I will not… 50 times please

I do not believe in spanking or smacking or anything involving me hitting my kids. When I was growing up I was spanked with a wooden spoon and also with hands. I remember being terrified, I remember it hurting so much, but I don’t remember thinking wow, I won’t ever( I have no idea- talk back, be hyper) I truly don’t know what I was spanked for. With my dad I think it would have been talking back. With my grandmother, it could have been the wrong time of day to breath, who knows. My mom never spanked me and I cut the collar off a good shirt one time (it picked me), tried to dye my cat orange in a training potty of kool aid, tried to dye a cat white, by dumping baby powder on her, talked back, threw things at her and had many many tantrums. She just didn’t believe in hitting. Now she might pull my hair, like a little yank and that made me soooo mad. But anyway, my point being. I never liked my grandmother holding me down and spanking me with a spoon. I never “became better behaved”, I just felt like she was being mean and overpowering and made me feel worthless.

So when I had kids and she would suggest that when they were bad, we could just spank them, I stopped it right there. I said I don’t believe in spanking. I don’t believe in hitting a child, I don’t hit adults when they make me angry (now granted most adults are not breaking things and jumping on my furniture, etc.) but I don’t believe in it. She agreed when she would watch my kids and she used time out, but like most things in life, grandparents, and parents are way softer and put up with much more, when they are older, so they had her around their fingers and she loved them to bits, it all worked out.

When my kids were real little time out worked. Time out for a minute for your age. Then we moved on to Magic 1 2 3 which still works pretty good for us, so simple, but so useful. Now we will do a go to your room and relax ( and my children do not have tvs or games in their rooms, so it is a punishment), we will do no playing outside today or no water ice- taking away something that means something to them. I notice charts work well and reward jars work well also. But my kids are still kids and they drive me crazy some days- not paying attention, whining, leaving toys around, lying to me, talking back. And someday’s my patience runs dry, so today after reminding my son 2 times, not to sass me when I asked him to do something (and certainly not while his friend was here), I calmly asked his friend to leave ( it was a neighbor) I explained that his speaking to me was not right and he needed some time to calm down. So I then sent my son to his room. I just thinking what now, how can I get him to understand I mean business ( he has been picking up rudeness from a rude neighbor kid and my other child has been picking up lying from the neighbor kids brother) well we went to a sports lesson for my youngest and I told my son to bring a pen. I grabbed a tablet and told him during the lesson he had to write 50 times I will not sass my mother. He looked at me to see if I was joking or not, when he realized I wasn’t kidding, he did it. And he seemed to understand the lesson when he was done. We had a nice talk about respect and feelings. I just grasped at that punishment, because my Mennonite neighbors used to use that on their kids, when I was growing up. I never read or hear of anyone using that punishment, and I kind of think it’s good because it helps them with their letter writing also.

I think it was a good call. Does anyone else ever use this idea in their homes?