The Learning Domestic Discipline Saturday Stories column typically features an article written by a reader, or a fellow domestic discipline blogger. But, on occasion, we like to share some personal stories of our own. This is one such occasion. I (Clint) wanted to share a “story” of ours with you all. Hope you don’t mind.
If you’re a new visitor to the LDD blog and would like to learn more about the Saturday Stories column, you can read about it here. We’d love to hear (and share) your story if you’d like to share with us. You can email your stories to guestpost@learningdd.com. We look forward to it!
Here’s my story…
A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a post on the punishment option of requiring the submissive partner to write a report/essay on any given issue. Well, I have a confession to make — the example we shared in that post was based loosely on our own personal experience(s). You can read that post right here if you want to refresh your memory.
Now that it has been almost two and a half weeks since we wrote that post, I wanted to go a little more in depth and share how a similar situation came about in our marriage, how we worked through it, and how effective it has been. It really is remarkable how effective that punishment has been for us, and I think sharing this story will help a few couples out there. That’s the goal, anyway.
Throughout our marriage, I’ve spanked Chelsea for failing to lock the house doors only a few of times. I would say that 90% of the time she does lock them, which is wonderful. It’s when she gets in a hurry, or when her mind is on other things that she occasionally forgets to lock them, which is not wonderful. When that happens, we talk about how important it is to lock them at all times, I spank for it (more intensely with repeat offenses), and we move on like a regular punishment spanking situation. The issue doesn’t come up for quite a while after I spank, but the problem is that it DOES still happen from time to time. Naturally it’s quite frustrating for both of us to have to address the same problem more than once, especially one so important. We both want it corrected for good, and spanking for this particular issue wasn’t giving us the long term results we were looking for.
A few weeks ago the problem came up again. Chelsea didn’t lock the house door when she went out to run errands. I wasn’t sure what to do. Typically I would lecture/spank for it, but A) evidently spanking isn’t getting the message across, and B) we’re pregnant, so I’d rather not spank. It’s a serious problem though, and a huge safety risk. It isn’t like I could just “let it go.” Chelsea needs to be locking the house doors when she leaves for obvious reasons, and she knows it.
The problem when this happens is that she isn’t thinking about it. That’s usually the root of just about every rule that happens to be broken — there’s no thinking about actions (or lack thereof, in this case) ahead of time. Chelsea has to think about locking the house doors, and how dangerous it is if she doesn’t, before she even grabs her purse and the car keys just before she heads out the door. How could I get her to think about those things ahead of time? How could I get her to understand just how dangerous it is to leave the house doors unlocked? It hit me — I should have her write an essay on this. I should have her write a report, complete with national and local facts/statistics on home break-ins and theft, to get her thinking about it a little more deeply. So that’s the punishment I chose to go with this time around.
I wanted Chelsea to write a two page report, citing national and local statistics, on home break-ins and theft. I also wanted her to find three local articles pertaining to the issue. And, even though we live in a very safe area, I wanted her to see that this really does happen nearby. It can happen anywhere. If that didn’t get her thinking and understanding how important this was, nothing would.
If any of you know Chelsea, you know that she goes above and beyond what is asked/required of her. I wanted a two page report…she gave me a four page one. I wanted three articles…she gave me five. Her report was an eye-opener, to say the least. Even to me. Like most things she does, Chelsea did an outstanding job with her report. I was very impressed. We both learned a lot. Apparently home break-ins and theft is a bigger problem in this country than we both thought.
Just to share and give a little food for thought, here are a couple of paragraphs from her report (I underlined a particularly interesting tidbit):
Every 13 seconds a home is broken into in the United States, according to Safeguard the World statistics. That’s over 2.5 million home intrusions each year. As if that isn’t scary enough, out of those break-ins 1 out of 3 result in some sort of assault on whoever is home at the time. According to the FBI, the most common safety threat American’s face is burglary. And, about 30% of all break-ins occur through unlocked doors, or windows.
These statistics are just some of many I found (through the FBI’s website, or Safeguard the World which is a site that compares different security systems for homeowners) but they’re scary. Below is a list of several news articles (most are from North Carolina, although some are not) which talk more in-depth about break-ins that have happened in the recent days or weeks. Most people think of break-ins as a person coming into your home (or going into your car), taking a few expensive items, and then bailing. However, what the articles below (and millions of others if you search “home break in” or “car break in” on Google News) will show you is that the common thought of “someone just comes in, takes a few things and leaves” is rarely ever the case. Often times, these break-ins are not only devastating to the family but can turn violent very quickly.
She goes on to share the articles and what she learned from them. She then concluded her report with some personal thoughts on each of the five articles. There was one paragraph that particularly stood out.
This report, and each of these articles, really got me thinking. In the first article, the thing that immediately stood out was the victim’s son begging the burglars not to kill his mom. If our house were to get broken into and our son saw that it would absolutely terrify him, which is something that I never want. I never want our son to see that. Even if we were not home, I thought about how it would impact him to come home to a house without a TV, computer, iPad, and have it completely ransacked and then deal with his world being interrupted by police statements, crime scene tape, and photographs. I also thought a lot about how if the police were not able to find the person(s) who robbed us, we would constantly live in fear of them coming back. As a parent, this is something I never, ever, want our son to experience.
After more great summaries of her five articles, she finished with this conclusion:
So, in conclusion, I learned a lot. I learned that robberies happen for all different reasons, to all types of people, to steal all sorts of things, and can turn violent. I learned that a lot of the stereotypes I had about both home and car break-ins are not true. This has been eye-opening, to say the least, and honestly, quite scary. As parents, it’s our responsibility to protect our son from ever having to see these things occur. Although we will never be able to 100% prevent it, locking the doors of our home and our car will greatly reduce our risks. To lock the doors take a second or two at most, and if it prevents situations like the above homeowners and car owners were not able to prevent, then it’s a billion percent worth it. Needless to say, our doors will be locked from now on.
And they have been. Every single time. We haven’t had this issue since, and for that I’m so grateful. Our home and our family are now safer, and that is one of the many reasons why we live the domestic discipline lifestyle. Spanking isn’t always the answer to correcting an issue. In this particular case, for us, having Chelsea write a report/essay was much more effective than a spanking ever would have been.
That wraps up this week’s Saturday Story! I hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully you learned something from it as well.
If you’d like to share your domestic discipline story, we’d love to hear it. You can read more about doing so here, or you can email your story to guestpost@learningdd.com. We look forward to featuring your story!
The post Saturday Stories: “Spanking Is Not Always The Answer” appeared first on Learning Domestic Discipline Blog.