You cannot raise a well mannered, healthy, and successful child without demonstrating to that child the concept of unpleasant consequences for unacceptable behavior.

And a child’s understanding of other-than-physical unpleasant consequences is undeveloped. They can’t conceive that the consequence and the behavior are linked. You then end up having to repeat the lesson excessively, when a swift moment of non harmful pain would have connected the behavior to the consequence instantly in their mind, obviating the need for any repeats.

Thus some form of corporal punishment is necessary to produce the healthy, successful, well mannered person you are trying to guide them into being. And spanking is the most efficient and effective form for this to take. If you think what you are producing is that, without spanking, you simply don’t understand what you have actually produced.

We can tell which kids don’t get spanked. We can all see that kids raised without corporal punishment are usually not good people. And if they seem okay it’s despite the lack in their training, certainly not because of it. You only think they are good because you are one of them, and it’s hard for anyone to admit to being messed up.

I guess I’m an exception, they made so many mistakes that I’m surprised when there is something they did that I find myself approving.

I was born into a cult that my whole family is luckily no longer a part of but when I was a child scheduled spankings or other more creative corporal punishments were the norm. I was mostly punished by other adults and when I was my mom (father was absent) it was always ordered by someone other adult and she spanked my teary eyed and saying sorry. it’s still fucked up and did not make me see the love in spankings, it just made me feel like we were both victims. still I preferred her spankings because they never hurt while the other adults would hurt me. as an adult I do blame now her for not protecting me and see that I was the only victim.

furthermore the spanking I remember getting were due to misunderstandings or adults deciding I had lied when I hadnt

I will never spank my kids

i grew up with scheduled spankings too and other corporal punishments such as washing the mouth with soap .

I was born in a religious cult and most punishments did not come from my parents. the few times my mom spanked was because some authority told her she had to and she always did with tears and saying sorry. .. still fucked up and I decided pretty quickly growing up that I could never spank. I think around when I got my first dog and had to decide how to train him

Thank you! I recently got into a discussion with my brother over my “rules” when it comes to spending time with my kids (they aren’t rules, just tips to assist in the time being spent together, hand washing after playing at an arcade was a request I made). After we both said our parts, I sat back and thought “do people ever wonder how I feel? How it feels to be the chain breaker? The cycle stopper? It is tough to sit there and argue with the people you love most over things that you have had to unlearn and then learn all over again. For my kids, I will make all the requests and continue to cry if I need to after I feel judged. I am committed to all the changes from the big to the small. So thank you, I needed to see this tonight

Do you have a safe place you could put your child down while you walk away and take 10 deep breaths? Now that you’ve noticed what behavior triggers that kind of reaction for you, you could pro-actively calm yourself down and decide how you want to respond. That’s a short-term solution. The longer-term solution is the deeper work of being confident in yourself so that you don’t feel threatened by your child. Reading Janet’s blogs, attending therapy, and short daily mindfulness activities have been really helpful for me (educator not parent) in gradually becoming more even-keeled and confident in responding to challenging behavior.

I don’t spank my kids because I was spanked as a child so I swore I’d never do it I had found it caused a lot of harm to my mental health as I grew older,

Sounds really stressful.
I wonder whether it is more helpful to pull over to help them each calm, feel understood, and repair with each other so the sibling rivalry is addressed. It sounds like they will keep fighting if they don’t have alternatives when they are frustrated or hurt with each other.