Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux
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Article: https://time.com/3387226/spanking-can-be-an-appropriate-form-of-child-discipline/

In this episode, I explore the controversial issue of spanking as a form of child discipline, referencing Jared Pingleton's article amid recent debates. I argue that true discipline should empower children and foster self-discipline rather than rely on physical punishment.

I challenge the effectiveness of spanking, highlighting the need for modeling positive behaviors and questioning the validity of "mild spanking." Emphasizing the difference between fear-based compliance and genuine respect, I advocate for authority rooted in love and understanding.

Ultimately, I urge parents to reassess their disciplinary choices to promote positive outcomes and break generational cycles of harsh discipline.

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Transcript
00:00Hey there, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain, hope you're doing well. So, a little article here,
00:03Spanking Can Be an Appropriate Form of Child Discipline, by Jared Pingleton, who I think is a
00:11writer and a minister. And this is from a little while ago, about 10 years ago in 2014. And I wanted
00:19to just put forward some of the philosophical objections to it, got the truth about spanking,
00:22which goes into a lot of the science and sort of outcome things. You can also look at my interviews
00:27with Dr. Elizabeth Grishoff for the reasons why spanking is sort of counterproductive based on
00:34studies. Oh, sorry, big bug. So, this writer writes, NFL running back Adrian Peterson's
00:41recent arrest for allegedly abusing his four-year-old son have once again sparked the
00:44debate over whether spanking is an appropriate form of discipline. So, discipline, an appropriate
00:51form of discipline. So, the word discipline here is really, really interesting. Now, I think we
00:57can all understand that one of the main purposes of parenting is to teach children self-discipline,
01:04right? To teach children self-discipline. Now, if you are trying to teach a child a particular skill,
01:15it has to be a skill that they can reproduce in their own lives, right? So, when you are
01:23a dad, you teach child how to ride a bike, right? Sort of a big thing that parents do.
01:30And you teach a kid how to ride a bike, and you show the kid how the bike works, you show how you
01:35ride the bike, and then you get the kid on the bike, you hold the seat, you know how it goes,
01:39right? Because the purpose of transferring the skill of riding a bike is achieved when the child
01:47can competently ride the bike independent of the adult. In other words, when the child has
01:52recreated the skill in his or her own body, right? So, you say it's an appropriate form of discipline.
02:01Well, the purpose of discipline is to teach self-discipline. So, if you want your child
02:09to brush her teeth every morning and night, then you explain, you show, you demonstrate,
02:16and you remind, and maybe you supervise a little bit at the beginning. And the purpose, of course,
02:21is for the child to brush her teeth independent of you, right? Because at some point,
02:30often in the not-too-distant future, children are, in fact, independent of you. So, the purpose of
02:39discipline is to teach the child self-discipline. Now, because I already said that the purpose of
02:47knowledge transfer is to have the child be able to reproduce the behavior in, I'm just going to say,
02:52because I have a daughter in herself. I know, you know what, I think boys are considered more
02:57aggressive, so let's make it a male. I have experience racing a girl. I have experience
03:02being a boy. So, hopefully, those two will come together that way, right? So, the purpose is to
03:11have the child deploy self-discipline. Now, if I were to teach a child a skill that the child could
03:21not reproduce himself, that would be considered bad teaching, right? So, for instance, if I were
03:30to try to teach a child how to sing a very low note, and that child happened to have a very high
03:35voice, or vice versa, then the child could not reproduce what it is that I was doing. The child
03:40could sing a low note, but if they're a tenor, they won't be able to sing as low a note, of course, as a
03:45basso profondo, right? Any profound bass. So, we want to make sure when we teach children skills
03:53that they can perform those skills themselves. There's no point teaching a deaf child a jazz,
04:01soft jazz music appreciation, right? Because they won't be able to reproduce it themselves, because
04:04they can't hear the music. So, the question for me with regards to spanking is, or at least one of
04:13the questions for me with regards to spanking is, if you hit a child in order to teach discipline,
04:20are you expecting the child to hit himself when he needs to be disciplined in the future,
04:27right? So, in other words, when the child has an impulse that is unwise, will you expect the child
04:34to pull down his pants and smack himself on the bare buttocks if he, say, for instance, picks up
04:42a candy bar when he's, you know, 20. He picks up a candy bar in a store with the intention of stealing
04:48it, right? Will he punish himself in order to discipline himself? Will he pull down his own pants
04:57and smack himself or even just smack himself on his closed pants? Will we see him hitting himself
05:05if he's doing something that is wrong, right? Is he going to, if he doesn't want to study for a
05:13particular test, is he going to yell at himself or hit himself in order to get himself to study for
05:19a particular test, let's say, in law school in his 20s? Well, no. So, is it an appropriate form
05:27of knowledge transfer if the child later cannot or will not reproduce the behavior in order to achieve
05:37the desired outcome? So, if, for instance, you taught a child to drive by constantly holding
05:44the wheel, then the child would not actually be learning how to drive or a young person, right?
05:52If you tried to teach a child to shoot a bow and arrow by constantly shooting the bow and arrow for
05:57him, then you're not transferring the skills. So, if you say that discipline is achieved by hitting,
06:05then you're trying to say to the child that when you get older, you hit yourself in order to achieve
06:13this thing called discipline. Now, of course, that's not how it works. That's not how it could
06:21possibly work and therefore, we know that the parent who is hitting the child is not giving
06:28the child any skills that the child can use to enact discipline, self-discipline in the future.
06:36Now, of course, how do we transfer self-discipline? Well, of course, self-discipline
06:42is complicated because it falls to the Aristotelian mean, which means an excess of
06:49self-discipline is severe asceticism, self-punishment, and leads to a rather joyless and
06:57self-totalitarian environment. And, of course, a deficiency in self-discipline leads to
07:04licentiousness and obesity and STDs and drunkenness and no savings in the same way that
07:12saving money is good, but too much saving money and you become a miser, too little saving money
07:18and you are a spendthrift. So, self-discipline is complicated and the best way to transfer
07:25complicated information is to model the behavior and then transfer the reasons. So, if you model
07:33self-discipline, then the child will copy you because that's what children do. They imprint
07:39and they copy. So, if you model self-discipline, then the child will copy you and then you transfer
07:45the reasons for the self-discipline. So, I have never nagged my daughter to exercise, but she sees
07:56me three or four times a week exercising. Sometimes we're chatting while I'm working out or whatever.
08:03But I don't have to tell her to exercise. She's just grown up with it and it's just
08:07any more than I needed to nag her to learn language or whatever. She just grew up
08:12learning and speaking it and so there's no particular issue that way.
08:16Now, of course, you get your child or your child will automatically copy your behavior
08:22and then, of course, you provide the reasons behind what you're doing so the child can make
08:26the behavior knowledgeable on his or her own terms. So, that's the first thing. Is it an
08:33appropriate form of discipline? Is it good to teach a child a skill that the child will never
08:42apply in that manner in the future? The child will never say, I have an urge to do x, y, and z,
08:51but in order to counter that urge, I'm going to hit myself. That would be considered
08:57weird and unhealthy and pathological and whatever, right? So, that's important. We won't do the whole
09:05sentence in this level of detail. So, it says, though some contend any form of physical correction
09:10equates to child abuse, there is a giant chasm between a mild spanking properly administered out
09:17of love and out of control adult venting their emotions by physically abusing a child. Any form
09:26of physical correction. Now, physical correction is a euphemism. So, if you've ever had a personal
09:34trainer, then the personal trainer will offer you physical corrections, right? So, if you're
09:39doing bicep curls by throwing your back all over the place and not isolating the movement
09:44into your shoulders and elbows, then a personal trainer, at least a decent personal trainer,
09:48will probably say that you should try to not throw your back all over the place. It doesn't
09:53really matter how much weight you lift. What matters is that you do the form correctly.
09:57So, physical correction can be adjustments, right? When I used to do an hour and a half of Ashtanga
10:04yoga back in the day, then the yoga teacher would sometimes correct my posture and then I would
10:13offer to marry her. So, the yoga teacher would correct my posture. So, that is physical
10:19correction, but she didn't hit me for getting it wrong. Whenever people are using euphemisms,
10:26you know that their conscience is not their friend, right? They're not doing well with regards
10:32to their conscience, right? Okay, there is a giant chasm between mild spanking properly administered
10:38out of love, okay? So, mild spanking. So, then what they say is it is tap or a very mild spanking
10:47over clothes and so on, right? But the problem is, of course, that if you are attempting to change
10:55a child's impulsivity, then a light swat on, say, the buttocks through underwear and trousers or
11:06pants is not something that's going to bother the child. It has to be something that hurts
11:11enough for the child to stop what they're doing, to have the disapproval of the adult impressed
11:20upon their mind and body, and to remember it in the future, right? Because if we say to a child,
11:26don't do X, right? And then the child keeps doing X, it's because the child is not remembering
11:32repeated instructions, right? Now, if the child is not remembering repeated instructions,
11:38then the hitting of the child, the spanking of the child must be enough to overcome the child's
11:45lack of memory. In other words, it has to deeply imprint itself in the child's mind in a way that
11:51repeated loving concern and advice does not. So, this is what generally happens is they say,
11:58well, no, it's just a mild spanking properly administered. But if the child is forgetting,
12:05and of course no reasonable parent, even pro-spanking parent, would say that you hit a
12:10child the first time the child does something wrong, like you have to repeatedly explain it,
12:14and the child keeps doing it, which means the child is unable to remember or unwilling to remember
12:19verbal instructions, right? Don't run at the road, don't grab things from the stove,
12:22that kind of stuff, right? So, because the child is unable or unwilling to remember
12:27verbal instructions, repeated verbal instructions, then hitting must be enough to break through the
12:32child's indifference to advice and imprint permanent changes in the child's decision process.
12:40So, the idea of a light swatting is to say that a light swatting is far more memorable
12:51to the child than significant parental disapproval. But, of course, children are
12:56largely programmed to please their parents, and we say, ah, yes, well, what about the defiant
13:01children? Well, no, they are in fact pleasing their parents because the parents want to hit
13:06them so the children act out so they can provide value to the cruel parents through the exercise
13:12of cruelty, right? So, they're still providing value, still doing what their parents want,
13:15it's just a little less obvious, right? So, mild spanking properly administered, well,
13:22that doesn't make any sense because if it's mild, it's not going to be enough to change the child's
13:25mind, which is the goal of behavior, right? All right, at Focus on the Family, we believe that
13:30parents have been entrusted with the incredible privilege and responsibility of shaping their
13:35child's behavior in a positive direction. Unfortunately, each of us enters this world
13:40with desires that are selfish, unkind, and harmful to others and ourselves. Right,
13:46selfish, unkind, and harmful to others and ourselves. So, you see, let's drop over selfish
13:51for the moment. Being unkind and harmful to others is bad. However, spanking is being unkind and
14:00harmful to others. So, it's really hard to say that we have to cure children of being unkind and
14:08harmful to others by modeling unkind and harmful behavior, such as spanking. Now, of course,
14:14people would say, ah, yes, but it's not unkind, it is in fact loving, but it goes very much against
14:21the preference and integrity and peace of mind of the children, so they perceive it as unkind,
14:27right? So, if you're going to say, well, we can't be unkind and harmful to others,
14:35and so when my child is harmful and unkind to others, then I will be harmful and unkind
14:43to my child, right? That's just a fundamental problem with that from a logical standpoint.
14:50Now, with regards to selfishness, well, that means acting to your own benefit at the expense of
14:58others, right? So, a thief is selfish because the thief takes something that someone else has worked
15:02hard to create or provide or purchase, takes it for themselves, so they are benefiting themselves
15:07at the expense of others, right? So, if you are acting to benefit yourself at the expense of
15:16others, well, that's what spanking fundamentally is. Now, you can say it's to the benefit of the child,
15:23but the child certainly does not experience it that way because it has to be painful and
15:28unpleasant and humiliating enough to break through the indifference that I mentioned earlier,
15:32right? So, the parent is saying, well, I think spanking is good, and spanking comes at your
15:39expense and it is to my benefit, right? I mean, that's how the child is going to perceive it,
15:44that the parent wants to spank, the parent thinks that spanking is good, and the child suffers the
15:49pain of being spanked, right? So, that doesn't work either, right? Okay, so, spanking then can be one
15:58effective discipline option among several in a parent's tool chest as they seek to steer their
16:02children away from negative behaviors and guide them towards becoming responsible, healthy, happy
16:06adults. Well, that's just the positive-sounding word salad that we've talked about before.
16:10It is vital, however, that spanking be administered within proper guidelines.
16:15All right, so, Peterson, this guy who was reported to have harmed his child,
16:21yeah, a child should never be abused. Spanking is most effective as a deterrent to undesirable
16:26behavior for younger preschoolers, but never for infants. That's because reasoning and taking away
16:33privileges often simply don't work with kids in that age range, right? So, children are punished
16:42for things that they cannot understand, right? So, he's saying here, spanking is used against
16:50children when children are too young to understand what is happening, right? Younger preschoolers,
16:58but never for infants, and he says, spanking should be phased out completely before adolescence.
17:04So, that's not actually... As children age, spanking should become less frequent as other
17:08types of consequences are utilized. Spanking should be phased out completely before adolescence.
17:14Interesting, of course, and not coincidental, as we've heard about in countless call-in shows,
17:18that somebody here is saying, ah, well, you see, interestingly enough, the moment that children
17:24get big and strong, oh, oh, oh, spanking is bad, right? That's always the case, right?
17:34So, reasoning and taking away privileges doesn't work with kids in that age range,
17:39and I guess my question is, if you model consistent behavior in the face of children,
17:48or when you're in charge of children who love and respect you, right? If you model positive behavior
17:55around children who love and respect you, why would they act differently?
17:59Foundation. I mean, there'll be some variation, of course, right? But if you consistently use
18:04the word for tree around children who love and respect you, then why would they end up calling
18:09a tree anything but a tree? If you model consistent behavior around children who love and respect you,
18:16how would they fundamentally end up doing things that are different?
18:21Well, it's kind of impossible to know, and that's sort of the general theory, right?
18:27So, if the child is too young to understand reasoning, then the child is simply being hit,
18:34like you would hit an animal who can't understand reasoning, and I wouldn't even recommend hitting
18:38animals, but you are treating the child, you are correcting the child's behavior, right? You're
18:44correcting the child's behavior when the child is too young to understand reason, morality,
18:50cause, and effect, right? So, he's saying that, what have we got here? He says that,
18:59well, what we really, really want to do is make sure that we guide them towards ultimately
19:04becoming responsible, healthy, happy adults, right? So, we want to teach responsibility
19:10to children who are too young to understand the concept of responsibility. Well, it makes no sense
19:17to me. If the child can't understand morality, how can the child's behavior be punished? I mean,
19:23I don't speak Japanese, so if I fail to follow instructions given to me in Japanese,
19:28well, that's not my fault, even though I may, in fact, want to follow the instructions given to
19:34me in Japanese, even though I may desperately want to follow them, they may be life-saving
19:38instructions, but I do not speak Japanese, and therefore, how am I morally culpable for failing
19:45to follow instructions in Japanese, right? If I don't know how to do, I don't know, I don't know how to
19:50how to apply a defibrillator or something in some emergency, someone is yelling at me in Japanese
19:55how to do it, well, I don't know Japanese, so I can't follow their instructions. So, why would I be
20:01punished for something which I cannot understand? And if I'm capable of understanding it, then why
20:05do I need to be punished, right? If I'm capable of understanding behaviors, cause and effect,
20:10consequences, and the behaviors have been modeled for me already, and I understand the reasons
20:13behind it, and I'm gaining a stronger sense of morality as I age, and so on, if I'm capable
20:19of understanding morality and reasoning, then I should be reasoned with, right? If I'm not capable
20:27of understanding reason and morality, then being punished is an oxymoron, right? It makes
20:33no sense. Sorry, he said redundantly. So, generally speaking, we advise parents that corporate
20:40discipline should only be applied in cases of willful disobedience or defiance of authority,
20:45never for mere childish irresponsibility. Okay, so willful disobedience or defiance of authority,
20:52right? So, if authority is willing to hit you, should it be respected, right? Because the only
20:59authority in the case of hitting a child is that the parent is larger than the child, and stronger
21:08than the child, and willing to use violence because of that size and strength. So, authority cannot
21:14mean, particularly in moral education, which is what this guy is talking about, moral education,
21:22authority in the education of morality cannot simply mean willing to hit someone, willing to
21:29use size and strength to use violence, right? Otherwise, we would let off every giant guy who
21:35beat up his tiny girlfriend because he would claim that he was morally educating her, and she
21:40was defying his moral authority, and it's like, well, the only authority you have is you're bigger
21:44and stronger and willing to hit. That's not moral authority. Willful disobedience, well,
21:51the problem with that is that falls prey to the sin of pride. Look, we know that there are a lot
21:57of children badly raised in the world, and we also hope, I would like to think, and I know for a lot
22:03of people that is the case, I would hope that people would try to raise their children better,
22:11right? I was talking to my daughter the other day about how a lot of my parenting was invented to
22:18some degree on the fly. Obviously, I had a lot of principles behind my, but because I was raising my
22:22daughter so utterly differently from how I was raised, I had, I'm in some trouble, and there
22:29were mistakes that I made because of all of that, like when you're learning a new language, you're
22:33going to make mistakes, right? You can't be perfect at it, and so we absolutely want to raise our
22:40children in a better manner than we were raised. We're not aiming to just recreate our own
22:45childhoods. We're aiming to improve the childhoods of our children. Now, because of that, because of
22:51that, I mean, because anyone who doesn't say that is saying that they were raised perfectly without
22:56any possibility of improvement, and that's just not true. I mean, that's the sin of vanity,
23:00or it's the sin of pride. There can always be improvements that can be made, right? So, if we are
23:06aiming to raise our children in a better manner than we were raised, that's good, but what that
23:13means is that our children are going to end up with perspectives that we ourselves did not have.
23:20Our children are going to end up with perspectives that we don't have because,
23:24let's say that you were raised too violently, like even by this guy's metric, let's say that
23:29you were raised too violently. Well, then when you raise your children less violently, or hopefully
23:34non-violently, if you raise your children non-violently, then your children are going to
23:39have perspectives that you yourself don't have, right? In the same way, it's like teaching a
23:46different language. If I was raised speaking English and I raised my daughter speaking Japanese,
23:51she's going to have thoughts and concepts and language that I myself do not have because I
23:57learned Japanese later, she's born with it, right? And that's something as objective as or fairly
24:02objective as a language set, right? So, defiance of authority means your children disagree with you,
24:10but if you're raising your children in a better manner than you yourself were raised,
24:15then your children are going to disagree with you because some of your perspectives are going
24:19to be the residue of having been raised less well than they are, right? It's like if you only know
24:28DOS and then your children know Windows, they're going to tell you to do things in a different way
24:33than you did, right? They're going to tell you to move your mouse and click rather than
24:38uncover your keyboard and type. So, your children are going to have a different perspective than you
24:44or from you because you're raising them better than you were raised. So, defiance of authority
24:50simply means your children disagree with you and it is of course entirely the sin of vanity to say
24:56if my children who are experiencing different conditions and better conditions than I
25:00experience in being raised, if my children disagree with me, they are wrong and bad and
25:06must be punished. That's the sin of pride. You want to raise your children so that they have a
25:12different experience, a better experience than you did, which means they're going to disagree
25:15with you at times and to be right. So, for instance, if you were raised as I was as a young child
25:24in a violent school environment where you could get, you know, punished or caned and so on, right?
25:31And then disagreeing with your teachers and going against what your teachers say
25:35would be quite hazardous and would provoke a lot of anxiety because you don't want to get
25:38caned or hit or whatever, right? But if you raise your children and they go to school without
25:44corporal punishment, then they're going to have the capacity to defy teachers in a way that you
25:51didn't have and that's healthier thereby. Now, if you say, because of your own history and experience,
25:57you say to your children, you must always obey the teacher because that's what you had to do
26:02because the teacher could hit you and your children disagree with you, well, that's because
26:07they're being raised better. So, is that defiance of your authority? Anyway, he goes on to say,
26:14and right spanking, and it should never be administered harshly impulsively or with the
26:18potential to cause physical harm. Well, that's not true because all spanking must require physical
26:24harm. And now I'm not saying, of course, he's talking about like, I don't know, breaking their
26:29legs or something like that. And that is, of course, right? But all spanking is with the goal
26:37of creating pain and pain is a sign of physical harm. Right? Pain is a sign of a physical harm,
26:46right? I mean, if you're peeing, what do they call it? Pissing fishhooks, if you have some sort of STD,
26:50right? So, if you're peeing and it really hurts, that's a sign of some sort of physical harm, right?
26:55So, a bruise is a sign of physical harm, right? And again, I know he's not talking about bruising
26:59kids, but spanking by its very definition has to cause pain and pain is a marker of physical harm.
27:05So, that doesn't make sense. It should never be administered harshly impulsively. He says,
27:10along those lines, we caution parents who have a hard time controlling their temper to choose
27:14alternative forms of discipline. There's never an excuse or an occasion to abuse a child, right?
27:19So, they're dividing hitting into corrective discipline and abuse, right? So, you've got to
27:25find just a sweet spot for hitting. Too little and the child will just laugh at you too much
27:30and the child goes to hospital, right? And then you go to jail, right? So, parents who have a
27:35hard time controlling their temper, right? So, hit someone because they're doing wrong,
27:43but don't be angry. Hit someone, hit a child because they're doing wrong. They're defying
27:48you, but don't be angry. Well, why would you want to put forward a child quote discipline method
27:59if that would only really be enacted by those with a failure to control their temper?
28:06See, earlier I mentioned if you want to transfer knowledge to a child, you model the behavior
28:10consistently yourself and then when they're old enough, you explain the reasons why. So, if
28:15someone has the degree of self-control that they can hit a child without being at all angry,
28:22then they're already modeling self-control and the child will copy that anyway.
28:26I mean, children grow up. I mean, if you've ever been around like in England, there's like 5,000
28:32different accents, right? So, children grow up and they copy the accents of everyone around them.
28:36It's interesting though, of course, if you have an accent and your kid goes to school,
28:39they'll copy the accent of peers, not parents because that's their future, right? But, you know,
28:44if you go to Scotland and there's some kid who grows up in a Scottish village at the
28:47arse end of the Outer Hebrides, then that kid is going to speak with that accent. They copy.
28:54They copy often the religion of their parents. They copy some of the physical mannerisms of
28:57their parents. They just copy-paste, right? So, if you have the self-control to hit your children
29:04without being angry, then you have the self-control and are modeling the self-control to the point
29:07where the children are going to internalize that self-control and you won't need to hit them.
29:11Alright, so just do a bit more. For parents who do choose to spank, the proper philosophy and
29:16approach is extremely important. To begin with, as with all forms of correction, the concepts of
29:21punishment and discipline are absolute opposites. Punishment is motivated by anger, focuses on the
29:29past and results in either compliance due to fear or rebellion and feelings of shame, guilt and or
29:34hostility. On the other hand, discipline is motivated by love for the child, focuses on the
29:39future and results in obedience and feelings of security, right? So, what they're saying is
29:47you should apply extreme negative stimuli to the children, but the children should never
29:52experience that as punishment. Come on! I mean, how disconnected and dissociated you have to be
30:01to say that and not notice that's a complete contradiction.
30:04So, you have to apply extreme negative stimuli because, you know, you've already reasoned with,
30:10you tried maybe raising your voice, you've tried being sharp, you've tried to, you know,
30:14bribe or promise rewards or you've threatened other forms of punishment. So, you finally get,
30:19right, it's the last step, right? You finally get to hitting the children and the children,
30:24of course, experience the hitting as an extreme negative stimuli, but apparently the children
30:32are not supposed to experience extreme negative stimuli as punishment. I mean, my gosh, it's like
30:40wiring someone up to spell words and when they get the words wrong, you send a significant shock
30:48through their system and you tell them not to experience it as punishment. I mean, my god,
30:53what do you even say about this? Of course, the children are going to experience it as punishment.
30:57Results in obedience and feelings of security. So, after you hit your child, they're supposed
31:02to feel secure in their relationship with you, though you can, of course, you know, you do have
31:06the right to claim the right and enact the right to inflict extreme negative consequences on them,
31:12painful negative consequences on them. Okay, so it says, this is because the term discipline
31:16derives from the root word disciple, which means to teach. Parents have an ongoing opportunity and
31:22responsibility to teach our children how to love well and live life as effectively and healthfully
31:27as possible. What we want children to understand is that the gentle sting of a spanking is connected
31:34to the greater and often long-term pain of harmful choices. Simply put, prevention is easier than cure.
31:39Right, so this is like going to the dentist, they scrape your teeth, that's better than getting
31:43cavities or gum recessions. I mean, I don't even know what to say about vaccines anymore, but
31:49you go into, you know, going to the gym is less comfortable sometimes, but it beats, you know,
31:53long-term decay of your body, that kind of stuff, right? Well, I mean, the gentle sting of a spanking,
32:00I mean, again, this is, it's not gentle because it has to be enough to imprint itself in a permanent
32:07fashion or semi-permanent fashion on the child's mind. So, it has to be strong enough of a negative
32:12consequence that the child remembers who is in a state of chaotic pre-remembering mental state, right?
32:20A child should always receive a clear warning before any offense that might merit a spanking
32:24and understand why they're receiving this disciplinary action. If he or she deliberately
32:28disobeys, the child should be informed of the upcoming spanking and escorted to a private area.
32:32The spanking should be lovingly administered in a clear and consistent manner. Afterward, the lesson
32:36should be gently reiterated so that the child understands and learns from this teachable
32:39experience. Learns what? What do they learn? What does the child learn from being hit? Well, the
32:46child learns that the parent is willing to hit the child. The child learns that the parent is
32:50bigger and stronger and is capable and has the legal right and society approves of this hitting.
32:56And so, what is the child learning? Is the child learning a moral lesson? Nope. The child is simply
33:00learning that the adult is bigger and stronger and willing to inflict pain and that nobody in his
33:07society has any issue with that. In fact, they approve of it. That's all the child can learn
33:12because the child is too young to learn, reflect on, absorb and enact moral lesson. All right, so
33:18many parents today view themselves primarily as the child's friend and recoil at the idea of
33:21administering discipline. Children, though, desperately need their parents love and affirmation
33:25as well as their authoritative guidance and correction. Disciplining our sons and daughters
33:29is part of the tough work of parenting, but it will pay dividends, big dividends in the long run.
33:33Oh, yeah. So, of course, again, you get your children to enact self-discipline by being
33:40self-disciplined yourself so that they copy your behavior. And you then, at an age-appropriate
33:47time, transfer to them the knowledge of why this self-discipline is important in the same way
33:53that your children will absorb the words you use for common things. Your children will absorb
34:00those words. And then later, when they're older, you can teach them the spelling,
34:03the conceptual definitions and the adjectives, the adverbs, the predicate and all of that.
34:11You can teach them the parts of language when they're older, but they will copy the words that
34:15you use because they want to be able to get things and use things and manipulate things in the world.
34:21So, your kids will do all of that just because you're using language. And then you can teach
34:28them the concepts later on. So, you want to teach self-discipline, which means being
34:34self-disciplined yourself. And also, they will see that adults have trouble with self-discipline,
34:38too. Do you have self-discipline as an adult? Do you exercise? Do you eat well? Are you overweight?
34:45Are you physically strong? Do you say the right things in terms of moral honesty? Do your kids
34:52see you lie? Do your kids see you when you don't want to see your aunt say that you're
34:57feeling a little under the weather? Do your kids see you lie? Do they see you eat too much candy?
35:04Do they see you not exercise? Do they see you get snippy with your wife or your husband? Do they see
35:10all of the foibles which plague and stimulate mankind as a whole? And do they see you
35:18exercising self-discipline in a consistent fashion? I mean, it's not perfect. I don't
35:24know what perfect would mean. But do they see you exercising self-discipline in a consistent fashion?
35:29Or do they see you not doing that? And if you make yourself do something, like you get up,
35:37you got a headache, you don't want to go to work, but you go to work, do they see you spanking
35:41yourself in order to do that? Well, no. So then again, you are asking them to enact a form of
35:49discipline that you and they will never do later on in life, which is obviously somewhat odd, right?
35:57So I would say it's an interesting article and I appreciate the arguments being put forward in one
36:04central direction, but it's a lot easier to hit children than improve yourself.
36:08But if you improve yourself and your children benefit from your example, you won't need to hit
36:12the middle. All right, freedomain.com. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the show,
36:18freedomain.com. Take care, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.