Dragon's Girl wrote:
.......snip........

Pain and humiliation is not always responded to in the same way by all
people, children or adults, but again, I have to ask, why take the
chance when there are alternatives that work as well?

Well, I wasn't thinking of taking the chance. i was wondering why some grow
and become productive in spite of it, and some don't.

Because we come in so many flavors and with so many sets of life
experiences that are different from each other.

Some of, I'd say many in these ngs, that spank or support it, point to
it being successful when done thoughtfully and with other good
parenting practices.

Given a set of "good parenting practicies" along with not spanking I'd
expect similar good outcomes (and I see parents doing this all the
time) and no risk.

Parents that are consistent, that recognize child development reality
(as you apparently do with your night time bedtime ritual as an
excellent example) are less likely, when a child does start
misbehaving, to lose it and go to spanking as the next level of
control.

Those that simply don't have spanking in their accepted repertoire
won't go there but will simply look to expand their already good
parenting skills.

Both camps err in this debate on this part of the issue and make the
assumption that parents that spank don't do anything else but, and
parents that do not spank don't do any otehr parenting.

Kind of a silly argument.

The only place I can take a position there is in knowing that both
camps do in fact have parents that don't parent.

My argument has always boiled down to, "why take the chance?"

Given two sets of parents, one that spanks and one that doesn't, and
both are equal in their other parenting skills, why spank?

I know of far too many that spank...and some data bears me out on
this...that do so and admit to losing control and doing precisely what
spanking advocates claim most parents do not do.

In fact in one of the pages I reviewed for this and similar citations
recently it was a very large majority. And having seen CPS cases in the
thousands both by my student days records reviews, and by helping
relatives whose own relatives abused their children, I am quite sure
that spankers lose it far more than they want to admit.

Anyway, thanks for discussing this with me.

Best thing to do with a kid when their behavior, formerly okay, or
good, that's going bad?

Hug'em. Just like adults, something is wrong and they need comfort or
they wouldn't be messin' up.

That's why we have g'mas. They seem to do that more often when a child
messes up. And darned if the little guys don't start behaving better.

0:-)