To have smacked my child

You're not scum of the earth
Otherwise you wouldn't even consider that you were.
I hope you feel a bit better soon

Oh for goodness sake quit feeling sorry for your spiteful child and start feeling sorry for your poor innocent baby! That bite on her arm looks horrendous and you're not doing enough to protect her. Also to the person that was so blase about kids biting at nursery. I had to take my child out of a nursery he had previously loved because of a nasty little biter, so don't sit back, do nothing and leave it to nursery staff to discipline your child, do it yourself!

FWIW, OP, as someone who was regularly smacked as a toddler and child, what happened here is really not that big of a deal. He'll be fine and won't grow up to think beating others up is OK as a result of this incident (I've never hit another person at any point in my life, despite frequently being hit myself growing up. Kids don't need to be taught to hit, they do it anyway because it's an impulse. I presume you didn't teach him to bite?)

I don't condone smacking, but nor do I think you need to be strung up for it. Give yourself a break.

Have you got a good parenting book you can read and refer to? I think it's fairly important in general, even before anything has gone wrong, to have strategies in mind. Like any other skill, parenting is learned.

Inthepurplerain Your 3 year old doesnt understand and will only stop when his sibling is big enough to thump him back.

sorry about typos

@compassunreliable
That is the most unhelpful post I have ever seen, Are you a parent? perhaps perfect?
OP in the first place the fact that you feel this way because in the moment you reacted in a way totally against your beliefs in important. I have run parentsgroups in which we have discussed this very issue at length. By listening to parents I learned a lot. The situation you described is the most common. What parents told me is that they were shocked at the sudden anger they felt. They also told me it did nothing to improve the childs behaviour and they didnt want to do it again. They did not want to react suddenly. Of course we all want to be calm and rational but this sort of behaviour has thrown you. It doesnt mean it will happen again, in fact this is why you will better manage it next time. Please forget all the posts about violence, adult violence and all the other ignorant posts. There is a differnce between this scenario and one in which a child is brought up seeing violence, receiving violence, and smacking being the default response so ignore those who try to put you there. You responded to an attack on the baby, pure and simple. You were shocked that your loved child would bite your baby. So lets look at that for a moment. Biting is so common that you could almost say its normal, but we dont want it. It can happen for loads of reasons, frustration, jealousy, fear (of other toddlers behaviour) anger and sometimes because a toddler instintivle realises that teeth are a pretty handy weapon. The solution is a bit complicated and takes vigilance. First try and lessen the causes ( eg jealousy, include the toddler in tasks ) then and this is the most important, be very quick to intervene when a bite is coming( you will get good at reading the signs) and whisk the baby out of range, or yourself. A short sharp NO is also habndy to stop him in his tracks. Do not give him loads of extra attention at this point as that is a type of reward. Rather a bit later, a loving cuddle, story and tell him how good he is to be so gentle with the baby, So we reward the behaviour we want and try to ignore the one we dont. The next thing is your own care of yourself, ask any one who has made a mistake in their work and they will tell you they were stressed, in a hurry, or had too many tasks. So it is for you, manage your own stresses and time, so that you can feel calm enough to deal with this sort of scene. I wouldnt be too worried about explaing too much to him, a cuddle does that. I would also think about talking to your partner, this has shocked and upset you, he is your partner. He may need to know how you felt and may be able to help keep things in proportion

Cross posted - if there's a sensory element to the biting and really needs to do it it might be worth trying a chewable/biteable toy. There are special ones for kids with SN - someone on here will be able to recommend. Good luck

Honestly don't worry you poor thing. That bite mark is terrible. No wonder you smacked him. I think I'd do the same in that alarming instance and I'm not a 'smacker' but sorry a one off reaction doesn't make you abusive. He probably needed the short sharp shock. Hopefully he won't do that again and you won't do your part again. Don't beat your self up

YANBU at all! Forgive yourself.

Think someone already mentioned this but have you tried almost ignoring the biter (other than saying something like "we don't bite" firmly), and instead immediately making a huge fuss of the bitee? I have found this works really well with young DCs. If the aggressor sees that an attack ends in the injured one getting extra cuddles and attention, that takes away a lot of their motivation to do it. Most misbehaviour at this age is attention-seeking and they'd even rather be yelled at than ignored - although I'm sure your DS would say that all the apologies, cuddles, quality time etc he's had from mummy over the last couple of days more than make up for the brief upset of a single smack...

Honestly lovely, don't feel so bad. It happened, it is a very stressful time. No one is perfect. Kiddie is ok. You won't do it again. Just put it behind you and move on.

You're not a bad mum. You got taken up in the heat of the moment. You've never ever smacked before. We can all lose our tag. We arnt infallible!!!! If you were a bad person. It wouldn't make you feel guilty.

He was chewing on your babies arm. It's almost instinctive. Someones child one hot my child.i rushed up and shouted at some random child. I didn't even think.

Tomorrow's a new day!

He doesn't however have to have some kind of discipline though for bad behaviour.

What will you do next time? Best is remove the bitter and ignore.
It s done and you can decide a better strategy.

Oh the guilt... It can be unbearable. I know.
We desperately want to be a 'perfect' parent, and you feel disappointed in yourself.
But try to get this in perspective... You're not a bad parent. At all. We will all make mistakes in our parenting, do things, say things.
Forgive yourself and put it in the past, move on and make it better. That's all we can do!

Hats off to you too.
My 3 year old is horrendous. He smacks his sister in the face, smacks me and his dad, doesn’t seem to allow me to discipline him.
Throws stuff on the floor when we tell him off.

I had to take him to time out multiple times yesterday as each time I put him there he shouted at me and walked off.

It’s hard. Really hard. Don’t be so hard on yourself op.

Haven't read the full thread but:

You're a good, caring mum.

Forgive yourself.

Look after yourself, it will help you to parent like you want to.

I find just taking a second to do some deep breathing when I feel anger and frustration start to rise can help.

On the biting:

Please don't do time outs.

HE IS NOT IN CONTROL OF HIS BEHAVIOUR. You would be punishing him for something he literally cannot help or control. And it doesn't work. As your current punishments have shown.

It also means you can tell him not to bite until your blue in the face and it won't work. He can't always control himself at this age. Neurotypical or not.

Longer term he may feel rejected by you and resentful of your daughter which won't improve relationships.

You need to start watching his behaviours and working out when he's about to bite, and physically stop him before he does it and say "I won't let you bite".

Yes you will need to watch him like a hawk and yes that's hard.

If he does hurt his sibling / another, give attention to the hurt person.

Get a safe space you can put your 1 year old when you need a break, like a play pen.

Then you can start to think about the root cause. Does he get lots of one on one time and attention from you? Does he get to control your play? Do you laugh a lot together?

Good luck. Parenting is hard.

" DH has had several bites himself too."

So how did he handle it?

I think a lot of people would have done the same-to shock him into stopping the bite-especially if nothing else is working.

It's about protecting your younger one as much as anything.

You’ve made a mistake, no long term harm and relatively minimal impact.

You’ve recognised it and you’re able to plan better for next time so it doesn’t happen again.

Please forgive yourself OP.

Instinctively reacting like you did and feeling guilty after is worlds apart from child abuse op.

Don’t feel guilty, just try and walk away next time!

YANBU, and I know you hopefully won't do it again because you feel so awful.

For what it's worth, 3 is horrendous. I smacked my 3 year old last year, on the back of the head. Not mega hard but he cried. I felt horrendous immediately. I was suffering with post natal depression/anxiety and had a young baby and was in a very stressful situation at the time, but it's still no excuse.

You're also in a very stressful situation at the moment, lockdown with young children (mine are now 4 and 1) is very very tough at times. I came very close to smacking my 4 year old just this morning and it's the first time I've been this angry at him since I started taking Sertraline for my anxiety months ago. Emotions are running extremely high and there's absolutely no break.

I would actually tell your DH, as it makes you accountable and hopefully more likely you'll never do it again.

Am I the scum of the earth

No, of course you're not. Please try not to dwell on it.

Have I ever done it in the heat of the moment? No. But I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the only reason for that is that I don't have any children I'm human and come complete with human imperfections —as does everyone on here, despite what some would have you believe. I doubt whether I'd have managed parenthood without a tap on the backside now and again, despite thinking that it isn't the right way to go.

for you

If it makes you feel any better at all OP, I was tapped on the bum or hand as a child if I was being particularly naughty. It was just the done thing then, not hard, not a hit or a whack but yeah.

I don't remember a single instance of it and I love my parents to pieces. They are good parents who love me and I had a fantastic childhood, times have just changed. It doesn't mean I would follow what they did now with my own kids but I certainly don't hate them for it nor has it permanently damaged me.

I very much doubt your three year old son will remember or be damaged by one instance of smacking.

Don't do it again of course but just breathe and move on from this guilt now, if it's a one off, it will be okay.

I agree with some PP that the bigger issue here is the 1 year old being bitten. i get that you feel guilty "hurting" your 3 year old but there is a big difference between smacking and tapping. I dont agree with physicality against children, I really dont, but in this situation can totally see how a quick tap would of been instinctive when your youngest baby was being hurt. think about how much more that being bitten is hurting your 1 year old over this one isolated incident of you tapping your 3 year old. I know which one is having the harder time OP

I agree with PPs you need to set your guilt aside and not let it send the wrong message about the biting just to make yourself feel better. The bites are much worse than one reactionary smack. Coddling him and grovelling to him about how wrong you were, when by the sounds of things he has already moved on, will undermine your message that what he did was wrong and it caused you to panic.

You know it wasn't ideal, but I think you are making too much of it now and possibly making the biting situation worse, as he is verging on getting positive attention for it. Take him for some 1:1 time by all means if you think it will improve his behaviour, but I wouldn't mention the smack or apologise for it again.

Another approach to the biting I'd try is redirection, as it could be a sensory thing. It feels quite satisfying to bite into flesh, it's only because we associate it with causing pain in the other person that we don't do it. Obviously he's too little to really understand that connection.

At three, he may be old enough to have a conversation about it when he is calm. First you buy or find an assortment of teething toys or sensory chew toys (Google chewellery), talk to him about how he feels when he bites somebody, and whether he could alleviate that by biting something else instead. Even some kind of food might be satisfying for him to chew rather than his brother. Then any time he goes to bite, you try to interrupt and offer him something else to bite instead. If he manages to redirect his impulse, really praise him and tell him you're so proud of him for doing that.

Hang in there, it is such a common phase and he won't be the only one at nursery, they will have experience dealing with this.