Is it normal that parents don't want to punish their children for bad behavior?

Spanking or beating your child is entirely pointless and creates for weirdos down the line. The only people I know who got spanked and “plan” (people who openly talk about how they are going to hit their future child that doesn’t even exist yet are insane individuals) to spank their children are complete whack jobs who seriously shouldn’t have a child.

I, living on a farm that requires a lot of work, have the... privilege... to be the home that everyone ‘threatens’ to send their child to for the summer if they act up. And I do have a few neighborhood rascals that come and work on my land for some pay every now and then. Physical labor and working with animals is an amazing way to set someone straight, it’s therapeutic and puts a gentle hand on a strong arm. But making labor a punishment creates for trash work-ethic and ruins the feeling of fulfillment that comes with completing tasks and creating improvements.

I raise my nephew and there’s never be any instance where I’ve had to even raise my voice with him. There are many behavioral hiccups you can very easily avoid if you simply talk about it with your cub first before they start to come along. Also, putting an iPad in your child’s lap and then being surprised when they act out out of boredom is stupid. Your stimuli-fried kid isn’t going to develop in a healthy fashion mentally or emotionally if all they have to do is stare at a screen.

Is it bad behavior or bad parenting that led to it?

Decent parents really think about that... and self correct things.

However, true bad behavior by someone mentally mature enough to know the difference does have to be addressed in punished in some way. Time outs can be very effective.

I'm not saying there is not a place for a single light swat on either a hand or the butt; but, their use must be very rare for them to actually be effective (light swat: no real physical pain; psychological pain - yes).

As someone who has to adopt to get a kid. I can't resort to spanking. It just means I got to be more creative when it comes to punishments.

Little kids respond to pain better than older children. Aversion to pain is a good crutch to keep your kid from doing a stupid thing until they can fully rationalize the stupidity. It's not a blanket solution so I want even planning to use it as a fix all even if I was allowed to do it.

I'm the father of a daughter who's now a young teen.

She certainly got disciplined when she was very small. This usually consisted of me tucking a wriggling, shrieking toddler under my arm and hauling her off to sit and howl alone in her bedroom for a bit. (We never once hit her.) Once she'd vented enough rage that she could be as rational as any three-year-old can be, we'd go in for a cuddle and talk about what happened.

I'm obviously biased, but I think she's a great kid. She's very friendly and caring and considerate of the needs of others. Her only quality that her mum and I have problems with is that she's rather lacking in self-confidence. We have no idea where that comes from, because we've done all the things that the experts say helps to build self-esteem in kids.

Maybe that's just the way her brain was always destined to be wired up from the moment of her conception, and maybe the fact she's turned out pretty good so far has very little to do with how her mum and I have treated her.

There's a perennial question about how much of the way people turn out is down to the genetic luck of the draw and how much is due to how a kid was raised. I'm sure it's a combination of the two. But it seems to me that if a child is treated like it's the centre of the fucking universe and they deserve anything and everything they ever desire, then the odds are good that the kid is going to turn out to be an obnoxious, entitled, inconsiderate shit. Permissive parents who just want to be their kid's best pal can seriously mess kids up, both in terms of what sort of life they have, and the impact they have on those they come into contact with.

The flip side of that coin is authoritarian parents who have loads of rules about absolutely everything and expect kids to behave like little robots who immediately obey whatever command the parent issues. It's worse if some of those rules make no logical sense or are applied inconsistently. Even worse than that are parents who create new rules on a whim and tell a kid about them just after they whack them upside the head.

I do wonder if part of the reason our daughter seems to be on track to turn into a decent adult is because her mum and I always made it a rule to never just say 'NO!' to her. From the time she was very small, we always made it a point to explain to her why we were thwarting her wishes. Maybe it's her or the dynamic between her and us, but that did seem to usually make it easier for her to accept and comply with our directives.

I just don't know what causes 1 kid to be a problem child and another to be totally fine, assuming they had the same parenting. But it's a big assumption.

I really wonder how much punishment is necessary and how much is determined by the parenting. Because I've seen some kids get an ass whipping on a regular basis and still act totally stupid. Again it could be a learned behavior for attention..

I'm up in the air on this one. But kids acting up after a certain point do need to be punished. They can get out of hand and it's extremely irresponsible to release that onto the rest of the public. That's a failure as a parent if not.

It is not normal to not punish your child for bad behaviour. You need to have a balance its pretty difficult to do as parent.. but if u don't punish ur kid they will probably turn to be a brat/spoiled etc

I feel like parents are still disciplining their children where I live. They still do spanking in schools here.