When You Do As You’ve Always Done…

You get what you’ve always gotten.  This quote can be a direct reflection of my life.  Last Wednesday, I completely lost my temper with Aiden and spanked him more than I intended. Truth be told I never intended to spank him because I hate the idea of hitting. But I lost it and after it was done nothing was accomplished.  The incident took place before a gymnastics meet and I spent the rest of the evening disappointed in myself. Friends of mine, who don’t have children, kept telling me to get over it. Over and over I heard how they were spanked and they are fine. Well in my mind, there are direct problems with this thought. Aren’t we supposed to do better? Just because something was done a certain way doesn’t mean it is the right way. If that were the case and that type of thinking was acceptable, progress would never have been made. I firmly believe that we are supposed to use discipline as a tool to teach and not to dominate our children. How did I come out ahead by scaring my child? I proved to him that I was stronger and bigger. Nothing was learned or accomplished from this situation. I am sure there are a million people out there who would love to tell me how wrong I am. Please don’t. I have had two days to think about this and my mind is made up. There are more effective ways to look at punishment and I fully intend to exercise those ways.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Life Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.