

Hello,

I first want to commend you on establishing a uniquely informative and very well-designed web site for anyone with more than a passing interest in the disciplinary spanking of children. I've been reading through the letters you've received, and they really do provide a good cross-section of opinions on child spanking. It's not surprising that those opposed to spanking tend to be rather vehement in their criticism of your site. To your credit, you took the approach that if children were going to continue to be spanked, in circumstances where legally administered spankings were favored as the appropriate punishment, better that the person doing the spanking should know how to go about it in a safe and efficient manner. That, to me, is the real feather in your cap: the honest, straightforward attention to the entire procedure of soundly spanking a child's bottom.

The anti-spanking community thrives on misrepresenting spanking as physical and emotional abuse, pure and simple. The overriding relationship between parent and child is somehow irrelevant. They see the physical act of smacking a distressed youngster's bottom, and the rush to judgment is instantaneous. At the end of the day, there's no arguing with ideologues. They'll never admit to spanking's legitimacy as a disciplinary option. It remains for parents and guardians with the legal authority to spank to decide when an over-the-knee bottom warming might just serve to reacquaint a child with the reality of their place in the chain of command.

And that brings me to your recommendations regarding the spanking of teenagers. All spankings should diminish in frequency as a child grows older, but especially once they've entered the realm of adolescence. You spank a child to punish misbehavior and to deter the child from repeating the wrong. As the mother of a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, I have always spanked across my knee on the bare bottom. This past August, when I learned that my son had committed an act of vandalism at his school, I pulled down his pants, turned him over my knee, and spanked his bare bottom with a Ping-Pong paddle. It qualified as an uncharacteristically severe spanking. It also registered my disappointment and disapproval in no uncertain terms.

I would've considered it completely inappropriate to solicit my son's opinion on whether or not his bottom ought to be bared, and whether he ought to be put across my knee. By every applicable standard within our family unit, he had earned himself a good, sound spanking - and I did not require his advice on how best to give him one. I haven't had to spank him since, and I hope it stays that way. But, if a child has grown up with bare bottom spankings as the punishment of last resort, it makes no sense to me whatsoever to then tailor the punishment to the teenaged child's specifications and expect it to retain its remedial potency.

Again, I salute you for performing a splendid service on behalf of families where spanking may or may not be particularly helpful, but where the act of spanking will always be undertaken safely, sanely, and soundly.

Sincerely,
 

Dear spank with love,

I am a 15 year old boy, and I have never recieved a "proper spanking." My parents have sometimes given me those "no-pain" little swats on my behind (they haven't done this since I was like 5). But I think that getting a "proper spanking" could help me (I sometimes get bad grades, and I am sometimes rude to my parents, etc). How can I ask my parents to spank me?
 

Hello, How do you do? I am a great fan of your website Spank with Love. It gives me precious information containing wisdom for a safe spanking and warning to some abusive spanking. Thank you very much for your providing such an instructive information.

I'm a Japanese highschool teacher. As you may know, corporal punishment is not allowed in Japan by law. People there have no convention of spanking. Most parents and teachers are uneducated in terms of how to inflict corporal punishment adequately on children and also lack of experiences. To my sorrow, however, abusive corporal punishment sometimes happens to be given by those uneducated parents and teachers. Child abuse is now a serious social problem.

Completely, I understand you and approve of your aim.

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It is no surprise that many teenagers who are spanked feel that they are too old for this form of punishment. More surprising, at first sight, is that others would like to be spanked when necessary. I think that the latter group believe that spanking would purge their feeling of guilt. Or they may want a punishment that is over more quickly.

My parents stopped spanking me far too early. I can still remember one misdeed at the age of 16. To this day, I still think that I needed a good spanking. It would have dealt with a longstanding problem of guilt. To those who share this feeling, you could always start the discussion as one girl did with her mother: "Why don't you spank me like other mothers spank their children?"

On the other hand, I only spanked one of mine in their teens. She felt that she was too old. One suggestion, to those who feel like her, might be to wait until the next spanking. Accept it without arguing. After it is over, and you are standing up and your clothes are adjusted, say something like: "Thank you for spanking me. I am sure that you only did it because you love me. However, I want you to know that I think that I am too old to be spanked. May we discuss it?"

Either way, another possibility might be to draw the teenagers' page to the attention of parents, asking that you may be allowed to participate in the decision as to whether you should still be spanked and, if so, how.
 

I was interested to read several messages from children (12 to 14) who felt embarrassed because they thought that they should be spanked more often but felt they could'nt possibly ask their parents for it.

As it happens, I remember perfectly well feeling the same way : I was spanked occasionally (and not very hard) when I was small, but as a pre-teen and teen my parents let me drift into laziness and bad behaviour as they responded to it only with reproaches or with a perfectly benign withdrawal of privileges. I remember that I used to actually envy my best pal who was spanked on his bare buttocks for the same offences that got me only a mild dressing-down.

Having been for six years now the stepfather of two boys (now 10 and 16) I have tried to take these memories into account and to factor in the fact that many children, although they don't admit it, in fact wish to be spanked. Bare-bottom spanking has been the normal punishment for the youngest boy when he was naughty, impertinent or lazy in class, and this has been a real success : he is now a nice, well-behaved, cheerful and balanced kid liked by everybody.

However, I have had less success with my eldest stepson, who always objected to the punishment. I have stopped all spankings on him since he was 14, as it seemed that he would definitely not accept it from me any more. Interestingly, although I believe that it is now too late to resume the practice, he does not consider himself privileged, quite the contrary : he keeps complaining that I give preference to his younger brother, although anyone watching would notice that the eldest boy benefits from a much laxer disciplinary regime. So maybe I made the wrong decision two years ago : even this burly teenager may still be feeling that being spanked is a proof of being loved !