Hi. I just want to know when discipline by a parent is considered 'discipline' and when it starts to border abuse. Any views?

Abuse is often in the view of the person, many people feel any "touching" is wrong in punishment. My standard is normal spanking is a correct punishment when done properly and not in anger. At no time should it be hard enough to leave any marks.

If you start young enough, and children learn consequences from their behaviour (after being warned), it is unlikely that the behaviour will repeat itself. If the behaviour does keep repeating itself, more discipline (ie no cell phone for example), for an appropriate length of time.

The discipline has to be effective, and appropriate for the behaviour.

Too many, when disciplining a child- in anger- the discipline does not usually fit the 'crime', and is excessive. In that case, a child learns early that if they forget to flush the toilet, the consequence is the same as though they just crashed the family car. It has to be appropriate to the behaviour.

If you give in all the time, you are setting yourself up, and the child up, to learn nothing, and nothing changes, except the child learns to scream louder, have a bigger temper tantrum, etc. and they get the candy they want.

Discipline is discipline. Abuse is abuse. If you have to hit a child to control their behaviour, it is as bad as hitting your wife to do the same. Violence may temporarily get you what you want, but it is not an answer. In my opinion, when discipline is not given in a calm, reasonable, loving, way, and, as you say, begins to border on abuse, it is the parent that is out of control.

Hitting, kicking, punching, pinching, screaming, along with emotionally abusive words and actions, cause damage. Plain and simple.

I'm not saying that I never spanked my kids. An example was my three year old ran out into traffic, and both were trained/taught, and despite this, just ran out. When I grabbed him, I smacked him on the , and this startled him more than anything. It corrected the behaviour, but, talking followed up this action. It was not normal for me to hit or spank my children.

Following through with consequences is hard work, but reinforcement of the idea that actions have consequences, gets easier with time. No effective discipline, only adds to more bad behaviour upon more bad behaviour, until both the child and the parent are out of control.

Why are you searching for comments on this?

No reason really. It's just that all my life I have dealt with feeling alone and empty and frustrated. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm feeling. It usually goes away but lately it is just coming to stay. So I've been wondering if it has anything to do with the way my parents disciplined me.

No I am not a mother. I am 20 year old female and not up for having kids right now.