Spanking

I'm not fundamentally opposed to spanking in moderation - my parents did it and I survived with no real emotional scars - but I just don't like doing it. I feel like a bully trying to beat my kid into submission. Calvin has only been spanked twice and both times were because I was trying to impress upon him that certain things are just not acceptable. Like today when he enjoyed his second spanking.

When I put him down for naps he screamed for about 30 minutes before finally giving in and going to sleep. He slept for 20 minutes and then was awake again yelling for chocolate milk. This goes in phases. I never let him have chocolate milk in bed at night because we have brushed his teeth, it's a bad habit, blah blah blah. So it follows that I shouldn't let him have it at nap time either because that would be confusing. Most of the time he knows he doesn't get it in bed and goes right to sleep, but he goes in these little spurts where he'll freak out and it takes us several times going in and laying him back down before he'll realize we're serious and go to sleep.

Today was one of those spurts. He yelled for over an hour for chocolate milk. When I went into his room each time he had thrown everything out of his bed and would scream at me. With the screaming I would just lay him down again, cover him, and leave the room. Towards the end of the hour however, nice mom wasn't working. I told him firmly that he would have no chocolate milk until after naps, at which point he started screaming and jumping up and down and hitting the walls and the crib. So I said, "Calvin we do NOT act like this." and I spanked him.

He stopped crying, looked me right in the eye and said in a sad, firm little voice, "No Mommy. We do NOT hit!" I had to leave the room. Does anyone else have a hard time being a parent without cracking up? If he weren't such a pain in the butt he would be so funny and clever.