To have smacked my child

[Temporarilyc]

I've name changed for this because I'm ashamed of myself and will make no excuses for my behaviour. I suppose I'm looking for somebody to tell me I'm not the terrible person I believe I am but am prepared to be told otherwise.

On Saturday I smacked my three year old on the arm, it didn't leave a mark but it was hard enough that it made him cry and shocked him.

I have always been very "anti smacking" yet lost control of myself in the heat of the moment.

The reason it happened (but not an excuse) is because he was lashing out and bit his one year old sibling on the arm hard enough to leave deep teeth marks which are still visible today. I was exhausted and frustrated and lost control.

He has forgotten all about it but the guilt is eating me up.

I want to go and get him out of bed and bring him in with me just so I can hold him, love him and make amends for what I've done. (I won't because he's sleeping, but the urge is strong)

I haven't told DH because I'm a hypocrite, when discussing discipline pre children I made a blanket rule that we would never use physical punishment. DH thinks there is nothing wrong with a tap on the hand whereas I disagreed so made him promise never to do that.

Am I the scum of the earth or is this something you've done too in the heat of the moment?

I hate myself.

You're not a bad mum. You got taken up in the heat of the moment. You've never ever smacked before. We can all lose our tag. We arnt infallible!!!! If you were a bad person. It wouldn't make you feel guilty.

He was chewing on your babies arm. It's almost instinctive. Someones child one hot my child.i rushed up and shouted at some random child. I didn't even think.

Tomorrow's a new day!

He doesn't however have to have some kind of discipline though for bad behaviour.

Honestly lovely, don't feel so bad. It happened, it is a very stressful time. No one is perfect. Kiddie is ok. You won't do it again. Just put it behind you and move on.

Yes I certainly wouldn't do it again, I'm going to try and put it past me and concentrate on putting an end to the biting.

I think DS would benefit from some professional input in regards to the biting. There are sensory things going on and this is one of several behaviours that leave lead the health visitor to suspect there may be ASD.

I feel less like a monster for posting here so thank you so much.

YANBU at all! Forgive yourself.

Think someone already mentioned this but have you tried almost ignoring the biter (other than saying something like "we don't bite" firmly), and instead immediately making a huge fuss of the bitee? I have found this works really well with young DCs. If the aggressor sees that an attack ends in the injured one getting extra cuddles and attention, that takes away a lot of their motivation to do it. Most misbehaviour at this age is attention-seeking and they'd even rather be yelled at than ignored - although I'm sure your DS would say that all the apologies, cuddles, quality time etc he's had from mummy over the last couple of days more than make up for the brief upset of a single smack...

Honestly don't worry you poor thing. That bite mark is terrible. No wonder you smacked him. I think I'd do the same in that alarming instance and I'm not a 'smacker' but sorry a one off reaction doesn't make you abusive. He probably needed the short sharp shock. Hopefully he won't do that again and you won't do your part again. Don't beat your self up

Cross posted - if there's a sensory element to the biting and really needs to do it it might be worth trying a chewable/biteable toy. There are special ones for kids with SN - someone on here will be able to recommend. Good luck

@compassunreliable
That is the most unhelpful post I have ever seen, Are you a parent? perhaps perfect?
OP in the first place the fact that you feel this way because in the moment you reacted in a way totally against your beliefs in important. I have run parentsgroups in which we have discussed this very issue at length. By listening to parents I learned a lot. The situation you described is the most common. What parents told me is that they were shocked at the sudden anger they felt. They also told me it did nothing to improve the childs behaviour and they didnt want to do it again. They did not want to react suddenly. Of course we all want to be calm and rational but this sort of behaviour has thrown you. It doesnt mean it will happen again, in fact this is why you will better manage it next time. Please forget all the posts about violence, adult violence and all the other ignorant posts. There is a differnce between this scenario and one in which a child is brought up seeing violence, receiving violence, and smacking being the default response so ignore those who try to put you there. You responded to an attack on the baby, pure and simple. You were shocked that your loved child would bite your baby. So lets look at that for a moment. Biting is so common that you could almost say its normal, but we dont want it. It can happen for loads of reasons, frustration, jealousy, fear (of other toddlers behaviour) anger and sometimes because a toddler instintivle realises that teeth are a pretty handy weapon. The solution is a bit complicated and takes vigilance. First try and lessen the causes ( eg jealousy, include the toddler in tasks ) then and this is the most important, be very quick to intervene when a bite is coming( you will get good at reading the signs) and whisk the baby out of range, or yourself. A short sharp NO is also habndy to stop him in his tracks. Do not give him loads of extra attention at this point as that is a type of reward. Rather a bit later, a loving cuddle, story and tell him how good he is to be so gentle with the baby, So we reward the behaviour we want and try to ignore the one we dont. The next thing is your own care of yourself, ask any one who has made a mistake in their work and they will tell you they were stressed, in a hurry, or had too many tasks. So it is for you, manage your own stresses and time, so that you can feel calm enough to deal with this sort of scene. I wouldnt be too worried about explaing too much to him, a cuddle does that. I would also think about talking to your partner, this has shocked and upset you, he is your partner. He may need to know how you felt and may be able to help keep things in proportion

sorry about typos

Inthepurplerain Your 3 year old doesnt understand and will only stop when his sibling is big enough to thump him back.

FWIW, OP, as someone who was regularly smacked as a toddler and child, what happened here is really not that big of a deal. He'll be fine and won't grow up to think beating others up is OK as a result of this incident (I've never hit another person at any point in my life, despite frequently being hit myself growing up. Kids don't need to be taught to hit, they do it anyway because it's an impulse. I presume you didn't teach him to bite?)

I don't condone smacking, but nor do I think you need to be strung up for it. Give yourself a break.

Have you got a good parenting book you can read and refer to? I think it's fairly important in general, even before anything has gone wrong, to have strategies in mind. Like any other skill, parenting is learned.

Oh for goodness sake quit feeling sorry for your spiteful child and start feeling sorry for your poor innocent baby! That bite on her arm looks horrendous and you're not doing enough to protect her. Also to the person that was so blase about kids biting at nursery. I had to take my child out of a nursery he had previously loved because of a nasty little biter, so don't sit back, do nothing and leave it to nursery staff to discipline your child, do it yourself!

You're not scum of the earth
Otherwise you wouldn't even consider that you were.
I hope you feel a bit better soon

hitting damages children

I was hit a couple of times as a kid and I'm not damaged, it did me no long term harm whatsoever. I'm not condoning hitting but sometimes we snap and it's impulsive.

@JRUIN he's not spiteful he's very likely to be autistic, we are as sure as can be possible in the absence of a diagnosis and that is only because the waiting list for assessments here are so long.

I hover around them continuously and never leave them alone in a room together, I still have to turn my back regularly to do other things such as cooking or housework as no child can be watched 24-7.

Short of keeping them in separate rooms I fail to see what I can to do prevent it, that I haven't already done.

I implement discipline every time it happens, I get down go his level take his hands, loudly and firmly say "no!" then remove him from the situation. I take away his tablet and if cartoons are on they go off. I remove the toy box from the room.

Short of hitting him every time it happens which I'm absolutely not going to do, I'm at a loss.

I'm going to persevere with time out and I'll buy him some chew specific toys.

Hello OP, don't feel too bad about a small smack. It's very demanding looking after a 1-year old and a 3-year old (I've been there!) and we parents have our limits of patience. As others have said here, it was a reactionary smack - which I have found myself doing, when my children were younger - and the fact that you feel bad now - after the event - means you are very unlikely to be smacking either of your children in the future. Today is another day, don't look back, only forwards

DH works long hours so the childcare falls to me and with them being so young it's just not possible to keep them in separate rooms as that would mean one is being neglected and left to their own devices.

I'm trying hard here but it is difficult.

I refute the accusation that I'm not protecting my youngest, 2 times out of 3 I'm able to get in there first and scoop her up if he's becoming agitated but I only have one pair of arms and eyes.

DD is curious and sociable, she always wants to play with him and be in his personal space as that is just her nature, to be loving and playful.

Unfortunately his nature is that he likes to play alone and not have her touch "his" things or be touched, that is more often than not where the biting comes from.

They have individual personalities, opposite in nature, and the added complication of (potential) ASD means they clash.

You reacted to a situation. Give yourself a break. We are none of us perfect and all do things we regret. Like you said - he has forgotten it and it was completely out of character. There isn't a person posting on this board - including, I'm sure, @compassunreliable who hasn't made a mistake or lost their cool in one way or another. The #BeKind that makes the rounds all the time also includes being kind to yourself.

It happened, move on.

It happens. Please don't worry. At least these days we are conscious that it is not a good idea. DH tells me of the time when children were routinely hit [assaulted/beaten] with canes at school and by their parents ["a good smack"]

I had children in the 70s, and we smacked them when they were naughty. If I had them now, I wouldn't. But having said that , I think what you did was instinctive. it wasn't like you put him over your lap and smacked him. You didn't smack him round the ear (unforgivable) and you didn't hit him with a strap or cane. What you did was minor, and I think you should just forgive yourself.

" she always wants to play with him and be in his personal space"

And that's not acceptable either (yes I know she's still very young), but she needs to learn to leave him alone & he needs to learn that it's not ok to bite, but that you will keep her away when he wants to be on his own.

Please don't beat yourself up, OP. You were reacting to your DS biting his baby sibling and that was very understandable. I've had to cope with a lot of violence from my DD1 (now 11), towards both DD2 (now 8) and myself too in the past. They're both adopted, and birth siblings, so there are complex issues behind the behaviour. DD1 has SEN and adoption related attachment issues, but she is now improving, to encourage you.

I think smacking is an issue particularly if the parent minimises it. My DM does that about our childhood. She admits that our F used to smack us too hard and says she didn't agree with that and stopped him. She didn't, or not for many years and never said anything about that at the time. Plus she smacked us herself. The end result was that my DSis and i didn't feel able to disclose to her that our F was in fact sexually abusing us as well, because we had no reason to think that she would protect us from him.

What happened with you really isn't something to dwell on. The fact that you feel awful about it shows how strongly you feel that it wasn't a good way of disciplining your DS and that you're a wonderful mum.

It is completely impossible to stop the younger one getting hurt by the older one unless you keep them separated the entire time. I remember with my 2 even if I had them both sitting down nicely together, playing well, me sitting in between them and watching them like a hawk the entire time, DS1 would still find a way to hit his little brother.

If you have space for a playpen or to physically divide the room up so that your ds can play away from dd then do that as you'll save yourself a lot of stress in the long term. I didn't have this option so I just had to do the best I could and I found Ds2 learnt to defend himself pretty quickly.

Don't worry about nursery. Lots of children bite at that age and nursery should know how to deal with it.

Taking away toys won't help at that age as it's not related to what he did wrong. Trying to teach a 3 year old with suspected ASD to imagine how someone else feels is likely to not work either. Even my NT 4 year old struggles with empathy. A book about biting with clear repetition of the rule don't bite people could help combined with a sensory toy he can chew on when he feels the urge to bite sounds like it might be worth a try.

Oh and don't beat yourself up about hitting him. I smacked ds1 on his arm when he hit baby ds2 really hard across his face . It was a weird instinctual thing that I felt awful about and ds1 likely can't even remember now. You have years of parenting ahead of you where you will likely fuck up many times however hard you try .

It happens, move past it. You’re not a terrible mum at all. You feel guilt for a start. Parenting is tough

The only time I came close to doing this was exactly the same scenario as you- when my 2.5 year old DD bit her baby brother. I’m amazed I managed to stop myself because the anger just flared up and I was so so angry with her. Even though rationally I knew that she was tiny, and adjusting to a huge change, and I’m massively against smacking, and anyway what a pointless response to retaliate with violence - I knew all that, but in that moment it just goes out the window. I felt like I was quite a patient mum when it was just DD, and once DS arrived I struggled so much more, I ended up doing quite a few parenting courses and reading loads of books and trying to work on it. Obviously it got easier anyway once they were a bit bigger. So anyway, I really really don’t think you should be too hard on yourself- you’re human and you reacted that way instinctively because someone was hurting your baby, the fact that person was your other baby won’t have come into it in that split second. You know it’s not ok and feel guilty and will work really hard on never doing it again- I think that’s literally the mark of a good parent to be honest x