If you 'spank' your kids, you're parenting wrong and I know why

"Go ahead - mock 'gentle parenting' and call this 'discipline', but if you hit a child, you've simply lost your sh*t." Note: sensitive topics

I still have nightmares about my dad taking off his belt.

Fortunately, not to take off his pants, but to ask me to "put out your hand" so he could slap the leather strap on my open palm.

The tender, open palm of a child.

If you are fired up about this abuse, but think it doesn't apply to the 'gentle taps' on the arm or bum you use on your own kids, just know my mum would also discipline us with 'light taps' of a wooden spoon.

And I can assure you, her 'discipline' was as bad as dad's. Why? Because a child isn't scared of the physical pain as much as they are scared and confused of being hurt by some they love; someone who has lost control and is not parenting.

Having experienced both kinds of 'discipline', I know two things: the only thing a child sees is a parent's anger and their lack of respect.

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"Spanking is not the opposite of gentle parenting"

The last time I saw my dad, my sister was 17, studying and working full time, and despite having endured this abuse her whole life, she was trembling and crying as she held out her hand. 

She wet her pants as the belt came down. We will remember that scene for as long as we live, and not because of the 'lesson' dad was claiming to teach us.

So many parents justify their abuse in the name of 'discipline' or 'punishment', ready to mock 'gentle parenting' for its ineffectiveness in controlling their children.

People are wrong, and deluded, if they think spanking is a controlled and a purposeful parenting technique.

Physically punishing a kid is usually not the first option - often, it happens when a parent is so enraged, they need to lash out and can't stop themselves.

So they give in to their base, animal instincts, thinking they have no other option.

They claim that what they think is gentle parenting -pandering to a child, treating them as an equal - is spoiling a child. They have misunderstood. They don't know there are options in between that don't involve techniques from 100 years ago.

Your parenting does not need a label, but you DO need to respect all children - yes, even your own. That's actually all 'gentle parenting' is about.

In fact, we have strict laws about how children deserve respect - and don't pretend you don't know that.

A "light slap" still causes terror in a child; it will still teach them to be afraid of you as much as a beating. 

And the only reason abuse might temporarily work in getting the behaviour you're demanding is because you are breaking their spirit.

Image: iStock

"He didn't stop until his anger was spent"

My earliest memory is of being absolutely thrashed while visiting family friends. I was swung around the room, with a circle of people watching in horror.

One of the dads tried to stop it, imploring my father to stop.

He didn't, until his anger was spent.

My mum had quiet words to him in the car, later - for embarrassing her.

When we got home, I received two 'taps' on the wooden spoon on each hand, for "causing him to snap in the first place."

I was four. That was 40 years ago.

In some ways I can excuse it (for my own sanity) because that's how they had been raised, and they didn't know better.

What. Is. Your. Excuse?

Originally published as If you 'spank' your kids, you're parenting wrong and I know why