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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!akgub!cylixd!charli
From: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: corporal punishment
Message-ID: <261@cylixd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Sep-85 16:28:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: cylixd.261
Posted: Mon Sep  9 16:28:21 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Sep-85 05:05:37 EDT
References: <128@pyuxv.UUCP>
Reply-To: charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips)
Organization: RCA Cylix Communications , Memphis, TN
Lines: 37
Summary: 

>
>	Lesson: A reaction to a child's action, whenever possible should be
>right then and there.  Things you WANT to have the child do should be
>rewarded, and things you DON'T WANT to have the child do should be
>punished (No, punish does not mean inflict pain) right then and there.
>
>				-- G. M. Bogatko

As a comment on this discussion, my son started something when he was a
year old that really upset me.  Every time he got frustrated (and,
as anyone who has one knows, one-year-olds get frustrated a lot), he'd
bang his head on the floor.  Hard.

Our pediatrician, my mother, and all the other "experts" we turned to
assured us he would not hit his head hard enough to injure himself.
That's easy to say when you're not sitting there watching him beat
himself.  We tried putting him in his crib in the other room, all those
sorts of things.  He *never* got any goodies for his efforts.  But the
head-banging wouldn't go away.

So after a while, my husband decided he'd had enough.  If the head-banging
wasn't hurting Jonathan, it was hurting *me*.  Starting one Sunday
afternoon, every time Jonathan banged his head on the floor, he got
swatted on the bottom.  Hard.  (Not hard enough to injure him through
his diapers and clothes, of course.  But hard enough that he knew he'd
been swatted.)  Within two days, the head-banging was *gone*.  It has
recurred only twice since.  Both times, he got swatted.  (We also 
instructed grandparents and babysitters that if he banged his head, he
was to be swatted.)  It was a fast cure.  I think it was far better,
and I know it was far more effective, than any non-physical methods we
tried.

Note that I am not advocating child-beating.  Swats and spankings are
not the *only* disciplinary measure we use. But in this case, it worked,
it worked fast, and it saved me a lot of grief.  

		charli