When our youngsters dared to act up in public (restaurant, store), an outburst would quickly be extinguished by a quiet, verbal plea to “Stop” before removing the rebel to the nearest restroom for further admonition. Apparently the fear of public focus while being removed from the public eye (and ears) was sufficient to re-think their need to further disrupt. And the rebel quickly became a saint!
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You are outstanding in your field. 
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Children don’t usually like to be isolated…what you did works for the majority I have seen.
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I was four years old. my Uncle had a new Convertible.He was washing it and I was doing the hub caps. When he finished he asked me if I would like a ride. Of course, I accepted with glee. He rode two miles to the dealer friend and said. now don’t touch anything, I will only begone for a minute. It was summer with the top up. He wasn’t gone for a few minutes, more like half an hour. soon my bladder was full. I could not touch the horn. I waited and waited until I could wait no longer. I wet his brand new plush carpet. When he returned I was crying. but all he got in that heat was a very bad odor on his nice carpet. Back he drove in a rush. Found my dad and told him the story and said I should be punished. dad asked did you ask if he had to go. the answer was no. dad asked what did you say. He told him I said don’t .touch anything. Dad asked did that include the horn. of course. Dad said I can’t punish the boy for doing the only thing he could. Years later dad said you did the very thing that carpet needed.
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Wonderful explanation of how a loving God meant the rod as a parable in explaining how to go about protecting and correcting our offspring.
My training as a parent and parenting educator taught me that the mutual respect in a parent-child relationship goes a longer way towards producing an internalized discipline in the child (the child learns about consequences of behaviour
–both natural and the logical ones that the parent chooses because they are connected to the behaviour). The child is encouaraged to think about the values and “family rules” and responsibilities that s/he owns within the family. How does one’s behaviours-- helpful or not so helpful-- best meet the needs of the family?
Parents coming together to enhance their parenting enjoyment is something i continue to encourage. There are lots of stories of successful happy parent-child relationships out there that do not involve cohersive, fear-inducing, punitive measures. For parents who are okay with tried and true “secular” parenting groups and techniques that do not in any way disparage Christian beliefs, i would suggest inquiring in your community about “Adlerian” parenting groups. Dr. Jane Nelson has parenting workbooks called “Christian Parenting”. All the best!
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Careful… Façades can be deceiving… 
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Oh…I KNOW. 
There are others here…
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Just think about the Jesuits spying here for Pope Francis as we speak!!! Façades.
And how many GTarians we had visiting us so far…
By the way, did you notice the new “old” “About the Spectrum Website Category,”
Check it out. It may be a “real lounge” here on this site, who knows? That would be great! I am sure the @webEd will clarify it soon.
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No…didn’t notice…I don’t have your keen eye. 
But, it does seem more accurate to include all of those categories.
Let’s try to use it and see what happens. The worst scenario…, the posts will be deleted… 
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I’m a little late to this conversation. In first quarter, I had to teach the lesson that dealt with the rod of correction, so I did some research. A 2016 report on 250 studies revealed that the negative effects of corporal punishment include exacerbating bad behaviour, creating mental health challenges (frequent spanking alters children’s brains), reducing cognitive ability, and contributing to the ongoing cycle of abuse. Corporal punishment is self-perpetuating and can ruin relationships between parents and children.
My brother and I were spanked as kids. We learned that you had to watch out for mum if she was in a bad mood. If she was in a good mood, you were okay. The problems with corporal punishment seem to outweigh the supposed benefits. For example, it has been linked to bullying, lying, cheating, running away, truancy, behavioural problems at school, and involvement in crime.
Suggested alternatives include using verbal communication, presenting consequences (e.g. if you throw that toy, it might break…), taking away privileges, giving time out, and encouraging kids to mindfully reflect on their behaviour.
It’s a very confusing world for kids to be growing up in today. One suspects that much of the poor behaviour observed in public reflects poor parenting. There’s little hope that kids will perform well if their parents are out of control.
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As a father of 3 adult children, I believe both parents giving consistent discipline is a gift to children…and ultimately parents. No laughing as if cute one time at bad behavior and disciplining the next, no avoidance at the store or around visitors.
Proverbs 13 also carries with it the concept of “early in the morning of life.” The earlier a child understands the meaning of No and praise the better. The later the more difficult.
I believe I spanked each of my children 1 time. Each was provoking and ignoring me to stop.
They learned provoking would receive a response. They also learned good behavior would receive praise.
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Okay, I must be the bad parent here, I did spank my middle son - when he was in his two’s, he did this throwing himself on the floor tantrum thing, and I picked him up, gave him one swat with the ruler on his diaper and he was fine. He was amused, I was amused, and now he is an exemplary young man (as are the other two kiddoes who didn’t get the swat). Does it help that I painted hearts on the ruler? Isolation never phased him either - he loved to go to his room. Alone. Forever (there were books and Legos in there).That said, I used other methods most of the time, and no more swats as he got older.
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Carolyn that’s not spanking and that’s not violence.
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Spanking once does not make a parent bad. Spanking once, a series of times, makes a parent bad. The rule of thumb for children below ten is to give them timeouts one minute per age. The intent is to break the attention they receive when doing bad behavior. The better way is to develop parent child relationship. When a child is being defiant and negative, stop everything else, look him in the eye at eye level and in a calm and serious voice, describe his behavior, put a label on it and a judgement on it. Then find something worthy of praise during the incident. And constantly brag about him to your friends or anybody within his hearing. It is amazing what children will do to please their parents.
Now for those above 10 years and older, it is a different animal. The reason being is interest and influence outside the family due to the separation and individuation phase begins to be a factor to reckon with and the strength and quality of the parent child relationship is tested. The parent must discern whether the behavior is a consequence of the developmental phase to begin to be separate from their parents shadow or is a pattern of bad behavior. Any form of corporal punishment during this time is ALWAYS deemed inappropriate. The reason being is the prepubertal child will begin to identify with the parental aggression.
Your children became who they are, not because of absence of corporal punishment but is a testament to your “good enough” parenting skills.
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Another “bad parent” here. But our three kids, now 43, 42, 38 are our best friends and the relationship is great.
I remember when I spanked my son the last time: he did something really bad, so I took him to his room, we had serious conversation, I explained some things to him, then I told him to get ready for a spanking (on the butt). He was probably 8 years old or so. A couple of good, kind of painful slaps applied with good quality, Brazilian flip flops , a few tears, a big hug afterwards - and life went on. Always a good relationship to date. No mental problems so far, hope there won’t be a “late onset” still… He will be 43 this September.
One grave problem with the anti-spanking crowd is that they have a distorted definition of spanking. Most do not understand the difference between “disciplinary spanking” and hitting, or hurting, or bruising, or contusing. They never attended a good, reliable parenting class taught by a competent MH professional. They are usually the DIY parents. No proper education, therefore no good results. The parents are the problem: incompetent!
Again, I have never seen one single person presenting mental/emotional issue for being spanked in a proper disciplinary way. And I say again, hitting and hurting is not disciplining, it’s abusing.
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Sadly. I thought it would work as a Lounge here on the other side of life. But it needed to be closed. Why?
@GeorgeTichy, we’re happy to provide readers on our site a platform to discuss our current articles, and encourage them to do so within the guidelines of our commenting policy. But if people are just looking for a place to chat online with each other about anything and everything, there are plenty of other places they can do that (and without moderators!), including social media and email.
As you’re aware, we’re a small non-profit organization with limited resources and staffing, and the amount of extra time it would take to manage a free-for-all public thread, making sure everyone was abiding by our commenting policy (which is difficult enough on individual articles), isn’t something we’re capable of at this time. Because of our limited staff, every minute spent moderating the comments section is a minute not spent researching, writing, or editing articles about the latest news in Adventism and thoughtful perspectives about that news.
We often get complaints in the comments section about why we haven’t reported on this or that, or why we don’t write more on this or that hot-button issue. Part of the answer is original news-reporting and in-depth research takes much longer than people realize, and many of the topics people say we’re silent on we’re actually in the midst of working on, giving these issues the time and attention they deserve. The other part of the answer is we have less time to dedicate to those things, which means we work slower, because of how much time needs to be spent moderating the comment section. So, the short answer to your question is that adding to the comment moderation work isn’t a prudent use of our time.
Hope that helps explain,
-WebEd
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It all makes sense.
Thank you for your kindness.
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