When does Discipline become Abuse?

Yesterday, while running errands with Evie, I heard the following dialog on Michel Martin's NPR show, Tell Me More.

Click for Transcript

I was quite curious what video was being referenced in the conversation.

Here is the video in question.  It is very upsetting, but I post it because this blog was inspired (so to speak) by its existence.



It got me thinking about spanking and what kind of methods of discipline are "okay" and which are "abuse".   When does punishment not fit the crime, for instance.  

When I was a little girl, the usual punishment was being sent to my room.  On many occasions I talked back to my mom or dad about going to my room, so often a spanking or paddling accompanied time in my room.  If I swore, my mouth was "washed" out with soap.  I clearly remember getting soap in my mouth for calling my sister a "f**k head."  I am almost certain I did not know what the "f" word meant, but I knew it was really bad.  Thus, what could be worse to call my sister?  A horrible word, plus "head".

My father received his paddles from work - when his principal was no longer able to use them as discipline.  I remember my elementary principal paddling students in his office on occasion.  I was a VERY sensitive child, so I remembered the crying and the fear of ever having to go to the office.  But should our children FEAR us?  Should they FEAR adults?  I truly believe that FEAR is not RESPECT.

I did not necessarily fear my father, but I never thought he was beating me up.  He was simply punishing me for my poor choices.  Even in retrospect, I would not have had a compelling YouTube video like the one above.  My father did not beat me up during the punishment process. My parents were both educators with plenty of child behavior training.  I truly believe in the 70s and 80s spanking your child (or paddling for that matter) was just standard practice.

Jim and I do have a punishment regiment for our girls.  A warning is given.  Sometimes the action does not warrant a warning, and moves to the next step.  A time out is given based on the age of the child  .  Sometimes Zoe will start with 6 minutes and end up serving us 30 or more minutes.  If time outs are not working, items that are loved (TV, toys, etc.) are taken away.  Zoe is our child who tries to push all buttons.  Evie has never had more time in time out than her age.  However, I will admit to smacking Zoe on the butt a couple of times for her mouthing off to me.  It gets her attention, and I only tap her bum.

So is spanking wrong?  There definitely needs to be consequences for the misdemeanor.  But I believe we live in a society that is much more lax with the severity of punishments than when I was a kid.  As much as I believe in time outs - for time to think about what you've done wrong, I also believe in explanation and time to hug at the end.  Knowing that consequences don't necessarily mean you are bad, only that you made a poor choice.

For instance: Monday evening Zoe shared with me that she had to move her clothespin at school.  She has never been in trouble at school before, ever.  Her class has a system of warning, time outs, and office time.  So "moving her clothespin" meant she made a poor choice.  However, the choice was only a warning and not repeated again to have a letter sent home.  When I asked Zoe what she did, she was oblivious to the "crime."  I knew that her teacher was not one to give consequences without definite reason, so I had Jim ask her teacher yesterday morning what Zoe did.  He was told Zoe was rambunctious and interrupted 4 times during a lesson.  Thus, her teacher had her move the clothespin to get her attention.  She never repeated the disrespectful actions, so the clothespin movement worked.  I was able to further talk to Zoe about her actions, because I believe talking and discussing is possible at 6.

So I posted the following question to my facebook friends after hearing about the judge and his 16 year old daughter:

I am wondering, my Facebook readers, when does a punishment become abuse? Do you spank? What do you do for discipline (i.e. do you have a list of punishments to fit different crimes)?

I was truly curious what my friends out in Facebook-Land did, and I really enjoyed and appreciated their comments:

• Laurie Well, at 16 the absolutely worst punishment was not being able to drive the family car.........yikes, I would rather have received 50 lashes......Yesterday at 1:27pm 
  
  
  Andrea You do NOT hit. Everyone should have learned that in kindergarten and it applies to adults.
  

  Yesterday at 2:46pm 
• Amanda There are far more effective forms of discipline then hitting or spanking...I myself have never done it. We have always used time outs and taking things away. Also I find positive reinforcement always prevents bad behavior. Anytime Olivia is going through a particularly difficult stage we bring out the old behavior chart where she gets rewarded for the good things she does and gets stickers removed for not following directions. It has always worked. There is really no need for physically punishing children.
  

  Yesterday at 3:01pm
• Joe  I would think that even those that feel spanking is necessary and/or helpful (sure, it can be effective if you're too lazy and stupid to use your brain to try to teach your kid something) would realize that THIS IS A 16 YEAR OLD!! A little kid that can't reason yet needs to be taught to not run into the street and you want to get a point across and don't think this kid is going to understand the seriousness through a conversation or a time out when you get home so there's actually reason to consider spanking, but this is an adolescent old enough to reason and think abstractly and consider consequences and sue to separate themselves for you sorry excuse for parenting. He's not mature enough to handle using his words to express his feelings to his daughter, he has to hit her?!? And this idiot is supposed to discipline the general public to teach them how to behave?? I hope his local voters are paying attention to this clown's actions.
  

  23 hours ago
• David I have only spanked my children 5 times tops each. A lot has to do with how you were disciplined. Every generation seems to be less physical with punishment. I personally feel that a hand on the butt to get their attention is OK. But grabbing something to hit with or hitting anywhere else to too much. But that's just me.
  17 hours ago