Parenting Professor says that she supports smacking children

I did intervene but I don’t think that made any long term difference.

Parenting is multi faceted. It is far more than consequences (I know you weren’t suggesting this, but I do think that this point sometimes gets lost on MN amongst all of the And what are the consequences for this behaviour, OP?)

Sometimes consequences make little if any difference. It’s either a performance for other parents or it’s to stop a situation getting worse, like the park one.

But you intervened! If you didn’t he would still be lashing out at other kids in the park every time he wanted to be in control. By removing him you showed him that this was not an appropriate way to express that anxiety/need for control.

Like I said I have another friend whose nine year will NOT let her mum talk to any of us if she’s around because in her mum’s words ‘she feels left out and doesn’t like her mum’s attention not being on her.’ She starts with some gentle hugs and throwing herself and trying to distract her mum and then proceeds to interrupting, saying ‘when are they leaving’ etc and being rude to us. And the mum is quite helpless. Now she could have nipped this in the bud a long time ago. And you would handle this differently at 2/3 and differently at 7/8 but you have to be pro-active.

Possibly. I doubt it though. I just don’t think toddlers have any impulse control at all, but perversely they want to control others and their environment. I remember being really stressed with ds on one occasion just before he turned three, so similar age to dd now, where he just targeted this other little boy at a park. He was just minding his business and playing and ds just tried to chase him wherever he went andtried to stop him playing on whatever equipment it was, physically pushing him. (Obviously i intervened to stop and warned him we’d take him home if he continued, which I then did.)

When I look back at that incident with the benefit of hindsight and knowing ds is (mostly) a reasonable human who makes friends easily and can share and take turns (sometimes with bad grace it has to be said!) I think a lot of it was driven by anxiety and a need for control in particular situations. I really don’t think consequences of deterrents came into it at all. Of course, that absolutely doesn’t mean he should be allowed to hurt others or intimidate them: that was an immediate removal from the situation scenario. But not as a sanction but as a way to manage, if that makes sense.

Maybe that’s my (very rambly!) point; that some behaviour is just waiting to grow out of but doesn’t mean we have to sit back helplessly and tolerate (although occasionally yeah you do …!)

@followtheswallow Or he didn’t outgrow the behaviour- your consistent approach (if that is what you did) which seemingly in the moment had a long term impact.

I see parents whose kids were wild at 2, at 5, at 10 and are disrespectful teens. They throw their arms in the air and go ‘but nothing works’. And I see those whose kids are mighty difficult and they hold the line and at some point it clicks. Maybe later than others but it does.

I remember one of DS1’s friends who was a bright but very lively child and her parents had to end her fourth birthday early (her own party!) because she was behaving so badly. Nothing they did worked. No de-escalation. She was hitting the other kids, screaming, out of control. They told us very calmly, listen maybe we should end the evening here. We quickly ushered our kids out. And they shut down the party.
She’s a delightful teen, not traumatised by this incident, and I know the parents have remained loving but consistent in their approach. Now at 4/5 years old many of her classmates had outgrown the toddler style tantrums (and graduated to the whining ones) and she hadn’t. But it was a phase and some very consistent parenting paid out in the long run.

I have a friend whose child was rude to her at 2/3/4/5 and would hit her and she would say ‘darling don’t do that’ and now he is 12 and swears at her regularly and she says ‘darling don’t do that’ and well…She also tells me her son has very few friends..

100%
The idea that if explaining, times outs, punishments don’t work for something it’s just incredibly unlikely smacking them will suddenly mean they understand that X behaviour is unacceptable.

Sometimes children will exhibit unacceptable behaviour, sometimes that ‘bad behaviour’ will be developmentally normal, they need to learn societal norms, what we can do, how we treat others, that it’s not okay to tiredness or anger out on others etc. There’s simply no way hitting them does that.

Or shift the goal from expecting immediate peaceful compliance from.a cranky 4 year old to laying a foundation where what you say goes, even if you're cranky and X aged.

I think this is kind of the whole point @TheHateUGive : people tell you what you ‘should’ do and in the moment it either doesn’t work or isn’t possible or practical, but then you feel bad because it works, right? So you keep trying but it still doesn’t work. And then you feel like a failure. I’m saying I think it would be better if we dropped this pretence and accept some stages are very, very challenging and while there are strategies and approaches that help really it is a case of ‘don’t do that or I’ll tell you not to do it again.’

Do you know why she screeched?

And if they don’t?

I know you say that I'm wrong because 'you know your child' but I still don't believe that every other technique anyone has ever recommended failed with your children no matter how well and consistently used but that smacking would have been a total and instant success and it's just your bad luck to have been parenting in a time where the one and only effective technique ever has fallen from favour. You describe a child that fights to the extent they can overpower an adult - but a tap would instantly stop them? I think you'd have to hit that child very (unacceptably in any era) hard to make a difference if they're in that kind of rage, especially anything other than the very first time ever you smacked.i

So if you know that is likely, you put in an incentive that will occur if they transition from the last activity smoothly. So say, a milkshake on the way home. If they choose to kick off, no milkshake.

Or if they manage to tolerate an activity they do not like, they get a reward. If they do not manage it, they do not get it and/or they lose a privilege they usually have free access to.

Right but if they don’t care then it’s largely pointless, and truthfully I think a lot of so called consequences do fall into that category. It’s also difficult to manage if you have more than one child or if you’re somewhere they would actually like to leave, given the choice (or if the session had ended and they kick off about leaving …)

Because you want to enforce the dynamic that what you say, goes, and that you follow through with what you say.

I should still be doing things that don’t work? Why? What purpose does that serve? That’s just lip service isn’t it? He is generally OK these days (alone anyway) … I guess this is what I’m saying, it wasn’t parenting, he just eventually outgrew some behaviours.

You don't need to hit a child at all.

That is great indeed, hence why I said it’s not for every infraction. You only need to spank a child a few times, they understand boundaries very quickly.

Ok so you should still be doing these things. All children develop at different speeds in different areas of their... development. So your son might be really advanced beyond his years in some ways, average in others, and delayed in others still.

It's a bit like talking or potty training. If he hadnt achieved those things by now, you wouldn't just stop trying to encourage the structure around toileting or working on communication.

It can honestly take some NT (yes not ND, NT) kids until 10 to learn some of the emotional regulation and impulse control that others learn at 5. We are all different.

Five and a half.

@FruAashild gosh, no idea. Quite a lot though. When he was younger I sometimes felt like we spent more times leaving places than staying there and it really did damage our relationship for a long time as I felt like his adversary rather than his parent.

And how many times have you taken him home from an event because he's misbehaving?

How old is he now?

I was out in a cafe with DD1 when she was a preschool. Out of nowhere she suddenly screeched incredibly loudly. I held her hand, looked her in the eye and quietly and calmly said (using my best teacher voice) 'That is completely unacceptable. If you do that again we will leave immediately'. She then behaved perfectly for the rest of the meal and an older woman came over later and told me she was very impressed with my parenting. No violence required, just clear boundaries.

Ha. If only @PotolKimchi . If only!

I earnestly followed this advice with ds - no effect whatsoever!

A raised voice, sharp tone, immediate consequence… it doesn’t have to be ‘being a pushover parent’ or smacking!

@followtheswallow The thing with the forcibly removing thing is that much as it is unpleasant you only need to do it a few times. So if they are misbehaving at a party, go home. Maybe the other one suffers but the other child has also just seen that you hold the line. I have taken my younger one home from a party before cake because he wasn’t listening. I think he was 4. He was astounded because I think he thought I wouldn’t carry it out in front of his friends.
At some point (even at 2) they work out that no means no and that you will take them home. It’s not an empty threat. You can remove them or remove an object. They will scream and shout and tantrum but you have to ride through it.
I never explain myself in a tantrum. That is for later in a calmer moment- you did X, this was not okay, this is why I did Y. But in the moment beyond a couple of warnings there is no negotiation.

One of my kids was MUCH livelier than the other. I had to parent him differently. I would give him more running around/decompression time. He needed more visual/verbal cues about what was next. And I didn’t expect him to do what I did for his brother in terms of sitting still for long periods. But we built it up and he’s almost 10 and can sit through a play/concert/long journeys etc. He’s still ‘bouncier’ than his brother but he’s polite, well behaved, conducts himself well in public and in school. My job is not to change who he is (he will always be chatty and I suspect the life and soul of a party) but I need to give him the tools to cope with in a bigger wider world.

The words ‘vice versa’ did that job, I think.