“To spank or not to spank isn’t the question… the question is whether whether we are teaching a quality we want our kids to have as adults.”

~ Bill Crawford

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Spanking as Discipline

As the father of two wonderful sons, as well as a psychologist who is often invited to speak on parenting, and has written a book on the subject (“How To Get Kids To Do What You Want!”), I am constantly reminded of the importance of keeping our highest purpose in mind when we are interacting with our children. What I mean by that is to recognize that we are not raising kids anymore than a chicken farmer is raising chicks or a cattle farmer is raising calves. We are raising adults! And, keeping this in mind can help us overcome many of the obstacles that so many parents face with their children on a daily basis.

This perspective is based upon two assumptions. The first being that every time we are interacting with our children, we are teaching them something. Therefore, we always want to be clear about what we are wanting to teach. The way I like to find this clarity is to ask myself this question: “What are the qualities and characteristics I want my child to have when he or she becomes an adult?”

When I ask this question in my seminars, the participants come up with great answers. They respond with adjectives such as: responsible, happy, self-confident, loving, compassionate, successful, independent, etc. What is fascinating, however, is regardless of how many times I have asked this question in all of my seminars and sessions, not one parent or teacher has ever said the word “obedient.”

Of course, we all want our kids to grow up to be law-abiding adults (just like we are). For those of you who have spiritual perspective in which being obedient to God’s will is important, then you might want to include this form of obedience. However, most of us would say that we don’t want them to be blindly obedient, or at the mercy of any authority figure they happen to find themselves dealing with. On the contrary, we want them to be self-confident, independent, able to trust their own inner direction.

For those of you who are aware of my “Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that this means that we want them to be coming from the upper 80% of the brain where we make purposeful decisions based upon the best of who we are. This also means that we need to be coming from this purposeful, wise “teaching” part of the brain, as well when we are interacting with them.

I believe that keeping these two concepts in mind can go a long way toward minimizing the resistance and conflict we experience with our children. The first is that any time we are interacting with our kids we are always teaching them something. And the second is that what we want to teach are the qualities and characteristics we want them to have as adults!

This is because, as this week’s quote suggests, we are not raising them to be obedient children, we are raising them to become happy, healthy, confident, and compassionate adults who can then teach their children these same wonderful life lessons.

I think we can all agree that spanking does not teach these qualities. Plus, it has the potential to leave the child thinking that there is something wrong with him or her, and this can be a debilitating belief that can effect the rest of their lives.

For those of you would like to know more about how to become skilled at this new, “Top of the Mind” method of parenting, feel free to browse through the different versions of “How to Get Kids to do What You Want” on my store, because being a great parent takes patience and practice. In fact, this reminds me of another quote I have on my site that I have adapted from Michael Levine that says: “Having a baby no more makes one a parent than having a baby grand piano makes one a pianist.” Here’s to the joy of becoming a virtuoso raiser of adults!

Take care and God bless, Dr. Bill