Parents- what’s your background and what’s your honest opinion on smacking?

[Smidgey7]

I am completely against smacking. I grew up getting the occasional smack, my own mother still stands over smacking us although would never dare smack her grandchildren.
while I am totally against smacking and have and would never, I have certainly been in situations with my own children where I have been extremely frustrated or where they have done something unsafe and I can see how people would feel like that’s what they should do.
work as a social worker and have seen many children who have been abused with the excuse of it being a ‘smack’ and for discipline reasons. I am that person who would say something if I seen a child getting smacked in public or if someone I knew said they smacked their child.

To add, don't get me wrong, I've lost my shit at my kids but I would never smack them.

I was smacked as a child and don't smack my children even though I feel like it in the heat of the moment.

I remember waiting for my dad to come home from work to smack us for something we had done during the day and mum wouldn't smack us because dad did it harder.
Sometimes we would get the slipper and the belt. This was in the 90s and it was normal in our house.
I was punched in the face by dad at age 11 so 1996, and then age 16 i was given a clip around the ear which perforated my eardrum. I left home age 17.

I think because smacking was normal, it didn't take much for my parents to try and normalise harder physical abuse.

I smacked one of my boys when they were toddlers (twins) and I felt awful afterwards. I did it in anger. It should never have got that far.

I still feel awful about it, over a decade later. I wish it had never happened.

I do not condone smacking of any variety. I do not condone my own behaviour.

God, that is horrific. I know it happened to lots of children, but it’s so awful. No excuse for physically abusing your children, even if you’ve now framed it as “learning to think about the consequences of certain behaviour”.

It’s all just so damaging.

1. one parent making children fear the other parent
2. such a delay between “behaviour” and “consequence” that it makes no sense anyway
3. making the next generation feel that physical discipline is acceptable

Presumably people don’t go into work and slap their colleagues on the back of the legs etc when they’re not listening? There is no difference to slapping your children, apart from the fact that one group is made up of small, vulnerable people that rely on you for comfort and safety.

I was smacked by my abusive father. It was one in a long list of things he did to show me I wasn't loved and wasn't the favourite daughter.

I have never and would never smack my children. Partly because of what I was put through and partly because I'm just not a bad person and I wouldn't abuse my children.

Smacking absolutely should be banned.

My smacking was both the controlled spank but also the out of control hitting.

Neither was helpful and both damaged me. What's worse, your parent consciously and knowingly choosing to cause you pain as a punishment or your parent losing their shit at you and hurting you.

Neither is great and causes lasting damage.

I was smacked and still feel really angry about it.

while I am totally against smacking and have and would never, I have certainly been in situations with my own children where I have been extremely frustrated or where they have done something unsafe and I can see how people would feel like that’s what they should do.

I think because I was smacked, and not just once or twice, it is always in the back of my mind when my DC are being really difficult. I would never do it but it’s there in my head a lot. What I hope for my own DC, who at this point are completely unaware of what smacking is as far as I know, is that because they’ve never experienced it or had it threatened at them, that when they are parents it’s not something that ever occurs to them.

I was smacked. I parent my child, not smack her. I consider them mutually exclusive and opposite things.

I used to smack my kids. I realise now that it was my own lack of control that ended up with them being smacked. I was smacked when i was younger not often though. It would never enter my head to smack my grandkids. If i could go back to my younger self i would tell her that nothing is bad enough to cause you to smack your kids, and to chill out and not sweat the small stuff because your kids will turn out fantastic.

I was smacked (and subjected to cruel punishments).

I would never, ever, ever smack my daughter. It's barbaric, cruel, and sends the message that violence is appropriate/that those with power over others can use any means necessary to force their way.

Do you believe you turned out how you are because of being smacked? Genuine question as I hear this quite often but on the other hand, many people have turned out the same who weren’t smacked.

in my view, you don’t gain respect for an elder by being smacked - not genuine respect. The respect is ingrained through fear of being hit.

Smacking I’ve only seem done a couple of times, by very chavvy families, usually the sort of people you see screaming at their kid 👀

I do think though that many parents have gone too far in the other direction, and when their child does something nasty eg hitting/snatching, they just roll their eyes and say “oh dear that’s not very nice is it” or worse talk about their child’s feelings. I’m a big believer in making a child instantly regret their bad behaviour eg with screentime ban. But that’s another topic.

My parents never raised their hands to me or my siblings, they barely raised their voices to us either.
I've never smacked my children and they've never smacked theirs.
My husband has the same view as me, I couldn't be married to him if he raised his hands to the children.
Imagine the outrage if a man slapped his wife because she didn't eat all her dinner?
Physical violence against anyone, regardless of age, sex or relationship is wrong, very wrong.
My question to anyone who hits their children is, why are you incapable of controlling yourself?

Depends on the child. I think smacking is more acceptable at younger ages in ‘life and death’ situations before language has developed. I was lucky in that DS followed me and started speaking very early (first word at 3 mths, full conversations by 9 mths) but even then I still had to shout loudly to make myself heard when he tried to run off / touch the oven etc despite my teaching him why he shouldn’t. With DN my Sil didn’t say a word she just smacked his hand or bum when he did something he shouldn’t have & explained why.

They are the same age & I think their learning / development / anxieties are similar. My DS is just as scared of my ‘loud voice’ as DN is of being smacked. So there isn’t a right way to discipline & we need to take decisions that work for us at any given moment.

How the hell does smacking a child teach them not to do something? Of course it doesn't!

Lots more types of abuse than physical. Did you shout at them or make them walk off their anger? - Verbal abuse. Blackmail / emotionally manipulate them? Emotional abuse. Block access to pocket money? Financial abuse. Kids will find a way to twist everything as they become older because they remember being disciplined more than loving moments. As parents we need to develop disciplinary strategies that suit us & provided we don’t hurt our kids or go overboard it should be ok.

I can relate. I smacked my eldest once as he was being very difficult but I felt so awful about it (even though it wasn’t anything very hard, I’m quite a weakling at the best of times) but it just felt so wrong so never again. That was twenty years ago and I still feel guilt over it!

Exactly this.

Yes, their dirty little secret. I would lose all respect for someone, even a friend, if I knew they smacked their children.

I'm 100% opposed to smacking. My background is degree and post-grad in nursing and education, attended NCT classes, breastfed all three children, all children also degree educated.

It's odd because I'm 45+ now so grew up when it was an acceptable and common way to discipline. I got several "good hidings ", as they were called by my dad. I adore him though and it's not affected my relationship was him at all.

However the thought of deliberately hurting my daughter just to teach her a lesson makes me feel sick, almost physically.

That's cognitive dissonance for you

Having spent my teen years being dragged by my hair, smacked around the back of my head, smacked in the face, being grabbed by my face and shoved against wall whilst being screamed me, having things in my bedroom smashed up, having to sit with my back against my bedroom door with my legs against the foot of my bed whilst said parent screamed, kicked, hit the door trying to get at me (and on several occasions, grabbed a baseball bat to try and smash the door in), which would all be followed by my mother snot crying/sobbing/wailing at what a horrible child I was and why did I make her do these things, it should be fairly obvious that I abhor any form of violence against children.

When she was like this, she would either be drunk, or not have any money for booze.

My crimes ranged from

• spending too much time in my bedroom
• reading too much
• not talking enough
• talking too much
• rubbing my intelligence in her face (basically, every school report or parents evenings would result in me being attacked)
• not being clever enough

etc

Your first paragraph ... very much my experience. I wonder what went through my mums head from the sentence being issued to the snack happening a few hours later. Me getting more scared and anxious but I wonder what she was thinking in that time knowing what was to come.

Again I find it hard to judge my parents generation as it was the way it was done but o honestly can't think of anything DD could do that would justify me deliberately inflicting pain on her.

No, we never shouted at them or deprived them of anything as punishment.
What we did do though, is talk to them about what they had done and why it was wrong.
Shouting isn't necessary unless it's to warn of a danger.

Grew up in 60s and was smacked, as were siblings, occasionally . When we were quite young as a quick warning that behaviour was dangerous ( eg playing with sockets, too close to open fires, refusing to hold hands to cross road). As we got older punishment was more like going to rooms, fines of pocket money etc.
at school corporal punishment was norm- boys and girls with slipper etc. metted out in heads or deputies office. But low level physical intervention was done all the time - teacher throwing board rubber or chalk at kids who weren’t shutting up. It was normal.
I don’t consider myself traumatised from it. It never hurt. It was always the short, sharp shock factor that made you stop immediately what you were doing - no debate. Yes it does make most kids have a degree of fear about being willfully naughty or breaking school rules , but there again classroom behaviour benefitted from it.

i had my kids in early 90s. Attitudes hadn’t changed that much, in homes, by then despite law change in schools from 1986. I did “ smack” my toddlers a few times ( it WAS very light tap on hand) when they were either about to do something dangerous or hurt another person. Again a shock factor not designed to cause physical pain. So, yes in “heat of moment” but not because I was angry, more because they frightened me or someone else with the danger. At that age I still think a small toddler don’t always get the verbal reasoning ( does a 12 month old understand that biting or scratching hurts ?) let alone a naughty step concept to contemplate their misdemeanours. By time second DS was same age I think I smacked him once . By time a child gets to 2ish they certainly can be reasoned with and alternative punishments are much more effective. I didn’t smack ever again.

I also got much much better at anticipating danger and mitigating - child safety locks, reins when out and about once toddling, etc etc

times Have moved on - I wouldn’t smack a child now…but there again I don’t know how I would deal effectively with a biting scratching toddler inflicting pain on every child they meet. Saying no or removing them doesn’t seem to be effective in making the connection between what they were doing and it’s impact.