Parenting Professor says that she supports smacking children

That’s the goal, totally. Children have other ideas though. I mean, if you say no and mean it and they ignore you there’s not really a lot you can do, if removal from the situation is impossible or impractical, which is frequently the case for me unfortunately.

That doesn’t mean I favour smacking. I just want more honesty about it. That it we’re not going to use physical force then we are reliant on our children’s cooperation and agreeable demeanour and toddlers aren’t famed for that.

While I don't agree with smacking and have never hit my kids I don't think it does make children withdraw from their parents. My husband was smacked by his parents and he has a brilliant relationship with them.
Going back to the 80s and earlier it was pretty common to smack your children if they misbehaved. Not everyone from those years has a bad relationship with their parents or has gone low contact with them

There is definitely a time where children lack the emotional intelligence to understand why you took them away from X (ie why their behaviours were unacceptable) and so your initial goal at that stage of development is not for them to understand that. Your goal then is that they understand that if you say stop or no, you mean stop or no, and no reactive behaviour will change that it wont be happening or is stopping now.

You want them to be conditioned to understsnd that what you say, goes, even if they don't get why.

At that earlier stage of development, you will have to employ some distraction techniques. So it isn't just taking them away from inappropriate activity X, you lead them towards appropriate activity Y. Literally because there is no point trying to get them to be understanding about why they can't do X. They are just kids. You are just laying the foundation of your dynamic at this stage and "no means no" is one of the first real rules

Because it’s against the law in England, and parents have different responsibilities towards a child than a teacher or other childcarer does.

That doesn’t answer my question. If it’s fine for parents to do it, why not for teachers?

And given that I didn’t do that because I knew how my DD would respond, do I sound like someone who routinely physically abuses children?

Clearly not. So if I’m saying - my toddlers would have kicked off to the extent restraining them could potentially have hurt them, then maybe just accept it. I don’t doubt some toddlers will whinge but cede defeat. Mine fight you tooth and nail; literally.

I mean I’ve never done what you have described, nor have I seen it. It doesn’t sound normal.
Picking up a child and carrying them away is the normal reaction. If you’re doing something that looks like physical abuse it probably is.

Discipline (or lack thereof!) in schools is a whole other ball game!

I don't think anyone uses smacking as a nicely controlled, calculated and effective behaviour management method if they're honest. It's almost always a loss of control in the moment, which may stop the behaviour in the moment, but does little to teach the child anything other than It's ok to hit others.

I have two children. My eldest has never been smacked. He has never pushed boundaries to the point where I have snapped. Our behaviour management strategies were perfectly effective wothout smacking and he's grown into a lovely young man.

My youngest is autistic. When she was younger, we tried the same methods that worked for ds. Nothing changed. At the time, we didn't realise dd's behaviour resulted from dysregulation and she was unable to articulate it, and we knew nothing about how autism can present differently in girls. She wasn't diagnosed. We viewed her as wilful, defiant, naughty. And I'm ashamed to say that twice when she has hit or kicked me in the midst of this dysregulation, my automatic response/ instinct was to smack her back. This was my own nervous system tipping into fight or flight - not an excuse, but a reason. Was it effective? No. It escalated her further. Did it resolve anything? No. I felt shit and ashamed, she felt scared.

We now have a greater understanding of her, she's older now too. If we can't prevent the escalation, we know to leave her alone and wait for the storm to pass before calmly re-engaging. There are still consequences (natural ones applied for the greatest impact behaviours) but they happen when we're not in the middle of it and her brain is back 'online'. Sometimes, if we catch her before she's escalated too much, we're able to co-regulate.

But I'll always feel ashamed that I lost control like that. I don't agree with smacking at all. Because I think once you resort to it, you've actually lost control of everything.

Why do you keep linking that to smacking though?

Yes, sometimes restraining is necessary for the child’s well being or the ones around them. Necessary being the operative word here.

If it was just picking up a child I’d agree I would be muddying the situation but I’m not talking about picking a child up. I’m talking about having to use substantial force to physically prevent that child indulging in unwanted behaviour.

When you are having to bear hug them, grab their limbs and hands and fingers he’s sorry it is muddy water. Because that water looks a lot like physical abuse to me, and while the intent might not be there I’m not sure that makes a lot of difference to the child.

Why? If parents can’t control their 2.5 children without smacking, because nothing else works, why should teachers be expected to control 30 of them without? It’s either an acceptable method of discipline or it isn’t.

No, any physical discipline should be the responsibility of the parent only. If it’s a method they choose to use.

Manhandling a tantrumming toddler isn't risk free but it's better than letting them get away with hurting others because you're scared to move them away from the situation.

You’re constantly trying to muddy the situation, physically picking your child up and removing them from a situation is not the same as hitting your child. No one is trying to make that comparison but you. Physically carrying a screaming toddler away from the situation and taking them home is not a violent solution.
Hitting your children is unacceptable, squeezing your children while carrying them “a little harder than necessary” as you or perhaps someone else mentioned is in the same vein as smacking, throwing your child to the ground after carrying them is again in the same vein as smacking.

No one is saying you cannot physically remove a child from a situation but no part of that needs to or should include physically striking them.

"in order for children to understand the rules of society, and to learn how to behave in a way that is moral, and that is good, we have to have boundaries, and boundaries have to be backed up."

Just factually wrong. Children aren not inherently immoral in their behaviour unless punished. Most humans are born with innate prosocial attitudes.

People who hit other people for no other reason than they are bigger than them always think they're reasonable.

Unconscionable fuckers.

It's assault. Should be banned.

You do neither: you do what I’m doing at the moment which is try to stay calm, accept you have no control over the situation and then turn to antidepressants to try to get through each day!

We had this conversation earlier in the thread. It takes one hell of a lot of physical force for very determined / angry children to remove them from something / somewhere and to keep them away.

Have you ever tried to get an angry cat into a container? It isn’t about size, it’s about will.

With both mine, it has involved / involves forcing hands / fingers off things, holding round the middle hard, grabbing limbs and squeezing.

It’s horrible. It feels horrible for both: they are fighting you, you’re fighting them. It’s easy for either party to be hurt accidentally.

I’ve been clear all the way through this thread that I think smacking is wrong. I also think manhandling a toddler in that way is best avoided in all but the most serious sort of scenarios (where there is actual risk of harm in other words.) I can’t really think of when that’s happened thankfully. Maybe when then 2 year old ds had a tantrum on a level crossing

The issue with smacking/tapping/slapping , always lightly of course but somehow still hard enough to cause a shock, is that it doesn’t always work either. So where do you go from there? Apply more force? Move from hand to bottoms? Bare bottoms? Bare legs? Use an implement?

At 3 you can pick your child up and remove them. Yes they aren't going to like it, especially if they are accustomed to doing what they like and you being powerless to parent them, but that is what you do. Dont listen first time? Up and away from the fun thing until your focus and attention is back on me. Immediately.

You do that a few times so they know you are serious. No matter where you are or what you're doing, the moment you stop listening we leave. Follow through. Actually take them right home. They need to see that you are serious and have the backbone to keep to your word or they'll just see you as weak and never respect you.

I think some people get too much validation from your kid liking you, and not enough validation from actually parenting that little person.

I think that’s just you. The idea that no methods of discipline work for under 3s other than smacking is insane. Even the idea that physically striking your child would make them understand their behaviour is unacceptable more than them being able to comprehend words at that age is totally illogical.
You struggle to parent your children, that’s on you.
I’ve happily gone through the 0-3 years with 2 kids and who are normal decent, well behaved children who have exhibited age appropriate boundary pushing at times and never once have I even considered lifting my hand at them, but then the events of the the week have shown us there violent people all around us who will happily use this against someone more vulnerable than them so it’s hardly surprising there are parents who still resort to smacking their children.

It's assault. I have more respect than to hit my child. I could never do that.

Firm voice makes no difference when my children are together @PotolKimchi They listen to one another, not me.

I would be interested in these immediate consequences. Because no one’s given any that work with an under 3 yet. It’s all been about removing from situations, which involves physical force and depending on your child quite a lot of it.

Some kids are pretty difficult.

I agree that children need a healthy respect for their parents and to either not want to displease them or a slight wariness.

DS in his twenties and I smacked his hand once and his bottom once and we have a really great relationship. We are incredibly close and he has never given us any real hassle.

DD is a teenager and has never been smacked, we are not weak parents with no boundaries in any sense but she certainly has a lack on intrinsic respect for us and even trust in us. We are working on this right now and things are getting better.

It may well just be down the personality, and I really thought our generation had it right with parenting compared to our parents. But now when I look at teens mental health, I am not so sure. I think knowing that your parents are head of the pack and have your back decreases anxiety.