An alternative to spanking

by Roger Sinasohn (Subscribe to Roger Sinasohn's posts) Oct 12th 2008 11:00AM

Categories: Newborns, Babies, Health & Safety, Resources

A woman administering a spanking, from a 1903 issue of Vanity Fair magazine

The spanking debate has been duked out repeatedly and will probably continue to be waged so long as people keep having kids. There was the California lawmaker who tried to ban it, but it seems that folks around here see it overwhelmingly as discipline rather than abuse. Me, I'm against it, but that's mostly because I'm very anti-violence.

Cathy Sorbo, a Seattle, Washington stand-up comedienne and mother, is on the non-spanking side as well and has written a column for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the matter after a woman was arrested for abandoning her newborn baby near a church in the middle of the night. More than just opposing spanking, Sorbo offers an alternative: tickling.

"You can carefully and skillfully overpower your child and inflict torture in a dominant fashion," she explains, "but instead of crying and fear, you will elicit shrieks of laughter." She notes, also, that there are disciplinary advantages too -- "you'll find your child to be more receptive to your concerns after you have both had a good giggle."

I don't know how effective a method of discipline tickling would turn out to be, but it sure seems a lot healthier and happier than spanking. As Sorbo says, "Laughter is healing. Spanking is not."

Source

Comments (12)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Karen 10-12-2008 @ 12:22PM

QUOTE: "You can carefully and skillfully overpower your child and inflict torture in a dominant fashion," she explains, "but instead of crying and fear, you will elicit shrieks of laughter."

The point of spanking has nothing to do with overpowering or inflicting torture on your child.

And I've seen more than my share of tickling episodes turn into crying fits because other than a quick tickle, it usually isn't fun.

It is torture to tickle someone and prolonged tickling is very painful. I've also noticed that people who get off on tickling others tend to have a mean streak in general.

This is stupid.

Anita 10-12-2008 @ 1:04PM

I agree! I may tickle my son because he enjoys it but I only do it for a second and always let him breath. I've been tickled to the point of being unable to catch my breath and it's very scary. No one is allowed to tickle me to this day. I would consider tickling for discipline as abuse.

Janie 10-12-2008 @ 9:18PM

I'm very small, under 5 ft and under 100 lbs, and when we were first married my husband thought it was funny to hold me down and tickle me; it only happened once. I was told I was no fun when I would try to stop him from tickling his young nieces and nephews but their parents went along with him. I hated it because it always ended up with a child crying and being told they were acting like a baby. I think more men are guilty of this than women and it's not "playing" but a form of control by strength and non-physical injury. When our daughter was born 30 years ago I put my foot down and said I considered tickling after someone yelled stop to be child abuse and would divorce him the first time he abused any child I had. I had already told him before we married that there was no hitting in my family and hitting me or a child would get him divorced while in jail. He never hit and rarely tickled our daughter because when I yelled "enough" he knew he'd better stop or face a miserable week or so.

SKL 10-12-2008 @ 1:17PM

That is perverted.

LS 10-12-2008 @ 1:42PM

Gotta agree... when spanking turns into an exercise in "carefully and skillfully overpower[ing] your child and inflict[ing] torture in a dominant fashion", it becomes abuse, pure and simple.

Same with tickling.

Tickling may be fun, but when it goes that far? It's actually WORSE than spanking because it is teaching the child that pleasure is actually punishment.

Jenn 10-12-2008 @ 2:37PM

Although she does certainly have a point regarding a child being more receptive after a good giggle, I'm not sure this is the way to go about it.

Definitely, if you can break the tension of the moment, and then proceed from there, it's positive. But that's not really discipline, as she describes here. I have a 2.5 year old, and whenever we get into a a standoff about something I want her to do that she doesn't want to do (get dressed, let me brush her hair, etc), I find it much easier to deal with her if I swoop her up, give her a good tickle, blow a few raspberries on her belly, and THEN try to do whatever it is. She is much more amenable to my requests then.

But that doesn't really sound like what Sorbo is describing.

pbhj 10-12-2008 @ 3:42PM

>>> Me, I'm against it, but that's mostly because I'm very anti-violence.

You know what, that's part of the same reason I'm for spanking. Learning to be disciplined, whether that's for it's own sake or whether it's [as a child] to avoid corporal punishment, means learning to avoid situations where you lose control of oneself and possibly give in to violence.

I'm struggling to see why you try to connect child-abandonment with spanking, other than if you skim read the link and weren't sure how to abstract its themes? The article uses it as a poor link because a child was abandoned at a church and someone at a church advocated spanking. Moreover the article seeks, in my mind, to conflate those who spank with those who would abandon their children in order to bias readers against people who believe it is right to corporally discipline a child. So why did you mention it?

Anyhow I find this bit (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/saturdayspin/382802_sorbo11.html) interesting:

>>> "I admit that I have spanked [...] I should have been able to control myself.

If one spanked because they lost control rather than part of a discipline routine then yup, they should have controlled themselves IMO.

Incidentally I shut my son in his room the other day as an attempt at alternate discipline, his distress [and hence mine] was surprising - I will stick with spanking.

jazzyazaliah 10-26-2008 @ 12:56PM

Pbhj wrote--->"If one spanked because they lost control rather than part of a discipline routine then yup, they should have controlled themselves IMO."

I agree wholeheartedly. You, in my opinion, pegged it.

Take care,
Azy!

jen 10-12-2008 @ 10:13PM

Kids (and parents) need to be taught that "NO" means "no" regardless if it is tickling, or more mainstream definitions of discomfort, etc. When a person (adult or child, man or woman) says "Stop", then the other person should STOP. Period.

Mandy 10-13-2008 @ 10:34AM

Is this lady insane!!!????? Tickling is now compared to spanking??? Someone needs to lay off the crack. I understand that some parents may not want to spank, but those parents need to also understand that there are parents that may want to and everyone just needs to deal with the difference of opinion. But tickling is nuts!!!! Whytake a FUN thing and make it horrible???

Les Jacobs 10-18-2008 @ 3:33PM

If a child does something wrong and you then tickle him, it seems to me that you are rewarding the child for doing something wrong. This is counter productive.

I don't like to spank my kids either, and do so only as an extreme last resort, but I've found that other punishments work better. Time out -- one minute per the age of the child -- works well, but you have to have the time to do it, and if you're looking after more than one kid this simply may not be feasible (the other kids will be getting into mischief while you're disciplining one -- this happens to me all the time as I care for triplets).

Removing the child from the area -- sandbox, playground, etc. -- also works, but again, if you're caring for more than one this may not be practical.

Also, one doesn't have to spank when milder punishments will do: flicking the child, for example. Is she touching or about to tough something she's not supposed to? Flick her hand.

I don't like inflicting pain on children, especially since they are completely at your mercy, and I think most parents feel the same way I do. Unfortunately, sometimes spanking is the only way to get through to the kid. Just don't do it when you're angry!

Les Jacobs
http://www.TripletsDad.com

Wendy 10-20-2008 @ 6:00PM

Tickling for more that a minutes or 2 is abuse. I had an older cousin that was my sitter when I was around 7 and 8. If I did something he did not want me to do he would hold me down and tickle me and to the point I could not breath and that was nothing but really sick torture.

Wendy

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