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?

Re read what I wrote.

I said I don't even expect them to like my dd, never mind love her like a parent. How is that saying I have a ridiculous notion that childcare providers are held in the same respect as a parent?
Similarly if any of my dd's gps didn't treat her in a manner which I deem acceptable, they would be allowed to look after her.
All those those things you describe that contribute to being a 'good' parent, are IMO what is expected from any parent.

You still haven't addressed my points about respect or if a person tapped your hand just once in the work place because you forgot yourself and endangered others/yourself.

That's what happens with children, they forget themselves sometimes because their brains have not matured enough yet to process common sense/danger/emotions all at the same time. To do this quickly and effectively you mustn't add in anything else unnecessarily that could hinder those developments.
How many children in your school that came from a 'hands on' family were disruptive and naughty? Same applies to emotional abuse, I certainly don't think it's exclusive to smacking.

Zombies - what's your view of someone who tells a child outside the home ' I will slap you when we get back' and then calmly and deliberately administers the slap when they get home?

Is that 'good parenting'? Or perhaps just a bit emotionally abusive/totally useless as disciplinary tool?

Or would you say it is a good thing to have a child fear you and what you are going to do to him, all the way home?

Spero- I don't agree with that - slapping or a deliberate threatened spanking. I have had been subjected to both.
But I cannot take a polarised view that a rap or light smack, in the heat of the moment, done primarily for the child's safety, is a bad thing.

have been not "have had".
FWIW my mother really regrets it, with tears in her eyes.

I have agreed that there is a crucial distinction between a slap in the heat of an awful moment - which is regretted and not repeated - and a deliberate and planned hitting as part of a 'discipline technique'.

In fact for ages I WAS very anti making smacking illegal because I thought this was unfair on parents who may get caught on a very bad day - but that isn't the experience in Scotland. Hopefully we can trust the police and the CPS not to have the time or energy to chase after smackers in the criminal courts unnecessarily, but I think making it criminal would send a useful and clear message about acceptable behaviour; its worked with seat belts and drunk driving for eg.

Atbeck

Yes, there's a noticeable amount of emotional detachment

If you smack a young child ages after they committed the offence for which they are being smacked, then sorry, but that is really terrible parenting. The whole point of any sanction when a child is really young, is that s/he connects the sanction (smack, naughty step, taking away of toy, taking pasta swirl out of jar etc.) with the behaviour. If you wait until 15 minutes later, then there is no connection in that child's mind between the sanction and the behaviour. It's just a disconnected event in the child's mind where Mummy randomly and unexpectedly hurts her. If the offence occurs in public, then if your punishment is to smack, the smack needs to occur in public because by the time you're in private, the smack is no longer a punishment, it's just Mummy doing her inexplicable hurting thing she does every now and then.

What the hell does anyone think a child learns from that?

What would be good for humanity would be if children weren't subjected to abusive 'disciplinary' techniques, like taking them home and smacking them in private, long after the triggering offence.

No one is here saying parents have to be perfect, speaking always in calm modulated tones and displaying amazing zen like calm.

Of course children need to see their parents cross, angry, flustered, upset and to see their parents dealing with and coping with the less than ideal emotional states.

What no child needs is to be hit, particularly by a parent who claims to be doing it out of love.

I disagree that. Girlfriend don't know why they're being smacked if it's after the event and upon going home. Children above a certain age can make that connection.
That's not the reason spanking ex post facto is a bad thing.

"Girlfriend"?? Children!
Stupid autocorrect!

Agree that it's not the ONLY reason smacking children is a bad thing.

But if you do go in for it, it's probably one of the worst ways you could find to actually do it. So pointless apart from anything else.

Ok, so the question is - why is it a 'good parenting technique' to have your children afraid of what you are going to do to them when you get home?

Why is it 'good' to turn your home into the place where punishment is administered?

I cannot see this as anything other than horrible and sinister.

So how old does a child have to be before they can know why they're being smacked if it's after the event and upon going home?

I don't agree with smacking children, but if you're going to smack a child as punishment for, say, being naughty near the road, it doesn't really seem to make any logical sense to wait until you get home to smack them.

I don't think smacking is the ultimate arbiter of what makes a good or bad parent - as you say it is much more nuanced than that, parents who never smack can be abusive and damaging.

I just think it is interesting that the vast majority of the abusive/abused and damaging/damaged people I work with, both were smacked as children and smack their own children.

You are so not being unreasonable! People that smack their kids for doing something wrong and the kids don't do it again are fooling themselves. They have not learned to do the right thing, they are afraid of you and don't want to get smacked again.

My mil made some random comment about if ds did something she'd smack him and I let her know she'd never see him again if she did. That shut her up.

I agree with Lass that there certainly isn't and shouldn't be a strict uniformed way of parenting. I know many kids that have the naughty step technique used and it seems very successful for them, it doesn't work for my dd so we have found a way that get the same result in a different way.
I also understand there is a huge difference between the emotional tap on the back of the legs in a highly emotional moment when you think you're going to lose your mind etc.
But it's the calculated smacking that bothers me.

I used to hate the phrase "just wait until you get home." It may have been a pat on the back of the legs and it never did hurt but the waiting was agony, and the fear that it might be administered just a bit too hard that one time. Also if you have to wait for the duration it keeps the parent/s in a narky mood until it is dealt with, the child is miserable and will possibly be told off for acting so. It just takes too long to be resolved effectively when it's calculated and done at home.

We used to flinch away from my mum. I NEVER want to see my kids flinch away from me as I approach them. That would be gut-wrenching. My mum is a great mum but she was a young mum in the 70s and learned her parenting techniques from older people for whom physical punishment was a way of life. I have said further upthread that she regrets what she did and remembers that she usually did it out of impatience, stress or just not knowing what else to do. She has so much patience now with all the grandchildren. She cannot contemplate anyone hitting her beloved grandchildren, including me!

I agree with Lass that there certainly isn't and shouldn't be a strict uniformed way of parenting.

Nobody is suggesting that there should be. Just that it would be better for parents to be expected to avoid using pain, fear and humiliation to manage children's behaviour in the same was as child carers are required to.

I'm not robotic in my parenting. In fact I have to be quite creative in my approach to parenting two children with ASD. My children do push my buttons very effectively at times. My DH does that too but it's not OK for me to hit him either.

Changing the law changes attitudes and changing attitudes to using corporal punishment on children would be a good thing for future generations.

I have been withholding my opinion about the waiting to smack until you get home. Well, sod it. I'm going to say it. The thought that there are families where this goes on makes me feel physically sick. Just putting aside the argument that any punishment is virtually useless if it's not done at the time of the event, my mind is completely boggling at the thought of someone making a mental note to hit their child when they arrive back home.

Does the child realise this and spend the rest of the trip upset because of it? What a fun family day out that must be where as a parent you remind yourself to smack your child when they get home and where as a child you realise you have a smack to come when you get home. And if they know one is comig anyway, what's to stop them doing more naughty things? They may as well - a smack is coming. Or would you hold back all the different smacks until you get home and give them one after the other? "That one is for running off and that one is for pushing the little boy over and that one is for smack your sister'. Hmmm?

And when do these smacks get administered? The minute you're over the threshold? What are the "rules"? Does their coat have to be off? What if they run off the minute thy get home because they know a snack is coming? Do you then hit them for running off too once you've caught up with them? Or are they compliant and obediently stand there waiting for their smack? Either one of those is desperately upsetting to me.

Sinister and wierd. And very sad.

I think this is so so sad and a bit scary.

I grew up being smacked. With a hand and a belt. This lasted till I was 13 and one day hit my dad back. Now in anger I want to physically lash out but stop myself. I wish that wasn't my instinct and I think that is from years of conditioning.

I was smacked both in the heat of the moment and after the event. My mum used to say "wait till your dad gets home" and I was terrified for the rest of the day.

And incidentally these memories still hurt, and no I would never tell my parents. Other than to say I won't be smacking my children. Something my mum has said she would never do now, so she knows it was wrong.

For those who smack - what age do you start? I have a one year old and cannot conceive of hurting him intentionally at all. The thought is very upsetting. What age do you stop? When they smack you back?

For the smackers defending their smacking because it's only a tap. Do you realise that there are probably thousands of parents who defend it, but for whom it is far more than that? Surely a blanket rule of no hitting/smacking children means there are no grey areas for people thinking it's less of a big deal than it is.

Losing control so you hurt your child is appalling.
Waiting and calmly and purposely causing your child pain is appalling.

i was smacked both in the heat of the moment and after the event

One or the other, not both. Just to clarify.

Nun, I agree totally

I don't smack my children, but I have nothing against 'calm smacking' as a last resort e for younger children (not older ones who would be angered and humiliated) but the reason I personally don't smack,is that I think it could very quickly and easily escalate to a situation where you smack in anger and do it as a release for your own frustration when it is not really justified and do it too hard.That' not a line I would want to cross.