Parent Thread

My parents hit me when I was a kid. What can I say, I did some really stupid things. Like I was out on the playground until 6pm and when I wasn't home in time my father walked to pick me up. When he spotted me he took out his belt. I still remember that picture to this day. I raced home on my bike, threw it in the cellar, ran up three flights of stairs, and went straight to bed. No chance to hide though, he found me of course and his belt found my ass. I pissed myself during that beating. All of that because a kid forgot to watch the time and be home at a certain point.

It's been over thirty years and my father died a few years ago but I still hate what he did on that day. I will never be violent towards my kids like that.

Mom wasn't a saint either, when her slipper came off you knew it was business time. She was a bit more lenient though.

Turns out she is ok, no appendicitis. Thankfully. The tests were rough, especially for her. We ended up having to sedate her so she could get a CT scan, which I was very much against but there's that urgency. She's sleeping it off at home right now. Looks like it was just some kind of virus that caused some extreme stomach pain.

Before we took her into the Dr I was talking with my wife about this, how in a kid with her kind of condition (ADHD, sensory issues, possibly bipolar) it's hard to really gauge how serious things are. Like, was she really in that much pain? Who knows? She's come up with ways to handle the other sensory issues, like wearing ear muffs to dull sounds of loud groups or movies or whatever, wearing long sleeves/layers to cover up from heat/cold. But with pain, she just can't handle shit. It's like the world's worst super power.

Better safe than sorry

Have you tried striking her to make her afraid?

The doctor did tell me that for millennia tribes would drive out the demons using bloodletting, sacrifice, and prostration before Marduk, and that if it was good enough for them we should definitely incorporate it into our parenting toolkit.

Add me to the parents that think that a spank has its place in the parenting tool box but it should rarely be used. ( I have spanked him on his bottom twice one swat each time but he remembers both) I also understand what vGrade says about fear.

My son turns 5 tomorrow and he lacks zero confidence in himself, very alpha, and stubborn. He is convinced that there is nothing he can’t do and if you tell him he can’t do something he wants to just prove he can. This has many benefits as he is already a great swimmer and does front flips off the high-dive , he is doing the 4foot drop ins at the at the skate park on his bmx bike, and he has to climb the highest point of any playground as soon as we go. To him I am his biggest competition and everything with me is a test to see who is stronger or faster. I am the #1 boss of the house and he is the #2 according to him.

While not often I have to remind my son that I am in fact bigger and stronger then him. For example a few weekends ago after about an hour of asking him to clean his room up so we could go to his grandmas birthday party, I went in with the super pissed off dad voice and asked him if a spanking is what it’s going to take to get this room clean. His room was clean in under a minute.

Afterwards we were in the car and headed to the party and I asked him why he thinks he doesn’t have to do what I want until I get upset. “Papa, when you are nice I don’t think I have to do what you want”. So for a few weeks the look is enough to get through to him but slowly it becomes less effective until its no longer effective.

I hate having to do it and I even have a tier system of my level of frustration with him so that he is not surprised and he rarely does what I request at home until I just reach Freak-out level.


We only watch about 3-5 hours of TV a week and no phones or tablets ever. He will stay in a time out all day before doing what you want.( we have done this several times). So he pushes me to the max and sometimes causes so much rage in me but I also and so proud that he is not going to be a push over in life. If there are parents here that have better suggestions I am open to trying different things.

Anything overused becomes ineffective and causes more problems down the road. IE the parents that scream and yell at the children in public but never really do anything.

I'm far from a perfect parent. I lose my shit all the time. I feel like I don't spend enough time with them, especially individually rather than as a group. But I also feel like I have to push harder and harder in my career and set them up better in life. We're not involved in the kid's schools like I always thought I would be when I was younger, who has time? And I have one daughter who just has so many challenges and we're medicating her and I worry every single day that I'm ruining her life. Shit is hard. Like the bare minimum I can do is not hit them.

That's the best part of being a parent. We are all probably fucking our kids up in one way or another but hey at-least I am not as bad as that parent over there!

For the most part, I don't really see it that way. There's a lot of grey area in parenting, a lot of matters of opinion. It's just that this particular thing really isn't one of them. The jurys been in, for quite some time. In a hundred years, they'll look on this the way we look on child brides and child factory workers from the 1800s. It's not good.

And neither is letting them eat shitty food while they sit in front of a screen for hours a day but their are parents that let that happen while they go on about how they would never lay a finger on their child!

Larnix said:

And neither is letting them eat shitty food while they sit in front of a screen for hours a day but their are parents that let that happen while they go on about how they would never lay a finger on their child!

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Dude look who you're talking to. That's how we all got here

That is my point, it’s hypocritical for anyone to think that the occasional spank is going to have a longer psychological effect then teaching your children poor eating habits and encouraging a sedentary lifestyle at a young age. I really wish my parents would have taught me more about being healthy at a young age and that all the videos games and Pepsi is what caused my belly and not bad genetics.

Larnix said:

That is my point, it’s hypocritical for anyone to think that the occasional spank is going to have a longer psychological effect then teaching your children poor eating habits and encouraging a sedentary lifestyle at a young age. I really wish my parents would have taught me more about being healthy at a young age and that all the videos games and Pepsi is what caused my belly and not bad genetics.

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Not a single person in this thread said that they are pro sedentary lifestyles and shitty diets. You know you can feed your kids decent food, encourage physical activity, limit screen time all while not beating the shit out of them.

alavaz said:

Not a single person in this thread said that they are pro sedentary lifestyles and shitty diets. You know you can feed your kids decent food, encourage physical activity, limit screen time all while not beating the shit out of them.

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And no one said beat the shit out of their kid... what's your point

To be fair, one dude basically said beat the shit out of your kid.

But yeah man, lots of ways to mess up as a parent. Our main job is to minimize harm, is it not?

Larnix said:

And no one said beat the shit out of their kid... what's your point

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I took sarcastic liberties but I know you get the point.