Stepchild tells people I abuse my BS (15)

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Not really looking for advice, just venting.

I have 2 children ages 13-15 and 4 stepsons, ages 10-14. On occassion, I will spank my kids if needed. Recently on a family vacation, I told all the kids about how I was disciplined growing up in Kentucky. My parents beleived in corporal punishment and on occassion, I would get a spanking. My mom's go to choice was a switch. If you don't know what a switch is, it's a small, pliable tree branch about 3' long and about the same diameter as a pencil. So one morning after a night of her kids just being extremely defiant, I went and grabbed a switch off a tree. The funny thing is, I wasn't grabbing it for my kids, I was grabbing it for my stepkids. I don't spank my stepkids, nor do the biological parents but her kids were out of control damn near the whole friggin vacation so I had it for more of a scare tactic and frankly, I was hoping she would have tried it out because they need discipline. The youngest kid kept telling his mom that it's child abuse if she spanks him. In my opinion, that switch should have been reserved just for him

Fast forward to the last day of vacation. We are attending a show and my son whips a metal bottle cap towards a trash can, thinking he can make it from 30' away. The cap misses the trash can and hits a crowd of people. Luckily, it didn't hurt anyone but it could have. So, after the show, he got the switch, for not thinking of the consequences. One spanking across his butt, done. My son took it like a man and that was the end of that. Or at least I thought.

The 10 year old has been talking about child abuse a lot. She takes away his phone, child abuse. Can't have desert, child abuse. Yells at him, child abuse. Any punishment, child abuse. After being home a week after my son got a spanking in TN, the 10 year old has been telling anyone who will listen that I physically abuse my son. Me, I'm livid! The mom, she's pretty torn up. Will her son be disciplined? Who knows. He's already told her that he's just gonna live with his dad full time because she "disciplines" him so if that's the case, nothing will come of it.

Taking away a child's phone

Taking away a child's phone or denying them dessert, is not child abuse. Physically beating them with an implement of any sort - well, some would call that child abuse. Personally I disagree with trying to improve a son or daughter's behaviour by employing physical violence.

In many locations hitting a

In many locations hitting a child with an implement is legally child abuse.

The core issue here is that you and your partner have different parenting styles. Do not take your fustration at her lack of parenting out on your step kids. Take it up with your partner or leave her and this relationship behind.

Child abuse

Is not appropriately disciplining children. What your wife is doing is not abuse. You however are misguided if you are using a switch in this day and age. Really glad your son took it like a man. Sure he did a dumb thing. That's what kids do. Don't think u had to hit him with a switch to remind him he needs to think before he acts. I used to take it like a man too when I was a small girl and my dad would spank me with a belt or switch. I can assure u it had exactly that opposite affect of that he intended. All it showed me was that people with power didn't always deserve it.

I have no problems with

I have no problems with spanking a young child/preschooler when it comes to dangerous situations- reaching for a stove, running off in a parking lot. A spanking to me is a single swat to the butt with you hand. By 5/6 this should stop. They can logic and reason now and corporal punishment is nothing but being a bully to your child.

In many states hitting with an object is abuse. So your SD might not be wrong there. No 15 yr old should have to stand there and "take it like a man" while being assaulted. (I originally wrote 10 yr old, 15 is even worse)

The rest of the things that SD is crying abuse over are crap and she needs to be told so. Cell phone, dessert, being fussed or yelled at- that is not abuse.