Reply To: Medicating vs Spanking

Eishes, why is it disrespectful – you are saying something is a good practice, then the Rabbis who think this way should show an example. If they do not want to embarrass the kid in fron t of the community, they might refer to that in their divrei Torah. You say yours yells at kids and punishes (physically or “no ice cream”). I personally do not recall seeing or hearing Rabbis of any derech behaving like that. So, I conjecture, it is possible not to hit kids. Especially if you are saying that you were mistreated yourself, you have a high chance to mis-interpret how you apply same approach. Rambam in Hilhos Dea recommends to keep most midos in the middle, but if you were exposed to one extreme of a mida, then you need, temporarily, to move to the other side to train yourself. That is, if you were exposed to cruely, you should try to double down on being nice to your kids to ensure that you are not biased. This should not be a big deal – surely, if you hold that hitting is OK, you are not saying that it is obligatory? One old Jewish book on issues of anger recommends using, for example, rewards and competitions between kids as substitutes.