Customer Reviews

Lots of Love & a Spanking!: A Common Sense Discipline Plan for Children from Birth to Age Twelve That Works

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I have suffered severely at the hands of people like this author... who believe in spanking as a solution to every problem. Parents like these are completely unaware of the effects they have on their small, trusting little children when they spank them as a first, second, and last resort to every behavior. The severity, frequency, and motivation of these spankings (which this author is encouraging) can have a brutal, irreparable effect mentally and physically on a child.

I have researched this topic for months, from Discipline Without Shouting or Spanking: Practical Solutions to the Most Common Preschool Behavior Problems to Spanking: A Loving Discipline : Helpful and Practical Answers for Today's Parents, and everything in between, trying to find out if there is a way to raise a happy, healthy, well-balanced child while using spanking as a discipline.

From my perspective as a still-recovering victim of this woman's type of teachings, I have decided for myself that spanking a child is not cruel or abusive, and can produce normal, happy children. HOWEVER- IT MUST BE DONE IN MODERATION, AND ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS IN LOVE. I cannot stress this enough. If you grab a child by the arm, spin him around, and smack him until he wails in terror, you have GONE TOO FAR. Comparatively, the long, drawn-out, painful spanking rituals, processes, and steps that this author condones are not healthy, and are certainly not loving! Her methods intend only to force a child to behave through violent force and use fear of pain to control their every behavior. Parents should never, never, never, never spank their child in anger.

There are healthy middle grounds to this type of discipline. And, in contrast to what this author believes, spanking is not about the pain of the punishment. More pain does NOT mean better behavior.

Finally, I must stress that one of the biggest factors that contributed to my own suffering was the horrible idea that the child must be stripped bare from the waist down in order to what... feel the spanking? The only thing that this will do to a child is cause unnecessary humiliation and shame. The only time a parent should force their child to remove their clothes is when they are very young, and desperately need a bath. Even a child has rights to the boundaries of their own bodies... and to intentionally violate these boundaries and force them to expose themselves for punishment is very simply not conducive to a healthy child. This sort of spanking practice will leave a child feeling helpless and violated, unable to defend or protect themselves from their physically stronger parents.

I am seventeen years old. I have never written anything so difficult in my life, but I have written it in hopes that it will spare even a couple of children from the harmful effects of the type of spanking that this author condones.

Love and hitting are antithetical. This author tries to make you think that the easy, violent approach to discipoline is loving. Hogwash. It isn't.

Yet another supposedly Christian view based book that promotes hitting children. Only for the brain dead, cultish, fetishist or lazy, violent parent.

Avoid it.

This seemingly benign book is easily used as a justification by parents to hit their children. Hitting or spanking of children results in psychological damage, teaches that violence towards less-powerful human beings is acceptable, and results in a fear of authority which will result in some sort of deleterious "acting out" in later years. How the future of the author's 14-year-old daughters is affected by their mother's "discipline" is not included in this book. This book should be regarded with extreme skepticism by all parents and members of society.

Another "Christian" spanking manual. The author is mistaken, there can be no love in a home where there is spanking. This book would be better suited in an adult erotic store in the BDSM section, oh, wait a minute, kiddie porn is against the law. So this book really should not be for sale ANYWHERE. "0" stars.

As a mother of 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy, ages 4, 6, 8, and 11, I can agree with Jamie Pritchett's book. My husband and I did not spank at first because my dad who was a minister spanked me with a paddle when I was a child. I did not want my children to hate me. What made us change our minds was when our oldest child started using naughty words and other punishments did not work, my dad gave us Pritchett's book. We read it, and had a talk with our 7-year-old daughter and told her that if she used naughty words again one of us would put her across our knees and give her a spanking with a paddle. She did use a naughty word one more time, and true to our words, my husband put her across his knees and gave her 4 swats with the paddle. Afterwards, he sat her in his lap and talked with her about why he spanked her. She never used naughty words again. We only spank our children occassionally, and they have become obedient and well behaved. After reading this book, I could understand my dad's point of view when he would put me across his knees and spank me. Spanking can be a deterrent to bad behavior. It just has to be done in the right way. I highly recommend this book for all parents.

This is a book for parents determined to put their own feelings and needs first and their children's needs last, or nowhere. Author Pritchett makes this clear beginning on page one. She writes about spanking, "there is no carry-over guilt, resentment, irritation or anger" (p.1). She means, of course, that *she* doesn't feel these sorts of emotions after she hits her child "hard" with a 15" paddle. The *child's* feelings don't enter into her picture at all, except as "back-talk" or "defiance" requiring yet another spanking.

Pritchett asserts that other discipline methods "don't work." However, it quickly becomes clear that she never seriously investigated any nonpunitive methods aside from total permissiveness. She reveals that she had already decided on her spanking method of discipline before her daughters were even born and never actually tried any other approaches before declaring that none of them "work." She thinks the only alternatives to spanking consist of other forms of punishment, or simply letting children run wild with no discipline at all. This is absolutely false.

Pritchett says she asked parents with polite obedient children how they disciplined, and in every case they told her they used spankings. However, she then admits that virtually all of these parents were fundamentalist christians like herself who interpret literally Biblical verses about "the rod" - hardly a representative sample of the world's parents or the world's child discipline approaches.

Pritchett's only concept of an "alternative" to spanking consists of alternative *punishments* such as extra chores, scolding, time outs, etc. Pritchett appears completely unaware of the existence of nonpunitive approaches to discipline such as author Thomas Gordon outlines in his excellent book "Parent Effectiveness Training." This lack of awareness is difficult to excuse in someone writing a parenting book and holding herself up as an authority on the subject of child discipline.

Scientific investigation continues to undermine the view that spanked children behave better than nonspanked children. Straus & Mouradian (1998-Beh. Sci. Law 16(3):353) found that children in their study who had never been spanked in their lives were significantly more well behaved than even the most rarely-spanked children, and MUCH more well behaved than the frequently-spanked children. Gunnoe & Mariner (1997- Arch. Ped. Adol. Med. 151:768-775), two prospanking researchers from a conservative christian college, attempted to debunk Straus's results with a study of their own. But they only wound up replicating the same sorts of findings as Straus's group. Not one published peer-reviewed study has ever found any measurable evidence of any form of long term benefit to children from spanking - and evidence of negative long term effects continues to mount.

Spanked children may behave better immediately afterwards, but in the long run, parents with the wisdom, patience, humor, and imagination to raise children without hitting are rewarded with the best behaved youngsters.

Pritchett explains how irritating she finds "whiney" children, explaining "by whiney I mean, as soon as the mother would sit down to chat, the child would start fussing and interrupting constantly in an effort to gain the mother's attention" (p.2). This is not a whiney child but a needy child. This child's needs are not being met on some level. But Pritchett's only concern is how the child's behavior affects *herself*, and her solution is to spank the child repeatedly until all outward signs have been suppressed and then write a book exhorting the rest of the world's parents to follow her selfish example. Meanwhile, the child's original unmet need remains unmet - a fact which will have serious consequences later on.

Pritchett claims that her Parent Wins/Child Loses punitive method is the optimum way to raise children, but at various points in the book she reveals that she actually has no idea how to parent any other way. On page 80 she writes, "When my [twin] daughters were about ten years old I asked myself, 'Are they getting too old to spank?' I did seriously consider using other discipline methods [i.e. other *punishments* - c.d.]. But what would I use as a substitute that would be as effective in dealing with defiance or disobedience? I could think of nothing." In fact, children are extremely intelligent creatures. It is not necessary to hit them in order to train them.

Despite the book's subtitle, Pritchett does not believe there is any age in which a child is too old to spank. Pritchett even relates a couple of folksy stories about how well spankings "worked" on 16 and 17 year olds! A parent who has to "spank" a child this age - old enough to drive and practically old enough to vote - has admitted their failure as a parent. What rational justification exists for hitting someone this age? Is it because they are "incapable of reason?" Of course not. Parents who hit teenagers are parents who, like Pritchett, "can think of nothing." Their relationship with their children has always been built on their power to punish and control through force, and they have no idea how to change, even when their child is practically grown. The streets of major US cities are full of runaway teenagers many of whom have voted with their feet and fled homes in which their parents attempted to take Pritchett's advice on teen discipline.

For spanking, Pritchett recommends using "A flat piece of wood approximately 15" long and 3" wide and 1/2" thick" (p.9) but adds that "As children get bigger a more substantial sized paddled may become necessary" (p. 10). She also recommends keeping one of these monstrosities in every room of the house as well as the car.

When Pritchett's daughters are grown and preparing for parenthood, I predict that they will ask their mother why she never even bothered to read the abundant literature available to their mother when they were young - literature which would have suggested an abundance of nonpunitive nonpermissive methods of discipline. Faber and Mazlish's "How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk" is loaded with creative win/win methods of dealing with child discipline issues - methods which Pritchett never attempted to use because she was so sure of herself she never made any attempt to learn.

Earlier generations of parents can say that they didn't know about nonpunitive/nonpermissive alternative methods of discipline. Jamie Pritchett and today's parents do not have that excuse.

Once again, yet another "fundamentalist supermom"-- paddle in hand,
rides in to save the day from bratty, horrible kids.
At least this author is not a former child actress, and at least
she has the courage to use the word "spanking" rather than the standard fundamentalist euphemism "discipline."
When are all of these fundamentalists going to realize that they are damaging the cause of Christ with all of this thinly veiled S&M stuff? Eegads!!!

do not buy this if you love your children. You and they will regret it for the rest of their lives.

It's amazing how pro-spankers are so vehement about assaulting children. Unfortunately, they'll just call non-spankers liberals, when in fact we care how children are treated & speak up for injustice. If I can raise my 5 well-behaved children without hitting them, and my parents did this also.......why can't YOU? It's your problem. Deal with it for your kids sake. If you want to debate me, I have 9+ years of documentation on both sides for the subject. The evidence is conclusive, but unfortunately, most spankers are either too ignorant or lazy & would prefer to justify their violence instead of learning. When you KNOW better you DO better!