Parenting Professor says that she supports smacking children

You have a two year old. How old is her brother? You are in the trenches and it is very hard but the hard work now will pay off later.

How about tomorrow you have a duvet day watching cartoons with them and just enjoying their company without any pressure. Eat what they want to eat and don't put any pressure on yourself. It's OK to find preschoolers exhausting.

No, but the point is that restraint is very different to hitting. Hence it is acceptable in care facilities when hitting never is. It is disgusting to think anyone would hit an elderly demented person and it is equally disgusting to hit a child. Anyone that hits a child should be ashamed.

And in the meantime it is within the law so those of us who choose to parent this way will continue to discipline our own children as we see fit.

You would think parents shouldn’t have to be taught to not hit their own small vulnerable children.

Do you cause physical discomfort to other adults or is it just something you do to children?

Honestly you’re just on the wrong side of history mate, at no point will society look back and think “god remember that period of time when we made child abuse illegal, outlawed corporal punishment and hitting your children became socially unacceptable, what a mistake that is was thank god we brought back the cane!”
It just will not happen, it’s honestly crazy that you think people being against causing physical violence to children is a “bizarre overreaction”.

If your child continues to do something when telling, persuading and reprimanding have failed, of course it’s appropriate to stop them from doing it with physical force - not attacking or hurting them, just stopping them with the extra strength you have as an adult. Surely you’ve done this when your children were toddlers…

I’m thankful that I’ve rarely if ever had to do this with my own children once they were older than toddlers, but am not so naive as to think that’s never necessary for all children.

Parents aren’t taught that though.

People working with vulnerable children & adults are taught safe restraint techniques. They are never taught how to hit them effectively. Yes you may have to restrain a child sometimes but that isn’t a green light to also hit them.

Oh you can remain calm (superficially anyway.) But if they are beside themselves with fury and you have to remove them from a situation then quite some physical force is needed. One hell of a lot in my case.

I feel like I am repeating an entire page worth of dialogue, which is a bit frustrating.

someone said that a smack was mimimising. I replied that to me a smack is open palm and a hit is a closed fist. Then hopefully you know the rest. I don’t condone either.

Mine are teens but I've not forgotten how horrendous toddlers can be when you're exhausted from lack of sleep. The first few years of parenting is absolutely the worst because of how relentless it is. Anticipating and preventing conflict works best. But it is perfectly possible to remain calm while a smaller weaker person has a tantrum. I've been bitten and hit by toddlers plenty but even as a short woman I'm bigger and stronger and could restrain them when absolutely necessary for safety. And I've never not been able to get them into their carseat, even my third who was the one most likely to fight and fight and fight. Quickly tickling under the arm worked sometimes to momentarily stop the back arching so it could be tightened. But I'm an adult and had way more resilence than even the angriest toddler. They can only tantrum for so long if they are getting no response. And if you are consistent and boring about red lines they do eventually realise the route of least resistence is to do what they are told. You might struggle with that (lots of parents do) but it's the main thing that works.

A few posters on this thread could do with one too! 😜

And many posters on MN seem determine to conflate a thrashing with a mild tap. This absolute zero tolerance for causing even the mildest physical discomfort will be seen as a bizarre overreaction in decades to come.

Well that’s an incredibly sad situation for your children and you.

Yes. If they didn't do thimgs I know they are capable of. That's how you set expectations

Still no one said a punch was a smack either, not sure what your point was then or now.

Yes, I agree, but what to do about it? The techniques suggested don’t work, frequently make the situation worse, and I think a fairly substantial part of me has given up.

Yes, it was a typo, apologies. It should have read ‘I wouldn’t describe a punch as a smack.’

So if someone punched me in the face, I wouldn’t ever describe that as ‘someone has just smacked me in the eye.’

That hardly means I’m condoning either, just a conversation relating to the language.

If your children turn out to be bad people, unruly, not nice, and you don’t like them then it’s almost certainly bad parenting.

No I didn’t. I said punch. Maybe it was a typo, I’ll go and check. I certainly meant punch.

Nor did anyone else, but you are the one who brought up whether a pinch was a smack.

I disagree with that last bit.

I don’t think I am a bad parent (well, I think I am now actually as I’m so worn down I have no real impetus to try to address it and I’ve gone for a sort of numb disassociation, but this is recent-ish.)

I was a good parent. I read books on parenting; I was firm but loving.

My children are still unruly and if I am very honest, unpleasant. I am kind of at the stage where I don’t like them much and I think the feeling is mutual.

There, I said it,

I don’t believe I said that it was.

A person who hits their children is a bad parent, a hill I will die on.
If you lose control, get so angry you nip, pinch, squeeze or hit your children then you’re a bad parent, if your children are so ‘unruly’ due to your parenting that you feel the only solution is to hit them, you’re a bad parent.

@AmberTigerEyes coming to sn end? She’d shoved her brother off the climbing frame. Calmly explaining is no use if no one can hear over screams.

Advice like this may be well meaning; I don’t know, but it really doesn’t begin to understand what many parents go though with toddlers.