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.

Sometimes you have to choose the nuclear option and cancel paid-for things.
Might shock her. Nothing like a Phyrric victory!

Yes, i smack.

Smacking is generally done as a last resort, when the parent has run out of options. As such, it's not actually a discipline technique, it's an emotional reaction to frustration. Children should be taught that when you reach the end of your tether you walk away, you don't hit out at the person who is annoying you. Smacking teaches a child absolutely nothing positive.

No I don't, but if they did something dangerous, ie grabbing open hot oven, running out into the busy road then I might do.

unlike, say... the naughty step? which is done out of, what? totally calm sadism? i think not.

LowFlyingBirds DH and his bros used to get taken into the garage to get smacked because my MIL apparently couldn't bear to hear them crying! Think that was pretty measured... though makes me a bit

aitch that was my point
disappearing your DD sounds hard work! I have to admit, although I did have to get medication into very resistant kids on numerous occasions they sound nowhere as bad as your DD! All stark contrast to ds3 who had a tantrum when his antibiotics were finished and I had to buy him multivitamin syrup to take with his breakfast for a few days!

Devera, I know exactly what you mean!

Now come on people, we may not favour smacking but let's be honest, we've all been guilty of the Vulcan Death Grip from time to time?

And if you deny it, your kids must be freakishly well behaved or you must be in line for the next nobel peace prize...

It's not an either/or choice between the naughty step or smacking, there are other techniques, such as natural consequences, time out, removal of privileges etc.

still not clear on your point, naturalbaby. we're not professionals, we're parents. we interact completely differently with our children, i would hope.

I really don't mean to sound smug. It's a real thing with me - was beaten, slapped and kicked, throttled and scratched by SF for a number of years and while I'm sorely tempted to beat the crap out of smack my two, I just can't go back there.

I'm no Zen-like saint! I shout and wave my arms around and like I said, I worry that this is worse. I try to be calmer, and sometimes manage it, but every so often......you know how it is.

YANBU to ask. Interesting that you were not expecting anyone to 'admit' to it.

I did, because with three children very close in age there wasn't always time to negotiate naughty steps, thinking corners or reflection chairs . The threat was usually good enough. Fortunately they are all older now and it is no longer necessary (youngest is 5). I agree with an earlier poster, that the 'controlled crying' technique is more borderline abusive than smacking .... I would have rather ripped my heart out than leave any of my children crying ever, for any reason, especially to get them to 'sleep through' just so I could get a good nights sleep .
Of course, everyone's different .

time out is just another name for naughty step or thinking corner.
removal of privs isn't really that easy to understand for younger children, when discipline too far after the fact is just a bit sadistic. it can also be hard to manage if you have more than one kid on your own.
natural consequences? what's that then?

I cant claim to never lose control. I have ranted at ds like a loon on occasion, i feel like shit afterwards and so does he. I understand getting to the endof your tether. But hate hearing hitting being justified as a cool, calm parenting method. Atleast behonest with yourself.

Oh yes, the Death Grip. As well as the Thousand Yard Stare.....

And then there's this:

hmm, not clear on your point either aitch I said I don't see any justification for smacking, and that a child care professional wouldn't resort to smacking to discipline a child so why should a parent? Obviously we interact differently but a professional would be making choices based on what is the right way to discipline a child and so should we. If they don't need to resort to smacking then why should the parent. Unless the answer is 'parents are exhausted/at the end of their tether....' then is that really a good enough reason why the child deserved a smack?

She was very hard work, but thankfully is growing calmer as she gets older. She had/has big problems accepting any sort of breach of her personal space, so tooth brushing, hair brushing, hair washing, medicine, even getting dressed were major battles. now that she's older and can generally do all these things for herself, it's not an issue. I was worn ragged at times just trying to do the normal things that most folk do without a second thought.

I am not happy that I did resort to smacking, so I'm probably sounding v. defensive! but I was desperate, particually over the antibiotics, as you'll know, the whole course needs to be taken and there's no room for spillage/spitting. She was at her worst as a 2 or 3 yr old, by the time she was 4 we could bribe her with treats instead of smacking.

As I said far above, I feel more conflicted by never having smacked my DS. He's so easy in comparison, but I do feel guilty that it seems like favouritism.

Natural consequences is making the child feel the impact of their actions. So you tell them that if they hit at a party they will have to leave (as hitting makes you a threatening, unwelcome figure in the group) and so if the child hits, they leave the group. Or if they don't get dressed in the morning they'll have to go to school in their pyjamas. It's basically teaching the child that what they do has an impact on their life. It works better for older children and only in certain circumstances.

If a child is too young to understand discipline, how is smacking going to teach them anything?

wow, that's quite some words you're putting in people's mouths, naturalbaby.
regarding professionals... 'the best way' is entirely founded on trends. you don't have to go far back for 'pindown' to have been in regular use amongst professionals... fifteen years, maybe? so i wouldn't necessarily take my cues from how a vast, sue-able body is instructed to treat children as being 'the best'. very often 'the best' for the children is not the motivation.

Yeah - that's what we do with our two, Cailin. Didn' tknow it had a name.

Disappearing, your DD sounds v much like mine, especially with the personal space issue. I think if she didn't have older DS to observe she'd have been as hard as yours.

I can understand the antibiotics thing - FWIW, HCPs don't have the emotional relationship with the child so can step back and think along the lines of "If she passes out or gets really ill, it'll be easier for us to administer the meds" rather than "OMG, if she doesn't take this she'll get really ill and maybe die.....panic!!!". They do not have the same intense feelings and while they may get frustrated, they can step back and see other patients. You only have this one ill child.

We're trying the thinking step with my nearly 3yr old and instantly 'forgets' why he's there, sings and jiggles about then tells me 'I don't know!' when I ask him what he did/why I'm upset/what does he need to do now? He has really pushed the boundaries and while I'm not claiming to be a parenting saint (I had 3 under 3s) I can't think of a time when he ever deserved a smack.

I never did it because I was smacked as a child and it did affect me deeply. Maybe it's because of my autistic superpowers, but I've carried that anger and hurt around with me my whole life. I'm in my 40s now and I still have a seething resentment towards my parents.

oh, that. oh well that's what most people do, isn't it? i hardly think there's a person on MN suggesting that we would ditch speaking to our children in favour of beating them.

As others have said, there are far worse forms of discipline than a smack (as Aitch said, the naughty step for one!).

There is a huge difference between smacking and hitting and an even bigger difference between smacking and what some of you are describling, which is beating/abuse.

A smacked bottom will not stop the world revolving nor turn a child into a violent thug.

'deserved' a smack?

what has a child done to 'deserve' being plonked somewhere he doesn't have a clue about, with you pestering him to learn a lesson he's not old enough to learn?