Analytical: I don't see where the definition of discipline includes beating, cane, rod, stick, switch etc. Punishment inflicted by way of correction (that is, show me what I am doing wrong, correct me, show me the right way) and training. If all you want to do is discipline then do it by the book.

Coco: all I am saying is that there is a more difficult method of achieving what you obviously want for your kids and I believe its the better way.

And yes this topic is important to me because I have siblings that believe in beating their children and I have had this argument with them many times. I was also beaten as a child and I was the wildest of children. Was that because of the beating or was the beaten because of the wild in me? I don't know. All I know is that at the time I was beaten the last thing in my mind was how "Oh I have to be a good boy next time", what was in my mind was how not to get caught the next time.

From both your statements you are moving away from beating as a cure all to once in 6 months etc. That is good. But be careful when you advocate beating because there are many people reading this now and going to buy koboko, who might not understand how little you beat. Now I tell you this, if one of these people are hot tempered and they beat and kill there children that blood will be on your hand. So be careful what you advocate. Start all your postings with "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME - UNLESS YOU ARE A TRAINED COMPASIONATE BEATER".

Please think about this: If you were to do to a stranger on the street what you do to your own kids in the house, in the name of beating, you will be assaulted for assault. How can it be right that it is acceptable for your 4 year old, when you will be jailed for the same offence committed to a 20 year old stranger?

PS
KOKO: My hat to off to you as a single parent (I think you mentioned that). I can't imagine how hard that is. Hang in there and treat them right (I'm sure you do in all other ways - apart from this beating thing (and that's my crusade))

I am not being ridiculous, just magnifying to make things clear. You say "HOWEVER IF THEY FEEL THAT THEY ARE MAN ENOUGH TO DISRESPECT ME AFTER I RAISED THEM ALL BY MYSELF I WILL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM I DEMAND RESPECT FROM THEM ALWAYS NO MATTER WHAT AGE THEY ARE". What if they continue to disrespect after the shit has been beat out of them? So beating has failed to achieve the effect you desire, then what? In my mind the next step after beating is cutting, or no?

Analytical: below are some definitions from www.dictionary.com
beating: to strike violently or forcefully and repeatedly
violence: Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing

To beat is to strike violently, violence is abuse. To beat is to abuse. So please just know, based on the meaning of these words, when you beat you abuse. If you don't want to abuse your children stop striking them with physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing them.

COCO29: Slapping them around did not work? Obviously the earlier use of the belt did not work too. Don't forget to escalate to cutlass when they become imune to the belt too. :-)

Analytical,

I do notice you like using discipline, and I wonder why when what you are doing is beating. You talk about not beating your 1n month old, but I'm sure you know people that do. You beat your 4 year old and I know people who don't beat theirs. You appear to be proposing not beating a teenager, but I know people that got beaten as teenagers. My point? For every age and stage that someone thinks beating is right, others think it is wrong and have found other method of non-violent discipline effective. That is my point, if other people can effectively discipline children (10 months to 20 years) what makes mine the animal that has to be beaten?

So I will ask this question again: are you saying that if you don't beat your children then they are doomed? Are you saying no other method will work? Are you saying you have no time to try other methods? I understand that she was being stubborn, that is what children do, because they cannot fully express themselves yet. The question is what is she trying to tell you by being stubborn? Is she trying to assert her individuality? I don't know. It is obvious you love your kids and they love you. But I tell you if your relationship with your kids is at a 9 on a 10-scale, that is because beating has cost you one point.

Analytical,

I completely agree with the statement that you have to experience certain things to fully understand. I have a 16 month old boy. Of course I have never hit him because of my beliefs, and for that reason, I have been very stern with him when I want him to stop something. He is the most obedient child. Every time we hang out with our friends and their kids, the comment on how well behaved he is. When I say STOP, he stops whatever he is doing. When I say NO he stops too. It was not easy instilling the need to obey my command without beating him, but I did it. I took extra time to make sure he stopped what he was doing when I said stop. I will spend an extra 20 minutes teaching him not to do something repeatedly stopping him until he gets the point. After that a stern NO stops him in the track. Of course I could have managed the same thing by smacking, slapping, canning, etc. in 1 minute, but I do not think that is the ONLY way (I believe there are negative consequences of beating) therefore it is not the BETTER way.

Now let me tell you what else people say about my son: He is such a happy baby, always smiling. He is so free with people, not shy at all. He has a good disposition. Now my mom's pal said, "It is very clear that this child is being brought up with love". Then I see my friends kids. I notice the children of the ones that have argued the use-the-road approach and they are timid, shy, demonstrate a level of insecurity, and they fall sick all the time (at 16 months my son has only had a cold twice).

So the question I have for you Analytical is this, if you believe that it is possible to bring up a child to be a responsible and successful individual without beatings, will you continue beating them? Please answer this or don't bother responding to my post because this is the core of my position and your response will assure me that you get my point of view

PS. You contradict yourself when you say you only use the cane in extreme circumstances and then you proceed to tell us how you beat your 4 year old because she wanted to write the # 3 in her own way. Fine you corrected this in one day. I will rather correct it in 2 weeks than beat that child. I will let her come back with that number marked wrong and then I will ask her to humour me and write it my way to see what her teacher thinks. And when the teacher marks it right she will learn two valuable lessons. 1) I know more than she does 2) The way to write the # 3. That is what the point of the homework is right? To teach her how to write numbers. Please, please, please do not visit violence on your kids because they are confused on the importance of homework.

Analytical,

Lets analyze this

Fact # 1: There are many very successful individuals in this world that were beaten by their parents
Fact # 2: There are many very successful individuals in this world that were never beaten by their parents
Fact # 3: There are many very unsuccessful individuals in this world that were beaten by their parents
Fact # 4: There are many very unsuccessful individuals in this world that were never beaten by their parents
Fact # 5: There are many well behaved children in this world that were beaten by their parents
Fact # 6: There are many well behaved children in this world that were never beaten by their parents
Fact # 7: There are many badly behaved children in this world that were beaten by their parents
Fact # 8: There are many badly behaved children in this world that were never beaten by their parents

Conclusion: Success or failure, well behaved or badly behaved does not depend on a child being beaten.

For me, if I know that there is a method for raising children that involves beating them like animals, and a method for raising children that involves not beating them, I will take the time and effort to go the non-beating route.

It requires patience, reading, talking to people who have done it successfully, etc. It is costly (time, maybe money) to bring up kids without beating. Beating on the other hand needs no teaching. Any dummy can beat a child.

So until someone on this thread tells me that there is a guarantee that not beating a child will lead to the child being dysfunctional, then I will not beat my child. Instead I will invest all that is necessary to bring him up the right way without any violence.

I advise you all to do the same. If you beat your child you teach him that beating someone is the way to get them to behave in a certain way. So they get in trouble at school for fighting, trying to beat someone to have their way. What do you do when you hear? You beat him. Now he is being punished for what you as a parent has taught him.

If beating is such a good way to make people do what they don't want to do then why end it with children. Maybe our bosses should beat us when we don't deliver projects on time. Per analytical, maybe not on the first time, but surely after the 6th missed deadline the cane deserves to come out. Of course if our boss tells us why we are being flogged then it has to be okay. How about after the 3rd speeding ticket the police brings out a rod and hammers our buttocks. Of course we will stop speeding when we think of that.

The most pathetic sight I behold and I see this often is a mother beating a child and the child running to the same mother for comfort. Makes me sick to see the child so confused that the one she expects nurturing from is the one that visits her with violence. It is in this state of mind that a 4 year old is expected to fully understand why she is being punished?

I argue that there is a universal standard for dealing with children and that is "you must be humane". If beating a child is inhumane then lets not rationalize it to be something else. What I see is that a lot of people try to use examples that really do not apply, while they ignore the facts that violence begets violence. The fact that one is closer to the mum or dad has nothing to do with their style of discipline. Was your mom a sit at home mom and your dad was always away at work? Is your mom more likely to talk about mundane things and your dad more about business? Was your mom more emotional and caring? Look for why you are closer to your mom than because he beat you. You insult your relationship with your mom if you ascribe it to the fact that she beat you. I'm sure she won't be proud of that.

Also I want draw your attention to an important observation I made according to fayalitte, and I quote "my last brother received less or no cane because he was gentle or even sensible wheres me and my immediate younger one were the die hard always trying to prove a point of exploit and as such we got the whooping which has made us the better"

Don't you see the point I have been trying to make here, the last brother, last child is always spoilt, given more attention because the parents are older and less inclined to beat. So as a child they probably did not beat him. How did he turn out? According to you he was gentle and even sensible. You want to say he was not beaten because he was gentle and sensible, but I argue that he was gentle and sensible because he was not beaten and therefore there was never a need to beat him.

Menwhile, fayalitte and his/her immediate younger one were die hards, always trying to prove a point and alway's getting whooped. I think they were hardened by the early beating they must have received, because I can tell that their parents beat them early and hardened them. It is inconceiveable to think that the beating made you better, because if the beaten was effective from the get go, then there will be no need to be made better. You all would have been gentle and sensible like your brother that was not beaten.

So you see, beating is innefective and only hardens the abused children.

Please Nigerians, stop beating your children. As we talk about how rowdy western children are and how rude and etc. I can tell you that what you see are individuals with a sense of self, that say what they think and grow up to be civilized and succesful people. That is what we should want for our children, what they end up being, and not how rude they are when they are 2 years old. I am not arguing that children should be allowed to run wild, but as we try to reign them in, let us be wary of inflicting permanent damage to their psyche.

I understand how difficult it is to bring up children without beating them, and that beating them is the easiest way to stop them from doing what you don't want them to do. However, if we invest enough time we can achieve the same thing with other methods of discipline. If you do not have that time to invest, then please do NOT have children because you will only be an unfit parent.

I stumbled on this discussion which is on a topic I have very strong opinions about. What we are talking about is this: what is fair treatment for a child who has done something (which children do) wrong. Forget what happens anywhere else in the world because the conclusions I see here are quite shortsighted. For example using examples from super nanny to argue that it is good to beat children does not really talk to why the children behave the way they do. It could be because of a complete lack of discipline e.g. deprivation, scolding, beating, time out etc. In fact it could easily be because the parents have beat the children to the point where they become disfunctional. We don't know why the children behave the way they do on the streets of London, so we should not say because they do not get beaten.

I will tell you this, the use of violence to get a child to behave one way or the other is the easiest and laziest approach. If a child is too young to understand scolding words, deprivation of privileges, reasoning then that child is definitely too young to understand why violence is being visited on him or her. Even animals are no more trained with the use of violence. Parents who visit violence on their children in the name of discipline sometimes do so out of their own frustration. I can tell you that for the same misbehaving a child will get a slap on the hand on the day the dad is very happy and a thourough beating on the day the man is frustrated by work, his wife, the police or his relations.

To beat your child as a way to vent your frustration is nothing less than barbaric. The only thing worse than beating your child is to sanction other people to beat your child. So a teacher who was deprived sex by his wife the night before can walk into class and give all students 2 strokes of the cane. Your sister will come home from work find your child and his child being naughty and might decide to punish your child by beating him or her. Of course your sister thinks that your child is the bad influence.

So I think, if you have the time and patience and common sense to bring your children up well with love and dedication, you will not need the so called rod. Because some of my most disciplined friends when I was growing up where the ones whose parents lived abroad for a while and who did not get beaten by their parents, but had such close relationships with their parents that they did not want to do anything to hurt them. For me and the ones who got beaten, the question of not hurting our parents never came up. We were more concerned with not getting caught so that we don't get beaten.