To have smacked my child

I'm very much an advocate of PACE parenting, but I lost my temper and slapped my toddler once. It was right that I felt guilty and ashamed, as I lost control. It wasn't my usual parenting style at all, so I did some work on myself and my parenting. We human, we make mistakes. Take learning from this and move on. X

Honestly, don't beat yourself up. It sounded like an instinctive reaction to.your baby getting bitten. I'm sure you won't do it again.

If you've said sorry to your son, move on.

If you think he has additional needs then the biting might be sensory. Perhaps get him a chewigem necklace for him to bite. That might stop the need for him to bite people.

What @LouiseCollina said 💐

I’ve not read the whole thread OP but you are totally normal.

I’ve done it twice with my eldest (not proud).

The first time she nearly threw both herself and me down a full flight of full steps by full on tantrumming in my arms. I managed to somehow turn around on the step 180 degrees to stop us both falling. We’d have broken bones at the least. She was 3.

The second time she was 4. I was locking up my front door on my house at the time. Whilst I did this she ran the full length of the street towards the very busy main road at the end. I had to drop my bag, leave the keys in the door and sprint to grab her as she was just about to run straight into the main road where there were cars driving at 40mph. I managed to grab her around 3 feet away from doing this.

Both times I felt like shit for weeks about it. Needless to say she is now 9 and a very happy kid (touch wood). It’s not brought up in conversation between us but I wouldn’t deny doing it or minimize it. I did something similar to my mum (going for her on our house steps) and she smacked me then. Needless to say I’ve never held a grudge and totally get why she snapped!

You should discuss it with your husband, it would be terrible if you hid it through shame. As for the smacking, don't worry too much about it, it's just one of those things. You shouldn't have done it, the child shouldn't have bitten the sibling.

I am not a mum so don’t have experience of this. I’m agreeing with @WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo said at the top of the thread.

I know it isn’t great to smack but after watching two young girls getting screamed at (the absolute works) in the street today for being too slow, as a child I’d have preferred a tap or small smack. (I say this as someone who was smacked as a child and had far worse as an adult)

It was awful to hear. I was a good distance away and just saw the little souls cower and melt into their boots.

Op, you know it wasn’t great and it was instinct and not malice. I know some will hate me for this I think what I witnessed earlier was far, far worse than a small tap

Unfinishedsymphon

Maybe it didn't damage you which is brilliant for you

But studies have been done that prove that if it is done long term then it does damage a child.

And it happened to me a lot growing up and I can say yes it does damage your mental health.

But luckily op has realised she handled it wrong and will now find a better way of dealing with her sons behaviour.

Mistakes can happen by parents sometimes but as I said above as long as it never happens again op won't have done any damage.

Get a play pen or a travel cot OP. Then when you need to turn your back put baby in there.

You could even put baby in the (empty) bath if he can't get in it.

Chewies sound like a good idea too.

Some of you say never hit a child in anger. So is it better to hit them in a cold calculated manner when you are not even angry?

*I'd at least go for, 'No biting people' presuming he understands what 'people' means

'No!' isn't terribly specific. How sure are you that he understands what he's being told off for? I'd at least go with, 'No biting!'

Do look into a parenting book. Maybe, 'How to talk so kids will listen'? I've heard that praised a lot on here. Mine is something like, 'What great parents do' but I can't remember the exact wording.

The only time I came close to doing this was exactly the same scenario as you- when my 2.5 year old DD bit her baby brother. I’m amazed I managed to stop myself because the anger just flared up and I was so so angry with her. Even though rationally I knew that she was tiny, and adjusting to a huge change, and I’m massively against smacking, and anyway what a pointless response to retaliate with violence - I knew all that, but in that moment it just goes out the window. I felt like I was quite a patient mum when it was just DD, and once DS arrived I struggled so much more, I ended up doing quite a few parenting courses and reading loads of books and trying to work on it. Obviously it got easier anyway once they were a bit bigger. So anyway, I really really don’t think you should be too hard on yourself- you’re human and you reacted that way instinctively because someone was hurting your baby, the fact that person was your other baby won’t have come into it in that split second. You know it’s not ok and feel guilty and will work really hard on never doing it again- I think that’s literally the mark of a good parent to be honest x

It happens, move past it. You’re not a terrible mum at all. You feel guilt for a start. Parenting is tough

It is completely impossible to stop the younger one getting hurt by the older one unless you keep them separated the entire time. I remember with my 2 even if I had them both sitting down nicely together, playing well, me sitting in between them and watching them like a hawk the entire time, DS1 would still find a way to hit his little brother.

If you have space for a playpen or to physically divide the room up so that your ds can play away from dd then do that as you'll save yourself a lot of stress in the long term. I didn't have this option so I just had to do the best I could and I found Ds2 learnt to defend himself pretty quickly.

Don't worry about nursery. Lots of children bite at that age and nursery should know how to deal with it.

Taking away toys won't help at that age as it's not related to what he did wrong. Trying to teach a 3 year old with suspected ASD to imagine how someone else feels is likely to not work either. Even my NT 4 year old struggles with empathy. A book about biting with clear repetition of the rule don't bite people could help combined with a sensory toy he can chew on when he feels the urge to bite sounds like it might be worth a try.

Oh and don't beat yourself up about hitting him. I smacked ds1 on his arm when he hit baby ds2 really hard across his face . It was a weird instinctual thing that I felt awful about and ds1 likely can't even remember now. You have years of parenting ahead of you where you will likely fuck up many times however hard you try .

Please don't beat yourself up, OP. You were reacting to your DS biting his baby sibling and that was very understandable. I've had to cope with a lot of violence from my DD1 (now 11), towards both DD2 (now 8) and myself too in the past. They're both adopted, and birth siblings, so there are complex issues behind the behaviour. DD1 has SEN and adoption related attachment issues, but she is now improving, to encourage you.

I think smacking is an issue particularly if the parent minimises it. My DM does that about our childhood. She admits that our F used to smack us too hard and says she didn't agree with that and stopped him. She didn't, or not for many years and never said anything about that at the time. Plus she smacked us herself. The end result was that my DSis and i didn't feel able to disclose to her that our F was in fact sexually abusing us as well, because we had no reason to think that she would protect us from him.

What happened with you really isn't something to dwell on. The fact that you feel awful about it shows how strongly you feel that it wasn't a good way of disciplining your DS and that you're a wonderful mum.

" she always wants to play with him and be in his personal space"

And that's not acceptable either (yes I know she's still very young), but she needs to learn to leave him alone & he needs to learn that it's not ok to bite, but that you will keep her away when he wants to be on his own.

I had children in the 70s, and we smacked them when they were naughty. If I had them now, I wouldn't. But having said that , I think what you did was instinctive. it wasn't like you put him over your lap and smacked him. You didn't smack him round the ear (unforgivable) and you didn't hit him with a strap or cane. What you did was minor, and I think you should just forgive yourself.

It happens. Please don't worry. At least these days we are conscious that it is not a good idea. DH tells me of the time when children were routinely hit [assaulted/beaten] with canes at school and by their parents ["a good smack"]

You reacted to a situation. Give yourself a break. We are none of us perfect and all do things we regret. Like you said - he has forgotten it and it was completely out of character. There isn't a person posting on this board - including, I'm sure, @compassunreliable who hasn't made a mistake or lost their cool in one way or another. The #BeKind that makes the rounds all the time also includes being kind to yourself.

It happened, move on.

Hello OP, don't feel too bad about a small smack. It's very demanding looking after a 1-year old and a 3-year old (I've been there!) and we parents have our limits of patience. As others have said here, it was a reactionary smack - which I have found myself doing, when my children were younger - and the fact that you feel bad now - after the event - means you are very unlikely to be smacking either of your children in the future. Today is another day, don't look back, only forwards

hitting damages children

I was hit a couple of times as a kid and I'm not damaged, it did me no long term harm whatsoever. I'm not condoning hitting but sometimes we snap and it's impulsive.