What is A spanking? I took some time and asked several parents about how they chose to discipline their children. Over all I received some good answers from these parents.

Parent One said: I discipline my child by giving them time outs. If a time out does not work I take away their privileges and I send them to their room.

Parent Two said: I tell them twice not to do something or to stop. If they keep doing it. I spank them. If there is still an issue I ground them.

Parent Three said: I ignore the behavior until it becomes disruptive then I ask them to please stop.
If it continues we then leave and go home. If we are at home they must sit in the time out chair.

Parent Four said: Grounded. No second chances. They know better.

Parent Five said: We slap their hands if they are touching something we have asked them not to. If they are doing it more we swat them on the butt. If that does not stop them they go to bed.

Parent Six said: We talk to our children. We never use punishment. We use intellect. We make our child read to us if they do not listen.

Parent Seven said: They yell a lot at the kids.
Almost nothing works for them except spanking and making them go to bed early.

Ok, with all these answers on how they discipline their children. I thought it might be nice to find out what spanking means.

The majority explained spanking as hitting your child on the butt or legs with their open hand.

One of the parents was very honest and said they used a belt on their kids on their butt.

I have not been one to choose spanking as one of my choices in discipline. So I relate to trying to talk to my kids, then taking away privileges and then grounding. Time outs seemed to work good for everyone in my family.

My fear is that parents who choose to spank could be so angry that they do not control where they are hitting the child. There is such a thin line between spanking and child abuse.

My parents spanked. Boy did they ever. They instilled the fear of God into us by whipping our butts. We survived and we still think we had awesome parents. But there were times that it got a little out of control. My mom would spank us once...walk away and think about it and come back and spank us again. We knew if she said stop once we had better listen or she would be belting us that night.

I went to bed many times with switch marks and belt marks all over my tiny legs.

But it was in those moments that I learned that parenting didn't have to include beating my child with a belt or a switch from the old oak tree out front.

I knew that if my mom would have given me quiet time I would have thought about what I had done and be just as remorseful as I felt being belted.

Slight spanking on the butt, legs and hands with an open hand is some times needed when training a toddler who just will not listen.

However after the age of five hitting is not needed in most cases. Children of age five can be disciplined with time out and with restricting play time.

What do you think? Have you used creative parenting to help discipline your child? Do you spank your child? When is spanking no longer effective?