sure. lets take the example i game in my post. your 7 year old…(I KNOW.,..your kid is 2.5) OK…even 2.5. he has just been playing with an old newspaper, and his hands are FILTHY! so of course, being a happy 2.5 year old, he runs across the house, clapping his hands with glee laughing 😀 its wonderful to see 😀 then…you see it. 5 handprints on the wall. this is the 7th time your kid has done this…and all 6 times previously you have told him not to to no avail. what now…
let’s see. you can reason with the child…HAH! yeah right there IS NO REASONING with a 2.5 year old. or…you can hang plastic sheets on your wall…yeah right…im assuming you dont live in a meatpacking plant. you can ask nicely again…but teh past 6 times it just didnt work.
now let’s analyze exactly why YOU would never do what your kid just did. what would be the consequence…you would have to live with that ugly handprint on the wall. it would bother you each and every time you saw it. you would cringe as you see that black handprint just slapped there on your beautiful sea foam green walls. it would be a blight. it would ruin the entire paint job…just that handprint. THAT is the consequence of YOUR action.
now lets look at it from your kid’s standpoint. will he have teh same consequence? will he care that there is a black handprint on your beautiful sea foam green walls? of course not! not because teh child is destructive, not because the child likes messing up your walls, but because teh child has no concept of what is wrong with what he did. you can talk…and talk…and talk…the child WILL NOT understand. YOU don’t need to be hit, because you understand cause and effect, action and consequence. your child does not. therefore…there must be a consequence so the child learns teh concept, and so he learns not to put his hand n teh wall.
i can almost picture you sitting there yelling at your screen NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT!!! NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT!!! YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND!!! but it is in no way negative reinforcement because it is done out of love. you give your kid a smack on teh bottom or the hand, it doesn’t have to be particularly hard, but the message gets across. the disappointment comes across, the desire to teach right from wrong comes across. and then you hug your child. the love for your child comes across.
if you are able to reason to your kid and actually get the results you want…then you are an anomaly. but from your previous statement it seems you cannot. A HARNESS?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? THAT IS BETTER FOR YOUR CHILD?!? treating a child like a dog is better? ridiculous. absolutely ridiculous. and keeping your kid in the car because you refuse to use hitting as a method of chinuch…really? REALLY?!? how will your child learn to cross a street. oh…eventually he will, but how far behind his peers?!? look at me…i am a kid. i am ADVOCATING hitting kids. not at my age obviously, but all the same. if done correctly it is one of the most effective methods of chinuch there is.
im going to stop beating on you for a second…and address something else. someone mentioned a black room where the lock their kid for 20 minutes instead of hitting them. i cried a little when i saw that. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW POTENTIALLY DAMAGING THAT COULD BE TO A CHILD?!? anyone who does that is crazy. you want to talk about child abuse? THAT is child abuse! giving your child a hit on the backside or teh hand is not child abuse if done out of love. it is very beneficial.
SJSinNYC. i know i will not change your mind about this issue, i doubt anyone will ever change any opinions just because some anonymous person on a forum somewhere tells them to. even if their arguments are compelling. but you should know, you are not helping your kid.
i’ll end with this. i will grant you that hitting is not to be the first second or even third option, but it must be there as a possibility. the child must know that there is always that possibility. i had this debate with someone on a different forum. your child may fear you because of that possibility, but if done right he will love you 100 times more than he fears you. the reason being because teh fear stems from love itself. if the hitting is out of love, then the fear is also out of love.