To think most parents are, or have been, abusive by the standards of MN

[Oakenbeach]

I’m part of a stable family with two well adjusted children... there’s lots of love and support, and we generally very happy.

However, over the course of our family life there are times when I’ve lost my temper and shouted at the children and after the anger has died down realised I was being unreasonable with my response being disproportionate. Based on MN, I was probably emotionally abusive during these outbursts. I have also smacked my children on the odd occasion - never hard at all and always when they have been violent themselves (in the way a 3-4 year old can get when having a tantrum). According to MN I would be labelled abusive for these parenting fails...

However, don’t most parents have occasions when they have fallen short with their kids and haven’t always been models of parenting perfection? I’m not proud of myself for times I have lost my temper etc. but equally, I really don’t feel I’m in any way out of the ordinary.

Some of these replies, honestly. OP, seriously you're not a bad parent. You care, for one. Bad parents don't. Never bother to ask a question involving smacking on here... Never goes well. I'm sure your children will not grow up scarred and destroyed. I always find people's attitudes to parents that are otherwise loving and caring that have slipped up and done more authoritarian styles of discipline that are frowned upon the same as everyone has a pop at smokers for example. Yet nobody has a go at heroin addicts in the street. It's soft targeting. Blame the easier target. So basically parents that are ill intentioned and purposefully abuse their children, ones that smack and shout routinely and have no regard or remorse for their behaviour and do it as a means of control and humiliation - they're your real abusers. I'm conclusion I certainly wouldn't lose sleep over worrying you're a bad parent.

I think Limp, you are right, I have smacked in the past, when I have lost control, and did not know how to deal with things in a better way. I feel really shit, and it was my failings as a parent. I think people on here are afraid to admit they smack, because they will be jumped on and pulled to shreds. What makes me feel better, is that my kids love their home and spending time with me, they would rather be with me and at home, than anywhere else. Is the impression I get from them. So I hope I have not done too badly. Now dd has been dx with ASD and learning difficulties and goes to special school, and we have help in place, it makes life so much easier. Her behaviour has significantly reduced and is so much easier to parent her now, than at the beginning.

Feeling their loving arms around me is the best feeling ever.

@aeroflotgirl you've hit the nail on the head there. So glad you've got a positive success story and are human enough to admit to your mistakes. A balanced and realistic response unlike some on here

Thanks Limp, I am in a much better place now. I read the smacking threads on here and my heart sinks, If I admit that I did used to smack, I am like a lamb to the slaughter on here. Not all parents who smack, are nasty abusive Baby P type parents, a lot of us are humans, who have made mistakes. For me, it was a loss of control and failings on my part.

I've never smacked even in the face of very challenging behaviour. I was hit regularly as a child often just because I was the nearest child rather than anything I had done. I was determined my home would never be like that.
Sometimes I have to be quite physical ( in a hands on sense) which I think some people who don't have a similar child might think they wouldn't do but they don't have an understanding of the situation.

I don't smack my DC... however, in the context of a normal, loving home, I don't necessarily think it's abusive. It's not brilliant parenting but I was occasionally smacked as a child and I'm not traumatised by it. I remember calling my mother a bitch when I was younger and she smacked me round the face...I never called her a bitch again!

As for shouting...it's very easy for parents with one well behaved, compliant child to say you should never shout, however occasionally raising your voice at a child whose horribly misbehaving is not abusive. It would be abusive to shout and rant at a child all day long or shout in a way to humiliate them or call them names etc.

For example, let's say a child purposefully broke a siblings toy. It's not abusive for their parent to raise their voice and say something like "how dare you damage their toy?". It would be verging into abuse if they said "how dare you damage their toy you (insert expletive)?"

We are in dangerous territory if any form of discipline becomes classed as abusive... parents will be rendered completely powerless with zero leverage to correct behaviour.

@Thisreallyisafarce you don't have a legal right to hit your child. Assault is against the law. Parrntshave been able to use "reasonable chastisement" as a defence for assaulting their children. This has been removed in Scotland, soon will begin wales

OP you made the mistake of mentioning smacking and what could have been a good discussion has got lost in a smacking debate.

I'm not sure that it is that some posters think they do it all right, I think they just like to kick people who are down.

FWIW I used to be made to sit on the 'naughty step' as a child, it was bloody awful and caused me much more anguish than a smack ever did. Moreso as I felt it very unjust, not just through my child eyes but also looking back, for example my sister would provoke me until I smacked her to make her go away, yet she would go all sickly sweet and get away scot free.(I mean things like trapping me in a corner, taunting me etc)

PMSL at hitting your kids to punish them for being violent!

Losing your temper briefly on occasion and apologizing is not abuse. It is modeling that people have intense emotions and have to take responsibility for them.

Smacking is always abuse.

Smacking is abuse.

Is it ok to smack a baby? An adult? Where's the line?

Why is it ok to hit a child?

If you smack your child you're abusing them.

So many people are so desperate to have kids and some that do treat their kids like shit. Messed up world.

My mum was a sulker. A brief flare of temper and a smack or a hit is better than being sulked at. At least there is evidence of emotion rather than silence and emotional withdrawal.

Those of you saying hitting is always abuse, is sulking always abuse?

We are shaped by our childhood experiences some people find silence worse than emotion, others hate temper and shouting.

We are all crap parents at times rather than criticising a bit of support would be good. Unless you are using screen at a table in which case you should be locked up.

It's funny but the friends I see saying it's fine to hit their kids and post memes about how kids aren't disciplined enough these days are the friends who's kids have ended up being kicked out of school or getting in trouble with the police.

All of the hippy friends who did more gentle parenting have balanced, kind kids.

Go in a prison, bet most in there are from smacking families rather than the snowflake families.

I agree op

What would the perfect parents have happen when an overwhelmed mum loses her cool and smacks or shouts at her child? Have the parent arrested and the child carted off by social services?

Because that would be less damaging right?

I am not a perfect parent and do admit to having lost my temper with dd at times, I am a single parent and dd has been at times a challenging child. Does that make me abusive? Does that mean dd is in someway damaged for life?

Dd is loved and cared for, she is shown love in lots of different ways and she knows how much I love her and how valued she is.

Abusive parents are the ones who don't give a crap about their kids not the ones who occasionally lose their shit!!

If you can't control yourself when you're angry to not hit your child you need to seek help.

My Mum had four kids at home as a single parent, one is severely disabled, one with bad learning difficulties. She had no support at all. Managed to never hit any of us.

Is it ok to 'lose it' with your partner and hit them?

Check out lady in Tesco?

Why is it perfectly fine to 'lose it' and hit vulnerable children?

Disgusting.

I’ve never said I was proud of the times I’ve shouted while I’ve lost my temper or smacked (see previous post for what I meant by that), or attempted to argue that it’s a good thing, so those of you who are saying it’s not right are missing the point..... It’s more whether these things make me an abusive parent as some would seem to suggest.

It wouldn’t surprise me that some of those in here who claim never to have shouted, let alone smacked, are also self-righteously passive aggressive and emotionally constipated (I said ‘some’, not ‘all’, before people think I’m accusing them personally!)

I’d say that’s far more likely to mess up your child than a tap on the knee that they won’t remember 10 minutes later (rather than a wallop they’ll never forget!). People on glass houses and all that...

Not hitting or screaming at your kid means you're 'emotionally constipated'? alrighty then. 

I was hit as a child, lots, in fact one of my parents ended up with a criminal record as a result of this (and I never forgave the person who reported it...). I have never hit my children, ever, but I have shouted at them (probably scaring them) and "man handled" them a little (to get them into clothes, into car seat, etc).
I always apologise for shouting at them and we cuddle. I'm making a real effort not to shout at them now.
My DH wasn't hit as a child, but in 12 and 8 years (ages of kids) he has used force as a punishment. A total of 3 times.
He knows it's wrong has always apologised and hasn't done it for years. He knows that I don't like it. We've agreed that we're not going to hit our children. We've managed recently to agree then when shouting is about to happen, that we're to cuddle instead. It works. It completely changes the situation.
We're not perfect but we're doing our best. We even explain that to the kids.
My kids are great. I'm very lucky to have them.

Smacking a toddler, or anyone really, is abusive. Sorry.

caroloro

I think you need to work on your understanding of the current law in England.

Is it ok to 'lose it' with your partner and hit them?

Is it ok to force your partner into a car when you need to go somewhere and they don’t want to?

Is it ok to physical prevent your partner from leaving the house when they go to leave and you don’t want them to?

Is it ok to physically take something off your partner that you don’t think it’s appropriate for them?

Is it ok to physically hold your partner’s legs while you undress them ready for bed when they thrash around and protest they don’t want to?

Of course not!.... But it doesn’t follow that it’s nit ok to do this with your child. There’s a natural, inherent physically in any parent-young child relationship that would be entirely inappropiate in an adult-adult relationship... the parent needs at times to physically dominate a child, albeit in a proportionate, loving and restrained way. In the hurly-burly of such a relationship a small light smack may not be a good thing, but it’s not comparable to assaulting an adult.

Oakenbeach for what it's worth I don't believe what you've described is abusive or makes you a bad parent. I don't slap because frankly my parents regularly used hitting or the threat of it as discipline but I don't think what you're describing is the same thing at all.

MN can be very black and white and leaving aside smacking/slapping, I think some people use abuse when what they mean is "something I don't approve of" . To me it risks diminishing the actual abuse that lots of vulnerable children suffer.

Oddly enough if you were to start a thread asking about contacting the authorities because you can hear next doors dc being screamed at day and night, you'd have a good proportion of respondents telling you to mind your own business/you have no idea what the parents might be going through/it's a snapshot of their day and so on. Oh, and possibly a suggestion that you offer mum a creme egg...

Just to add, to put this into context, I don’t smack routinely and haven’t for years! It’s something I have done on a few occasions when the children were smaller.