Practicing Non-Violence in Our Home

Screen Shot 2015-02-27 at 10.19.14 AM“Go to your room!”

“Wait until your father gets home… “

“Do you want me to use my belt?”

This is what I remember as a child when I was in trouble. My mother spanked me with a wooden spoon. My father used a thick leather belt. Some of you reading this may have similar memories.

A 2002 ABC News poll reported that by about a 2:1 margin, American parents spank their children. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, school-sanctioned spanking is still widespread.

Hitting children is still normal. Most of us who were spanked may observe that we turned out fine, but the truth is we will never know. None of us have any idea how we might have turned out without any spankings – perhaps better, or perhaps worse.

What we do know today is that scientists can prove that physical violence in a child’s life by a parent can not only alter the brain in a traumatized way, but evidence also shows that the child will possess less gray matter in its brain development.

For example, a 2009 study showed children who were harshly spanked had less gray matter in certain areas of the prefrontal cortex.

This can lead to depression, addiction, mental health disorders, and lower IQ scores.

As such, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a 2010 study linked spankings to children who were more aggressive. One can only wonder if George H. W. Bush beat the shit out of George W. Bush as a child.

Gray matter is essential for your brain’s ability to learn self-control. This, of course, is ironic, because most spankings are doled out for a lack of self-control shown by the child. But scientifically speaking, the more physical punishment given, the less self-control the child will have as they age.

To not spank our children, represented an unshackling of ourselves from both religious dogma and our own experiences, since both of us received this kind of punishment as children.

In the early days, we spanked our kids and I hated it. I love my children, but I honestly assumed I was doing the right thing. My own parents did it, and the advice to hit a child dates back to early Sunday school lessons taken right out of the Bible.

I felt that not spanking them would turn me into a weak, ineffective parent, and turn the kids into unruly brats. Politically, I almost felt like I may also be buying into some type of hysteria, like the war on terror. Like perhaps the anti-spanking people had some sort of ulterior agenda.

In the end, at the core of our decision not to spank was a desire to demonstrate consistency. If we expected the state not to employ preemptive aggression then neither should we as parents – even in my own home.

Last February, my wife and I sat our then 2-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son down and apologized to them for previously spanking them. We let them know it was wrong to use physical force, with the exception of self-defense. It felt great to release this burden, no longer hitting the very people I felt most passionately about. It meant being able to teach the children that physical aggression and violence is wrong and disrespectful, while not looking like hypocrites.

When I’m asked what I do for discipline, the concept is seems foreign to many, but in reality it should be quite obvious. I treat my children as I would treat any other person: with respect. I don’t do anything to them that I wouldn’t want someone doing to me. Thus:

•No physical violence
•No denial of food
•No imprisonment

I speak to them in the same manner my wife and I talk to each other, and it has had yielded spectacular results.

The biggest difference we’ve noticed in the past year or so is that my children rarely, if ever, hit one another. Prior to our decision not to spank, the children hit each other a few times a day while arguing. We’ve now gone months and months without anyone hitting the other. They still argue over things like toys occasionally, but what is amazing is that I hear them in their rooms trying to talk it out. I can hear my son making his case, and my daughter, who is only 3, expressing why she believes she is right. These kids, instead of attempting to solve problems with violence and physically harming another person when upset, are becoming master negotiators.

We’re raising children in a violent world, where theft and aggression by the state is accepted as normal , and every election is about which side gets to steal for a specific period of time with new regulations, taxes, and laws backed up by a militarized police and a prison state. I find it liberating that my property has become a freedom zone for my children, living daily life without the threat of violence. Plus, there’s a little extra gray matter in the brain to boot!

The biggest benefit, by far, is the parent-to-child relationship, built entirely on love and respect. As a libertarian father, I think this type of relationship and treatment of children will help show the clear line between acceptable human behavior (respect) and the unacceptable behavior coming from the oligarchs who currently run the world with violence and coercion.

– Daniel Ameduri aka The Dissident Dad

For more info see this author’s bio

5 thoughts on “Practicing Non-Violence in Our Home”

  1. It’s nice to see another parent “breaking the cycle” as we call it. We don’t spank our daughter like we were (wooden spoons, belts, etc) and she is so good at communicating and reasoning at such a good age. It is so wonderful. I wonder if my lack of self control in the past has anything to do with the lack of respect and physical punishment from my parents when I was young. I really enjoy your posts as I identify and agree with most all of them.

    Reply
  2. Mike, I’m really glad you’re relaying the nonviolence torch for Daniel into the family. (Side-note: this post’s authorship seems to be erroneous. Daniel wrote this, but it says Mike posted it)

    Voluntary relationships, especially in the family, are the true seeds of empathy, and a long-term commitment to a peaceful, sane — voluntary — future world.
    Like the commenter above said — breaking the cycle of violence is one of the most important tasks the human species faces. Kudos to you, Daniel, for doing your part. Kudos to you for sharing with the readers the violence and pain inflicted upon you — and I’m truly sorry for these tragically common horrors.

    Mike likes to talk about how the elites think of us a plebs, as serfs. And most of us accept it. I am firmly convinced that this acceptance starts at home. It starts in the wide eyes of the frightened children that are forced to accept the abuse of authority of their parents. Some grow up to be victims, some grow to wield those abuses as victimizers. Yet some, like you Daniel, escape the cycle. And those that escape can make sure it _never_ _happens_ _again_.

    As for George W — It’s Barbara the matriarch that would “whoop” him. I could probably find the video of him saying this if you’re interested, but he’s admitted as much.

    Reply
  3. I spanked my kids for things like not looking both ways, before crossing the street. Lying when they were young, bald face for sure lies. There reaches an age, when you tell them, your only hurting yourself, even grounding them is useless, as most have a bedroom window.
    The best way to teach kids is by example and love.

    Reply
  4. Spanking (palm of hand on butt) or physically restraint is absolutely necessary to establish what the word NO means for a very young child. It is also needed to establish WHO IS BOSS in the house.

    Too many parents use bribes or cater to a child’s whims to keep peace in the house. As a result they make rotten employees at best and at worse you get Michael Brown’s who have zero respect for authority.

    I really wish people would realize the Universe is NOT a nice place and the worse thing a parent can do is wrap a child up in cotton batting and protect them from all adversity. If you do they will never learn actions have consequences so will never grow-up to be a reasoning adult. They will learn throwing a temper-tantrum will get them what they want.

    This article about Political Correctness shows where this ‘Non-violence’ propaganda is leading. (A long but very good article)
    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/not-a-very-pc-thing-to-say.html

    QUOTE
    At a growing number of campuses, professors now attach “trigger warnings” to texts that may upset students, and there is a campaign to eradicate “microaggressions,” or small social slights that might cause searing trauma. These newly fashionable terms merely repackage a central tenet of the first p.c. movement: that people should be expected to treat even faintly unpleasant ideas or behaviors as full-scale offenses.
    UNQUOTE

    Is that the type of culture we want?

    If you want to know where this ‘new’ child rearing method came from:

    QUOTE
    The Hand that Rocked the Cradle: A Critical Analysis of Rockefeller Philanthropic Funding, 1920-1960
    Brian J. Low

    Abstract

    Past research into the mental hygiene movement in Canada
    and the United States has tended to view it in isolation from
    co-temporary projects funded by Rockefeller philanthropy, such
    as mass communications research. The mental hygiene campaign
    aimed to modify adult-child relations by reducing the influence
    parents and teachers held over children’s personality
    development; the central aim of mass communications research was
    the development of conformity of opinion. One a project of
    social engineering, the other of social control, the two
    projects combined appear to have possessed considerable
    potential to work in concert to shift weight in the socializing
    matrix from families and schools to the media at the outset of
    the post-World War II baby boom.

    http://historicalstudiesineducation.ca/index.php/edu_hse-rhe/article/view/434
    UNQUOTE

    That said consistency, attention and love are also very very important.

    Reply

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