Spanking bad and Drugs good?

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When did it become unacceptable to spank my child and acceptable to drug them into submission?

It really has come to that in a lot of cases. If they child misbehaves at school: Up their doses of prescription drugs. I have seen administrators and parents want this. This isn't just happening with Autistic children. We know the brain isn't fully formed until 21 and drugs are risky. Why are the traditional forms of discipline not at least attempted before we jump to drugs?

I can guess as to why, but I think we really have to re-evaluate this and take another look at societies priorities.

ttyl

It's a "take a pill and you will get ......." society. There is a pill for everything. Take this pill and look like Madonna, if you sad take a pill, if your kid has energy, give him a pill, if you want to make your boobs bigger, take a pill.

It's nuts!

When it was determined that Ritalyn leaves fewer visible bruises.

It has been unacceptable to spank your child since the 70's at least, with Dr. Spock's famous book. Some kids do need certain kinds of drugs, it doesn't mean that you are using them as a substitute for non-drug behavior modification techniques.

I've never considered that A might have led to B but I guess you are correct in pointing a loose correlation timing wise. Still, I don't think it's A that led to B and point blank I do neither and hope never to.

Spanking led to apparently well behaved but often confused and depressed children. Read the forums here and you'll see enough evidence of that. Children need solid discipline, but solid discipline does not require spanking; there are plenty of other ways to "teach" children without the mixed message that spanking as a technique sends.

The pressure for drugs, to me, can come from a lazy place. They are a godsend for those who really need them, but most kids - IMHO - aren't crying out "drug me," they're crying out "understand me and take me out of this confusing situation." B takes a lot more patience and careful thought than A, and may require life style changes parent's aren't willing to swallow as well. But approaching behavior issues from point B, in my personal experience, certainly with an AS child, is VERY effective.

So .... well, you make an interesting point with your question. Parents, IMHO, should do their best to do NEITHER OF THE ABOVE.

What a brilliant way of putting it!

The problem with spanking an autistic child is the risk that he or she "doesn't get it." I was spanked a lot as a child. My parents didn't know I had autism. I never understood why they did it or how I could avoid it. I just felt attacked and confused.

I read an article once that autistics/aspies/etc don't respond to authority as authority. Logic rules. If an authority figure does not make sense to us, we don't follow it. You can beat us all you want to no avail.

I wish I had medications so I didn't have to go through all that.

I agree 100% that prescription drugs have reached a ridiculous height on society's priority list. MommyJones explained the epidemic perfectly.

"Hydroxycut made me sexy!"

Please. Working out will make you sexy. These commercials are pathetic.

Drugs...you gotta have drugs

I would partially agree, but say that aspies might be more likely to look at whether or not the parent who is supposed to be disciplining them adheres to the standards of conduct that they force on their children. If not, then the parent might be viewed as a hypocrite and efforts to discipline the aspie child might be less effective. I can't remember who said it, but I read somewhere that autistic children are more likely to hold the view that respect is something you earn and not something you receive as a result of external factors, such as position, wealth etc. If that statement is true, it would logically follow that authority figures have an extremely big onus to behave in a way that is fitting of their office when in front of autistic children.

Your explanation of not knowing why you were spanked or how to avoid being spanked in future certainly suggests that your parents were using the punishment in the wrong way. When I have children of my own, my preferred way of doing things will be to use spanking as a controlled, logical and consistent punishment. For instance, 1st offence verbal warning, 2nd offence naughty corner, 3rd offence a spanking or something along those lines, each time explaining to the child the reason for the punishment.

How does hitting a child into submission work. No never has my daughter acted submissive when you hit her. Not even when she was little. She get's really emotional and it makes her worst. I would guess it would be the same for most children on the autism spectrum.

I agree. I would not oppose spanking an autistic child, partly because I would like to have children and I know that autism is very highly heritable and they need to be moulded into disciplined ways just like any other child. Ultimately, as a parent, you want to create an adult who will discipline him/herself with no help necessary from the police or anyone else.

My own tendency to become stressed easily means that I would have to be even more careful about cutting my children slack and I would have to be even more careful to discipline them early (using spanking if necessary), because it is extremely detrimental to a parent's position of authority and the children themselves if the parent loses control in front of the children. It is far better for everyone involved if a parent resorts to spanking a little too early than for the parent to lose to lose his/her temper in front of the child. If the father has Asperger's syndrome (as would be the case if I had children of my own), it is an unfortunate reality that he has less slack to cut his children and so he needs to quickly learn his own limits and he needs to discipline his children, spanking them if necessary, long before his limits are reached.

My father is a pharmacist and appears to share your view, as he says that behaviour-modifying drugs should never be used on children. I remember the South Park episode "Timmy 2000", where the children claimed they had ADD to avoid doing homework and so took ritalin. The ritalin turned them into such zombies that they were willing to attend a Phil Collins concert.

The point is medications don't work in moderating behaviour. I have seen my son continue to become stressed when he has has twice the normal dose of calming drugs. No I don't know what drug because my wife is the one who wants to drug him and arranges it.

Two days ago he went to his room to trash it. My wife's usual response is to let him trash it and then up his meds later so it doesn't happen again (it does). I went upstairs and he was attempting to flip his bed. It is a bunk bed and could have hurt him badly. Since he had sworn on the way "I washed his mouth out with soap." In reality I made him lick the soap. I then didn't put up with any back talk. After he had stopped trying to trash the room and back talk to me. I told him he could leave the room when his mother let him (since she had sent him up) and left. Checked up on him periodically after that. Temper tantrum was averted.

Originally I felt like a bad parent but it worked. He had a good day after that. Normally he would have attempted to attack silbings all day since it was "their faults". When allowed to tantrum he focuses on anger about how it was a sibling's fault and then he will cause issues with that sibling later. Usually by punching them or the like.

For the logic of the actual words:
Back Talk/Swearing gets your mouth soaped. Simple and enforced. Only was required once to alter behaviour this time.

Response to "It is all my brother's fault": You are not 100% responsible for what happened (fight over the computer). But neither is your brother. You can only change your actions not his. Don't blame him take responsibility yourself and change your actions.

Reponse to "you are scaring me." Remember this moment next time you take an action that will cause this. You made the decision to create this situation.

I kept the computer empty while he was in his room. Mostly I did this to ensure that siblings don't set him off to get a turn on the computer. They have done this in the past.

Anyways I am at peace with my actions and the results. My biggest issue is that the school seems to think the tantrum / drug route is the appropriate one. My wife agrees with the school which doesn't help. Although the next time we discuss it I am going to ask my wife how badly he has to injure a sibling before she thinks the tantrums should be stopped. As he gets bigger it is going to happen and no amount of prescription drugs is going to stop it.

ttyl

I was put on medication when I was 10. I was spanked as a kid. Just taught me what not to do. My mother also asked me "Do you want a spanking?" and I would say "No" and my mother would tell me to do doing X.

When you spank your child you have to tell them why you are doing it, give them a warning first before you do it like "If you don't stop doing X, you will get a spanking." "Do I need to spank you?" If your child says "no" tell them to stop doing X or they will get one. That's how my mother did it. Other times she would lose her temper and start hitting me and yell about something I did and I be confused because I didn't do it not even realizing she was talking about early in the day or the day before. After a while I learned before my mother starts spanking me, she has her lips curled in before she does it so I learned to run away and she chase after me. My brothers learned the same but sadly she also did it for no reason so we would still think she was going to hit us so we run and it took her a while to realize it was her facial expression that scared us so we thought she was going to hit us when she wasn't going to. So she had to work on that habit.

All I can say is WOW.

I agree that it is not a good idea to refrain from spanking a child simply because he is autistic. I would go further and say that it is even more important to spank an autistic child when he is naughty, because when he leaves the relative security of the family home, he will enter a world where actions have consequences and will find it extremely confusing if his parents haven't disciplined him.