Hitting ???

As I mentioned the other day we are starting to process of disciplining little Adam. It has been so long that I had forgotten how hard it really is to teach kids the difference between right and wrong. With Ashleigh it's easy because we can just ground her and then she knows it's wrong :-) With Adam we are starting all over and I've got to be honest - I really don't remember how I did it the last time around ????

I can say that we are a family that believes in spanking. Not to be confused with beating your child or hitting them with anything other than your hand or anywhere other than the bum or back of the hand - but we do spank out kids. That being said I recall a time with our feisty little Ashleigh had spend a few days at her grandparents house and upon her return was a bit confused with the rules at home. She was spanked for something (I don't recall what) but her response was ... "Grandpa said you should not spank the grand baby!!!!" to which she was sent to her room for talking back while Travis and I giggled at her adamant commentary :-)

On Sunday I had the first of what I am sure will be many Adam stories on our track to discipline. Adam is very aggressive - he's like a cute little ogre that doesn't know the word gentle - just ask the cat :) So I've been trying to teach him not to hit and in doing so when he hits me or smacks me I've been smacking his little hand. Of course he just looks at me and occasionally he smiles at me but it's obvious he doesn't understand what I am trying to tell him. If I use my angry mommy voice he might hesitate but he usually decides to do with whatever he was doing in the first place. On Sunday I was feeding Adam and he was hitting my hand and knocking the spoon on the ground - after a couple of times of him doing this I spanked his hand. He in turn grabbed my hand and spanked it ... I thought ..."why you little booger" ... and then realized I had taught him this. In trying to teach him NOT to hit I was hitting him so now when he doesn't want me to do something he just hits me.

So the point is I now know that the boy can be taught but what have I taught him? Basically, I taught him that it's OK to hit? I don't recall this situation when Ashleigh was little but she didn't ever really hit anyone so I am not so sure it was an issue. With Adam it's very much an issue and I am not sure how to deal with it.

We always joke that because Ashleigh was the first she was the practice child and she turned out OK so our plan was just to wing it with the rest of them - now I am not so sure that we can go with that plan. How do you teach your kids not to hit? Am I doing the right thing an eventually he will understand? Or am I the only one with a kids that feels he needs to "SLAP" you with all of his excitement? :-)