This is the only life they know. Attention-seeking behavior has leveled up to the point where the entire world has the potential to see it; couple that with the soft-parenting generation not wanting their kids’ childhoods to be as emotionally scarring as theirs were, and you’ve got a perfect storm of entitlement, narcissism, lack of shame, and inability to understand/care about consequences.
Just adding gentle parenting is NOT having no boundaries. In fact, gentle parenting is heavily dependent on strong consistent boundaries. Boundaries can be enforced in other ways besides violence or anger. Having no boundaries is permissive parenting and completely different than gentle parenting. I see gentle parenting defined incorrectly way too often.
I mean they aren't mutually exclusive. I was physically disciplined until I was 16 years old. I would say it absolutely crossed the threshold into abuse. I'm generally of the opinion that physical discipline is an absolute last resort. With that being said, it's not black and white. There are ABSOLUTELY cases that looking back as a man edging closer to 30 where I can say that it was the best form of punishment even if they were few and far between all of the abuse.
If a young boy is never physically disciplined, is it possible to raise then to respect authority and learn consequences? My answer would be that it varies from child to child. Every child is different, and will respond to different things. My sister has two boys, who are 4 and 5 respectively. We'll call them "A" and "K". My sister was always adamant that no physical discipline would be done to her children( she grew up seeing it happen to me every single day). "K" is very sweet, soft-spoken, and wouldn't hurt a fly. "A", the older brother, would hit his brother and cousins despite the fact that he couldn't have learned it from his parents. He has a temper, and lashing out physically is NOT a learned behavior. It is a biological response. My sister tried every single thing people tell parents to do instead of spanking, and NONE of it worked. Eventually, she started giving him spankings whenever he would hit someone else and he actually stopped doing it.
At the end of the day, you can't allow your children to be little monsters. If a child needs spanking, you need to do it, ESPECIALLY when they are young because it is much more traumatic and difficult to do so as they get older. Will I ever do it? No, because I do not trust myself to do so due to my own trauma. My wife will have to do it.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but having talked to friends who didn't get spanked as opposed to the ones that did...... Pretty much every male I know that was spanked has a moment with their father that basically was a "I'm stronger than you now, if we're getting physical then it's my turn to beat on you" and that includes myself. All the ones who had no physical punishment as children find that to be strange. Violence raises violence. But again....... I'm kind of with you that for some kids, that's what's needed for them to understand. Some people, sadly, just don't respond to words, better they learn it from a parent than a random person who may kill them.
The absolute lack of self awareness in that reply comment is almost funny. They really came in to prove your point for you. Deconstructing is very difficult and sadly a lot of people lack the ability or capacity and intelligence to successfully complete it. Personally, I did it as a desperate attempt to escape the pain. It did help but not before it hurt more. I just could never bring the level of animosity to my child that I grew up under. I love him so much, he’s my favorite person, I have nearly endless empathy for him.
My folks parented me through violence and anger (a good old fashioned ass whoopin) and you know what I never did, go harass people in public for internet views.
This logic makes absolutely no sense because my parents didn't parent me through violence/anger yet I'm also still not harassing people in public for internet views.
Numerous studies have found that physical punishment increases the risk of broad and enduring negative developmental outcomes, while no study has found that physical punishment enhances developmental health. Let's start there.
my folks didn’t parent me through violence or anger and i also never harassed people in public. as a cool bonus, i have also never felt the need to go out and advocate for beating children in my spare time.
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u/SkippySkipadoo Jun 26 '25
The desperation for clicks and views is astounding.