First and foremost. I do not condone ANY form of abuse. Regardless if it is verbal, physical, emotional and especially sexual. Abuse is wrong.
There are many reponsibilities that a parent has. Right after making sure that your chlidren's needs are met; food, clothing, place to sleep, roof over their head. There are other needs. Boundries is a big need. Children learn from their parents what is and what is not acceptable. Parents need to form a child's spirit to have a spiritual conscience and to know right from wrong. It is a complete sign of disrespect for a child to hit their parent because they are told no. It is also dissrespect for a child to out right go against what the parent told them to do. Hopefully if you have been blessed with seeing the behaviors as a child is young that need to be corrected, the child will become a responsible teen and then on to a moral and responsible adult that shows respect to others.
The way you go about forming your child's values and morals has to be up to you as a parent. My personal belief is that spanking should be the last resort and even then should be limited. Typically what we do is verbally correct our younger set and then if they continue it's time out. Our girls are older and the stakes are higher for them. We will verbally correct them the first time and then after that, they lose priviliges. The priviliges can be anything from not using the phone or watching TV to not being able to go on the ski trip with the youth group or even the school dance.
You do have to get creative and I do highly suggest that if you choose to use spanking as a tool that you make sure to check on your state law. In some places it is against the law to "strike" a child with anything, anywhere regardless of if there is a mark left. Also when you do use spanking as a tool, you risk the chance of getting mad and spanking out of anger. This is wrong. You should never discipline out of anger. I encourage you that if you have difficult children and you do get upset with them to seek professional help. There are services out there that can help.
