To ask should smacking children be banned.

[HadABadDay2014]

Just seen this on the welsh news.

I am not perfect and once I have smacked ds felt awful and never did it again.

Now I know if this was a patient at work or a member of the public I would had been arrested and highly likely ended up with a criminal record and lost my job.

So the question is should snaking children be banned.

Hitting animals is a Bad Thing. Ditto with people.

If you believe it's possible to parent effectively without smacking, then why on earth smack?

Using the animal comparison is just stupid. Time out and taking toys away does not work for horses. If my dads horses bite, kick or in any other way physically misbehave, they get a bloody good kick or smack.

I think smacking should only be used as a last straw.So for example where they won't stay on the naughty step and you have to quickly regain control of the situation.All tghis business of spending an hour putting them back is ridiculous.It is turning the whole thing into a game Do you , how can they respect that?they ill have forgotten what the original offence was, to say nothing of the fact that a lot of the time you won't be able to wait an hour til they play ball !

The benefits of a smack is that it does not necessitate the child's co-operation and delivers an immediate consequence.. Please note , by immediate I don't mean lashing out in a red mist, which is always wrong.Also it is over and done with very quickly and parent and child can move on.
I am not talking about smacking for every transgression, mainly where repeated warnings have been ignored.

^ couldn't agree more IreneA78

No

Only if you ban sitting In their own rooms/steps/isolation because somewhere someone took that to the extreme and locked their kids in a room. I could view that as abuse.

My kid I'll decide how to punish him, smacking is not the same as abuse unless you beat the living shot out of them which 99.9% of people don't do. Just like time out isn't abuse unless you look them in their rooms or cupboards in complete darkness with no food of water

I agree with IreneA above. No I don't think it should be banned.

Used properly and as a last resort it can be an effective method of discipline. I clearly remember being smacked as a child and it did me absolutely no harm whatsoever. Being put in the naughty corner/step etc had no affect on me, I just didn't care, but when I saw a hand coming towards me I knew I'd gone too far. Now it's the same with my own child, with any misbehaviour I try reason, I try talking to him at his level, removal from a situation etc but when he is putting himself at danger or is going to cause damage to something I can't remove I will resort to a "smack". Thankfully I have only smacked him once and I felt awful but you know what it worked, when I tried reasoning with him he only did what he was doing more as he found it funny, one smack and that was it done and dusted, he has never tried to do that thing again avoiding lots more agro for us both. And we're not talking anything here to leave even a temporary mark, or continued smacking - I agree that anything beyond a light smack is abuse.

Yet again the nanny state gone mad, lets concentrate on actual cases of abuse and preventing them. And you wonder why my nephew back chats his mother telling her he'll take her to court if she smacks him.

I would suggest that those that want it banned just carry on not smacking your child. As you clearly cannot distinguish between a smack and a beating, it's just as well you don't subscribe.

Stinker, smacking is not child abuse as long as it meets the current criteria for reasonable chastisement. That's got nothing to do with smacking/not smacking. Child abuse is wrong and a crime (not a surprising statement of fact there!), but that has no bearing on my opinion of smacking.

Smacking, for me, is also wrong not to mention ineffective and counter productive.

Again, people seem to think that the only way of parenting if you don't smack is to be ineffective or use things like timeout, badly. I don't use the naughty step or any kind of time out. I don't send my child to his room. And yet I have a well behaved and un-indulged child. No doubt I'll be told this is just luck, or that in some number of years time he'll rebel and become a feral child with an asbo. I'd like to think not.

As for animals, having been a horse and a dog owner I wouldn't dream of hitting my animals either. Never rode with a whip, and certainly wouldn't kick my horse in the sides. And yet, somehow, I had well behaved pets. Probably just luck again, eh?

I've never ridden with a whip. Nor spurs. But horses can cause tremendous damage if they think they can get away with it. When a horse is pissed off with another horse, what do they do? Kick. I could never kick a horse as hard as another horse could. If your horse reared on you or kicked out at you, what would you do? Pray tell, how have you managed to rear such fabulous livestock & children? What disciplinary methods do you use?

Irene - what happens if you smack a child for getting off the naughty step and they get off again? Do you smack them harder? And then, if they get off again?

At some point, you have to draw the line and decide 'I am not going to hit them harder. I must make this punishment effective some other way.' Surely that can be done BEFORE the first hit.

Like Culture, I have well-behaved, non-indulged children who have never been smacked. I don't let things escalate to the point where a smack is required, I deal with it - effectively - long before that. It's really not rocket science.

I also have a lovely, well-trained dog (I don't take the credit for the training, it was done before I owned him) who also has never been, and never will be hit.

I wouldn't put them back on the naughty step if I'd smacked them.The smack would have been the punishment.Over and done with!
Move on!

I am not talking about smacking for every transgression, mainly where repeated warnings have been ignored

Why would you make repeated warnings anyway? I only ever give one warning before carrying out a consequence,..and the consequence is never a smack.
You are on a loser if the child knows you didn't mean it the first time and were prepared to warn over and over.

gottagetmoving that is irrelevant to the debate of whether smacking should be banned.

Not really, Irene Worse than just smacking them, you would warn them a few times before doing it.
Yes, smacking should be banned. It is never necessary and teaches a child that it is ok to smack people who do not do what you want.
How can you explain to a child that yes, I smack you, but if you think someone is being naughty,...you are not allowed to do that??

As a child though me and my siblings much preferred a smack than anything else. It was over and done with.

Yes. The law protects children whose parents smack them regularly, which means there is a parental problem and in my view this is abusive. I too only smacked my dd once and felt real bad - it was a reaction to being kicked by her when she was little. I learnt there are many many many other ways of parenting a child and have never felt the need to smack before or since. A one off wouldn't come up in the law. A child going to school and saying he keeps getting smacked would be raised as a child protection issue and rightly so.

Preferred a smack to....what was the other option back then? We used to run riot, having a hiding for this and that, getting a wollop with the wooden spoon. But it never stopped us fighting, we just hoped we wouldn't get caught. These days we talk to our kids and explain why its wrong to fight. We couldn't do this effectively and then smack them as it would be hypocritical. Our parents didn't have the education we have now and understanding of child psychology we have today.

There is nothing hypocritical about parents doing something that children are not allowed to (as I said to my 10 yr old who had to drive back to the pub to pick up his cigarettes)

'Our parents didn't have the education we have now '
Oh please! How arrogant to assume we know better than all the generations who have gone before.Do you not think they thought they were right too, and the generation before and the generation before that.
But children, well society generally is getting more and more unruly.We have huge prison populations today compared to even decades ago.
Something is going wrong.

Stinker I fear your sarcasm means you're not actually interested in any explanation.

As for "punishment", I don't punish, there are consequences (natural consequences are best) and these are followed through with consistently. Over time, you're aiming to not get to the point where you've lost control.

So what some are saying is that if you are at the end of your tether with a child who fails to be disciplined by other methods, hit them? So if you child is at nursery/school and is frustrated by another child, you have basically taught them to give the other child a smack to make it stop? I was smacked as a child on the odd occasion. It hasn't harmed me in any way, shape or form. It was over 30 years ago, but guess what; I still remember it clear as day. I never want my dd to reach my age and remember the feeling of being hurt like that by the person who is supposed to be the most supportive and protective of her. I can't say I think it should be banned. If that is the way some people feel that is the only way they can reach a resolve, then it's up to them. How would it be policed anyway?

'So what some are saying is that if you are at the end of your tether with a child who fails to be disciplined by other methods, hit them?'

Sorry,who is saying that?

Smacking is assault, and should never be used. We wouldn't hit our OH, an elderly relative- even a dog. Yet some think it's fine to hit a child.
Disgusting.

I wonder if the people who think smacking a child is ok are also the people who would like to bring back the Birch as a punishment for crimes by juveniles?

I remember being smacked ( a lot!) and even as a small child you feel humiliated and angry. I don't think it ever taught me not to do something in the long term, just in that instance.

I wonder if the people who think smacking a child is ok are also the people who would like to bring back the Birch
Asking that question further illustrates you do not understand the difference between smacking and beating.