Behavior a reflection of parents

‘I don’t spank Eve, partly because of how I was raised,” wrote Sherri Richards in her Dec. 7 column. “The way we parent as a society also changed. Time-outs and counting tactics now fill our parenting toolboxes.

“Parenting experts tell us that diverting the child’s attention or allowing the child to regroup in a time-out chair are more effective as discipline.”

I read this in The Forum and feel that another perspective should be heard.

How people raise their children is their own business, and that is not the portion I am commenting on. The part “I don’t spank Eve partly because of how I was raised.” Wow, that is loaded. How were you raised? Do you respect your fellow man? Are you kind to others? If it doesn’t belong to you, do you keep your hands off? Are you an honest person? Do you swear, push or threaten other people? Do you defile other people’s property? Do you expect to get and get and get and never do anything in return?

Maybe society should treat our children as children, not small adults. The experts believe that if you talk to your 2-year-old, they will get it more effectively than swatting the offending area. It is our responsibility to raise our children with morals and values. Hitting, kicking and screaming don’t seem to fall under that category.

I raised my children with a swat until they were about 6; by then, they were starting to get it. I was raised to understand there are consequences and that the offending area would be punished – my mouth, my fingers and, yes, my butt. It didn’t kill me or make me want to kill others.

Remember, our children are born with brains for us to educate. How much do you really think a 2-year-old knows about life or right and wrong? It’s your job to teach them.

Just look back over the past 10 to 15 years at what is happening with our children. More often than not, they do wrong because they had no boundaries and no consequences for their actions.

It sickens me to hear about 14- and 15-year-olds raping a 45-year-old woman while her children watched. Were their parents spankers or talkers? Were they taught right from wrong and here’s the consequences for what you did? Or did we just say: “Now, now, what you’re doing is wrong; two minutes in a chair to think about what you did.”

Most children who were raised by parents like yours and mine only had one thing hurt by a spanking – their pride. So you must ask yourself, was your childhood or parts of it that awful? I am grateful for how I was raised. I was never spanked out of anger, nor did I spank my children out of anger. I feel my parents taught me well enough that I would function in society as an upstanding adult and that also my behavior was a reflection of them.

Tags: opinion, letters, parenting, family, discipline, children