To find it unsettling that mum's still threaten to smack childrens bums in public?

[kitya]

Ive just been to the nail parlour and this perfectly nice mum in her early twenties told her daughter that if she didnt sit still she would pull her knickers down and smack her bum. I thought that went out with the 70's? I didnt know where to look. She was telling me about starting uni and everything but, I couldnt concentrate and what she was saying after that.

This is not a matter of 'whatever works for your family'! The problem with smacking is that it is controlling through fear. Of course it will work, if you are scared of a more powerful person you will do what they want. That doesn't mean it is an effective form of discipline! Nor does it mean that if it works it is the right thing to do. Smacking is for people who don't have the intellegece to think of anything else. Some are lazy, most are just misguided. Either way, disgusting behaviour.

If your DC would be devastated if you smacked them god help them when something truly unpleasant happens to them.

Like what?

Children who have a strong attachment and are brought up without violence are more likely to have resilience in later life. I can't see how being yelled at or smacked by your parents is likely to help you with the trials of life.

so startail, what do you suggest? degrading and abusing children so that they can handle hardship?

if your child wouldn't be devistated if you smack them, god help them

OTH, children who come from abusive homes ( and I would not label all smacking abusive) will tend to find themselves in those kind of relationships again and again, at school and with partners.

amazed that a punishment from a parent would be incurred for spilling a drink

an early years worker could think this a demonstration of investigation, exploration, curiosity, an opportunity to hone motor skills and coordination too

No I don't think the odd smack will damage a child forever, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. I don't think you can label parents who have smacked occasionally at the end of their tether abusive.

Yes the act itself, in that moment was abusive. However I once smacked my ds but I was very remorseful afterwards. I had a newborn and was going through a hard time, I just slipped because I am human. I apologised and hugged him afterwards and I haven't done it since - that was two years ago. Will he be damaged by it? Despite all my other good parenting and the abundance of love he gets. I doubt it. He may remember it. If it bothers him, I will hold my hands up and say 'yes I mucked up on that occasion sorry'

I was abused as a child. No I wasn't beaten or even smacked regularly. However the emotional depravation and dysfunction was just as bad imo.

agreed addressbook, there is a difference between getting to the end of your tether and the firm belief that smacking is an acceptable form of discipline

Surely the former is worse though trinot? If you smack because you are angry and have got to the end of your tether, that is a bad reason to smack. If you smack because you have thought it through and you think that a smack will have the best disciplinary effect on your child with the least harm then that is a good reason to smack.

I believe that for some children smacking is less harmful than other forms of discipline such as time out or naughty step.

I am not saying it is a good reason to smack but if like addressbook you have done it, learned from it and moved on, i can understand it. I can not understand a decision that smacking is good or effective. Can you explain to me how a nuaghty step is more harmfull than smacking? You seem to have thought about it and i really don't get it...

Presuming that you only get angry enough to smack once or twice your child would probably get smacked a lot less than someone who had a policy of smacking. My cousin smacked her child for whining - you could smack a child several times a day for that.

Are any of you :
a) Running parenting courses, that I can attend.
b) Prepared to take my 7 yr old and 3 yr old for a couple of months.

Just wondering. I wonder whether you actually have naughty children, or/and have the patience of a saint. I don't smack my children. It doesn't work. But then neither does anything else. I have tried: ignoring, having family meetings, talking about it, not talking about it, talking about emotions and what makes us cross, naughty step, sending to room, not sending to a party, no tv, no this, no thta. I've tried talking, encouraging, praising. I've been on 3 different parenting courses and they told me not to bother coming anymore, becasue I was and have always done all their suggestions.

I do think kids are unruly these days. I never would have spoken to a teacher or a policeman the way kids do these days. Now they have this 'you can't touch me attitude', where they know the policeman is powerless, the asbo won't be applied, becasue no one has the money or resurces to implement it.
And I am NOT suggesting that smacking is the answer.
OR that non smacking has resulted in this rioting generation. Thats NOT what I am saying, but if you can't see that we have a problem here, then the issue is deeper than I thought.

Sorry not to get back. Have been in ai meeting all morning. These situations were at the beach, As I said it is reserved for unaceptable behaviour, that he has been told to stop (usually hurting or massively inconviencing others). Ds does not want to please me in these situations, he enjoys being naughty and testing boundaries.

Oblomov - I think you raise a good point. I think parenting is bloody hard and sometimes you have to be creative and keep changing your methods. I find one method will work and then it stops working, so I have to think of something else.

But I do think this is a wider cultural issue. Our society has developed and is structured to meet particular materialistic, consumerist and cultural expectations. Unfortunately the way we function isn't always child friendly.

We merit individualism, but the pay off is mothers (sometimes fathers) at home long hours with small children and babies and no support. We don't value child care enough, we don't value children enough. I really believe that.

But I just can't see how hitting a child is morally right. My ds hit me once and of course I told him off. I said 'we don't hit each other in this house. It is okay to be angry with someone, to be really frustrated with someone. But you can express that in appropiate ways. Not hitting out'

Now what a hypocrite I would be if I hit him because I was angry with him. What would that teach him?

To decide it is a form of discipline and use it often and calmly is just as bad. It is very conditional and enforces cooperation through fear basically

Have any of you read Alice Miller? She provides a very good argument for why consistent spanking and beatings in childhood causes emotional problems in adulthood.

I think role modelling is important. Too many now, expect their children to fulfill their own unmet needs. They want their children to compete, to get the best grades, to be good at sport etc.

Children learn to respect others and to find a more spirtual meaning to life through example. Discipline is important yes, but so is unconditional love and showing that there is more to life than being the biggest, the best and having more.

I too have done and run parenting courses. Time out can work only really at home ( usually for rudeness/shouting after a warning. Withdrawal of priviledges works for non complince (stacking dishwasher, tidying room etc). But when he is repeatedly doing something realy naughty, those methods are ineffective imo

tryingtoleave

I only know that when I was a child, I found it much, much more upsetting to be sat on the naughty step (or stood in the corner or sent out of the room) than I did to be smacked. When I was smacked, it was over in the blink of an eye, it stung but it didn't hurt me emotionally iyswim. It made me understand I'd overstepped the boundaries but it was all over in seconds. Any of the naughty-step type discipline methods lasted a lot longer (by definition) and upset me far more. I don't know why exactly, maybe I felt ignored or rejected, or didn't see the connection with what I'd done wrong, who knows.

My point is, children are different and different methods of discipline will affect them differently.

whoops sorry that should be to trinot not tryingtoleave

I think you are right, Oblomov, that standards of behaviour, or at least respect have been lowered. I was shocked by a school counsellor telling me how she was the only member of staff that the students didn't swear at. I had always been anti-private school before that, but that made me want to send my dcs to a school, like those I went to, where it would have been totally unheard of for a child to swear at a teacher.

What are your dc's behaviours that you want to change? I don't think that I am particularly patient, but I think mess and silliness don't bother me quite as much as other people. Angst and fussing and everyone wanting my attention at once, however, makes me very stressed.

peanutgallery ds2 is the same, it's always upset him far more to be removed from a room/placed on naughty step than having a tap on his bum

The whole smacking is controlling through fear thing is rubbish, what do you think making a child sit on a step or sending them to their room is? My mum used to send me to my room and It realy upset me

If you think your child is never devastated by being sent to naughty step/room you are probably wrong

Can't think of any parenting method that doesn't use control through fear to some extent

When I said devastated, I meant they would be partly because it would be so foreign to them. And I think it is good that the use of violence would be a shock to them- I don't want it to be normal. And you are right, my dd would be very upset if I put her in her room, so I wouldn't do it unless she was really being impossible. Again, because she understands, the threat is generally enough. I usually only have to say 1,2 to her and she stops.

I have seen a very young, hysterical child made to stand in time out at soft play and I thought that was cruel. I am not a fan of time out, especially for under threes.

The problem with these "discipline" threads is that they only cover the discipline element of being a parent. In my view, discipline is a very important part of being a parent but maybe only 5% of it. And, effective discipline depends very much on so many other factors. Discipline alone will achieve very little without having built up a relationship based on trust and doing nice things together (for want of a better phrase). Textbook discipline will achieve absolutely zero if you never go for a walk together, have a good routine, read together etc etc.

On these threads people make enormous judgments about what kind of a parent a poster is based purely on whether they smack, give time outs, or decide to do without discipline altogether.

I just cannot understand how people who know a variety of children and parents can get so excited about this one thing. I am sure we all know great parents who smack or never smack and terrible parents who use all sorts of discipline methods. That, anyway, is my experience.

En passant, for the poster who said that the only parents who smack lack the intelligence to use other forms of discipline, it is funny that most of my friends with whom I went to Cambridge use smacking for discipline. We are clearly not the most stupid or thoughtless in society (as a group) and I suspect it is somewhat unlikely that our children are going to be violent in the future. I think smacking does polarise to both ends. Those who think about things and don't just follow the current flavour of the month are unafraid to smack. Equally, those who are too lazy to be a decent parent may also use smacking. The difference is what they do with their children the 95% of the time they are not being disciplined.