Is feeding an unruly child "juke balls" an effective alternative to spanking?

What is a juke ball? I say just send them to their room.

I would say it’s tantamount to child abuse. Unruly children are generally the result of self-absorbed, inattentive parenting.

What’s a juke ball? Not even google wants to tell me…

Ixquick found this for me….

“There are things you can do if you get her back. But without knowing what you have or can use as a carrot, it is hard to say. I do not know what financial shape you are in and such. I could not suggest you use any technique involving removing a computer if you live in the hood and don’t have one, or MP3 player etc. What you can do at about any income level is hit them in the stomach, food wise I mean. Each day after she has sneaked out. that day every meal she get fed “juke balls”. The law say you have to feed her a nutritious meal but they didn’t say how it had to be done or presented. Take everything everyone else is eating, pork chops, peas etc. And put it ALL in a food processor or blender and mix it all together. It should be like a dough. Cobble it like a loaf or put it in a bread pan and bake it until it is stiff. And that is what she east. Secure ALL the other food so she has access to only the “juke ball” and confiscate any allowance she has so she cannot go out and buy McDonald’s or anything. A couples of days of eating that, I think you will see her attitude change. Nothing like hunger to motivate. If she eats it, I will be highly surprised. Could give you better suggestions but I don’t have enough facts”

Aha. That’s not child abuse, sheesh (as long as it’s edible and not so hard that it breaks their teeth or anything, haha).
That sounds like a lot of work just to punish a child though, eh? You’re just making more work for yourself. I’d just take away privileges (TV, computer, cellphone if they have one, sweets or snacks), and make them do more chores (than what’s usually allocated to them) to help around the house – at least make them useful while they’re being punished.
What i also saw on a program once (about unruly children and someone coming to the family to help out and get the children behaved) is they made the parents behave towards the child like the child behaves towards the parents – if they’re old enough to appreciate what’s going on, they’ll think twice about behaving the way they do because they’ve tasted their own medicine.

Why mess up her relationship with food? Which is hard enough for adolescents anyway.

Just use her own coin. Take away what she values. Time with her friends, phone time, internet time.

It’s just odd enough that others may not understand, and you will have trouble if she reports you to the authorities, not to mention potential psychotheropy.

@marinelife My thought exactly!

Why would one want to spank one’s child anyway. I agree with above… it seems not as child abuse to me, but please keep in mind that kids and especially adolescent girls have a risk towards eating disorders that by many experts may be fueled by tying food to reward/punishment.

Many children are being consoled by offering them a cookie, which creates all kind of unwanted associations with food.

My advice, in general: focus on positive behavior and praise that. Condemn negative bahavior, but if you can, try to ignore as much as you can.

Feedback is important to kids… tell them the consequences of their behavior and teach them alternatives.

My view: coerced behavior dissipates as soon as the pressure is relieved. Don’t force them… teach them. Preferably by example.

What? Is that like Matzah balls?

(I jest.)

More like meatloaf balls. Looks like a jailbird term, per GoogleBing: Juke Balls = “a mix of old meals mashed together”. So – presumably – juking you into thinking it’s a real meal.

(Putin’ it in da mixa’.)

In any case, I wouldn’t start the kid off with jailhouse terms and punishment if I were you. You want your kids to be big and strong. Dining should be a safe neutral zone.

But if you do, call it Pâté.

Taking away privileges or serving juke balls don’t seem to me to be very effective because they don’t address the actual problem. Yes, you don’t want your kid sneaking out at night or taking drugs or doing poorly in school or whatever.

However, to deal with those problems, you have to figure out why they are happening. Or, more importantly, you have to help your child understand why they do these things and then what kind of choices they have to meet these needs in a safer or more healthy way.

Hmmm. For some reason, I had the idea we were talking about teenagers, and now I’m not so sure. Well, I don’t think it matters. Spanking is completely unnecessary, as are jukeballs. They might work, but they have unpleasant side effects.

We want our kids to think, and we want them to behave politely and be motivated to do well because they want to, not because they have to. This requires that we teach them to observe and understand the long term consequences of their actions—not that they will be punished, but that they will not do well in society as they grow older.

Spanking and other kinds of corporal punishment teach them they are bad. Being a bad person makes it hard to ever be happy with your accomplishments as you grow up. You can never escape being bad, no matter how much you achieve.

To me, time outs or sending a child or adolescent to their room serves the purpose of calming down emotions. As a way of correcting behavior, it sucks. In fact, in most cases, I think it breeds more rebellion. It teaches them to bide their time and wait for a more auspicious time to do what they want—when they can get away with it. It doesn’t teach them what we really want: how to make a healthier choice because they want to.

Food for thought. I know a lot of people won’t agree with this.

Feeding kids something repulsive as a punishment seems like abuse to me. I would never consider it. Why make food a battlefield?

That’s stupid – just like spanking.

I personally would never do that to my kid. What sicko thought of that?

If it’s edible, it doesn’t seem like it would be physical abuse, but the psychological abuse, or intent thereof, seems pretty obvious.

@wundayatta That is a really good response!

This question does not tell us the child’s age and we really need to know about the nature of the relationships in the family.

An “Unruly child” does not just ‘happen’. There are needs that are not being met or conflicts that need to be resolved. If the family can not figure it out themselves, then I recommend they consult a psychologist.

Resolving the problem now will save years of pain and suffering for the whole family.

I guess that’s a good idea if you want to clean up their throw-up after.

if i had an older child, i could not stand to see them starving and begging for some normal food. i think to do so would be sadistic.

strikes me as sadistic and childish. I’d be ashamed of myself if I did that.

IMO, the best “treatment” of an unruly child is to remove all sweets and sugars from their diet.

The purpose of discipline is to teach the child to make appropriate decisions, not to punish them. They need to learn how to make choices that will lead to a good outcome.

The best kind of discipline is self-discipline. This does not mean they hit themselves, or eat bread and water, it means they learn to make decisions that are reasonable and warranted.

@YARNLADY Now why can’t I say things that concisely? ;-)

It could confuse the child’s relationship with food. I’d hate to have to be reminded of being forced to eat, what I considered at the time to be “shit”, every time I see the same meal unpulverized.

@YARNLADY The popular definition of punishment seems to be shifting to something like “action that alters behavior for the betterment of the subject.” Nothing worse than a self-righteous parent carrying out what is no less than retribution on their own child. You’re completely right. You have to teach how to behave appropriately, not just to behave appropriately.

@YARNLADY How do you get a kid to do that when the worse he would suffer beating some kid down and stealing his bike, for instance, is a time out and losing use if his iPod for 2 week? How do you get him to feel he was wrong, or at least wrong enough not to repeat the act? <chin rub>

@Hypocrisy_Central: to a kid, there are two things central to their world – communicating with their friends and music. removing iPod and cell phone or phone privileges would be pretty upsetting, as he would be cut off as soon as he entered the house. Combine that with having to come straight home after school for two weeks and he will definitely get the message. Maybe if the infraction that he committed was really severe, like beating a kid and stealing his bike (the example you just gave) a stern talking to by a police officer or some therapy (or both talking to by officer AND therapy) would also be helpful.

@Hypocrisy_Central that is a fair question and a challenging example.

The problem seems pretty sincere, if the kid wouldn’t understand that is wrong behavior. Most likely there is little one can do through punishment, since the kid is likely taking his ethical cues not from the family home anymore, anyway. There is a fair chance that severe punishment would distance the kid even further and drive him to peers of his choice that would condone and probably applaud his behavior.

If in any way possible, maybe look for a way to break the kid away from his peer group, best probably through positive stimulus, but may be even through moving to a different neighborhood, or school, if at all possible.

You might want to make sure not to offer the kid an excuse to pull away from family, because of ‘being misunderstood and punished unfairly’. (From his perspective, that is.)

But well…. I don’t know the real situation around your example, so all is speculation.

@Hypocrisy_Central The methods of training children I advocate must begin with the youngest baby, and are effective only when used from then. To try to use these methods with a child who has already been allowed to misbehave for several years will not work well.

I do not quite understand your question. If you are asking about a child who is attacked, the sensible thing to do is give up the bike, observe the attacker as closely as possible, and notify the authorities. There are time when we have to realize that bad things happen to good people.

@jca _ removing iPod and cell phone or phone privileges would be pretty upsetting, as he would be cut off as soon as he entered the house._ Many families are living so close to the grit they don’t have the means to get their kids the “trinkets” that seem to be a staple of most American homes, so there is little to nothing to with hold or take away. If one can not afford to buy a kid an iPod, Mac, have cell phone service, it can’t be used for leverage.

_ Maybe if the infraction that he committed was really severe, like beating a kid and stealing his bike (the example you just gave) a stern talking to by a police officer or some therapy (or both talking to by officer AND therapy) would also be helpful. Many inner city families will not call the cops (_not even in times they should) either because they see things like Oscar Grant etc, or they are not here legally so they think they will be caught up by the cops or somehow end up in the cross hairs._ And therapy might be good if you can get the kid to go and pay for it. As governments slash budgets low priority things like therapy and mental health gets shucked to the side. If you are really poor on the government dole or have a really liberal health policy through your job funding therapy might be rather tough.

@whitenoise Most likely there is little one can do through punishment, since the kid is likely taking his ethical cues not from the family home anymore, anyway. If the punishment part is pretty toothless once he/she gets to a certain point trying them as adults (which is about the next phase of punishment they will eventually encounter) they won’t learn any lesson from that but just end up in lock up learning to be better forgers, burglars, or worse? If their actions are so destructive or dangerous serious action has to be taken by the adults to make it known. If the state can crack down on people driving and talking on the cell phone because the previous penalty was too lax I would think the same logic would preclude similar be applied to let the youngster know ”you do this or do that you will get a smack down coming”.

There is a fair chance that severe punishment would distance the kid even further and drive him to peers of his choice that would condone and probably applaud his behavior. Yeah, and it might go the other way; he/she might get applauded for being able to do almost any terrible or vile act and not get touched literally or punitively. If the worse you could get robbing a bank with a weapon was 7yrs how many more bank robberies would there have been because the person would have thought the risk was worth taking if they got away as compared to if they got caught?

… but may be even through moving to a different neighborhood, or school, if at all possible. If you are living that close to the grit where you can barely keep your lights on or a roof overhead, the cost of a moving company or a U-haul truck much less the boxes, tape wrapping paper, etc is like trying to climb El Capitan with 3 wooden spoons and 150ft of clothes line. Much less getting into another apartment or home without AAA credit and 1st and last, or a security deposit.

@YARNLADY To try to use these methods with a child who has already been allowed to misbehave for several years will not work well. Then what will? If a child’s parents were not that “hands on” when the little nipper was a toddler because they felt they had to work 2 jobs or so much overtime on a single job to be that involved (maybe they should have found a way but things happen I guess). So, Sparky is left to engrain in himself Boorish behavior to the point something terrible like that happens, trying him as an adult now will do what a little belt leather on the behind couldn’t or wouldn’t have done when he was 6 or 7? \:-|

Punishment is only a small part of treating significantly dysfunctional behavior in a child, or in an adult for that matter. Treating unchecked violence with nothing but punishment is like trying to fix a broken arm with nothing but lifting weights. It’s only a part of the therapy, after the deeper damage has been mended.

@Hypocrisy_Central: in the United States (not sure where you are located) a leather belt or any other object other than open hand is considered abuse, so whether or not you think it beneficial is not the issue, the issue is that would be considered child abuse.

@Hypocrisy_Central The fact that the US is very actively locking up people, while still having enormous crime rates shows that punishment doesn’t do much as a deterrent from misbehavior. Nor does it seem to be the case that most people become better persons.
(What it does, is keeping potential offenders out of circulation, but I doubt that is what you want to do with your children.)

I don’t want to say that punishment may be totally discarded, but it is by far one of the least effective ways to raise children into responsible adults.

@Hypocrisy_Central Many children of working parents spend most of their waking days in childcare centers, which are not allowed to hit the child. They use other methods to help the child choose appropriate behavior.

The child care center my oldest son was in while his father and I worked offered parent/child training classes on a regular basis.

I think a good dose of castor oil would be a better alternative. Lol.