Why Some Kids Need a Spanking (and some parents do too)

And now for some unsolicited parenting advice (see, I told you I'd offend you one way or another)...

I'll never forget the time I was in a fast food place for lunch, and noticed the woman in the booth right across from me, there alone with her son who looked to be about two and a half. She was attempting to eat her lunch and ignore the fact that her son was standing on the seat next to her, hitting her in the face.

Now, let's fast-forward a couple of years. Different time, different place, different woman. This one came to work all upset because her 15 year-old son tried to push her down the stairs because she tried to take away his cell phone.

Having raised two children to adulthood and never once been threatened with violence by either one of them (all right, there were a couple of real dirty looks there, but they were teenagers at the time so pretty much all they did was give dirty looks), I'm going to share some home truths about parenting that today's books have overlooked in favor of the dreaded political correctness.

Spanking works.

Now, I am in no way advocating beating up kids -- not even the little bastards who deserve it most. Spanking is not attacking. It's not abusing. It is making it crystal clear that there are limits, and there are rules, and there are consequences for knowingly breaking those rules. (This is also the basis for the American criminal justice system, when you think about it.) It's also a good reminder to anyone, large or small, to remember that there is always someone bigger and meaner than you are, and even if they're not they could still have a gun, so violence doesn't help anything and the best way to get along is to keep your hands to yourself.

Sounds like I'm saying two completely opposite things? Let me give you an example.

Say your two year-old is poised to do something he knows damned well he's not supposed to do. Now, say this isn't the kind of life or death situation where you'd better be grabbing his stupid ass before he falls off a cliff as opposed to arguing and giving him time to deliberate. So for argument's sake, he is going to try to play with the urn containing Gramma's ashes.

"Don't do that!" is your natural response.

And his natural response, being two, is to grin at you and put his hand just a little bit closer. Just to see what you'll do.

You have two choices now. You can yell at him again, figure he'll do it just to get a rise out of you, and then punish him (or worse, don't punish him so he learns it's fine to disobey you whenever he feels like it) or you can give him something new to deliberate.

"If you touch that you're going to get a spanking," would be the next words out of my mouth.

Now, say he really likes this game now. So he gives you a big, charming smile and yet again puts out a hand to touch the thing you have now clearly warned him not to touch.

"I'm going to count to three now, and if you're still standing there you'll get a spanking. Ready? One...two..."

If you have been consistent up to this point in your parenting, he now knows you're serious. And because of that, I never ever actually made it to "three" until my second child was three. And guess what. She got a slap on the behind, cried like I had killed her, got over it and I never had to get to "three" again. And for the record, she (and my son) are both grown up now, alive, and are both very pleasant and productive members of society.

What I'm saying is, if you let your kids turn into monsters when they're young, just wait until they're monsters who are old enough to push you down the stairs.

You're the parent. Be the parent. What it takes is time and consistency. A lot of consistency. If they 'get it' when they're little, it makes it much easier when they start to outgrow you.

Oh, and the caveat here is that spanking should be discontinued the minute the kid is old enough to reason with (and punish with appropriate consequences such as having to leave a party if they act like a brat while there). In my kids' case it was about four. Your mileage may vary.

Now, go do something constructive. And get your kids off my damned lawn unless you asked me if they could play there.