Corporal Punishment

   I got the strap once. It was in Grade Two and I got it for throwing a snowball in a "non-designated" area. And I think I might have gotten off scot-free if I hadn't creamed Brian McCauley in the face with it. Brian didn't really care if he made a fuss about stuff like that in those days and the resultant  uproar led to the investigation which landed me in the principal's office.
   My recollection of what transpired in that office is somewhat dim, I don't remember much if any inquiry and I'm pretty sure the principal took on the "judge, jury and executioner" role, I'm asuming with relish. The strap itself was short and black and I received one resounding whack. Can't even remember if I cried or not.
   Since then I have occasionally worn this story as a badge of honour. It does go somewhat against the image people have of me and anything I can do to re-inforce a "bad boy" image is something I'm game for.
   Above and beyond that one sad schoolyard episode, I've had very little experience with corporal punishment. As a kid I think I maybe got one belt on my hand and yet one more attempt at this by a very sleepy father who wasn't quite awake and didn't have his glasses on so not much pain involved.
   As a father myself my recollection is that I never employed more than one bare-handed whack on a bum per episode. It was usually an attention-grabber more than anything else and wasn't something I think my boys particularly feared. So it did not get used often. It discontinued entirely after I used it one time on my bare-bottomed youngest kid. A couple of minutes later I noticed a perfect hand print on his little butt and that was the last time one of my boys got spanked.
   Corporal punishment in the schools, of course, has run its course. It is frowned upon in the home as well. What has taken its place is sitting down with your child, giving him or her clear expectations, boundaries and consequences and heaping on the praise when he or she meets these requirements.
   When done well, this works. Done poorly and it is disastrous. And it is very easy to do poorly as it entails so many different components, all of which need to work in conjunction with each other in order to be effective. It is a time-consuming and sometimes mentally-draining process. That is why it is either not understood well or given up on prematurely, leaving a kind of vacuum wherein the child has no fear of physical punishment curbing his behaviour and no effective reinforcement shaping his behaviour. You then have a kid running amok. 
   So it all seems to come down to deciding whether to hit your kid or talk to him. I got hit as a kid (but not a lot) and I did some hitting as an adult (but not a lot) and I think that both my boys and I turned out okay. My getting hit as a young boy taught me that if you do something bad then there's a nasty consequence. And yet I don't have a really strong negative feeling about whatever that consequence was I was dealt with. Using the strap as an example, I did get the strap and it did hurt quite a bit but I don't think it scarred me in the slightest, as I've explained. However, there were occasions when simple things that came out of my parents mouths ended up hurting far worse than any hand-whacking I ever received.
   Words have that power, you better believe it! So when we as parents are being told that you mustn't spank and that you need to talk to your kids it is with this proviso: You need to say the right thing! And you need to say it in the right way and at the right time. Getting all three of these things straight is extremely difficult. What makes them even more difficult is that sometimes we are angry when we are trying to do this. An angry word at the wrong time can be so much more devastating than getting whacked on the butt.
   With a spanking, generally it is a cause and effect issue; you do something bad and then you receive punishment (generally the punishment you were expecting) and the issue is over. Words spoken in anger, however, dissipate much more slowly, if ever. A word spoken in anger can make a kid stop and say to themself "oh no, that's what they really think about me...!"
   I have been blessed insofar as I never had to endure too many "angry words" as I was growing up. I can, however, think of a couple of times when my parents said things that crushed me. The fact that they immediately realized what they'd done and tried to make amends afterwards did little to lessen the blow.
   My point here is that when my parents said those things I really would rather have been spanked! I would have gotten over a spanking so much more easily and not had to deal with it years later.
   In case you're wondering, it's not that I'm a fan of any type of corporal punishment. I much more lean toward reasoning with your kids if it can be done in such a way as to help them understand how the world works and then act accordingly. At the same time, lion mothers cuff their cubs for a reason and this, in its own way, is a teaching tool as well.
   So remember what made you feel bad when you were a kid and try to remember how and why it made you feel bad. Then, try and recall all the things that made you feel good about yourself, whether it was a pat on the back, a simple glance or perhaps some verbal praise. Speak with other parents and find out what worked and didn't work for them. Read a book. Weigh all of these things against each other and do what feels right with your own kids.
   Good luck!