To spank or not to spank?

If you don’t spank, the mother picking up her daughter at Micaela´s nursery asked me, then how do you discipline her?

 
I look at my daughter, stripped down to her diaper, playing in our yard. Her skin is still soft, her fingers still chubby, her comprehension and communication still dodgy. She is small and she is innocent. I cannot imagine raising my hand against her.

 

This perspective is a reflection of how I was parented. My parents did not believe in screaming at or reacting violently to a child’s misbehavior. When I was a child, the punishment for acting up was not spanking. The real punishment was the knowledge that my parents did not appreciate and might even have been disappointed by my behavior.

 

It’s no wonder that I cannot stomach the idea of spanking my own daughter.

 

And that is exactly what I find myself telling this woman beside me. I tell her that I believe that discipline is another facet of teaching your child and that teaching is always best performed with a level head. Some people can, with a level head, spank a child. I cannot. When I feel that my daughter has misbehaved, I say, I address the problem immediately if I feel that the environment (including my emotional state) are conducive to doing so and I address it later if I do not. We all lose our cool sometimes. What matters is what we do next. And what I do is take a deep breath. Thank the stars for a child who is alive and well. Play with her in her room. Give her a snack. Distract her by making animal sounds. Pull out the crayons. Take photographs of her beautiful smile and show them to her. Play music and dance around the house. Lie down and watch a video with her until we both fall asleep. Anything to calm down, refocus, and decide whether or not discipline is really an appropriate route. Anything to get us laughing again, thinking about how much fun we have together, exhibiting behaviors that are always welcome.

 

But if you wait too long, she responds, doesn’t it tell her that you endorse her actions? Isn’t disciplining ‘later’ ineffective?

 

I told her the truth: I do not know. I do not think so…but I do not know. She’s only fifteen months, so really, I DON’T KNOW MUCH!

 

The conversation ended there, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about what I believe about children, their memories and their understanding of their behaviors and the effects those behaviors may have on other people. And I’ve been thinking about how I feel comfortable addressing child (mis)behavior, what I believe is (in)effective, where I believe the line between discipline and abuse is drawn, and whether or not I think that delayed discipline teaches a child that their actions were okay.