How to prevent grandparents from smacking our child

How sure are you that your husband won’t also smack your child, thinking ahead a few years? If he thinks it’s not damaging and was brought up this way? Your dd is too young so far for you to have seen how he parents a challenging toddler/young child.

This 100,%

I would threaten him with law enforcement. Also, you have a partner problem. A big one.

He’d simply never see them again, but then they wouldn’t exist in the first place as I wouldn’t have had children with a partner who thinks smacking is reasonable. HTH

Unless the OP is in Scotland or Wales, it’s not actually illegal to hit a child so I’m not sure what calling the police would do.

I’d worry about going down a path that leads to splitting up with the partner as then he will have full control over the child regularly.

He has learned that people give into him so you cannot leave a single sliver for him. I wouldn’t be around this at all, but at bare minimum you cannot leave your child for a moment when he’s there. Not a single moment without you supervising - you go to the toilet together, you sleep in the same room (or ideally in a hotel), every single moment. It’s clear no one will protect your child except you.

It's illegal to smack children in Germany.

You never leave your child alone with him. Make sure that either you, or your DH (provided he is willing to physically step between them) are in the room.

Your poor nieces.

Even if someone was absolutely convinced that smacking their child to teach them was perfectly fine, why on earth would they think it was OK to smack someone else's when the parent has told them it is not acceptable.

No contact and report to the police.

I wouldn’t consider letting my child anywhere near them unless you had their agreement your child will never be hit. I certainly would not leave the child in their care.

You have another big problem if your partner thinks smacking is ok.

What an unpleasant man.

He values his principles on physical violence towards small children more than he values his relationship with his own children. That fact he started smacking his grandchildren as soon as the relationship with his daughter was repaired speaks volumes.

In your situation I would never leave my child alone with this man. I would be clear with my DH that this is an absolute non-negotiatiable and if FIL did ever smack my child he would never see them again.

I remember when I was trying to get pregnant we used to talk about all kinds of scenarios and I asked DH if he'd smack our child and his response was 'probably, I got smacked as a child'. When I asked if he's hut me if I did something wrong/he didn't agree with he was horrified and said no, if course not. I asked why it was ok to hit a child but not an adult. He pretty quickly changed his mind. He just had never thought about it like that.

I would put this to your DH and see his response.
And I'd also never leave my kids alone at grandparents. If there was ever one move to smack they would never see us again.

My DF was smacked as a child by his DF (despite his DF never being smacked and this was the 1920s) and he said all it did was if he was in trouble he did worse because he would end up smacked anyway. Or he would get his uncle to protect him. My DPs and DGPs never smacked me. It doesn't work and it's assault.

I would be very clear to him now. His pattern of behaviour is assaulting children so he will never be unsupervised with your child. He will miss out on an amazing relationship with his DGC.

Here’s the thing: the smacking is absolutely not acceptable, but neither is the mindset that lies behind it, because he isn’t listening to his daughter who didn’t like it and is smacking her kids again. This is controlling behaviour to the whole family. Myself? I’d say very very minimal contact and only when I was there myself (not your DH).

Learn and deploy any of the following:

‘Wenn du mein Kind jemals wieder schlägst, breche ich dir die verdammte Nase, Opa’

or

’Kindesmisshandlung ist in diesem Land illegal’

or

’Lass die Finger von meinem Kind, sonst breche ich dir die verdammten Finger.’

Doesn’t Germany have really strict laws about hitting children? Why aren’t the police called when the nieces get hit?

I wouldn't let them be alone with the kids at all and I'd tell them why.

Glad to see the sane, non abusive consensus re hitting children is back. A few years ago there was a tide of people who thought it was a great idea, never did them any harm except for now advocating for child abuse, etc etc. I made a huge mistake though; in arguing against it (couldn't believe it was still a question), I pulled up a study that showed that hitters tend to have lower IQs. One hitter got absolutely enraged and said she was very clever and now she would hit her children more to prove how fantastic it was. I don't think she was a troll, but obviously I hope so.

Don't leave your children alone with these people.

Tell him you will not just remove visits with your child but report him to social services, which will stir up a load of shit for him, much more than anything you can do on your own.

Tell him now, at the start.

Don't leave him alone with them ever (preventative).

If/when it happens, remove child and report.

Yanbu to not want your child smacked. Only way to prevent is to not let him around your child and if you do watch him like a hawk and stop him if he goes to slap your child. If he hits his other GC he will definitely hit your child too.

My partner, however, thinks I'm being unreasonable and that smacking is an effective way to discipline.

How on earth is this going to work, OP? It’s not solely his father you need to worry about, is it? Your baby’s father thinks smacking is okay.

What have you done?!

i wouldn’t take my kids to visit smacky grandpa sorry. You need to protect your children

No it doesn’t work that way. You can’t stop someone having custody of their child because of another persons actions.

At 70 GFather is completely outdated, & therefore has nothing to teach young children.
As a child I was smacked, the only thing it ‘taught’ me was that being smacked hurt. Why do people think the pain is connected to ‘learning’ ??
We once rescued a deaf dog, he’d been very badly beaten as a pup because the idiot owners hadn’t learnt that he was deaf… this poor dog would shake like a leaf if a person picked up anything that looked like a stick, he didn’t even attempt to run away 😢😢 just stood shaking, waiting to be beaten even if a pencil was picked up.

Never go to stay with them again. He knows there is a problem, he has been battled for a year and has WON. He will want to win with you too. I think he will engineer a situation and I bet you he will be alone with her. Your DH will be too wet and you too nice to say anything because "nothing has happened yet". If he's a hands on GF then of course there will things that you can go to, maybe he books you tickets for a show and it would be embarrassing for you to back out because nothing has happened yet.

If they come to stay with you, say you will call the police if anyone lays a hand on them.

He's not a nice guy - the one year NC and he's back to smacking tells you that.

Maybe get someone considerably bigger than him to give him a smack to teach him and see how he likes it.

"Hi FIL, if you ever so much as think about hitting my child you'd better call 2 ambulances first. One for you and one for your spineless son."