From: kathynv@circus.Camex.COM (Kathy Nicklas-Varraso)
Subject: Re: Help with Spanking Alternatives
Keywords: long
Organization: Camex Inc., Boston MA
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1993 08:04:59 EST

In article <1993Jan4.045240.11706@news2.cis.umn.edu> Theresa Jarosz Alberti <sapphire@wings.micro.umn.edu> writes:
>I'm really interested in alternatives to spanking when dealing with
>children too young to understand reasoning.  My son and daughter are 17
>months old and they are starting to get into behaviors I'm not sure how
>to handle.  

Well, I'll take a shot at it, this is something I personally struggled
with, before my daughter was born.  I was spanked as a child, and
originally thought that there was nothing wrong with spanking.  My
husband was never spanked, and was dead set against any kind of corporal
punishment.  After much thought, I agree with him.

Unfortunately, all my solutions for teaching a child to behave at this
age are things for you to do, and assume that a child will not
remember, and will not cooperate.


>I "spanked" them for the first time (slapped their hands) when, after
>hours of "no touch!" from me concerning the Christmas tree lights, I came
>into the room and found them playing with the lights AND my son had them
>wrapped around his neck!  

When Manda was that age, we blocked off the tree from her reach.  Also,
she was never alone while awake.  This is difficult, I know, but it
saved us a lot of grief.

>Another problem has been feeding time.  They've gotten into very
>purposefully throwing their food on the floor.  We say "no!" loud, louder
>and even louder, and they smile cunningly and drop the food slowly onto
>the floor.  We've gotten into spaking their hands for this and
>threatening to take them out of their high chairs.  Sometimes they even
>smile after being slapped!

Well, what they're up to is simple cause and effect!  "See, I drop this
food on the floor, Mama and Daddy go ballistic, isn't this entertaining?"
How about assuming that the food throwing signals the end of mealtime?
"Oh, oh, you threw your food on the floor, you must not be hungry",
worked for us.

>What is most frustrating is that I do not want to slap them.  I want
>there to be a way to discipline my children without hitting, but I'm not
>sure what else to do. 

Most of what I do is to steer my daughter into making the choices 
that I find acceptable.  I remove or block off anything that's
dangerous or fragile.  I make logical consequences the result of
any behavior, good or bad.  I purposefully look for things that
Manda does right (like using her fork, or putting her trash in the
barrel), and making sure I mention it to her.

Also, I don't worry about the small stuff.  If the tree is totally
irresistible, and I can't block it off, I would remove all the
breakable ornaments, and attach the lights to the branches with
twister seals.  (We also wire the tree to the wall, so it can't tip.)

If Amanda is dead set on wearing her dalmatian T shirt to school
(This is Boston, and it's freezing) I let her wear it with a 
sweatshirt underneath.  I try to find comprimises that we can both live
with.  

Thre are a few things that I will not budge on.  Medicine must be
taken, if I say so.  Bathing is not voluntary, although I try to
make it as fun and as brief as possible.  No playing on the stairs.
Because there are very few hard and fast rules, Amanda has no
trouble remembering the rules we do have, and getting her to
follow them isn't all that difficult, most of the time.

Hope that this is of some small help to you, it sure works for us.

(If you've made it this far, aren't you glad that you read a long
post without even one mention of the dreaded "C-word" ;-))

Kathy Nicklas-Varraso
proud mama to Amanda Rose, age 3 (eek!)

Newsgroups: misc.kids