Is hitting an 11‑year‑old with a belt out of anger considered abuse?

[Anonymous]

I just learned from my grandma that a couple weeks ago, my godson (11 year-old boy) has been having an attitude for a while. According to her, his mother (my aunt and mom's younger sister) couldn't take it anymore, he really pushed her button too much that she hit him 10 times with a belt, so hard that it left small purple bruises on his bottom.

Aren't you suppose to calm down first before making any decision? Anything done in anger and frustration is bad. This is what tends to happen when you lose your cool; you can overdo it and escalate. Lastly, she never took time to find out what exactly my son is upset about. He's been upset and having personal issues for a while. In addition, when he was younger he used to get yelled a lot whenever he couldn't get the right answers for his homework, leading him to having a stuttering issue and speech delay before.

Updates

4 mo

Instead of being concerned and finding out what problems her son is having, what issues (what if he's getting bullied too), she takes her anger on son like that.

Leaving bruises (regardless of whether you think the child deserves it or not) is abuse to me.

[Cyfris]

So there is a line I think that moves up and down and each situation is different. This example seems a bit extreme. My old man kicked my ass pretty bad when I was a young man for stealing his car and smashing it up. I deserved the ass kicking and it probably saved my life. My situation isn't everyones but I don't there should be a line drawn in the sand and that there should be room for punishment and causality to scale.

[Asker]

You were already an adult by then?

[Cyfris]

I was 13. I was more adult like at 13 then anyone else I knew at 13 I would think would be a fair statement. But I was stealing cars and selling drugs and on dark and slipperly slope. Not to say that was the example provided above. But what I have learned is every kid and every kids needs are different and as a parent you should be prepared to do whatever it takes because sometimes it will take more then you could ever imagine. I heard an interview with a 15 year old after he beat up and sa'ed a 60yearl old lady and he said he would have done anything. He had no fear his parents would do anything and no concept of the law and consequences because his parents were too soft on him and never challenged his wild ideas. Over time the wild kept growing and pressing against the walls of society until 1 day and 1 action turned a boy into a life long criminal when a firm kick in the ass or in my case a broken nose at intersecting point in life sooner could have kept the cuffs off.

[Asker]

Instead of going physical I would've applied adult-like consequences by reporting you, letting you spend some time in jail (making it clear I'm not going to bail you out at that moment), along with making you do community service hours. I would make sure there are tasks for you while you're in juvenile hall such as cleaning the bathrooms or walls. After all being in a jail is not fun at all. You would be missing your privileged life of a warm, comfy home with your good meals ready, all that for junk food in jail.

[Asker]

I'm sure there might have been signs your father was missing even before you got into stealing cars and selling drugs. Reacting when it already happened is still kind of late. It should've never gone that far. There are reasons why it happens and it isn't for the sake of it, that you get bored one day and do it. There are underlying issues before.

[Cyfris]

See you don't get it and that's fine you don't have to. You would have made me into a life long career criminal. The second you sold me out your sphere of influence in my life would end. I wouldn't miss anything. No one give a shit about your warm sheets and pancakes. I would hate you and everything you represented and rebelled against it. I would have learned things I never knew existed from people in jail that widen the paths I was already on. Would have ruined my life for sure. As for the signs before don't be so sure. Lying is easy to do and hard to detect from someone who has never been caught and doesn't know the difference, I was smart a tested IQ at 137 when I was 15. They knew what I wanted them to know until I hit the ditch. Everyone is different and when you assume you know the right way you are just an ass more often then not.

[Asker]

If you don't mind asking it's it likely you have certain psychopathic traits by nature? A psychopath doesn't mean killing. There are several high functioning psychopaths on earth that are professionals, whether in the medicine field, laws or CEO's. I'm trying to figure out where those criminal urges come from? The source of origin? I tend to like analyzing things further, way before they started.
If it's the case of psychopathy, there is no cure. Even if you're punished, you're doing what you have to do to survive (survival mode) and fit into society to avoid punishment, while never understanding actual empathy nor moral understanding of right and wrong.

[Asker]

I have little to no hope for those that only do good things just to avoid punishment but would've gone bad things if not for that. That's like a cheater that would've cheated if they didn't have fear of getting caught cheating. It should be not doing it because it's wrong and their guilt would be strong.

[Cyfris]

For me it started with underage smoking if I had to put a pin on it. When I started getting 19 year old to buy for me at 12 when I got a job it exposed me to the kinds of people who will buy smokes for kids. Then in my attempts to impress older shall we say "bad boys" lead me to other avenues. I had money from delevering news papers. a lot of them. I made over 1500 a month at 12 in the 90s. Then I started to buy weed to smoke with the 19year old friends. Then I learned if I just bought a lot of weed I could sell it to them and they would smoke it with me. All this improved my social standing with girls and people older then me. I was still young so I didn't understand consequence. The first car was a buddy stole his dads car late one night so we could go get more weed. It was easy we pushed it down the road started it up and it was back before anyone noticed. I am not a psychopath and have very few traits in common. I care greatly about things I care about. I feel. I love. I have just never seen the world inside the box others do. I see the laws of nature not the laws of man. I could kill a man assulting a woman without a thought of jail or remorse for the man and yet still feel for his family. Just the reality of anything is legal as long as you don't get caught hit me at a time when I was vulnerable to it in a way that struck a cord inside of me that made sense. A broken nose later from a very pissed off father who is just finding all this out at once and the caught side of coin became apparent and in a way that actually hurt but left no room denial of consequence. I still had to sleep under that roof and actually experience the consequences of my actions. Grounding never worked on me and taking things away never worked. My mom couldn't never hide the fact she loved me no matter what I did. But that sore busted nose trying to sleep every night that was real.

[Jeff51]

Once is probably ok. That's how it was done many years ago and kids were brought up better.

[Asker]

The thing anyone can get immediate compliance and obedience by doing that. Anyone can get a kid to be quiet out of fear. It's too easy. Any parent can raise that way.

But very few would actually have the patience to actually take all the time and energy to do emotion regulation apply operant conditioning. You can actually have an even better result (won't work right away in the short-run, immediately like spanking does but will be great in the long-run, long-term) but not many people have patience for that. I do have all the patience in the world for my son and made a promise of never ever hitting me, much less in anger.

[Asker]

**hitting him

[Asker]

Then it can quickly escalate to abuse if done the way my aunt did to her son. What if I were to spank and overdo it. So to avoid all that, I'd rather never hit my son.

[Jeff51]

Thank you for the MHO

[jennifer_bloom]

I believe that physical discipline is less harmful than verbal discipline, because physical discipline builds courage, and keeps happiness in tact while verbal backlash can lead to emotional abuse, and bad social behaviours in children. I say this as somebody who was spanked until I was 8 years old and then verbally abused until today. The physical punishment was way better than the emotional punishment.

[Asker]

Personally I never liked receiving physical punishment as a kid nor loud reprimands, yellings done in anger. Since it's so easy to lose your temper and go too far with it, I chose not to ever do the same to my son.

[Nikki1989]

That is precisely what it is.

[Asker]

Exactly. Yet I can't believe people still glorify that. They grow up believing that's the only reason they're good, decent people with professional degrees.

[Abbycado]

Yeah, that is abuse.

[Asker]

Indeed. I still believe there are other ways to get across a preteen than hitting them like a lunatic. The kid is already having issues and the adult is taking out their anger. That makes no sense.

[Abbycado]

That is not going to help the kid with any underlying issues they already have.

[Abbycado]

Terrible...

[Asker]

yeah many people really suck at parenting.. they just have kids to have while knowing nothing about how to raise them right

[slatyb]

Abuse? It's likely criminal child abuse.

[Asker]

yet sadly too many normalized that

[mrshooiser]

That many times is abuse. Once or 2 times is fine.

[Asker]

That's another reason I've chosen not to ever hit my son. It's very easy to lose your cool and go too far with it.

[Agape93]

Yeap

[Asker]

and many people still excuse that

[jahaims]

Duh lol

[Asker]

I wish that horrible practice was globally banned.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Sure is abuse

[Asker]

Exactly. If that was done to a pet, it would be called animal cruelty. If someone did that to an spouse, it's domestic violence. Do that to someone else it's battery but to do that on a kid, it's suddenly called ''educating, correcting or physical discipline''. It makes no sense. I view that as battery.

[Bklynbadboy12]

I agree with you 100%