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's interesting you say that Penguins. My law degree had a module on corporal punishment, some of the facts from that:

• 48% of 4 year olds are hit more than once a week, it's usual rather than exceptional

• 33% of chidren whose parents are having marital problems are smacked compared to 7% of children whose parents were in a stable relationship

• research by the National Family and Parenting Institute shows that most children are smacked when their parents are stressed.

• Other research shows mothers are often unaware of how much their children were smacked. (55% of mothers questioned said their partners smacked their children, wherease 91% of those fathers said they did.)

Sorry, forgot the reference for those facts.

Phillips B and Alderson P (2003) 'Beyond 'anti-smacking': challenging violence and coercion in parent-child relations', The International Journal of Children's Rights, 11, 2, pp 175-197 (23)

Why thank you very much.

Good lord penguins, yes the house is swoonsome, but what about Bjorn, Anders and Magnus!

Kladdkaka

I keep them in the cupboard under the stairs. :o

Kladdkaka that is fantastic

Do you all look like that in sweden? Dear god how do you get any work done

GetOrf, I don't look like that. I'd be more suited to

I'm clearing out the cellar to make space for I've no idea what he's saying, but whatever it is, he says it well. Apart from the first line of the chorus, 'Jag kommer inte hem ikväll' which means 'I'm not coming home tonight'. He's obviously got wind of my plan.

LaQueen, what sort of behaviour warrants a smack?

I have DTS's aged 23. I did smack them a handful of times at most-and not beyond about 6/7. Are they scarred? No. Do I regret it? Yes. There were/are better strategies for behaviour management/boundary setting. I smacked on those occasions because primarily they were a handful and my buttons got pushed beyond a certain point/I lost patience/my temper. Not my finest moments.

I now have a 9 month old DD. I am determined that neither I or DH (and he agrees) will resort to physically chastising her. Neither will she be "threatened" with it, as a means to control her behaviour. Whatever kind of character she is. There is a world of difference between a smack and a beating, but I still don't think there is a need for it. I would like to see an outright legal prohibitation on so called "reasonable chastisement" as it stands today.

Seeker, to answer your questions (I was trying to illustrate in my post a little my motivations)

The thing is, nobody ever been able to explain to me exactly why you would want to smack a child, and what good it does.

Smacking in anger indicates a loss of control, which is understandable, but obviously unacceptable. I agree

Smacking in cold blood - thinking about and deciding to hit a small child is obviously wrong.
to me, it wasn't cold blood, I didn't sit around for hours or wait for a partner to come home, in the instant that my non-verbal child had inflicted pain I wanted to do something that would shock him into understanding what he had done was wrong. I also tap him with the same strength when rough play patting him bum so know 100% it was the tone and method that caused the shock not pain

So when is it OK to hit? IMO, when verbal reasoning/communication won't work and it is the only form of effective communication

Again, I think hitting an older child is quite wrong and really hope I will never smack DS again, he is old enough to be told he is wrong and have consequenses explained to him.

Penguins I have never NEVER hit my child in red faced anger, I have been very sorely tempted to do, aqnd had to walk away on many occasions, as have many smackers and non-smackers alike, but I am an adult and have self control that has stopped me from doing that

People on this thread have admitted hitting their child in anger and regretting it, and I think you are being icredibly rude to both those who have been brave enough to have admitted they've hit in temper and those who choose to use it as diciplinary measure.

I actually agree that regular smacking loses any effectiveness it may have had and encourages children to think hitting is acceptable

But this is not a black and white issue, there is a difference between a parent at the end of their tether lashing out, regularly inflicting pain on your children and occasional use of physical discipline.

I personally agree with the poster ealier who said that CC/CIO are cruel and verging abusive, to leave a child crying scared and alone. But I don't then feel the need to say that every parent who employs these methods is lazy and just can't be bothered to tend to their upset child - I understand that people have differing opinions and therefore make differnenting parenting choices

With regard to the OP's orginal question (because it was about all types of physical dicipline) actually, no I don't think we use less - I think we are often less public about it, and I find Kladdkaka's statitcs saddening tbh - maybe the reason that "reasonable" smacking is only ever publicied in these threads is because the people in Penguin's example know they ABU?

As a genuine question, is smacking always worse than the withdrawal of love and affection? I can only remember being smacked once (I hit my sister and made her nose bleed when I was about 2.5) and remember it but don't think it was wrong, yet I found my parents disappoinment and being ignored/withdrawal of affection a far far worse punishment

Bottom line:

Vast majority of posters here say no need for hitting.

Likely therefore that there isn't.

So don't.

MN is not representative of RL when it comes to smacking.
If you read MN, you might well think thta

Yes, I have smacked my older daughter - once. She was 6 years old. She's now 8 and I still haven't forgiven myself. I didn't make a rational decision, I totally lost control of my temper. It was the week my Dad died, I hadn't eaten or slept for a couple of days and she was whining and crying about something that (to me) was totally inconsequential. I couldn't cope and took it out on a little girl who was also confused, upset and tired. It was totally unacceptable and unforgivable.

In summary I don't believe it's ever ok but I have one it.

*done it, that should say

Hully if it was decided that what the majority of posters on MN thought or did was the bottom line and how everyone else should behave, the world would be a very, very odd place.

"So when is it OK to hit? IMO, when verbal reasoning/communication won't work and it is the only form of effective communication"

So a child too lung to be verbal, to understand words is going to understand th connection between whatever they have done wrong and a smack? This puzzles me too.

As I said, I can understand the "red mist"- been there, nearly done it. And, thinking about it, I suppose I can sort of understand the smack as a sort o pocket money deprivation equivalent- " you have done this unacceptable thing and this is the consequence". But surely a child has to understand consequences for that to work. And I'm not sure children too young to talk do.

Seeker - aversion therapy? I don't know.

But they're equally not learning by other physical punishments which are very popular on MN: like restraint, removal or compulsion to remain on one spot.

They all depend on a bigger person physically dominating a smaller one.

To me there is a big difference between a bigger person physically dominating a smaller one by lifting her out of the way and a bigger person inflicting pain on a smaller person. If you can get away with the former, why would you want to resort to the latter?

Glad to see that at least one poster has mentioned The Look and The Voice. Ime - carrying on from Kladdkaka's posts - Swedish parents depend a lot on the Voice. Not a hectoring loud voice, more about the inflection. Seems to work a treat for my brothers.

It's still using physical means of enforcement though. If physical intervention is permissible then it's permissible. Moving, restraining, or restricting someone are all physical punishments which only work if you can dominate by those means.

Seeker - yes I'd say it's an aversion therepy/learned response. My son associated hurting the cat with and unpleasant experience so he stopped doing it.
TBH I think it was more the shock of being shouted at than the smack itself... I'll never know, for me it was appropriate at the time. My friend had a similar cat related incident with her daughter of the same age - she learnt to stop pulling the cats fur because it kept scratching her when she did it, again learned response to something non-verbal

We're able to have learned responses way WAY before we can understand instruction. Verbal reasoning comes much later than understanding if I do x, y will happen, whether the y is a smack or being put in another place or another room, or pushing a ball to a parent so they can push it back.

I'm still interested on non-smackers thoughts on the emotinal side of other diciplinary measures

Also, as the OP asked, are we using other forms of physical discipline more, i.e. restraint?

meditrina, why do you say they're not working? I thought that the naughty spot was supposed to be quite effective?

I think we're past the smacking stage now, as everything is a choice or consequences in our house now which seems to work well.

But (and I realise I may be flamed for this) isn't a lot of parenting a bigger person dominating a smaller one albeit not physically most of the time, with a toddler especially (no experience of older childre) you have to dominate them, otherwise my son would never bathe or brush his teeth, spend all day every day watching Thomas the Tank Engine and chuggington, wearing nothing but wellies and eating bananas and cheese for every meal, with the occasional trip to the park thrown in

Does aversion therapy work the first time?

I don't agree with the idea that parenting is about domination, it is about guiding and shaping, molding behavior.

I have already said that I don't smack, but I also don't punish either, ever.

I do have a highly effective 'voice' as sometimes children need to stop what they are doing right now. I use the same voice on dogs that I am training too.

The best way to learn to 'train' you children, (because that is what we all want to do really) is to learn to train an animal that you cannot teach by pushing around, hitting, shouting, taking stuff away, grounding.

Sadly dogs don't count as unfortunately they can be 'trained' (if you can call it that) by some of the above methods.

I learnt endless amounts by training my rats to do all kinds of stuff.