Why Black People Beat Their Kids

How many times have you heard a black parent say, "Time out doesn't work"?

Usually when they are saying that, it is because they are trying to make an excuse for why they discipline their kids the way they do.

I used to get beatings when I was a child, and from my experience, beatings didn't work. I don't like when people say that black people "spank" their kids because I have never met a black parent that actually spanks. They BEAT their kids. Even if they are using their hands, they still beat the crap out of the child with their hand.

All beatings ever did for me was make me mad at my mom. But as far as having a positive effect on me, it did not.

In my article Black Parents & Corporal Punishment, I basically voiced my opinion about how I'm against spanking and beating, but in this article, I want to help give other explanations for why black people beat their kids.

Basically, beatings are simply used to scare people. It was something to make someone fear authority. This is why slave masters beat the slaves. They wanted them to "respect" and "fear" them because they were the authority.

Slaves used the same method and beat their kids to keep their kids from getting into trouble with them and the masters. It was always used as a way to instill fear. If you're fearful, you won't do or say certain things because you're too scared to stand up for yourself.

It's a bullying tactic. If you scare the crap out of someone, you probably won't have to worry about me stepping to your face and confronting you about anything. And that's what beating the kids is all about. It's about scaring them so that they will always be afraid to step to you.

Black parents don't know how to make a child obedient without scaring them first. They tell themselves that "time out doesn't work" because they don't see how time out can induce fear. They ask themselves, "How can making my child sit in a corner by himself make him respect me?"

They associate fear with respect. That's what you get from a culture that is "God fearing." To fear God means to respect his authority. Black people take that and use it as a way to create literal fear in their kids.

Older black people sort of brag about the way they were raised. They talk about how they weren't allowed to say certain things to their parents, and what would happen to them if they did. It's almost like they think it was something good to be fearful of their parents.

Do you know how you can tell if certain parenting methods work? Look at the way the kids turned out. Some of the people that think that they came out okay may need to take a closer look.

The point in raising a child is to make them into a productive, stable minded human being. It's not about you. It's not about making your kids afraid of you. Fear of my mom is what kept me from talking to her about things that she needed to know about me.

Yelling, screaming, beating and smacking your kids creates the kind of fear that you may not have been trying to create. Your kids will not trust you enough to come to you for help on what's going on in their life. They will always be afraid of you overreacting. They will always view you as their master, and not as their parent.