to wonder how many people on here use physical discipline ..

[havinhoops1974]

compared to past generations??

I was thinking you hear so may of the older generation talking openly about using physical discipline on their kids compared to now where I almost hear people whispering it, but at the same time giving the old 'it doesnt do them any harm'

personallyn I dont advocate it , should always be a last resort, however I wont cricify someone who has slapped wrists etc at their wits end.

What are the views of MN???

it is interesting you say that getorf, i always try to come at these threads in the least emotional way possible because i know that people find it a very emotive subject and to say that you do smack you children will get people riled up and if i get emotional about it it will end in a bun fight.
but i view it quite simply, in many ways we will cause our children pain when i tell my children off (grounding my 11yr old caused her to cry her heart out for 30mins which nearly broke mine) or take them to the dentist or to get jabs etc they will cry, but its best for them because its my job as a mother to not only love them and look after them but to raise them to be well behaved and learn my rules.
many will not agree with this and will cry out against my use of thing like jabs which is for saving them from illness but not everything we do for our children is pleasant, punishing them in any form is part of that but it is in their best interests.

"Smacking" is hitting. Call it what it is. Hitting someone smaller and less powerful than yourself is bullying. You are doing it because you can.

Would you like someone older and bigger than you to hit you because you did something they didn't like/annoyed them? What would that teach you?

spookshowangellovesit Tue 04-Oct-11 09:48:32
"cory i think you have misunderstood my post."

Have I? I am sorry. I took it to mean that parents think smacking is the only form of punishment available so if you do not smack you cannot punish at all. But I see that it could be taken in another way- I beg your pardon.

yeah cory i was imply that people think that parents that smack their children only use that as punishment and nothing else but i can see how it reads the way you thought it did.

Agree with Cory, Getorf and Showy.

Monkey see, monkey do. You hit your kids, you're teaching them violence is acceptable.

spookshow, life at any age has the potential to cause us pain or unhappiness. And if you've made the wrong choice or misbehaved, the natural consequence to it is to feel upset and unhappy. It's not a bad lesson to learn, it's about learning about the natural order of things and understanding how to navigate our way through situations. You do have a job/obligation to 'raise them to be well behaved and learn [your] rules' but what you're demonstrating is that one of your rules is that it's okay to physically hurt another human being.

We have known for years that the vast majority of what a child learns from us is achieved through mirroring. Monkey see, monkey do. You do not have even a remote right to preach 'do not hit' to your child if you do it yourself.

x-posts. Monkey see, monkey do indeed.

Of course one sometimes has to inflict pain/sadness in a child's interest, spooks, but as someone who hasn't really come across smacking until I was an adult myself this particular form of "acting in the child's best interests seems so unnecessary. If it is so essential, how come we coped without it?

To my certain knowledge, noone in my family has been smacked since the 19th century- but not a single one of them has grown up into a criminal lout either. And fwiw the adults around me did not indulge in emotional abuse or withdrawing of love either.

Was it Billy Connolly who took the mickey out of the 'it's the only language they understand' argument for smacking? Suggested that if a French person visited the UK on holiday we could employ the same tactic.

"er... excusez-moi... er... do you 'ave... er je voudrais... er... 'ow do you say?.... uh... pain et fromage?"

That'll learn 'em.

spooks i don't know if you could use injections as a comparison really. There is no viable alternative for preventing diphtheria or whatever, I am sure if there was a tablet available which would innoculate equally, we would all use that rather than go through the hell of having small children injected.

You have already used an alernative punishment - grounding your daughter. I suppose you could have beaten her for whatever transgression she did, but you didn't. She cried out of disappointment, annoyance and being upset that she couldn't go out (and possibly hoping that you would hear her cry and relent ) - it is far better than her crying in fear, pain, humiliation and deep distress which possible would have happened if you had hit her.

< trying again to have a thread that's different from essentially identical smacking debates >

Physical discipline isn't only smacking.

Restraining a child is also physical, as is picking them up to remove them from a difficult situation, as is lifting them up to put them in the time out zone, as is restricting their freedom to move by requiring them to stay in time out.

If you do any of those, you are also using physical punishment.

Cory - whwre did you grow up if you don't mind my asking - was it a Scandinavian country?

Children are different, just like adults are different. Yes, maybe some children won't suffer at all if you hit them. But some will. Some of them will end up terrified and scared of you and screwed up. Is it worth risking, because you think it couldn't be your kids? Or because you think it's only maybe 1 in 10, or 1 in 20, who'll react that way?

hahaha well i am afraid i do believe i have the right to preach to my child do as i say, not as i do. as parents we do it all the time, dont smoke its bad for you, dont drink to much, dont swear. parents constantly tell their children not to do things that they themselves do.
but you are right i do tell my children not to hit people as it is wrong (the irony is not lost on me) and they dont as i do believe my children to be some what more intelligent than monkeys.

I don't do any of those things meditrina.

And I don't think restraining a child is by definition, punishment either. One of my nieces has aspergers and one is severely autistic. They have to be restrained to prevent injury to themselves and to others. It's not punishment, it's utterly necessary and it helps them. But different situation entirely to a nt child, I know.

I'm very on the fence with this whole issue. I haven't smacked either of my children in a long long time and I am the first to admit that there are other methods of discipline that work. They require a bucket load of patience and require a parent to be very very stubborn and not give in, they require calm, they require clarity and a strategy and consistency. My children are not angels by any means however, since I starting working on my own strategy, looking at outcomes, what I wanted from a punishment, how to achieve it etc., our house has been a much calmer one, and my own headspace has been a lot clearer.

I will not write off smacking completely though. When my eldest was younnger, he was becoming quite 'fisty' with other children, when he wanted something he took it, and after months of gently gently discipline I smacked him hard enough to sting on his backside. He never EVER hit a child again, he realised that everyone has a line you don't cross, and he also understood with few words WHY hitting isn't nice.

I felt shit of course, I felt a failure. I felt guilty and dirty. From my experience, with very rare smacking, it does not become a case of monkey see, monkey do. Though I accept that if smacking is one of few forms of communication, that would be the case.

I think where any discipline become unfair, is when its not accompanied by discussion, explanation, and reason. That goes for the naughty step, smacking, withdrawal of treats, confiscation... clarity is key.

Same with shouting, shouty parenting is not where I'd like to go, but every so often, a shout IS appropriate, effective and right.

My children know when I am angry, when they have taken too many steps over the line, and I do think that's a good thing. They have to know that if you keep pushing the button, its going to have consequences. They have to know that if you keep putting your hand in a croc's mouth, one day its going to bite.

Children should not have cause to be afraid of ther adults responsible for caring for them!

Hitting children in any way is a form of bullying. How many people who advocate smacking, will smack a 15 yr old? Not many..........why not? The fifteen year old is likely to hit them back!

Smacking is something which is done when a parent is out of control and it simply doesn't work.

I bent my daughter in half when she did that rigid 'i am not sitting in the pushchair on pain of death' tiresome shtick when she was 18 months or so, but never used time out, never restrained in that way.

well, the methods we are using at the moment arent exactly producing fabulous results are they. Maybe its time to stop contemplating our navels and get real.

spookshow, I don't preach do as I say, not as I do. If I swore around dd, I'd have no right to challenge her if she did the same.

But to take one of your examples, smoking. You can smoke yourself and teach your child that it's the wrong decision because there's a clear and obvious argument against smoking. You are actually teaching your child something by explaining why they shouldn't smoke. It doesn't correlate to smacking. Because you are physically smacking that child and then telling them not to do the same thing. It's something you are doing to your child. Smoking is not the same. Smoking is something you're doing to yourself and as an adult who has learnt lessons or makes mistakes, you are in a position to educate your child. You can do what you like to your own body and still reserve the right to teach your child how to do better for themselves. You smack them and you're doing something to their body. There's no comparison. Except, maybe tenuously if you're smoking around/over your child and then telling them not to smoke. That's similar.

Never, my killer 'don't you dare, I am not amused' stare is totally efffective.

do you think children are not humiliated by being grounded? thats interesting. and for what its worth i never beat my children and find the implication not only inaccurate but part of the reason why people dont wish to partake in these discussion because you can not have a reasoned argument on the topic.
knowing the vast difference between a beating and a smack in very personal terms i tend to get quite eye rollie at people who dont know the difference.

I could not deliberately inflict physical pain on my children as a punishment.

I was smacked very occasionally as a young child. It didn't cause me any lasting harm. It did have no impact on my behaviour.

Children have a strong sense on fairness. If I was sent to bed early or banned from watching tv I was being punished. It had a lasting impact. If my parents (or teachers; the joy of private ed) smacked me then, to me, what I had done was forgotten and replaced by the much greater wrong they had done. Add to that a new testament based religious education and I was a six year old with a glow of righteousness and a 'they know not what they do' attitude. I forgave them.

Surely the difference between a beating and a smack is the degree of violence involved and the resulting physical damage. Both are designed to cause pain through the application of physical force.