to ask if you smack your children?

[toofattorun]

I am not talking beating! Just a smack on the hand or bum when they are being very rude or naughty.

"In fact, I'd go as far as to suggest that those people who say smacking's fine, I was smacked and I'm alright jack actually are affected by it. They think smacking's fine for a start."

drown the witch! can't argue any more, clearly am fucked in the head... most enjoyable, ladies, to spend time with such paragons of parenting. must go and beat my children! (actually... must go and enjoy sunshine)

No I don't but have done once or twice iyswim and have been appalled by my own lack of control.
Its when I have been tired, frustrated etc and was not applied as a behavioural management strategy,just a way of me getting my DD to change her behaviour quickly.
After I did it a couple of times, I vowed not to do it again and haven't. Its undoubtedly wrong for me because when I used smacking it was about my anger and not my DD's behaviour.

Yes hully. I said I learned other methods. It was an example of alternatives that some people who don't smack would find acceptable.

Noddy - The most memorable time I slapped my son's leg was when he shot across a busy A road leaving me, dd in her buggy and my 6 year old on the other side. I shit myself frankly and he bore the brunt of my crap parenting. And another time when he repeatedly insisted on climbing up on the upstairs windowsills and hammered on the single glazed panels. Again my fear for him drove me to a slap.

I got smacked and I still remember it. Thats why I wont be smacking.

Aich Parents need some strategies to control their childrens behaviour and you cant take every strategy out and decide that anything remotely negative is damaging to them.

What is damaging I think is the endless reasoning with no boundries. Last year I holidayed with friends who chose reasoning over time out, giving out, taking things away. The child was an utter utter horror be around and the parents created that!

I tapped DS's hand once when he was small and I was on the phone and the computer at the same time for something important and he kept going for the keyboard, and after I removed his hand a few times.

I have given him a sharp smack on the bottom two or three times, maybe. Not particularly proud, but I won't lose sleep over it.

Whatever tactics we use, it is because we are the adults and stronger, anyway, and they are the child and should be disciplined at time.
We don't confiscate things from other adults or tell them to sit on a step when they do things we don't like, for example.

I was being slightly tongue in cheek aitch and you're putting words in my mouth now. I didn't say you were fucked in the head, merely you believe that smacking is fine. This is a statement of fact. You were asking why people ignore the 'I was smacked, I'm fine' argument. I was answering. One, you can't show causation either way and two, you could also argue that as we essentially learn by example, smacking a child teaches a child that smacking a child is fine. I understand that you truly believe it's fine to smack a child, but what you have to also accept is that I truly believe it's not fine. It's one of those never the twain shall meet things. And removing all sentiment, emotion and anecdote from it, on an empirical level it simply does not work.

Lueji we do confiscate things from adults and put them in time out. It's called fining and prison.

I have on occaison smacked. I always feel really bad afterwards and DS1 (4) gets angry with me. But I am suprised NOONE ever seems to smack! alot of self control, I'm impressed

I have pushed, shoved or grabbed DD harder than i should have done in moments of danger - running towards a road or reaching to grab a knife for example. More born out of my panic in the moment.

I don't smack because I was hit a lot as a kid. Real beatings, not just the odd smack and I always said if i had kids I would never hit.

ShowOfHands,
I meant in normal relationships. :-)

No never. I've been very cross/tired and at the end of my wits. Done a fair bit of shouting maybe but I've never felt the urge to smack anyone; I'm just not wired up that way.

I do lose my rag with inanimate objects though if I'm in a temper

I was smacked though very occasionally as a child but I don't have any lasting bad feelings about it. In the days before children had to be strapped in in the back of the car I was thrashing about having an enormous tantrum - I was pretty young, 3 or 4 maybe. I accidentally kicked my dad in the head (he was driving). He stopped the car and smacked me. I do remember that quite clearly.

AITCH - it was YOU who conflated the two things first, you who said that the alternative is a cold withdrawing of affection (paraphrase). That is what I was responding to with my persistent point that it isn't either or: hitting or withdrawal of affection.

Folkgirl,

I am in my mid/late 40s and just about everyone I know was smacked as a child. However, we were not left with massive bruises! There is always going to be a disconnect between people who use small smacks as discipline and people who were beaten as children (being left with a massive bruise is not a smack but being beaten).

The idea that there is something incongruous between teaching that hitting is bad and smacking one's children is based on a false idea of equality. The state has a right to imprison you if you are commit a crime. However, you clearly cannot take someone off the street and lock them up. Anyone who thinks that children cannot see the difference between a smack from a parent as a consequence and hitting for no reason assumes that children are really quite stupid.

I think Aitch is making some very good points. All "discipline" is asymmetric. If your child put you on the naughty step, how would you feel? People who manage without any discipline are probably quite lucky or have easy family set ups (one docile child quite frequently).

yes about three times, she is 4.5 a little tap on the back of her hand when doing something dangerous, like snatching her hand away from mine nad and trying to run across road.

she is such a good girl now harldy have to remonstrate her ever with naughty step or anything.

i had a few hair brushes broken on my backside - makes me laugh when think about it - never hurt.

I don't agree that smacking is a good punishment and I'd rather not use it.
I do have a range of other methods that are effective.

On occasion, a sharp smack can translate a 1000 words and save some time.
But mostly it seems to elicit crying, which is not a good outcome in terms of time saving either. :o

Having said that, I play at smacking bottoms all the time. In fact, I hit pretty hard. Only it's my own (other) hand and DS laughs a lot. :o

I was hit as a kid.

It worked as I was shit scared of being hit again if I did something wrong.

If I had kids I don't think I'd hit them. I have a nephew and couldn't imagine in any way hitting him ever, even when he sprays his dinner in my face he just looks adorable and so pleased with himself as he's made you laugh.

I have smacked them lightly occasionally when they were younger. It's something I have done for years now, and it was usually because I was so angry with them. I confiscate things now, or send them to bed, or stop them from doing activities. It was harder to do this when they were younger, and the naughty step NEVER worked for mine, they used to see it as another place to play. I did slap DSD across the face when she 15 and being absolutely vile and defiant though.

It's NOT something I've done for year now.

do you know what, actually, hully? i didn't.

i specifically said that to be so determined about the no-smacking thing while not applying the same scrutiny to the withdrawal of affection thing was bogus. you see how 'not applying the same scrutiny' is important in that sentence?

huge grey areas in the middle, as always, but for so many people on this thread to be so smugly determined that smacking is wrong without also being at pains to point out that the other end of the disciplinary spectrum is just as damaging seems to me to be just taking your views out for an airing without actually doing much thinking.

i really must leave the house now, but i couldn't let that pass, hully. the words 'not applying the same scrutiny' were not there to be ignored.

Oh god, years

I give up!

There was a "window" of a couple of years when DS2 got the odd smack.

It didn't help, in fact it made him "hittier" with other children.

Nowadays his behaviour is far better managed with punishments like XBox taken away, pocket money fines, time outs etc.

I recently read 123 Magic and wish I'd read it years ago.

But they did apply the same scrutiny aitch

Many people have pointed out over and over that it isn't an either/ or