# Husband believes in spanking, and I am AGAINST it.



## filiadeluna (Oct 2, 2007)

We are TTC #1, and I am worried about discipline when we have a child. My husband believes that spanking works and isn't wrong. I am against it. My mother only spanked me maybe ten times my entire childhood, and she now says she wishes she hadn't at all. For the most part, she disciplined me by time-outs, chore charts, and groundings. I think these were far more effective than spanking.

Even DH's mom admitted to him that if she "had to do it over again", she "would not spank". My husband asked why, and she explained that it doesn't work. His OWN MOTHER told him she doesn't believe in it anymore, and he still won't listen. He says his dad (a law enforcement officer) spanked him frequently, and even used his belt and sometimes would smack him and his brother on the wrist with his night stick sometimes.







:

We have been watching Super Nanny on occasion, and when he sees the kids misbehaving, he makes comments like "I would beat that kid". He doesn't literally mean beating, but he does mean spanking, and that's still not OK with me. Even though he sees Super Nanny telling the parents that physical punishment is NEVER the answer, and watches as she is able to change the kids' behavior by alternate means, he JUST DOESN'T GET IT.

How can I convince him that you can effectively discipline a child without spanking them & that spanking can even be detrimental? We need to get this straightened out BEFORE we have children.


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## runes (Aug 5, 2004)

have him watch alfie kohn's unconditional parenting dvd.

and not to excuse his rudeness towards children now, i hope that things will change for him once he is holding his own precious little one.

also, i hope he knows that those shows like supernanny are SO extremely edited so that we see the absolutely WORST behaviors of the kids and then their BEST behaviors once the nanny intervenes. it really is an unfair depiction of the kids. in light of this, as well as your husband's response to the shows, my other suggestion would be to STOP watching those shows. they are all about conditional/punitive/authoritarian discipline and if you are on the gentle discipline path, watching will only serve to infuriate you.


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## mom2tatum (Mar 14, 2007)

Well, we were in the same boat before ds was born. Once we fell into an attachment parenting lifestyle with baby actually HERE, not in my belly, he just sort of morphed into this advocate of gentle discipline - sometimes, now with ds at 15 mos, he is better at it than me! I think that supernanny show makes us all want to say what your dh said. I think it in my head sometimes







even though I know its not their fault for behaving the way they do.

I think he'll come around with your "gentle" explanations and encouraging and once he sees how well things work out in the beginning when both of you respond lovingly to your baby's needs...it will all start to make sense to him.

Good luck.


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## purposefulmother (Feb 28, 2007)

I don't know your husband of course, but I think that many parents feel this way BEFORE they have children; once they have that baby, a real live, completely innocent little person in their arms, it is VERY hard to imagine ever spanking the child.

You can always model --- use gentle discipline and let your dh see that is DOES work. Why be punitive when you don't need to be?

Good luck!


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## filiadeluna (Oct 2, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kidspiration* 
have him watch alfie kohn's unconditional parenting dvd.

and not to excuse his rudeness towards children now, i hope that things will change for him once he is holding his own precious little one.

also, i hope he knows that those shows like supernanny are SO extremely edited so that we see the absolutely WORST behaviors of the kids and then their BEST behaviors once the nanny intervenes. it really is an unfair depiction of the kids. in light of this, as well as your husband's response to the shows, my other suggestion would be to STOP watching those shows. they are all about conditional/punitive/authoritarian discipline and if you are on the gentle discipline path, watching will only serve to infuriate you.

Thanks for the suggestion. Can I find that DVD on Amazon, eBay, or something similar?

I used to work at a daycare, and I was usually placed in the 3-year-old room (I much preferred the babies and little ones). I guarantee you I felt like strangling those kids when they got out of hand (watching 15 of them at once is NOT easy), but I knew better. It was really frustrating, even when I applied my Psych major knowledge such as reinforcement and rewards. But I have heard that it is very different with your own children, and that they may not irritate you as quickly as someone else's kids will (since you can't discipline other peoples' children). It would be wonderful if DH would realise this on his own, but the DVD sounds helpful, and I may try to find some books on the subject as well.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mom2tatum* 
Well, we were in the same boat before ds was born. Once we fell into an attachment parenting lifestyle with baby actually HERE, not in my belly, he just sort of morphed into this advocate of gentle discipline - sometimes, now with ds at 15 mos, he is better at it than me! I think that supernanny show makes us all want to say what your dh said. I think it in my head sometimes







even though I know its not their fault for behaving the way they do.

I think he'll come around with your "gentle" explanations and encouraging and once he sees how well things work out in the beginning when both of you respond lovingly to your baby's needs...it will all start to make sense to him.

Good luck.

I sure hope so! My husband is fairly open-minded, but sometimes he thinks my beliefs (in general) are a bit "kooky". Oh well...

I didn't even think about the editing on the show. Duh. He is probably mostly seeing the worst side of things. Besides, the children portrayed on the show are sometimes extreme cases compared to the more "normal" child (haha what's that?). We may luck out and have really well behaved children. Who knows? My mom says I was a really good kid, but I do vividly remember throwing tantrums sometimes when I didn't get my way.









Hubby has ADD and dyslexia, though, so I also worry about that being passed on to my children. Not to mention my somewhat OCD tendencies, past battle with depression, and past eating disorder.







I guess we'll have to deal with those things if/when they come up. I'd much prefer to have an ADD child than one with an eating disorder, though, because ADD generally isn't life-threatening.

Sorry got kind of off-topic there.


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## runes (Aug 5, 2004)

yeah, my partner thinks that some of my ideas were/are 'kooky' too. but he comes around in due time.









the unconditional parenting dvd was a real eye opener to him, because kohn is so good at explaining, and his statements are all research based. there is also a book of the same name which is excellent but a bit hard to get through (but you were a psych major so it'll be cake for you, i'm a former psych major and also used to work in a preschool so we have similar backgrounds in regards to that.







)

i just checked and both the book and dvd are available through amazon.com.


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## filiadeluna (Oct 2, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *kidspiration* 
yeah, my partner thinks that some of my ideas were/are 'kooky' too. but he comes around in due time.









the unconditional parenting dvd was a real eye opener to him, because kohn is so good at explaining, and his statements are all research based. there is also a book of the same name which is excellent but a bit hard to get through (but you were a psych major so it'll be cake for you, i'm a former psych major and also used to work in a preschool so we have similar backgrounds in regards to that.







)

i just checked and both the book and dvd are available through amazon.com.

That's cool that we have those things in common! Thanks for checking availability for me. I will definitely purchase one or both of those when I am pregnant - but probably later on so hubby doesn't get overwhelmed with everything. Hehe. He can really be skeptical, though, and I'm still afraid he'll say something like "that's bullshit" or "why should I believe him?". Maybe not, but it's possible.


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## fek&fuzz (Jun 19, 2005)

Perhaps tell him that TTC'ing is off until this is resolved.


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## runes (Aug 5, 2004)

yeah, at first i thought that dh would say similar things, but kohn is an excellent speaker and he comes across as being humble yet knowledgeable at the same time which helped to turn off dh's bullsh!t-ometer.









timing might be key for introducing this stuff to him. we watched the dvd when dd was about 6 months old. by then, he was so incredibly in love and bonded to dd that the information was absorbed in relation to his OWN daughter, not some hypothetical zygote or fetus that wasn't 'real' to him yet, kwim? but she was still little enough that we had a little while before we truly had to practice gentle discipline.
best of luck to you in your ttc journey!







and kudos to you for thinking of this very important stuff so far in advance!


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## SublimeBirthGirl (Sep 9, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *fek&fuzz* 
Perhaps tell him that TTC'ing is off until this is resolved.

That's what I was going to say. Your husband wasn't disciplined; he was abused. Even if you don't think spanking is abuse, there is no doubt that smacking a kid across the wrist with a night stick is. You need to get to a point where you're sure the cycle won't be perpetuated before you decide to get pregnant.


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## hipumpkins (Jul 25, 2003)

While going a long car ride DH was telling me a story about how every year he dreaded back to school night.
why? I asked
"B/c I would get hit as soon as my parents got home b/c I wasn't doing the work I told them I WAS doing. " He told me

"Oh" I said, "So after that you never lied again?"
He laughed..."no I got hit all the time b/c I wouldn't do my school work."

"so spanking was really effective wasn't it?" I asked.

See if when your DH tells you a story about getting hit if he stopped immediately and never did that again.

It helps if you surprise him with the question...DH and I weren't necessarily discussing discipline methods (But I did lead him into the conversation but he wasn't aware) We were just chatting about school, I think.


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