This was a very hard piece to write. I cried a lot. But then, I've cried a lot over the last year as I have awakened to a new realization of what parenting means to me. Here is an excerpt:
"Many parents today grew up in a spanking culture. Spanking is a parenting practice that has been around for . . . well, for a long time. Ours is not the only culture to have considered corporal punishment not only acceptable, but necessary for the upbringing of stalwart human beings. I am not justifying spanking in any regard. I am only pointing out that those who practice it often do so with heavy hearts, not because they are terrible parents with no coping skills, because they believe that they have to...
...So what changed my mind? It wasn’t an article, a book, a television show. It wasn’t anything anybody told me. It came from meeting some members of a local Attachment Parenting group and interacting with several children whose parents have never spanked them – not just when they were melting down in the check-out line, but spending time with them on a regular basis and really getting to know them. And it was these children, ages three, four, five and six who taught me one of the biggest parenting lessons I could ever learn. They taught me that children are so much more capable than most adults give them credit for. Children as young as three can rationalize their way through a conflict, if they are taught to do so."
It has been a painful and treacherous process as I take a good hard look at what my past actions have wrought. I am so grateful for it, because my change in attitude has me communicating and engaging with my children in more deep and profound ways.
However you choose to discipline your children, I hope you will take a look, here.
