To be shocked that people still think it’s ok to hit their kids?

[MrsMuffins]

Coming out of the supermarket this afternoon, a man was walking towards me with two kids, probably aged 8-10. As I passed him (quite a way away as I was heading towards my car) he said something to the boy along the lines of ‘I’ve f**king told you not to do that’ and sort of lunged at him. The boy literally cowered back, obviously expecting a whack. It really upset me - part of me thinking I wish I’d said something, and the other part shocked that people really think it’s ok to physically intimidate and hit their kids. Is it just me thinking that this kind of thing isn’t acceptable any more?!

Toughtips, you're (rather disingenuously) talking about two entirely different types of thread.

If a mum comes on MN upset that she has lost her temper and smacked - and this happens fairly regularly - she is generally horrified, regretful, frightened and asking for advice on how to reassure her child, to avoid it happening again and to cope with whatever stressors and frustrations led to the loss of control. Of course in that situation she receives sympathy and support along with the advice not to use violence again. We ALL fuck up and ask for help and advice, that's what MN is for.

This thread isn't an "advice and support" thread. This is a discussion about people actively choosing to hit their kids and believing it's the right way to parents. Which decent moderate people naturally will find repugnant.

So far the best justification for smacking, and the one which received a cheerleading endorsement from another poster immediately, is oblada's post, which amounts to "Oh, come on! It's not THAT bad!".

Still waiting for someone to provide an intelligent, principled explanation of the benefit to young children of being deliberately hurt by their own parents.

Wow. I know nobody who smacks their kids.
I live in a majorly deprived borough on the outskirts of Liverpool. Where I live has decent bloody people, salt of the earth type who would give you their last ( of course there are horrible people too but quite rare )
and I can't think of one single person who hits their kids.

This makes me feel sick too.

How on earth is it normal to some people that everyone hits kids and we then wonder why some kids turn out the way they do? Poor sods don't stand a chance..

I was occasionally smacked as a child and while I don’t hold any resentment towards my mum about it I can’t imagine ever hitting my DD(8).
My mum has often said how much she wishes she hadn’t hit me and my sister.

Hitting children legitimises violence in the minds of children at an early age. They receive physical punishment from the people they look up to most and it become ingrained in their psyche that if these people are doing it then it must be acceptable in some circumstances.

This is why we have the mindset where people will defend and excuse what their parents did to them and it is also more likely that children who are hit will hit others. Because they have known it to be acceptable.

In 2019 never have children been hit by adults less than at any time in the past. And strangely enough, society is less violent than it has ever been in the past. Violent crime is at a record low.

Countries where hitting children is illegal have the lowest rates of violent crime among adults.

@gamerwidow same here - the thought of smacking DS (her grandson) as she smacked me gives my mum major guilt and we’ve had many tears over it!

I grew up in the 60s when smacking/spanking was normal. Corporal punishment in schools had only recently been banned (though we were threatened with 'the cane' and my brothers, at the boys' school did actually get the ferrule on several occasions and 6 of the best was common practise).

My parents must have been ahead of their time as they didn't approve of smacking except in extreme circumstances. I remember being slapped on the thigh once or twice. It was shocking, and made me think hard about what I had done/was doing. It worked because it was so unusual.

I did not smack dd.

What about a smack to make sure a child learns not to run into the road, before they can understand language? I read a book by the linguist Stephen Pinker recently in which he said studies suggested physical punishment for risky behaviour led to a reduced rate of traffic accidents for toddlers who are too young to remember verbal scolding.

Just to clarify - when I said it's only people who've been hit who think it's ok, I obviously mean not all of us! In fact the minority as we can see from this thread. But of those who do think it's ok, I'd guess they all were hit themselves.

I could be wrong but that's my guess.

I bet "the linguist Stephen Pinker" was hit by his parents

Postino I’m not sure why you’ve put his name in quotation marks. He’s well-respected and was quoting a study carried out by other researchers. Whether he was smacked isn’t relevant to those results.

Electric shocks would probably be pretty effective in shaping infant behaviour as well. They certainly work on rats. That's a pretty low-level justification for using pain as an influencer.

YANBU No different to hitting a partner imo. Should be illegal.

In Ikea the other day I saw a dad with 2 DC who was whining ineffectively “Horace, please don’t hit Millie, that’s naughty”, while Horace twatted Millie repeatedly over the head. What Horace needed was a short sharp smack and the threat of another if he didn’t behave.

Perhaps it is discipline though fear. But it’s better than no discipline at all, which seems to be the norm nowadays, and it’s making life hell for teachers and police officers and everyone else who these kids disobey because they’ve learned they can get away with it.

Greensleeves that’s insane. I’d rather be smacked than run over and so would most of us.
This issue seems to attract some zealots.

“Obedience” is not a trait I value.

Years ago we had friends who used to sometimes hit their kids. The kids were always very badly behaved in comparison to mine who were never hit.

Cosmic could not agree more.

You've obviously never lived in Liverpool or any poor working class
City. It's rife, kids openly battered on a daily.

What's amazing, ferntwist, is that you perceive smacking and being run over as two halves of a binary equation. Ditto the "Horace and Millie" anecdote below. Unfortunately one of the first problems these threads always illuminate is the utter lack of skillset of parents who smack, and the assumption (often bequeathed by their own limited upbringing) that the disciplining repertoire of other, less physically aggressive parents consists of a wishy-washy hole where smacking ought to be.

Millions of children grow up unharmed by traffic, unburned by hot stoves, unelectrocuted, well-disciplined and well-behaved, without any adult ever raising a hand to them in violence. And these children have the added bonus of having learned early on that hitting someone smaller than you is wrong, so they don't go on to perpetuate further violence in their own families. Win-win.

God we really have turned into a ridiculously fluffy bunny, PC society. The poster who gave the IKEA example, I’d have given that child 3 verbal warnings and if they didn’t stop, yes, they’d have gotten a short, sharp slap on the hand themselves. You can only reason so much.

Mind you, the other day I saw something on FB whereby people were in utter outrage because a lady had opened her front door, her dog shot out and straight onto the road, lady was apparently shouting at her dog to come back and continued shouting until it did and people were saying to call the RSPCA because shouting at a dog was animal abuse. I mean...WTAF?! Call the RSPCA because someone raised their voice to their dog?!

The world’s gone completely mad.

Utterly bizarre that posters keep saying hitting children can keep them from getting run over??! How about the adults take care of their kids and keep them out of danger? Hold onto your kids by the road it’s actually not that difficult! It’s not a toddlers job to keep themselves safe!

And I have zero respect for parents that hit their kids.

It's horrific, and the fuckers who do it, would be the first to scream if someone "smacked them" it's the worst type of bullying there is. Bullying and physical abuse, against smaller people who can't get away from them. Children are impotent against their parents, they need to go with whatever shit is doled put to them.

I can only hope that young lad grows up and hits him back just as often and as hard as his father hit him. It's the only justice.

I’d have given that child 3 verbal warnings and if they didn’t stop, yes, they’d have gotten a short, sharp slap on the hand themselves

As long as you take it back, so when you're old, and as incapable as a child, you are well happy when they give you three warnings then slap you.

It will soon be illegal in Scotland and not before time. It's horrific and barbaric. It makes absolutely no sense. How would you feel if you were slapped by your partner or a co worker? But it's OK to snack a child? Parents who smack have poor parenting skills and have lost control.

Wouldn't 'NO!' or 'HOT!' etc. work just as well though? They might not understand the actual words but ime toddlers tend to understand tone and expression.