How to Spank Your Kid

Remember I’m answering this question specific to its context and assumption: “Assuming spanking is okay”. I’ve gotten comments asking how is spanking ever acceptable, and then point me to the book I’ve written (http://theyoungestlight.com) to share some of my childhood experiences with emotional and physical abuse. I’m not saying corporal punishment is the best method you would use, but I’m not so naive to believe that only people who never spank their children will read this Quora question.

Thus, my goal is to set rules and boundaries for those parents who choose to spank, because my objective is to make sure that these parents discern very clearly between spanking their children as a way to deter undesired behavior and spanking their children in a way to break a child’s spirit and cause a child to learn helplessness.

ANSWER: Hard enough to get their attention, but never hard enough to sprain, break, or otherwise leave deep psychic and emotional scars along with the physical scars. [If you can't figure out the difference between "get their attention" and "physical/emotional traumas" then don't spank.] This means you should beware never, ever, ever, to spank a child in a way that causes that child to believe that he or she is trapped and cannot get away from you, so that with time, they stop resisting or trying to escape. Ideally, they should be running their ass off in the opposite direction with you chasing after them when they think you’re about to spank them.

If I spanked, I’d aim for the buttocks (fleshy parts) and the back of the hand, possibly the outer fleshy part of the thighs, and I’d only use the full length of my fingers and never include the palm (because this increases the force of the spanking).

Never, ever, ever with any objects. You should feel with your own hands what you’re doing to this child when you are meting out corporal punishment.

I’ve been spanked with sticks made of flexible reed, which left welts on my thighs and sometimes broke skin. I did not like that.

I’ve been spanked (this was in school when I was in the first grade) with a plastic ruler on the palms of my hand, which didn’t leave marks but was extremely painful. I did not like that.

I’ve been spanked many more times in many different places and what surprised me now as an adult was how I never ran. I stood there and took it because I thought I genuinely deserved it as an evil child and there was no use to run way from being spanked. When I grew up and heard from my peers how they’d take off with their mothers running after them, I was shocked.

“I never knew I could run,” I said. That was when I realized that I’d learned helplessness. That was why I began my answer with conditions that are more mental than mechanic — you never ever want to break a child’s spirit or will by spanking them.