To be shocked at how many mners seem to condone smacking

[Cat98]

I am not talking about people who have smacked in anger and post saying "oh no, I lost it and smacked my DC" - everyone makes mistakes and no-one is perfect! I am talking about those who use smacking as a considered, pre meditated form of punishment/discipline. I know this was discussed a lot on another thread a few days ago, and I was pretty much told "each to their own" - but I am genuinely surprised that it seems to be a popular method here?

I was smacked as a child.

I turned out just fine...but it put a distance between my parents and I.

I know it didn't stop me from misbehaving so whatever their intent, it didn't really work. I knew if I misbehaved, the worst thing that would happen to me was to get smacked.

BUT I resent my parents for doing it because it went beyond smacking, more like thrashing. The environment in which I grew up condoned it, and I guess they didn't know any better. It added to the lists of things I vowed I would never do to my child.

Do I smack my child? I did it once or twice and I felt really really really terrible.

Does it work as a form of discipline? It didn't, for me.

Gemsy83 Tue 03-May-11 21:46:59

I cannot always thats why I said I smacked fgs!

So you fail in a positive parenting technique and so resort to violence.

Mamazon, amazingly all of my four children have survived childhood so far without being run over or electrocuted, and all without ever being hit, amazing!

All too have a healthy dislike of violence and know it is wrong. Something I could not have taught them if I had hit them myself - because that would be very confusing. You mustn't hit people, but I can hit you, because I am bigger than you.

Gemsy, I am genuinely so sad for your children that you don't think they deserve the same respect as adults. You are teaching them only that it is ok to hit someone to get them to do what you want, and that it is ok for bigger people to hit smaller people. Did you bother to read the link I posted on the report into children's attitudes to smacking?

No, Gemsy, you are in the wrong.

You think it is OK to hit children. You are in the wrong.

I am not stamping my feet or using emotive terminology.

Hitting children is wrong.

You are in the wrong. I think deep down you must know this. No humane person could genuinely believe that hitting a child is OK.

If you want to call it violence that's your perception. She got a smack on her bottom a few times not a spinning bird kick fgs.

And Gemsy, did you bother to read that link I posted? Here's another one on children's views on smacking. Yes, from 1998. But I can't imagine that children's views on being hit have changed a great deal in just over a decade.

www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/research/children/uk.html

Like I said earlier Glitter- my DD thinks its the end of the world when I tell her no we are not walking that way we are walking this way- no you are not getting another pair of shoes- no you cannot wear shorts when there is a blizzard outside.

It is a very different topic smacking a child in growing up and Punching or hitting a grownup over a fall out ???????? whats that about lol

Umm glitter I said (fairly recently) that I don't do either talking to or smacking my child. He's a baby so therefore can't do any sort of bad behaviour. So I treat him in the same way as in which I would do a demented patient.

But I think people have stressed time and time again that when they smack it has been rare, isolated occasions - not a first resort to a small infringement. I don't think anyone here is saying that they only smack their children, but that it is one of the things they do if talking to has failed/isn't appropriate.

It is violence, Gemsy, it is not a question of perception. Raising your hand to someone with the intent to inflict pain to teach them discipline is a violent action. I echo osama, I feel for your poor kids.

FAO smacking parents on this thread - the reason that the non smackers are getting so het up about this, is that they care about children, your children, and their right to be brought up without violence/being tapped/whatever you want to bloody call it.

Gemsy83

Your opinion only.

blimey is this still going, gemsy hun you are fighting a losing battle in regards to these people doing anything other than brow beating you and ganging up on you and bullying you and harassing you and well generally abusing you until either you or they get bored and since they dont seem to have much else to do i am guessing it will be you.

sorry but my children are not my equal. They are my children. Their brain is still a long way from developing its full cognitive ability, and they have very little life experience on which to base their decisions. This is the reason why my daughter came downstairs yesterday in her bikini and threw a screaming wobbler because I wouldnt get the paddling pool out. She has yet to experience the joys of a cold paddling pool on a breezy spring day in the UK, so chose unwisely. I didnt smack her btw, even when she called me a rude name and threw a toy on the floor in temper. I asked her to calm down and apologise for being rude, and when she continued to paddy, I sent her to her room as at that time unlike the other day in the supermarket, I had the luxury of the facilities for a timeout, and there wasnt imminent danger or someone being seriously injured.

But springbok, people talk as if smacking is an acceptable last resort, or something it's ok to do if you lose your temper, and it isn't.

If I lose my temper with my husband, is it OK for me to hit him? If I ask him to put up a shelf repeatedly, and he doesn't do it, is it OK for me to hit him?

Why should it be any different for a child, who is smaller and weaker than me, and will feel frightened and injured by me hitting them, far more than my husband would?

What a suprise......I come back and the OP got what she wanted, a massive slanging match.

First posters pointed out that some do, some dont, and people rarely change their minds.

17 pages later, and we seem to have reached that same conclusion. Again.

I havent read the whole thread, but the only thing I will say to one post that smacked women have abusive partners, not so. I was hit as child and no man would ever dare hit me, If he did it would be the last thing he ever did.

rachie2011

What is the difference?

And those of you saying it's just happened once or twice when you have lost it - do you not then regret it, and wish that you had dealt with that situation in a non violent way?!?!

Cannydoit, if anyone's a bully on here, it's the people who think it's ok to hit their kids.

Sickof, your children should be your equals in terms of the respect you afford them. They deserve the same respect as adults. And the life experience you are giving them, is that it's ok to assault people when you are angry, or when they don't do what you want.

The thing is I am totally understanding and sympathetic to those who say "i have smacked once or twice. I felt awful afterards"

But for people to defend the action, to actaully advocate its use...
I can't get my head round that.

Gemsy, all it says about me is that I think hitting children is wrong.