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From: mark@tove.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: How to discipline short of spanking
Message-ID: <83@tove.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Jan-85 20:48:44 EST
Article-I.D.: tove.83
Posted: Fri Jan 11 20:48:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 02:50:00 EST
References: <286@ho95b.UUCP> <194@masscomp.UUCP>
Reply-To: mark@tove.UUCP (Mark Weiser)
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 33

In article <194@masscomp.UUCP> carlton@masscomp.UUCP (Alana Hommel) writes:
>...
>Emotionally, it is far more
>harmful for both _you_ and the child to have her sit and  scream then to have
>her spanked.
>...

The tone of the spanking discussion has been sounding good to me:
"Spanking should be rare, there are other forms of discipline just as
good, no physical abuse."  It sounds like we are all pretty good
parents.  But the above statement stopped me cold.  If there is some
actual evidence for it I'd like to hear it.  I think exactly the
opposite--it is best if I can stand to be with my children while she sits
and screams at bedtime.  Sometimes I am just not up to that, and I do
something to stop the screaming (usually read a story or do some other
distracting activity).  But I don't feel as good after that, and
neither does she.

When our children show emotions of any kind they encouraged to (a)
express that emotion non-destructively, and (b) not act on the emotion
but rather wait for calmness to decide what to do.  Similarly we do not
respond to the emotional outburst as if it is a demand for anything,
but simply as an expression that says: "I feel X", where X is sad, or
mad, or whatever.  Sometimes it can be hard to feel SO MAD or SO SAD
all alone, so we will sit with her (we have two girls) while the
outburst finishes (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 60 minutes).
But no special attention is given because there happens to be a lot of 
emotion, and we try for lots of attention to them at other times.

-- 
Spoken: Mark Weiser 	ARPA:	mark@maryland	Phone: +1-301-454-7817
CSNet:	mark@umcp-cs 	UUCP:	{seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!mark
USPS: Computer Science Dept., University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742