To be more than annoyed when people inform me my children need a good smack?

[Slightlyneuroricnat]

It really winds me up.
Not so much the oldies who say " in our day I would have a got a whack for that " but people that can see I'm already having a tough time dealing with 2 toddlers, my eldest daughter is going through a phase ( I bloody hope ) of hitting everyone including me and we always have the same conversation, I don't hit you and you must not hit mummy, you've hurt me and now we are going home.
So we had this yesterday in a park and a lady informed me that I was " wishy washy " and what she actually needed was a good smack herself.
Am I being unreasonable to think she is an ignorant fool or am I some kind of martyr as I don't believe in hitting children?

PA comments like "my guess is that even if they try to tell you, you will simply inform them that they are wrong too.".

Well you had just informed me, intentionally or not, that I was wrong about my own childhood experience, having never met me and knowing virtually nothing about me. That makes it fairly reasonable to assume that you would be likely to express the same views to your own children.

Your assertion that it didn't harm you is perfectly reasonable and I'm pleased for you

Excellent!!

Bravo to you if your child at 3 did nothing wrong.
Maybe they were scared of the consequence if they did?
Not something I want my children to be

^That's the problem. I used to always know and be scared of the consequences of being naughty, and so did my DS's. If they didn't consider the consequences of their actions, why would they behave? Plus it's dominating you and your plans if you have to rush home everytime she's naughty. She may even learn to be naughty because she wants to go home?

This reminds me of when my DS was 18 months and went through a stage of biting.

The amount of people who said "You should bite him back"

Who is the adult here? Do people really believe that it is best for children to be taught that violence is a punishment for violence.

being smacked made no difference to me and my parents were right about that..

Well it made you think it is fine to hit your own children.

" If they didn't consider the consequences of their actions, why would they behave? "

Do you only behave because otherwise there would be dire consequences for you?

Do you only not punch people in the face because they are bigger and might punch you back harder, or because it is wrong to punch people in the face?

Do you only not steal things from shops/ people's houses or handbags, because you might be prosecuted/ lose a friendship, or because it is wrong to steal?

Do you leave a note on someone's windscreen when you've bumped and damaged their car because that's the right thing to do, or just because someone might have seen you and you'll be had up on a hit and run charge if you don't?

I want my children to do things because they know it's the right thing to do, not because the consequences of not doing it, are unpleasant. Unfortunately, that's a long, slow process of years and years of education and there's no quick fix. But that's what I signed up for when I decided to be a parent.

ppfruit oh don't be so bloody ridiculous and conform to the stereotype of women dragging their kids round the supermarket by their hair.

My house is filled with books on child development, my DH studied it as part of his degree as a mature student. I spent ages poring over them when pregnant with my DC as well as when helping him. I co-sleep with my children, am still breast feeding the 3 year old, I gave up a career I enjoyed to stay home and look after them in the formative years partly because of the information I gleaned from these books but in the main because I followed my own fucking instincts and these own fucking instincts have also lead me to the conclusion the smacking is not wrong and can be useful.

You yourself may be unaware (perhaps a trip to library?) but there is not one uniform school of thought on child development because it is not an exact fucking science. Every parent and child is different so quite bloody judging methods you have absolutely no experience of.

quit can't type on touchscreens

Although it pains me to have to go into such detail, In the instance I was referring to we were walking side by side on the pavement a little way down from our house. She said let's race home. I took off at her toddler pace alongside her she said no mummy I want to win, I said no I've got to stay right next to you because there are two roads, she whilst still trying to run ahead of me which of course she couldn't began screaming no mummy I'm going to win to which I replied I can't let you ahead of me because if you hit that road before me and a car is coming down it you are too little for them to see, they will smash into you and hurt you but mummy is big so they would see mummy and mummy knows how to look for cars so we won't get hurt. She continues to shout whilst running no mummy go back I'm winning. I replied if you continue to behave in such a dangerous way I will smack your hand when we get home. She then stopped and started wailing no mummy. I again explain why her behaviour was very naught and dangerous and if she does it ever again she will be getting a smack. We go home and bake a cake.

This is the result of hours of research? Why didn't you just say stop?

I'm not sure that going into long rambling, ineffective explanations followed by a threat of violence is a system many of us would aspire to using.

How is smacking an effective consequence to modify behaviour?? Do we go to work because if we didn't we'd get slapped?? No! We go because we need to pay the bills, we want to buy nice things, go on holiday etc. Why use threats of violence and abuse on a child instead of the real consequences of their actions?? They are perfectly capable of understanding that if they hit the DVD player it will not work and they will not be able to watch Sleeping Beauty anymore. I don't understand how the threat of hurting her hand when you get home is more effective than stopping the race, explaining the dangers, asking if she is willing to obey the rules for the race to continue or if the game stops now and maybe you have a race when you get to the park where it is safe (which should have been what happened in the first place - having a race at the side of the road is a tantrum or accident waiting to happen as you learnt, why create more problems?) and letting her decide the consequences of her actions - safe race, or no race. All she learnt from that incident was that Mummy makes promises she can't keep (races) then threatens her with pain and violence when the game is not as she imagined. She did not learn the road is dangerous, Mummy loves her and wants to keep her safe, Mummy is fun and fair, or that pavements are not places for races which should have been the point of it.

I agree with Goldmandra. That was absolutely ridiculous IMO. Certainly doesn't prove anything good about smacking.

The 2yo's behaviour wasn't naughty and dangerous, she was just being a 2yo. Of course you don't let 2yo's run ahead by roads, and you don't need to smack them or threaten to smack them to achieve that. If they're not behaving safely, you put them in the pushchair, hold their hand or carry them, and put up with the wails. I think that was very poor parenting.

Well I'm sure their day they were boiling poppies for the babies to drink to help them sleep. And they probably thought nothing of smoking when pregnant/allowing a child to sit on your lap when driving/getting caned at school etc.
Silly old biddy.

Ah, yes Gold, that foolproof method of getting any young child in a fit of pique to desist from behaving badly, telling them to stop .

Sleep asked to be talked through an instance of deterring through smacking, I obliged.

To be blunt, I couldn't give a shit about your aspirations as they have absolutely no bearing on me.

I think the majority of people probably wouldn't aspire to being smacked by their child but as I said in my first post I don't think the OP was being unreasonable at all to be pissed off that someone told her to smack her child because a) she doesn't agree with it and b) as long as she wasn't being negligent it's absolutely no-one else's business how she deals with it.

But Feefo - if my 2yo was running off unsafely down the pavement, I'd just pick them up. Why not do that rather than threaten a smack?

DD has hit me once in nearly 8 years. She never did it again. Not because I hit her back but because I said it hurt me and made me sad and she is a good girl and good girls don't hit people and hurt them and make them sad. I asked her how she would feel if someone hit her and hurt her, she wouldn't want to play with them anymore and if she hits people they won't want to play with her. Hitting is a time out offence so she needed to sit in time out for 3 minutes and think about how I felt when she hit me and how she would feel if her friends hit her. At the end of 3 minutes I asked if she understood why hitting was wrong and she said yes, explained why, I praised her for thinking it through so well, we said we love each other, gave each other kisses and cuddles, never did it again. If I hit her back she'd learn it's ok to hit as long as you're bigger than them. A bully is born.

Ah, yes Gold, that foolproof method of getting any young child in a fit of pique to desist from behaving badly, telling them to stop

Simple, clear and very specific instructions are absolutely the best way to communicate with a wound up two year old.

I had an occasional smack as a child, not what I'd call abusive for the time, and I think it did seriously affect me psychologically and scarred me. But you carry on Fefifo. Hopefully it won't have the effect on yours it has on me and others here who have said the same.

If you are not hitting hard enough to hurt, it seems utterly pointless.
and if you are hitting hard enough to hurt, you have to accept that you are choosing to hit a small child.

Are you controlled enough to make sure you don't hit the head or the face?
And if you are controlled enough, don't you find that a bit weird? Controlled enough to deliberate where you hit a child

being smacked made no difference to me and my parents were right about that..

Well it made you think it is fine to hit your own children.

Yes. You're trying to make that a negative point, but it's not to me as I don't see a problem with smacking - the way I did it.

Each case is individual, so generalisations don't really help...

Although I don't think that mild, occasional smacking is particularly harmful, I do think it should probably be illegal. For every parent who brings it out as an occasional threat for particularly tricky and/or dangerous situations, there are far more who seem to threaten it constantly/inconsistently, apply it without warning, hit harder than they should, hit in anger, hit sadistically, I've even heard of a relative of a friend who hit their ten month old fairly regularly for spitting out medicine

OP I think I had people suggest that I smack my child once or twice as well. It's pretty common IME and my friends report the same thing. Perhaps it's area dependent? I don't live in the most leafy, suburban part of Britain...

I've had someone suggest I smack my then-toddler DS because he was having an entirely normal toddler meltdown

I thought that person was a fool.

Well i've obviously pressed some buttons there Ever heard of the expression "methinks he protests too much" Fefifo?

If you deliberately ignore the fact that a 3 yr old can't reason properly and call her "bloody minded" How is a smack going to help her?

You just resort to insults and swearing which isn't a very mature reaction on your part. Perhaps you have a quicker temper than you'd like and that could be why you administer violence to a 3 yr old.

Yes, I noticed the swearing. It came after the superciliousness.

Actually ppea methinks we are engaged in a debate on a forum and I'm taking the trouble to give detailed answers to questions and accusations directly levelled at me (that's kind of the point). I don't find adults swearing as part of a conversation with other adults particularly peculiar and neither do the moderators of the forum that we are on which is why it is allowed. There are other forums that don't allow it by the way if your sensibilities are more delicate.

I think superciliousness a rather restrained response to the notion that my decision to smack my kids puts me in the same league as someone who beats up the elderly or a paedophile newt.