sleepy jack

Who defines the line between physical discipline and child abuse? It seems too arbitrary to me.

Personally, however, if I have kids (a big if) I don't plan to ever lay a finger on them in a harmful manner but that kind of dives into my own upbringing, mental health and philosophy and unless someone wants to read an anecdotal/slightly medical/idealistic essay on that I won't go into it.

I'm curious to know why "light spanking" is seeming like the preferred method to deal with an uppity child. Taking the above example for instance (seeing as it's one we've all seen) don't you think the spoiled child's behavior isn't something spontaneous but rooted in a rather taught attitude (e.g. there was no real strict argument of any sort against that behavior in the household prior to that therefore the child think it's acceptable behavior?) Basically what I'm getting at here is no child is naturally spoiled and selfish, that is something they learn in the household so the best way to deal with it is to not tolerate that sort of behavior early on and raise them with a sense of humility and respect; which isn't something you can teach with spanking.

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