[Unified Serenity]

Originally Posted by Camery

Thank you for being easy on me Unified Serenity.

I respect your opinion a lot, as well as your ability to seek the truth.

I have become hard nosed in one respect over time. It is in my defense of the way I choose to go. It is poverty for my way to be so threatening to others. All of us have free will to choose and do as we feel is our direction.

I do not take others comments personally, nor do I feel judged because much is left out in posts. I can be verbose, and I do enjoy writing, but quite frankly none of us typically know much about each other except for what we write and what we think we perceive of the other person's spirit and energy in their writing. Thus basically, I know you can only comment in so far as how much I've shared, and what you may perceive from that information which may or may not be a correct observation.

I disagree so far as to follow in another direction but also accept that many others do not agree with me. It would be so much better if we could simply agree to disagree rather than go into all of these arguments.

I think this is about maturity and simple statesmanship which is a lost art. I have had the good fortune to be on debate teams, had my own talk radio show, and learned to not make personal comments about others, to stay on topic, and when someone starts bringing up ridiculous comments, getting personal, rude etc. that those are just tactics used when they really cannot defend their own position and want to bully the conversation and get the "opponent" to shut up and thus appear to lose the argument. I can be quite infuriating as none of those tactics work on me, and they typically look like a fool, but as they say, "never argue with fool for they will drag you down and beat you with experience".

I think corporal punishment is very needed when it becomes necessary but it is also good to remember that our children have our genes therefore our faults, so when we need to spank them, we are spanking out of them the very wrongs we assisted in putting in them. For this reason it should be with deep regret in which it is necessary to do this. As long as it is possible we should use our ability to reason with our children over what is right or wrong about their actions and be as willing to praise their efforts as to condemn what they do.

Why do parents spank? Because it works in stopping inappropriate or bad behavior. It's also easy in the sense that it does not require instruction beyond "I told you not to do ____," spank, cries emanate, the bigger person has modified the behavior and peace is restored through force, child feels rejected, confused because maybe the spanking was for hitting their friend / sibling or the parent has informed them in the past that is never ok to hit other people. Now, you can't really discuss things with a toddler, and discipline can be a challenge, punishment is easy. I did spank my kids when they were toddlers, but it was for something that was literally a life threatening lesson. My kids range from 9 to 16, and boy, let me tell you there are days I'd love to spank my two littlest for messing up their room, destroying the living room, constant bickering, but I choose to take the harder route and send them to their room until it's cleaned, I give them sentences to write, math problems to do til their hands fall off, and extra chores. It requires more follow-up, but I know my children are secure in my love for them. My children are not rude and rebellious, but they sure know how to push each others buttons, which pushes my own. I do not suffer any of them to be mean, cruel, or violent, and for the most part they are not.

Another thing people don't pay much attention to which does a lot of damage is what comes after 12 years old. On the child's 12th birthday, he/she is an adult and this should be voiced to them.

I think they are not a child, but are a prepubescent adolescent who is able to be reasoned with, assuming they are not mentally impaired. I would never tell my 12 - 17 yr old that they are an adult. They are not, they are not a kid, but an adult is assumed to be able to take care of themselves, provide for themselves, and I do not think any 12 yr old to 17 year old is quite ready to move away from home, have zero supervision, and forge their own way without grave concern for what may happen to them. Maybe it's semantics for you do say below some of this basically, but words mean things to me, and to tell a 12 year old they are an adult is likely to give them a false sense of themselves. They are not an adult imho.

However, they lack the experiences of an adult, so there must be the agreement between the parent and child that he/she must correctly learn the proper role of an adult.

See, I do not believe in agreements with my children. I will clarify myself if necessary. I will set rules and boundaries which all children will test to make sure the fence / boundary is real, and thus feel secure when they discover it is very real. I will follow through on all discipline, and they will know it was their choice of action that brought about said discipline. There is no agreement. Now, we may make a contract where we discuss discipline options which we agree upon should the rules be broken, but that is as far as negotiations go. The rule is the rule, I care not if they like it or not.

This must be understood as a partnership in which the new adult is in a different kind of school in which they learn and ask questions and the parent must be willing to talk without embarrassment about even very personal subjects. The new adult is no longer spanked for their wrongs but they must understand the consequences of each action until they leave home and enter their own role, no longer being under a tutor, and the parents must let them go with love and understanding.

Yes, I like this analogy of a new phase of school. I used to occasion for my 13 year old daughter's first menses to have a special celebration for this new phase of her life, her beginning to maturity, and taking of her first steps from childhood into being a young lady. It was a beautiful ritual, and this past year she has blossomed in so many ways.

Teenagers are going to seek their own identity whether the parents agree or not and this is their right. Being more of a partner and much less a disciplinarian makes the transition much easier for both. And of course having more discipline in their younger years makes this process much better for both.

I agree with the spirit of what I think you are saying here. Yes, they will begin to express their own unique individuality. For me though, there are some rules especially with dressing and/or hygiene. My 13 year old daughter stops traffic because of her beauty. She is a classic indigo, tall, blond, blue doe eyes, slender with an aura of strength and independence that is beautiful. While at my sister's home a couple of weekends ago, she came up to me and whispered in my ear so my daughter could not hear, "Oh my god sissy, she is drop dead gorgeous, you are going to have your hands full!". I am well aware of this, and I am strict about where she goes, with whom she goes, I know her friends, and when she asked when she could start dating, I said, "when you are 16 and only then with a chaperon". We have talked about boys and girls, sex, consequences, life, education, and done time lines with differing scenarios that could happen in a person's life based on choices and possible events like pregnancy, failing school, drugs, etc.. I am this way with all my children, and I tailor the lessons to their age. They all know when discipline time comes, it was their actions that brought about said consequences.

These things are not set in stone and I am not trying to tell others how to live. It is simply the way I see it and I hope there is something here that may be helpful.

Thanks United Serenity for your understanding.

Camery, I think you are right that many children lack proper supervision and discipline. I believe many parents did not have proper modeling of good discipline, and that most were spanked as children and that's as far as discipline goes for them. Well spanking and grounding. I also think everyone should take classes on proper parenting via boundaries and rules, ideas for discipline beyond time out and spanking. I am a trained behaviorist, and use those skills with everyone I know.

I remember several instances that my mother terrified me as child. Instances that I felt I was treated completely unfairly, and I never want my children to feel that way about me. My mother did not beat the tar out of me, I am not saying that, but there were times she "lost" it. She spanked too easily, and I don't think she has a clue the gulf that put between us. Of course I still love my mother, and she did the best she could with me, a very independent tom boy, who never understood why I couldn't leave at 8am and come home at 8pm after a day in the woods! I was a good kid, wasn't doing bad things, but I must have gotten hundreds of spankings for it, and you know what, I am still the same. So, I understand that I terrified my mother, but when you spank a kid the hundredth time for something, obviously it wasn't working!

Thanks for sharing with me Camery, I do enjoy it. Time to fix dinner.

Love and hugs,

Unified Serenity