OK, I am sinking to personal anecdote level... My parents, who were both
spanked/slapped as children, decided that they would use spanking only
very rarely with me. Luckily for me, by the time I was 5, even their
limited experiences with "spanking episodes" had convinced them that
spanking me only made things worse [I would go into hysterics and be
unreachable for hours after being spanked.] Like most people who grew up
in the 1930's, they didn't know what else they could do, but they were
lucky enough to stumble into the idea that they needed to think about what
their goals were in raising me. Their decision was that they wanted me to
learn to *control myself* rather than relying on external props. This
meant teaching me to be aware of both internal and external events, and to
know when I was going to crack and needed to "get outta there". I think
it worked reasonably well.
Of course, there was a brief period during my adolescence when physical
punishment reared its ugly head... I got slapped across the face a couple
of times for mouthing off, but even at that age knew that my mom slapped
me more out of her frustration than anything else. [I was one of those
kids who was very good at school, and brought all my stresses home and
took them out on my mom. She was also frustrated because she had to bear
the brunt of it; my dad was my hero and I wouldn't have thought of being
mean to him] ... and then there was the time she hit me, but I hit her
first, so that "doesn't count." :)
------------------
Ann Muir Thomas, Ph.D. http://erebus.bentley.edu/empl/t/athomas
"The Accidental Jewess"
Bentley College, Waltham, MA
"You aren't belittled by being little. Only by acting small." --- Red
