Dare to Discipline

One of my PMP colleagues recently shared an article with me.  The author espoused the absurd, nonsensical notion that spanking one’s children is a destructive and ineffective means of administering discipline in the home.  The author was a (probably childless) liberal lefty, who’s never had to test his preposterous hypothesis in the battleground laboratory of his own home, with his own offspring.  In my opinion, he’s talking absolute unqualified bollocks.

I spank my children.  4 out of 5 of them have been spanked in the last calendar week.  The 5^th is only 10 months old but already she’s letting us know that she wants to get her turn on the business end of what The Skinnies call the “spankin’ stick”.   It isn’t fun to spank my kids.  I don’t particularly enjoy doing it.  In fact, most of the time I’m in conflict with myself (in my head, not out loud) right up until the moment that the spankin’ stick impacts the white meat on their hind parts.  But I have to say that something happens in our home when I have to administer corporal punishment upon the tenderloins of one of The Skinnies.  Chaos is squelched.  Order is restored.  When one is spanked, there is a collective sigh of relief amidst the others.  It’s as if, one at a time, they subconsciously sacrifice themselves for each other.  The individual, with his or her trespass, reminds the group where the boundaries lie, and where safety thrives.  In the moments that follow, the quarreling ceases, self wills turn compliant, and the soprano-pitched shrieking assertion of words like “mine” and “stop” begins to diminish.       

Furthermore, when The Skinnies spend time around their peers who happen to live in homes where consistent, loving discipline (i.e. spanking) isn’t administered, the efficacy of our approach to discipline is even more evident.  In my non-scientific and highly empirical opinion, the hatchlings from those nests are more inclined to challenge authority and behave disrespectfully.  Those are dangerous habits for a young person to establish.  In fact, they can grow into character traits that powerfully influence the course of a person’s life. 

So, for the record, I’ll not be sparing the rod.