What would you do?

[GloBug]

I'm all for a quick smack to a pain in the *** child. Nothing to hurt them, but to let them know what the deal is.

boo. thats the start of worse things to come. a pain in the *** child is a direct reflection of the parents i think. my kids can be a pain in the *** but they know there limits and never push it.

[TerpZone]

Eh, 40-50 years ago, most parents hit their children. They all turned out fine.

[KaciBlakely]

Yeah well sometimes they turned out as abusers of future generations.

That's not exactly how I would want to raise my kids/or something I would want to be contributing too.

Mind you I'm saying this as I'm pregnant and I don't plan on spanking.

I think it's all how you raise them.

You can raise them with authority but that doesn't mean you have to hit/swat them.

[taylovesthebeatles]

I personally don't think this story has really anything to do with the spanking/no spanking debate. My problem with what happened here is the man's initial reaction. There is no reason why any sane individual could not have gone up to the woman and her child and in a nice way mentioned that the child was getting on his nerves, or causing a headache, or whatever, and asked nicely if the child could keep it down. The man's verbal reaction with the mother, in my mind, is only possibly warranted after once or twice asking politely for the child to be calmer. So that's the first problem. As far as the spanking issue goes, there's no reason to slap someone *else's* (a stranger at that) child, let alone four or five times, or however many times the story alleges. In this case especially, complain to the manager if you must, or better yet just get out of the store if it really bothers you. Especially if you're the only person the ruckus appears to be bothering. Granted I don't know the whole story, but it sounds like the man didn't even give the mother an opportunity to reprimand her own child for acting out before slapping him. That's not right. I don't really think this is related in any way to a debate on whether spanking is right or wrong. There's a clear difference between a spank and what happened here. I won't cry abuse or anything, but it clearly wasn't warranted, in my eyes.

[markjfixit]

I just wanna say not all hitting is bad, ringo hit me in the head pretty hard and as a result I started posting you tube videos with the proper coding!! might be a concussion but I will just have to live with it.

[BnLM5]

There is NO fine line between abuse and discipline. I do not support abuse by any means however I am a firm believer in "spare the rod and spoil the child" this derives from the Proverbs 13:24. And makes much sense!!!!

[sweetpea]

This is not about discipline crossing the line to abuse. He is not the child's father; he should never have touched her at all. I don't know about in Georgia, but here in the Northeast, our Walmart stores aren't little 10x10 cubicles; he could have simply walked away. Also, I don't many 2 year olds that would STOP crying because they got slapped in the face.

[eejit101]

Spare the rod and what?

Meh, I am on either side, i dont mind it, but i dont care either way.