Question for the Parents on TrekBBS

[iguana_tonante]

That's why you have socket covers.

[Miss Chicken]

I am not sure how old Kenbushway but socket covers were not available when my children were young.

[iguana_tonante]

Kenbushway is younger than me, and they were definitively available when I was a toddler.

[Miss Chicken]

I have been trying to discover when the first reliable childproof socket covers came on to the market but I am not having much luck with coming up with a date.

All I can say is that in the late 70s, early 80s they weren't readily available in shops in Tasmania.

[Kenbushway]

iguana_tonante wrote:

---

That's why you have socket covers.

There was something plugged into it, sorry should have put that in.

Miss Chicken wrote:

---

I am not sure how old Kenbushway but socket covers were not available when my children were young.

2/17/92. I am 20 about to turn 21.

[Peach Wookiee]

I think, when used rarely and on the right child, spanking can be used well. I say the right child because no two children will respond alike to it. My brother had it happen a couple of times and my mom only had to threaten it. My parents tried it on me... it did not work well.

[BillJ]

We've used it sparingly over three kids and twenty years. Usually just the act of doing it will give a child a reason to think about their behavior, it doesn't have to be painful to get the point across.

[B.J.]

iguana_tonante wrote:

---

That's why you have socket covers.

If you have a particularly clever toddler, they don't work at all. In fact, they may find it a fun game to pull them all off!

[Deckerd]

mari wrote:

---

OTOH, between the three of us girls, there was all sorts of physical violence. Usually for no reason more than "she looked at me funny" or "she was breathing my air".

Tell me about it. Had 2 sisters. We all had girls only as offspring. I always remember on road trips my father reaching back (he has huge hands) and grabbing a leg, any leg, and squeezing. We were usually quick off the mark to get our legs up on the seat but occasionally someone would be too slow.

iguana_tonante wrote:

---

This is my position as well. As the father of a two-month-old, I wonder if can keep it. I hope so.

Kid psychology isn't difficult. Just remember that you're smarter than him and so long as he believes it, you'll be fine. The day he realises he's smarter than you is usually around the time he wants to borrow your car, so you still have the upper hand.

[macloudt]

Deckerd wrote:

---

Tell me about it. Had 2 sisters. We all had girls only as offspring. I always remember on road trips my father reaching back (he has huge hands) and grabbing a leg, any leg, and squeezing. We were usually quick off the mark to get our legs up on the seat but occasionally someone would be too slow.

It's a joke in my husband's family that he and his three brothers shared a bedroom with few problems, but the two sisters that shared a bedroom had to be separated. Fifty years on the sister who was the cause of that problem is still a troublemaker. Old habits die hard.

Kid psychology isn't difficult. Just remember that you're smarter than him and so long as he believes it, you'll be fine. The day he realises he's smarter than you is usually around the time he wants to borrow your car, so you still have the upper hand.

Pretty much. Also, be consistent, and follow through any threats you make. The latter has worked very well for me. My kids are now teens and preteens, and threats of having prized possessions temporarily removed still work as well today as when they were toddlers because the kids know I bloody well mean it. Consistency is vital to children, otherwise they will not be able to anticipate the consequences of their actions.

[Miss Chicken]

My mother used to belt her daughters with her pink brush. We would would be hit 8 to 12 times and we used to end up bruised.

My brother was never punished at all. He would sneak up and hit or pinch me or my sisters or even spit at us. If we retaliated he would run to Mum and say we were picking on him and we would get a belting. He would deliberately break our toys and Mum would blame us for it.

My brother ended up being a workplace bully who lost job after job. He is now an alcoholic.

None of the girls in my family ended up smacking our children except in those rare circumstances I mentioned.

My father never spanked us, though he did punish us in other ways. We (me and my sisters) behaved much better for him than we did for Mum because we hated to disappoint him.

[Deckerd]

Our mother never hit us. Father was The Punisher. They achieved more by glowering at us or grounding us than physical violence ever did, not that there was much of that anyway.

[macloudt]

Neither of my parents ever laid a finger on us, though they'd both been subjected to physical beatings as children. My father is an expert at emotional manipulation, though, which is a different kind of beating.

[iguana_tonante]

Kenbushway wrote:

---

2/17/92. I am 20 about to turn 21.

You were born on the 2nd day of the 17th month?

Deckerd wrote:

---

Kid psychology isn't difficult. Just remember that you're smarter than him and so long as he believes it, you'll be fine. The day he realises he's smarter than you is usually around the time he wants to borrow your car, so you still have the upper hand.

Good advice.

macloudt wrote:

---

Also, be consistent, and follow through any threats you make. The latter has worked very well for me. My kids are now teens and preteens, and threats of having prized possessions temporarily removed still work as well today as when they were toddlers because the kids know I bloody well mean it. Consistency is vital to children, otherwise they will not be able to anticipate the consequences of their actions.

Consistency will not be a problem, I think. It was of the utmost importance for me when I was a kid, too, so much that when my mother failed to follow through her threats, or relented and decided to forego the punishment (usually no tv, or being grounded for the day), I adamantly refused to allow it, and carried through the punishment on my own. I was a weird kid.

[Garrovick]

My kids are now 14 and 13, and I haven't spanked them n many years. I did do it a few times when they were younger, but only as a last resort. Even then it was a quick smack on the bottom and only with my hand, never a belt or anything like that. I received a few belt-spankings when I was a kid and they were terrifying - I promised myself that I'd never take a belt to my kids and I have kept that promise. Getting hand-spanked never scared me, although it did make very clear to me that what I was doing was unacceptable and I learned from it.