Using fear as a deterrent, yay or nay?

I get so sick when the anti-spanking group goes into 'if you have to make your child fear you, you're a terrible parent, you shouldn't use fear to make your child behave'. To these people I have to say get real, fear is a part of life.

The whole reason most of us don't do the dumbass things we think about doing which could probably kill us or otherwise ruin our lives IS because of fear. I don't buy that the reason most people don't break the law is because they have such a high, upstanding respect for those laws. More likely, they are afraid of being caught, arrested, thrown in jail and becoming somebody's girlfriend in there.

Actually this reminds me of an episode of Golden Girls when they went to a psychiatrist and Sophia was mad because the shrink told them 'we're afraid because our mothers taught us to be afraid', and Dorothy replies 'for survival, Ma, they had to, what's a mother supposed to say? 'Don't be afraid of strangers? Eat their candy, get into their cars?'

What's everybody else think? Personally I think in raising kids there does have to be an initiative sense of fear in order for there to be respect, because it's going to come to a time where the kid is going to push you to see if you mean business, and if you don't, they're going to get it in their head they can walk all over you and if you don't do anything to deter that train of thought, do you really think they'll grow up respecting the rules and the adults being in charge and not them?

Well, fear of spanking and fear of strangers (in the stranger danger example) are two very different topics. But, I use fear in my parenting daily.

I know I utilize it to a fault as I am a worrier. So, in my little mind, I want him to fear as much as I do, so he stays safe. I know that is dysfunctional. I am trying to get better. I don't spank (I have a few times, but he is too old for it now anyway). He knows to fear the car ride home if he acts an ass in public. He knows to fear drivers in the neighborhood, as I have told him how many drunk drivers there are in the early evening, and he fears the police being called by neighborhood advocates walking their dogs if he acts like a jerk at the park. "Neighborhood advocates walking their dogs" is totally bull. But he and his friends don't need to know that. I have a really good kid. But I am not an idiot. I am sure that he does stuff I would not like when he is out and about on his bike. I want him to think people are watching.

RedBedroom wrote:Well, fear of spanking and fear of strangers (in the stranger danger example) are two very different topics. But, I use fear in my parenting daily.

I know I utilize it to a fault as I am a worrier. So, in my little mind, I want him to fear as much as I do, so he stays safe. I know that is dysfunctional. I am trying to get better. I don't spank (I have a few times, but he is too old for it now anyway). He knows to fear the car ride home if he acts an ass in public. He knows to fear drivers in the neighborhood, as I have told him how many drunk drivers there are in the early evening, and he fears the police being called by neighborhood advocates walking their dogs if he acts like a jerk at the park. "Neighborhood advocates walking their dogs" is totally bull. But he and his friends don't need to know that. I have a really good kid. But I am not an idiot. I am sure that he does stuff I would not like when he is out and about on his bike. I want him to think people are watching.

And when I was a kid, I was spanked a few times, more often stood in the corner, and I was not AFRAID of being spanked, I was not AFRAID of being stood in the corner, I just hated it, and I hated the corner more than I hated spanking. What I was always afraid of was being caught and the initial being in trouble...I dreaded the long, awkward lectures on what's right and wrong and smart and stupid and what's dangerous, more, I think than I ever did being spanked because then, it happens and it's right over, you don't spend half an hour dealing with it like other things.

So I don't get people who say you are terrorizing your child if you spank them. When we were kids 15 years ago, bad kids and kids who disobeyed their parents got spanked, it was as common sense to us as breathing, where is the terror?

Well, I don't see terror in spanking. Never have, never will. But what worked for me as a parent does not work for all, so I won't go into it.

RedBedroom wrote:Well, I don't see terror in spanking. Never have, never will. But what worked for me as a parent does not work for all, so I won't go into it.

Yeah that's what people don't get, they think time outs and no TV is going to make EVERY kid an angel, it doesn't. I watched TV all the time as a kid and when my parents tried taking it away as punishment, I wasn't fazed one bit by it, I didn't care. Spank me, stand me in the corner, and whatever I did I wouldn't do it again.

Not every method works for all. I just is. Parents need to be with their kids for anything to work. If parents are disconnected, spanking won't mean shit because negative attention is a big thing for kids with absent parents.