10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child

Everyone needs to feel loved.

No one wants to be hurt. Especially by the people who they love the most.

The ones they look up to and trust.

But then again, most of us were raised by a generation of parents who believed in spanking their children. For them, it seemed like an appropriate form of discipline. After all, that’s how their own parents raised them. And it seemed to work, right?

Thankfully, these days more and more parents are re-thinking this type of parenting & are using non-physical, *constructive* methods of discipline.

Having recently become a first-time parent to twin sons, I’ve been doing a lot of research on non-violent ways of discipline, and just this week introduced my now 14-month old twins to the wonderful world of timeout.

Yes, it’s a lot of work at first, but I know that it’s going to be worth it. It’s definitely not the easy road, but, I firmly believe, it’s the right one.

As I was doing my research on timeouts, I stumbled across a wonderful article, “10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child” on Dr. Sears’s website.

Although the whole article resonated with me, these points really hit home, so I wanted to share.

1. Spanking creates a distance between parent and child. Why would any parent want to risk that?? Being a parent is such a blessing and a joy! I will never purposely do anything that would adversely affect my relationship with my twin sons.

2. You may have a hug-hit ratio of 100:1 in your home, but you run the risk of your child remembering and being influenced more by the one hit than the 100 hugs, especially if that hit was delivered in anger or unjustly.

2. Hitting Devalues the Child: The child’s self-image begins with how he perceives that others – especially his parents.

3. Spanking devalues the role of a parent. Being an authority figure means you are trusted and respected, but not feared. Not only does the child lose respect for the parent, but the parents also lose out because they develop a spanking mindset and have fewer alternatives to spanking.

I encourage you to read the full article, “10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Child” here.

Also, check out his “10 Time-out Techniques.”

And remember, hitting as a form of discipline isn’t constructive. It’s destructive.