From a Child's Point of View

‎"When I was about twenty years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time.

But one day when her son was four or five years old, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking--the first in his life. And so she told him he would have to go outside to find a switch for his spanking. The boy was gone for a long time. When he finally came back into the house, he was crying.

He said to her,
"Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock you can throw at me."

All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: If my mother wants to hurt me, it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone.

The mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. Because violence begins in the nursery: a parent can raise children into violence."

~From a peace prize acceptance speech given by Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family."
Mother Teresa

Related posts:

Spanking resources:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2011/10/spanking-resources.html

Seeing your child in a positive light:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2011/01/seeing-your-child-in-positive-light.html

The house can wait:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2011/02/house-can-wait.html

The bible and spanking:
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2011/04/quick-post-on-bible-and-spanking.html