Not Meeting in the Middle..

It sounds silly.. but, maybe he should watch Supernanny. Her methods of having a "naughty spot" seem to work wonders..

Ok, you need to speak with your ex calmly and in private without your children around. To me spanking is almost neccassary sometimes but time outs and definiatly on level speaking is good. Spanking can be ok if it's done for something very bad and is not done with a belt or any foreign object. Just popping their hand or bottom is fine but doing any more than that might just make them scared of you, not of getting in trouble. Maybe that is what you need to metion to your ex, does he want his own children to be scared of him? Children should not be scared of their parents because if it starts at a young age it will continue on to their teens and they will be to scared to go to him for anything and they shouldn't. My daughter is not responding to spankings right now, she thinks she can hit too so we're doing the time out thing and its working ok. You just try and talk to your husband and say that maybe he should just try to do time out, it works and the children are not afraid of you then. They know they will be punished and I'm not sure how old your boys are but you can try the taking toys away technique as well. You could just tell your husband there are other ways of diciplene than spanking and that he should reserve spanking for things that are really really bad and a time out wouldn't really get it through to them that it was bad. My husband uses spanking as a last resort, so maybe yours should too. I just say talk to him calmly and reasonably. And like the other mother said get online and just look up all kinds of things about disipline. Statisics might just get it through to him. But definetly wait til the kids are asleep to talk to him because the kids don't need to hear it.

I can tell you from my personal experience (been divorced from my daughter's father for almost 7 years) that there is little to nothing you can do to control what he does with the children on his time. It's a huge waste of time on your part. I'm sure that part of the reason you two got divorced is because you didn't see eye to eye on many issues, and you definitely won't now that you're divorced. I spent quite a few years trying to have a say in what went on while my daughter was with my ex (bed times, discipline, etc) and finally realized he's going to do it his way no matter what I say, so why bother. If fact, my ex is the type to do MORE of what I speak out against just to tick me off.

With that said, though, if you feel like your children are being abused while with your ex, that's definitely something you should address, either with your lawyer or DSS. If it's just a difference in parenting styles, I'd try to let it go, hard as it may be.

Me myself. I believe spanking is wrong. Yes, you want your kids to be scared when they do something wrong. Like the scared: " Oh no, mommy is going to yell at me and Im gonna have to sit in time out or have my toy taken from me for a little while" NOT " oh no mommy/daddy is going to hit me" That is wrong. I think YOU need to have a stern voice and conversation and say this is how I disicpline my children. Yes they are yours too but, WE are going to put them in time out/ at level speaking, or tell them they cant play with a toy for a week or so until they learn they cant do that. That is pretty much all I can think of. I dont want to say tell him cant see them if he cant do it your way because that is wrong too. But i hope I cna help a little bit.

Spanking is not entirely bad, but I believe it should be reserved for especially bad behavior and not for every infraction. They should be scared of doing wrong because of punishment, but not be scared of you or your husband. I would ask him if he would consider talking with a counselor with you, to come to an agreement about how to deal with this and your two boys. You need to be united and that is even harder now that you don't share a home, but you both need to be committed to raising your children properly. Maybe go out to dinner or have him over and talk to him about how the two of you are going to handle the discipline issue. come to an agreement. Start off by saying that you both need to be open to suggestions, and that you both might have to change. If he thinks spanking is the way, then reserve that for lying, or direct disobedience, and maybe do time outs for other behavior issues. He will need to give a little, but so will you. Just be open with each other and make it about the boys and not one or the other being right. I wish you the best.

I edited my respose because I didn't mean to step on anyones toes. Please forgive me I was out of line.

Next I would like to say that we are currently taking a bible study on disiplining children, if that is something that you would like to go to private message me. I don't know how old your children are, but I have several awesome books that I can get you the names of. As far as your husband, you need to wait till the kids go down for bed and discuss this with him. You need to way out the positives and negatives of his actions, verses your actions on a sheet of paper. Males are very statistic, so do your research. Go online and look up everything you can find statisticly on discipline. There is a definate line between punishment vs discipline. I want you to please look up "The Reuben Hill Minnesota Report" it was very helpful in our plan on discipline. Good luck!

Hi J.:
It is hard to discipline children. Sometimes you have to try new things. I would recommend you get some books from the library on how to discipline your children. There are a couple of good books. I usually get books like that and read them and the one that I think is the best I share with my husband. Let him read it so he can see that there are other ways to discipline the children.
It sounds to me like your husband is violent. My husband spanks my kids sometimes but it is because they already received warnings about their behavior and continued disobeying. They are 8 and 5 years old. When they were younger we tried different things. Some worked for a while. I always talk to my husband first before starting a new discipline method. It works better that way. We both come to an agreement on what the rules are going to be or what behavior we expect from the children. Also we both have to agree on what punishment we are going to use. Spanking children just for whatever reason doesn't sound good at all. Please be very careful and don't leave your children with your ex alone.
M.

man that is a hard call i know what you are going through my ex husband would not hear a thing of what i had to say concering our child because and i quote he knows how to take care of his child end quote. if he is that pig headed and you can risk not sending the kids then i would not send them but i understand if you cant do that due to a court order but maybe you need to somehow catch him in the act of taking the spaking to far i know that is hard to do then you have proof to get supervised visitaion i know i had the same fear of my ex hitting my son and dss is a joke because when my son came back with multiple scratch that were 2 in long and a quater size bruise on his back i called the police and made a report and n charleston came out and did their job but then found out the incident happened in summerville so n. charleston could not help me and summerville police did nothing and when dss got involved it took them almost 3 months before they talked to my ex and then closed the case lucky for me after that incident my ex stopped visitaiton for a year but i dont know that is a hard call

Spanking should not be an option. It is abusive to the child. DSS should visit your ex husband. Do you want to be a parent of an abusted child. You are scarring your child