I also have a child - the Zeplette - and her mum and I decided early on that spanking her was not off the menu, but was to be used only in extreme circumstances. The Zeplette and I get along wonderfully most of the time, but we have had our differences too...
As Impy has said, small kids do NOT have the reasoning abilities of adults; they are totally self-centered - the world revolves around them, they are impulsive, rash, active, and totally unaware of dangers that adults know. They also have a need to know the boundaries, and we felt that without providing some form of definite edge in the limits of behaviour, it's no wonder that some kids will end up going over them.
So, on a very few occasions when she did not respond to parental admonishment and carried on misbehaving abominably, the Zeplette has indeed had one smart whack on the tush (only) to draw her attention to us and to stop the naughtiness. The number of times in her life this was necessary could be counted on one hand, because she quickly woke up to the fact that when Mum and Dad spoke to her in that tone of voice, she was cruising close to the edge. That is, we made sure she knew the boundaries.
Of course, now aged 16, that sort of thing is far in the past, although she still occasionally likes to push the boundaries and our buttons in other ways! But that's for different reasons now. Aaaargh, teenagers!
As Impy has said, small kids do NOT have the reasoning abilities of adults; they are totally self-centered - the world revolves around them, they are impulsive, rash, active, and totally unaware of dangers that adults know. They also have a need to know the boundaries, and we felt that without providing some form of definite edge in the limits of behaviour, it's no wonder that some kids will end up going over them.
So, on a very few occasions when she did not respond to parental admonishment and carried on misbehaving abominably, the Zeplette has indeed had one smart whack on the tush (only) to draw her attention to us and to stop the naughtiness. The number of times in her life this was necessary could be counted on one hand, because she quickly woke up to the fact that when Mum and Dad spoke to her in that tone of voice, she was cruising close to the edge. That is, we made sure she knew the boundaries.
Of course, now aged 16, that sort of thing is far in the past, although she still occasionally likes to push the boundaries and our buttons in other ways! But that's for different reasons now. Aaaargh, teenagers!