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.

noddy, we really aren't talking about people smacking children because we resent our lives, though. someone feeling that way would have acted out in some other, perhaps even more psychologically-damaging manner.

too many axes to grind, here, i think. how we discipline our children is HUGE, no doubt about that, but there will be different ways appropriate for different children. a blanket ban on smacking without any such scrutiny being applied to the psychological warfare of naughty steps, thinking zones, being sent to one's room or time out is bogus and smug, imo.

Also can I point out, there is a massive difference between a smack where the parent has lost control and is angry beyond reason, and the smack of a parent who is firmly in control and knows what they are doing.

What sort of things do you smack for? I haven,t said its about resenting your life but it is a loss of control and an abuse of power.

AitchTwo,

I agree.

If smacking were as bad as some on here make out, 95% of my generation would be damaged. Just not credible.

I can answer that noddy.

I used to hit people when I was at school. At primary school I was always hitting my best friend if she did something I didn't like, if she displeased me, if I didn't like the way she was sitting or where she was standing, if she took too long to answer me, if she was fiddling with the sleeve of her cardigan, if she made a noise when she ate her food or drank her milk, or I just couldn't really be bothered talking to her.

I suppose I just learnt from the best.

That's why I would never smack or hit my children.

IT IS NOT A CHOICE BETWEEN HITTING OR COLD PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

hully gully

good for you. Like I said.

AitchTwoOhOneTwo Thu 24-May-12 08:59:24

"to the anti-smackers... why is it so okay to ignore the testimony of so many of us who know that it did us no harm whatsoever, that it wasn't a mixed message and that it didn't turn us into violent sociopaths?"

I suppose for the same reason that it's ok for the pro-smackers to ignore the fact that many of us were not smacked and it didn't turn us into out-of-control lay-abouts either.

I for one am a non-smacker because nobody I knew as a child seemed to feel the need to smack and as children we had a great deal of respect for adults.

So I don't need to know that it is possible to smack and not turn children into violent sociopaths- I had kind of figured that out anyway- to me that's irrelevant. Until I see evidence that only smackers have well behaved children, I shall carry on as I am.

I think a smack when you have lost it is almost inderstandable a temporary loss of control in anger but to smack in a cold calculating way is sick tbh as there are other choices

IAmNotAmused

I don't want it to be "good for me"

I want it to be peace and love and kindness and good for everybody.

I don't know what generation you are from larrygrylls but I would suggest that there are a lot of damaged people in my generation.

Those who were hit of course.

I can still remember the stony silence that fell over the dining hall at school (well my table at least, that sounds a bit dramatic!) when one of my friends asked where I'd got the massive bruise from and I told them.

It seemed none of them were smacked - I was probably about 16 at the time. I stopped being smacked/hit the day my dad left home - 3 months before my 18th birthday.

I have NEVER smacked my child and never will. She is 9 now and is generally polite and well-behaved.

If you speak to your children nicely then wen you speak to them in a sharper, sterner voice it has quite an impact.

Studies suggest that when you smack a child they remember the smack and not what caused it, so if you are smacking to teach a lesson or prevent the incident recurring, it would be ineffectual, no?

Aitch why do you call it a "wee skelp" - why not call it a hit? You seem to assume that there two options - smacking or grudge-bearing. What about just telling the child in what way their behaviour is unacceptable, giving them a warning and then either removing them from the situation or removing a toy if they don't listen? There's no grudge-bearing there, and you're actually teaching the child that poor behaviour means you end up having to leave a situation you're enjoying (which is in fact true in most areas of life). The idea that it's not ok for child to hit, but it is ok for adults to hit, as long as the person they're hitting is a child, is not something I want my children to learn.

Aitch why does people disagreeing with you = too many axes to grind?!

I have never hit/smacked/ threatened to

I was petrified of my mother who used even the dog choke chain so no.

Don't get me wrong she has pushed me to the point I have been physically shaking and shouted at her to get to her room but that has only been twice I have lost it to that extent and it's been after a 3 set of nightshifts with little sleep so exhausted, OMG I'm defending shouting christ i feel like shite writing that down i can't imagine what I would have to write to justify violence

I simply don't want to hit my child. I don't want her to think 'my mum hurts me if I'm naughty'

My parents never bore grudges. I suppose nobody had told them that was a sine qua non of non-smacking.

We've all shouted and lost it on occasion smurfy. I think the important thing is to apologise and explain afterwards.

I don't smack. It just seems to give a message that it's not ok to hit people unless they are smaller than you, aren't doing what you want and can't fight back. It's illogical.

I can remember a handful of occasions I was smacked as a child, usually when my parents had lost their temper. I remember it making everyone involved very upset.

I didn't say that the opposite to hitting is psychological warfare. It isn't a binary choice. But some of the things that some people advocate as methods of discipline are exactly what would be condemned on the relationship threads as emotional abuse.

I agree with Hully that there are methods that are neither violent nor emotionally abusive.

There's also a cultural difference though.
In the 70s, it was seen as more 'acceptable'.

When I was smacked then, I didn't really think about it, as it was the norm and accepted. I don't think my friends would have raised an eyebrow, as they were probably smacked too.
But it is more unusual and less visible nowadays. Would a smack have more negative effect now, on a child because it is so unusual?
Would a 7 year old girl, if mentioned to her friends that she was hit. Girls friends respond with probably disbelief (if they've not been hit) and "we don't get hit". Would the 7 year old then then think more about why she is hit?
I don't know. But maybe something that is less socially acceptable now may have more negative effect for that very reason.

okay, this is definitely not a conversation about the same thing, Folkgirl.

re the idea of being 'pro-smacking', again, that's bogus. that's like being 'pro-abortion'. no-one's actually pro it, they're just not against it. if people don't want to smack their kids, i'm absolutely for that, so long as they're not doing something infinitely worse.

hully, you seem to be frustrated by the use of the term 'psychological warfare'. how else would you describe the removal of attention, the (often very physical) removal of a child from a space, the insistence that they remain out of your sight for a long period (for them)? it's not nice behaviour, i think, hence the fact that i would be more likely to smack than use a 'naughty step'.

that said... i don't smack, like i said before. it doesn't really come up. but if it did, having been smacked myself, i would prefer to give them a skelp on the very odd occasion than use the 'withdrawal of affection' methods that so many people seem to think are okay.

No Aitch, I am frustrated by the idea that the opposite of hitting is withdrawal of affection.

My point, which I made several times, is that there are OTHER ways.

Aitch, I totally agree that nasty manipulative punishments can be damaging. But that's not what's being discussed here. Saying "I'm ok with smacking because some people are emotionally abusive" doesn't make sense, you might as well say "I'm ok with smacking because some people smoke." There's no link between the two.