Dear Parent of a Recalcitrant Boy,
Thank you for your recent E-mail.
I understand from it that, in your own childhood, misbehaviour was punished by a sound spanking, sometimes in underwear, sometimes quite naked, sometimes in your bedroom, sometimes in front of relatives. You were not caned or belted, just spanked. You think it was effective.
Now you have your own son and the world has changed. Spanking, especially bare-bottomed or naked spanking, is no longer politically correct and sometimes regarded as a form of abuse. So you have tried to bring up your boy by rewards, by reasoning, and by keeping him in the house (grounding) as the extreme sanction.
Unfortunately, he displays all the tendencies of normal, unruly boyhood, the world over. Your thoroughly modern system is not working. And you are wondering what you are best to do.
This is difficult because of the prevailing moral climate, but I do have some suggestions...
Boys are naturally physical, particularly at your son's age. You may have anxieties about touch which are quite foreign to him. He is probably scrapping and play-fighting with his friends, and sometimes pulling their trousers down or spanking their bottoms in play. Abstract, delayed "punishments" like grounding probably irritate the hell out of him and actually cause more rebellion. For boys, cause-and-effect, crime amd punishment, need to be immediate not delayed - so the real abuse may be by the liberal establishment in western democracies, who discourage spanking, not by you!
It might therefore be a really good idea, the next time your boy complains about a grounding, to tell him about the spankings of the past, how they were embarrassing and a bit painful, but how they got it over with quickly without you needing to be kept in for days on end.
You may then find that he naturally says he would prefer a bare-bottom - or even for severe offences a naked - spanking, to being kept in or sent to his room for the night. If he does, then you need to make an agreement between yourselves that your agreed style of punishment is private within the family and explain why this must be so. You may also want to agree what is a bare-bottom offence and what is a naked offence. Remember there is nothing wrong with bareness or nakedness at home: millions of families every year take their children to naturist holidays!
Yours,
Boyspank Adviser