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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

did your parents smack you? Do you smack your child?

436 replies

diamond702 · 06/05/2018 21:13

My dad used to smack me as a child, on the hand or bottom. I remember feeling scared and anxious about it, and I don't think it taught me right from wrong. I would usually get smacked for being annoying or loud rather than naughty things. He would do it to make me be quiet.

I think times have changed now (this was in the 90s) and maybe it's not as acceptable to smack children anymore. I don't believe it works. I can understand perhaps smacking a child's hand to stop them touching a hot oven or something, but otherwise, does it really make them grow up to be well behaved citizens?

I can't imagine smacking my child. Surely there are better ways to discipline?

OP posts:
flowermug2 · 07/05/2018 18:05

@BertieBotts

Ah, I think that reply was to me. Sorry I didn't say thank you Smile
I usually do warnings, say if I'm doing the washing up and catch them doing something they shouldn't, like drawing on a chair instead of the colouring book, take them away from the chair and explain that "pens are for paper, not for chairs" etc, if caught a second time then I will say "if you do it one more time, I will take the pens away", and I will take them away if done again.

We have open-plan so they are in the same room, I'm not leaving them unsupervised with the pens asking for trouble!

Currently she enjoys screaming at me, repeatedly, in an attempt to get back what I have taken away! It's so hard not to cave when you feel the headache coming Envy (not envy)

cushioncovers · 07/05/2018 18:05

If you hit your children they will hate you for it.

Nope Not necessarily

blaaake · 07/05/2018 18:12

If you hit your children they will hate you for it

I don't hate my parents for it. It's not something I'd personally do but I don't hate or resent them.

Sleepyblueocean · 07/05/2018 18:38

flowermug2 I think that is too many warnings.

pigsDOfly · 07/05/2018 18:57

My children were born in the 80s I never smacked them and my DD doesn't smack her DCs.

I've never understood this idea that people smack/tap a child's hand to stop them doing something dangerous such as touching something hot. How does that teach them anything about hot stuff.

If a small child puts their hand near something that can hurt them surely the sensible thing to do is to pick them up and remove them from the situation whilst telling them not to touch whatever it is. Why hit them for their natural desire to explore. It's the parents' responsibility to ensure their child is kept out of harm's way so keep them out of harm's way without hurting them. It's not difficult.

When they're old enough to understand they need to have it explained to them why touching hot things, or whatever the danger is, isn't a good idea.

I was born in the late 1940s. I also wasn't smacked as a child.

flowermug2 · 07/05/2018 19:02

flowermug2 I think that is too many warnings.

It's two warnings, you think one would be better? I thought two warnings would allow her to really understand what action it is that is "naughty" and be given chance to remedy behaviour before punishment, but maybe ?

Gottagetmoving · 07/05/2018 19:10

I was smacked or given 'a good hiding' by my mother. My dad only smacked me once and he was really upset afterwards.
I used to fear my mother's temper, anything could set her off.
Being under threat of smacks made me tell lies to avoid punishments. It also made me very defensive. I hate when people say it did them no harm. I think it does in ways you don't recognise as being down to being smacked.
I never smacked my two children. I can't see any reason to ever strike your child. It's a failure on your part if you do.

MyBreadIsEggy · 07/05/2018 19:15

I was smacked - on the bum, back of the leg with a tea towel (mum’s specialty!).
I wasn’t majorly traumatised by it, but I do remember being wary of walking past my mum in the kitchen if I’d done something naughty!!
I will never lay a hand on my kids. I don’t see how I can tell them off for hitting each other if I then punish them by hitting - the old “do as I say not as I do” bollocks.

NicEv · 07/05/2018 19:22

It is wrong to strike another person , especially someone smaller and weaker than you. If my husband hit me - just once - I would leave him. He never would because he is a decent human being - and that is the reason neither of us would hit our children. I can’t understand anyone who thinks it’s right to hit their child - it’s abhorrent.

OliveOrTwist · 07/05/2018 19:27

I was smacked regularly. The favourite was the face and she'd often leave a handprint. I'm still flinchy now if I see someone suddenly move their hand and I'm convinced this is the reason.

Im pg now and i will never smack my child. I don't want them to be afraid of me.

larrygrylls · 07/05/2018 19:34

Most people come on these threads to either judge or gloat, both of which they clearly enjoy.

On the other hand, if you had a sausage factory and updated all the machinery and working practices, but the sausages came out the same (or maybe a bit worse), you might examine whether the previous owners were really that bad.

The talk from the schools (even expensive private ones), universities and police is not of a singularly peaceable, well behaved and well motivated generation of young people.

Sure, some are great but, on average, maybe a little more troubled and ill behaved than the previous generation.

Mycatsarebetterthanyours · 07/05/2018 19:39

I was smacked, quite often leaving marks. My brother used to blame me for things when I wasn't at fault but being the golden child who can do no wrong it was me who was punished and not him.

There is no way I would smack my child as he won't learn anything from it.

rainbowlou · 07/05/2018 19:47

I was smacked, often for no reason and I’ve never laid a finger on mine.
Funny thing is if it’s mentioned it to my mum she will deny it until she is blue in the face and accuse us of picking on her!

coffeeforone · 07/05/2018 20:02

Yes I was smacked occasionally. No I wouldn’t smack a child.

Times have changed and it’s not acceptable any more. It was different when I was a kid and it was more acceptable. My parents rarely did and it was an effective ‘shock tactic’ for serious/dangerous misbehaviour.

sdaisy26 · 07/05/2018 20:02

Yes I was. Maybe twice? But I was a pretty difficult child at times so don't blame them! I know they still feel bad about it.

I have never smacked mine, and don't anticipate a time that I ever will. I don't believe it is an effective consequence or way of improving behaviour.

Sleepyblueocean · 07/05/2018 20:16

"It's two warnings, you think one would be better?"
I think that one warning at most is best. If she understands she shouldn't do it , she will know that the first time she is told.
If it is a particular problem I wouldn't give any warnings, just take them off her and give her something else to do. It's natural consequences rather than punishment, like removing food when they throw it.

corythatwas · 07/05/2018 20:16

larry, I'd say a fair few of the posters on this particular thread are saying "my parents smacked me and I resent it"

does that come under the heading of judging or gloating?

MrsKoala · 07/05/2018 20:17

I was smacked very occasionally (about 2-3 times i can't remember being remotely scared by it tho but i was scared by my dads shouting, and sadly i am a natural shouter too, which i keep in check mostly and always apologise for afterwards) and i have occasionally smacked my ds1. It's not something i do regularly at all but when ds1 has been physically attacking me i have had to to get him to stop. People always say 'you wouldn't hit an adult, so why would you hit a child' but i fucking well would hit an adult who was ripping my hair out and attacking me and my other children, a darn sight harder than the smack i've given ds1.

Sometimes he gets so wild and caught up in the mania that a smack jolts him out of it. Other times i have wrapped him in a towel and held him tight while he tries to bite and kick me.

I have never smacked my other 2 dc as other things work with them.

corythatwas · 07/05/2018 20:18

as a historian myself and someone who follows early modern/modern social historians on twitter (posting extracts from documents) I'm not quite so convinced that this generation is more troubled than earlier generations

troubled, yes

but some pretty hair-raising stuff from earlier generations too

BertieBotts · 07/05/2018 20:48

You're welcome :) It's OK I wasn't expecting thanks. It's a discussion not an advice clinic Grin

I agree that two warnings is too many, or actually, more that these warnings are too late because the behaviour has already happened - if you're wanting to avoid or minimise use of punishment, then the correction needs to come earlier, when it can be more of a nudge in the right direction. At the age when they are drawing on furniture, they don't actually have the impulse control to comprehend being given a choice to behave well vs behave poorly, so if you give them the chance to make the choice, you're actually setting them up to fail, and every time they fail (do the behaviour you don't want), it reinforces that behaviour, even if you "correct" it with a punishment. So what I would do is when I first see the child getting the pens or first gave the child the pens, I would remind them "Remember, just on the paper, OK?" and defo keep an eye. If I noticed that they were wandering a bit, e.g. missing the edges then it would be a reminder "Be careful of the table" - and possibly getting a piece of newspaper or something to put underneath as a buffer zone, if I hadn't already done that because I remembered from last time. I would aim, ideally, to stop/intervene before the pen even touched the chair, and either decide that it meant I needed to sit with the child and supervise them much more directly, or if that wasn't possible, decide that the pens need to go away. Not as a punishment or deterrent specifically, although of course the child might be upset! But more because I'm not able to supervise closely enough at the moment so the activity isn't appropriate. As it's not a punishment, I might distract the child with another activity to cheer them up, or suggest an alternative to the child such as drawing with pencils instead or getting out the aquadraw. I'd probably also decide that pens still need to be a supervised only activity, and I'd place them up out of the child's reach and they'd have to ask for them and wait until I or somebody else was available to supervise, or wait until pen drawing was offered. Again, not as a punishment - just in order to reinforce correct pen usage, and avoid reinforcing a scenario where she draws on furniture, even if she is punished for doing that. You can control their environment to this extent, this is not a difficult thing to do, even if you have older children you can tell them to keep the pens out of reach of the little one unless they are supervising her. Of course there may be the occasional slip up, but because it's rarer all you really need to do is speak firmly to them to explain it's not acceptable, and make sure to hide the pens better. If you have a very determined child who is seeking out the pens under great effort and insisting on drawing on furniture, that might be a case for punishment as a deterrent - but that's a different scenario, IMO, than most toddler furniture drawing, which tends to happen just because they have no focus and get carried away in what they are doing.

Just my opinion, of course - some people would say that this is overly babying and that toddlers are able to make choices like this. I see it as a shift in responsibility as children get bigger. When they're really little you decide the boundaries (because they don't know!) but you also have control over what they can physically do, because they are small and dependent, which means you can reinforce behaviours you want by steering them into them and encouraging/praising, and avoid reinforcement of behaviours you don't want by physically preventing them. However, as they get older, you can start to let them make small choices which will have consequences (for example, deciding whether to wear a coat or feel cold) but you would definitely continue to prevent most things (like not letting them jump into a pond to find out it's wet and cold). By about the age of 7 they should be making these kinds of consequential choices more than half of the time, so that they learn what it means. The consequences could be natural (forget your coat, get cold), logical (make a mess, clean it up) or generic imposed (hit somebody, lose screen time). You're deciding the boundaries and they're having more freedom to make choices between them, but not too early. Later, by the teens, there's another shift where you move to deciding less of the boundaries and they begin to work out boundaries for themselves, so you stop policing some of their behaviours at all (but might still give advice if needed) - however of course some boundaries are still important for teenagers, and at this point due to their size and amount of time they spend unsupervised out of the house, you're not actually able to stop them from making whatever choices they like - you can only react to their choices in line with the boundaries you've set.

BertieBotts · 07/05/2018 20:57

Sorry missed screaming in response - I would ignore as that's typical for the age and she will grow out of that/stop doing it if it doesn't get a response. But generally by avoiding the situation of having to take the pens away for a reason she doesn't understand will also avoid the situation of her screaming about it.

flowermug2 · 07/05/2018 22:52

@BertieBotts

Thanks so much. She loves pens and is very insistent, she will pull at me and moan at distractions I try to pull like "no pens right now what about xyz?", and I've had to hide the pens as if the pencil case is anywhere in sight she will stack an object so that she can climb up and get them etc Grin. It's like a challenge for her. I might try a sticker book instead of a colouring book for those odd times I do have to do something without her, she does love stickers but struggles to pull them off herself.... and moans about pencils because they're not bright enough Hmm we'll get there!

We have to hide stackable objects because she tries to get at the sink all the time for pouring water into cups (and all over the floor in the process) - but now she just uses completely random things to give her more height like her dolly's pushchair or her dad's shoes - very determined! we do let her play with the water but not at the sink, on the floor with towels and mat :)

It's all good advice, and tbh colouring with pens is not the best activity while mum is not wholly focused on said toddlerGrin but when you're just wanting a few quiet minutes to sort something out you get the urge to just give them what their asking for (pens! Always those damn pens...)

Anyway thanks again

flowermug2 · 07/05/2018 23:00

And speaking of the screaming... We had incident of her spitting her water back into her cup this morning... It's the water thing, if you give her a cup with a lid to prevent her playing with the water then she spits her drink onto the lid of 360 cup to try and get some instead. So she had the cup taken away and she did the usual screaming at me and throwing self back against chair etc... And I decided to dead-pan it out, and just fixed her with a Hmm but without the eyeballs iyswim. And it worked, I'm pleased to say. I think if she sees I'm getting frustrated she realises she can wear me down or something.

BertieBotts · 07/05/2018 23:25

Yes definitely! A lot of toddler dramatics are just trying things out to see what you'll do. When you get angry or upset that's great for them because it's an interesting reaction - if you do nothing then it's not very useful to them, and I'm sure they realise that screaming and flopping about isn't very fun either.

Maybe there's a safer environment she can have access to pens - like within a playpen, with a tablecloth under it if it's one of those gate type ones. In a highchair, if it wouldn't be too annoying to keep passing them to her when she drops them. Or there are some magic pens which claim only to work on special paper, but I worry about the chemicals in them. Wax crayons are also bright but don't seem to mark soft furnishings as much. (Don't let her near radiators, though.)

Apparently if you pull the in between/background bit off the sticker sheet it's easier for toddlers to do.

Water play is part of a schema, which is a normal developmental urge. I also wouldn't be happy with random sink water play - but you can do baths in the middle of the day, or outdoor water play when the weather gets warmer. Again not unsupervised, unfortunately, but it's a great excuse for a sit down with a cup of tea!

She sounds curious and determined which will defo be great when she's older. Not so easy now Grin

OnTheList · 09/05/2018 15:42

I've never understood this idea that people smack/tap a child's hand to stop them doing something dangerous such as touching something hot. How does that teach them anything about hot stuff.

Smacking a hand is preferable to my mothers way of dealing with this. She would just let me touch whatever. As she figured that I would not go to touch the fire again if I had been burned once. She was right mind, after doing anything daft once and being very hurt, I didn't do it again. But I cannot imagine seeing my child go to touch the fire and doing nothing about it to 'teach them'.

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