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Original poster

Smacking Children

46 replies

14NG88 · 08/06/2019 20:49

Before I start by smacking I obviously mean a light smack on hand or bottom not anything that will cause any real pain.

Inlaws have horrendously behaved 2 and 4 year olds who've caused carnage whilst staying at ours all weekend. Inlaws have been using "the naughty step" which predictably (to me anyway) had no effect. I always raised ours with 3 strikes 1. a firm warning 2. shouting 3. a smack.

Inlaws were shocked when I told them this . I'm sure this was fairly normal when I was a child have attitudes changed ?

OP posts:

bobbypinseverywhere · 08/06/2019 22:01

will anyone else actually admit to thinking that when appropriately used its not the end of the world? i now is very un-MN but it really isn't that terrible? i was smacked as a child regularly and am completely fine.

RiddleyW · 08/06/2019 22:03

i was smacked as a child regularly and am completely fine.

Other than thinking hitting people is ok.

Anothertempusername · 08/06/2019 22:05

Inlaws were shocked when I told them this . I'm sure this was fairly normal when I was a child have attitudes changed ?

Yes attitudes have changed. You are wrong to smack. Stop smacking. It's abusive and properly shit parenting.

HTH

freshstartnewme · 08/06/2019 22:06

was smacked as a child regularly and am completely fine.

Are you? You just said you think it's appropriate to hit a child 🤷🏻‍♀️

saraclara · 08/06/2019 22:08

I can't believe that anyone is so insular to not be aware that things have changed. Discussing making smacking illegal has been on the news many many times, for instance.

OP is either a troll, or someone who's been living in a basement with no TV or newspapers for a decade or three.

MauisHouseOnMaui · 08/06/2019 22:09

I was smacked as a child and while I love my parents I do resent them for it and I hate that they made me feel so sad, scared, and hurt both emotionally and physically. While I have lots of lovely childhood memories I also have some decidedly unlovely memories such as sobbing in bed because I'd been smacked and feeling utterly unloved and unwanted because of it.

Whoseagooddoggiethen · 08/06/2019 22:10

Smacking is illegal in Ireland. Should be everywhere. Violence breeds violence, is NEVER ok and smacking is abuse.

MauisHouseOnMaui · 08/06/2019 22:11

Now smacking is unheard of and I regularly hear kids as young as 7 or 8 telling their parents to fuck off or in one instance 'fucking make me stop. Useless cunt" from a boy who couldn't have been older than 12. I'd have been knocked into next week for speaking to anyone like that.

Children speaking like that are more than likely mirroring language and behaviours they've seen at home, they're also more likely to be from the sort of home where a swift smack across the back of the head is still dished out.

Clusterfukt · 08/06/2019 22:11

Smacking is such a shit thing to do to a child. Adults do it because they know the child is utterly defenceless bloody cowardly and just shit.

Aragog · 08/06/2019 22:19

I'm mid 40s and was never hot as a child.
I did know friends who were.

I have an older teen now and never hit her. Couldn't ever have dreamt of doing so. Its just not in my nature, and dh is the same.
I don't know anyone who hits their children these days.

Infact I think of close family and friends I've only known of 2 who did int heaps, and they only did it once and never since as felt so bad afterwards - and that's a good 10+ years ago.

I work in an infant school. If children tell me they've been hit at home I have to record it on our safeguarding database.

Chuffingchuff · 08/06/2019 22:23

Have never and would never smack my children.

Aragog · 08/06/2019 22:24

I regularly hear kids as young as 7 or 8 telling their parents to fuck off

Really?

I work in a very varied type of infant school with a very mixed catchment. I have met an awful lot of 7 year olds, with 90 in each year group, over the past several years. In all that time I have heard approx 2 or 3 children say those words to their parent, same children said it to staff too. They heard that language at home and were mirroring it - it was the way their parents spoke to them. Mind, they were also two children who were know were hit by the parents too.

slipperywhensparticus · 11/06/2019 13:39

Still here? Ok as you were.....

Gilead · 11/06/2019 13:45

I'd have been knocked into next week for speaking to anyone like that.
I think you'll find that's called assault.

justanswerthephone · 11/06/2019 13:46

What was the point in bumping this?

ClaraMatilda · 11/06/2019 13:54

A lot of kids now would benefit greatly from a slapped arse.

I can think of a few rude and nasty adults who might 'benefit greatly' from a good slap, but I'm not allowed to give them one. Funny, that.

My parents smacked me. I wasn't traumatised by it but I did find frightening and humiliating (especially when it was my arse, because I had a strong sense of certain body parts being 'rude' or private from a very young age). I'd never smack a child. I agree that future generations will look at it as completely unacceptable - the way people today see the idea of teachers caning schoolchildren.

DameSquashalot · 11/06/2019 13:59

MauisHouseOnMaui

This is exactly how I feel. It didn't make me think 'I've done something wrong, I won't do it again'

Damntheman · 11/06/2019 14:11

Smacking is illegal in Norway and I'm glad for it. I would never hit my children. When they're doing something wrong I don't want them to be in pain and afraid, I want them to understand why it was wrong. I don't want their automatic responses to things to be violence, it's an awful way to teach a child. I would judge anyone I saw doing it - if not report them to SS because it's illegal. Grief.

NewDOOFUSfor19 · 11/06/2019 14:20

Someone's feeling brave.
Fwiw...I was smacked as a child, a lot of the time it spilled over into massively OTT beatings as such and I promised myself that if I had DC I would never want them to feel the dread, terror and utter hatred I feel for my parents. Just because it happened to you does not make it ok.
Not once have I ever laid a hand on my ds, I have found other ways that do not involve physically hurting a person less than half my size. My mother also knows that if she ever so much as raised a hand to my son I would knock her fucking block off (she has smacked my nephew across his face, cannot fathom why nothing was done about this by dsis ) She is also not allowed to be alone with ds, due to her past behaviour.

bananasonfire · 11/06/2019 14:24

Not coming back then op?
trololololol

jellycatspyjamas · 11/06/2019 14:56

It obviously didn't work anyway or you wouldn't have had to use it more than once.

I don’t agree with smacking, but this is nonsense. Children push boundaries, it’s part of healthy development, they often need repeated reminding about behaviour. Repeat behaviour is not evidence for or against a discipline process.

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