How I love Canada. Living across the river from such a progressive nation, it brings into sharp contrast the ways in which our two nations differ and ours often comes out on the losing end (ONE YEAR partially-paid maternity leave, people).
Here's another check in the "Canada is awesome" column: the Canadian Red Cross is designating April 30 as No Hitting Day as a way to teach parents the harmful consequences of using physical discipline on their children and to promote alternatives to hitting.
More then 70 percent of assault injuries against children are the result of physical discipline that escalated, according to the Red Cross. Many parents don’t especially want to hit, but lack role models or training about disciplining in other ways.
One of the things I like about this is that it doesn’t deny the need to discipline children. Much anti-spanking rhetoric is eye-rollingly simplistic, written by people who it appear have never met a child, or at least never stared down a hugely willful three-year-old.
The Red Cross's advice mostly speaks to controlling your temper. Some of the suggestions are to put it mildly NOT HELPFUL when said willful three year old is running laps around the preschool classroom giggling at your frantic attempts to get her to put her damn coat on and leave, say, as a completely and utterly hypothetical example I just made up clean out of my head. Others, though, are – like making yourself go to the other side of the room or another area in the house if you feel yourself about to snap.
If there's a parent out there who hasn’t at least once felt the urge to spank – well, you’re ridiculously highly evolved and likely a huge bore at arties. For the rest of us, though, committing to learning better methods will help both our kids and ourselves.
