The word discipline means to teach. Spanking can be effective with some but not with others. If you do it all the time, too hard out of frustration it loses its effectiveness.
I actually worked for the Division of Family Services and saw uneducated people try this method. Their kids just disrespected them or feared them and waited until their backs were turned and did whatever they wanted to do again anyway. I also had to write a thesis paper for a psychology class so I did mine on the very topic of "At what age do we begin to look out for our own selfish intrests." Mind you I did not have a very big subject matter, only 200 children but this is what experiment I used to try and draw a conclusion about this.
I baked several same sized chocolate chip cookies and then purposely baked only a few really big chocolate chip cookies and then took them to several preschools and started with two year olds, then three, then four, then five. Two year olds did not notice, some did not even take a cookie at all. Three year olds took a cookie and ran off to play while eating it, some came back and asked for another one. One child only in the four year old group (who I found out later was the baby of seven sibling boys) saw that one of the cookies on the plate was bigger, looked around to see if anyone else noticed and then took it and finally the five year olds fought over the big cookie so much that they destroyed all the little cookies until all of them only got crumbs. I would have to guess selfishness is a learned behavior.
Where does the society get its information on discipline from. Don't say the bible, they stopped throwing stones a long time ago and Jesus would simply walk away from wrongdoers, not punish them. I doubt any studies were done on this scientifically or psychologically to divulge this information.
I have two children and I only have to threaten spankings as I did it the first three times, when an undesired behavior occurred, I explained why, told her I love her, gave her three swats on the bottom and did this consistently everytime she did this behavior. Now I can just threaten a spanking and she knows I mean it and walks away. My other child could care less if she is spanked but take her night night puppy from her and whatever behavior desired, she will do. Whatever works for whatever personality. Babies cry and throw temper tantrums when they are uncomfortable or need something that they don't know how else to ask for. It is called frustration. When we can't communicate what we want or need, we sometimes as adults out of frustration throw little hissy fits too.
Indispair
