To ask your opinion on slapping kids as discipline?

[Sizedoesmatter]

Just curious to see what the general opinion is on using slapping or 'spanking' (I despise that word) children?

Mine is a very hard no. I don't agree with it in the slightest and I hate the argument of 'I was slapped and I turned out fine', in my opinion you didn't, because if you turned out fine you wouldn't be slapping your children. However 3 seperate sets of parents out of our friend group do use slapping as discipline, so it's obviously still quite common.

Is it ever OK to slap a child? Do you think it's an effective form of discipline? I got my fair share of whacks with the brush off the dustpan and brush or the wooden spoon. I can remember running from the house one day when my mother grabbed the sweeping brush during an argument. Can't say those experiences done me any good. Others may think different?

Thedancing,

Your experiences of growing up were clearly very different to mine. And, I suspect, you are conflating smacking with beating.

I don't smack my children (probably have a handful of times in their lives, and not for years now, and generally regretted it afterwards).

However, my late mother used smacking as a punishment and I can honestly say that I always had fair warning and, the few times I was smacked, decided that it was worth it to do what I wanted to do.

I can honestly say that I much preferred getting smacked to when my mother just went silent and became cold and upset.

It just isn't as black and white as people like to make out.

It just isn't as black and white as people like to make out.

I disagree, I think it is. A child is vulnerable, powerless and unable to leave. Hitting it a hitting so don’t do it. Even if smacking was some ok experience when little all it did was teach you that it wasn’t that bad.

Parents who beat, slap around the face, hit with an implement or just strike really hard always think they're "just" smacking. They're frequently not too good at changing their mindset as their child gets older too (why would they? They've ingrained into themselves that hitting the child is fine as long as they "deserve" it. Where else do we hear that?).

We've had people in this debate who are totally fine with slapping their kids (sometimes even treating us to lovely details about how they imagine bending them over and seeing them cry)
and yet get offended and call it "abuse" when they get frank responses to it. Guess smacking doesn't encourage the parents to engage the little grey cells either, hmm.

*Losing an access to a toy is not a 'consequence', it is a punishment, no more or less so than smacking. If a child refuses to go out of the house to school, for instance, there is no natural correlation between this and losing a toy.

Re your IPad example, I think it is awful that a child would believe that his continued ownership was contingent upon behaviour. So, in your eyes, is the Ipad merely loaned, rather than a gift? As, if it is a gift, it is the receiver's in law, and taking it back is theft (and you can go to jail for it if you do it to another adult).*

Ok, semantics if you fancy them.
Losing access to the iPad for 2 days is a consequence of bad behaviour
Getting a smack across your legs is a consequence of bad behaviour

One of these things will help children learn that if they are naughty, there are undesired consequences, and if they are good, there are desired consequences.

The other is hitting a vulnerable child who looks to you for safety and can't do anything about it but accept it.

In nt example, the iPad is not loaned, nor is it a gift. It is a family iPad which belongs to the family and everyone may use. However, parents can and do dictate how much time children can spend on it. That is just good sense to prevent too much screen time. If a child misbehaves, no screen time for 2 days (something they like) as a consequence of misbehaving. If they make up for it with very good behaviour, they can earn it back early. Otherwise, the set duration plays out.
They will stop being bad because they learn that they don't get access to their games or whatever.

Calling these things loans and gifts is like saying a child owns every biscuit in the tin, that was purchased during the weekly shop. They belong to the family. The parent still says you can have x amount then stop, to stop the child binging on junk.

If the child has bought the iPad outright from their own money, it cannot be used in this way. The Wi-Fi can be turned off, though.

Even If the iPad had been bought for the child, I'd like to see anyone claim theft for having it confiscated for 2 days as a result of pushing boundaries to the extreme. A friend of mine recently took her child's Xbox away for 3 days as punishment for having a tantrum and swearing at his mum, calling her a nasty fat shit. He had heard it at school and had been told before not say it again.

He hasn't said it since because he knows if he does, his Xbox goes again.

However, my late mother used smacking as a punishment and I can honestly say that I always had fair warning and, the few times I was smacked, decided that it was worth it to do what I wanted to do.

I can honestly say that I much preferred getting smacked to when my mother just went silent and became cold and upset.*

So in the case you have described, the smacking wasn't even really a punishment. A punishment generally stops behaviour occurring. If you decided being smacked was worth it, it's an ineffective punishment, so is just abusive parenting.

Going silent and cold is emotional abuse.

How about people talk to their children? Rather than hit, or go cold? It's toxic.

I do not agree with hitting, I don’t hit my children, I think it really is about a parents lack of control, rather than an effective discipline measure.

That said, I don’t think a slap on the arse will cause lasting damage to a child, and I can really understand how a parent can sometimes resort to it because my 6 year old honestly...sometimes I am amazed I haven’t snapped to be honest.

I do generally to logical and natural consequences, but I have just outright punished with the removal of something, such as a ‘late night’ or his spends, if I cannot see a natural or logical consequence.

@Sizedoesmatter

Just curious to see what the general opinion is on using slapping or 'spanking' (I despise that word) children?

Mine is a very hard no. I don't agree with it in the slightest and I hate the argument of 'I was slapped and I turned out fine', in my opinion you didn't, because if you turned out fine you wouldn't be slapping your children. However 3 seperate sets of parents out of our friend group do use slapping as discipline, so it's obviously still quite common.

Is it ever OK to slap a child? Do you think it's an effective form of discipline? I got my fair share of whacks with the brush off the dustpan and brush or the wooden spoon. I can remember running from the house one day when my mother grabbed the sweeping brush during an argument. Can't say those experiences done me any good. Others may think different?

I'm actually shocked that you need to ask the question, if it is okay to violently assault a child. Seriously!!

I can’t imagine what messed up message a child receives when someone physically assaults them and then hugs them.
Absolutely. Like others I found that post chilling Also snowybean at what age would you do that. You say 6 months is too young, at 12 months, 28 months, 2 years?

Baluchistan95 I'm shocked that you don't understand the concept of having a debate and hearing other people's opinions on a topic, something this website is designed for 🤷‍♀️ if you're going to be unnecessarily rude I suggest you scroll on.

I'm honestly very surprised by a lot of the responses and the fact that a lot of people agreeing with hitting children, believe it's OK to hit toddlers.. I have an almost 20 month old and I couldn't for one second imagine hitting him. Would those people also hit a puppy if it was bold? It's extremely sad that people in this day and age still believe young children can possibly deserve to be physically assaulted.

What your saying doesn’t add up though. Because people used to hit their children far more frequently and children and teenagers had A LOT MORE respect for general society
I don't think this is true at all. I was at a child in the 60s and 70s I don't think kids had particular respect for their elders or society at all. Young people today seem much more thoughtful and caring than when I was young. Maybe we were scared of adults but we didn't respect those adults who hit us . We made fun of them behind their backs and hated them. Respect has to be earned and you don't get it just because you are bigger and stronger.
Also as I said upthread it was always the same children at school being smacked, sometimes several times a day so it didn't work.

I was hit as a child and now I think if I’m getting shouted at by someone (through school etc) then I would be hit for it. I’m very anxious now.

How can you hit someone you love?

It just isn't as black and white as people like to make out.

It really is. If someone smaller and more vulnerable than you displeases you, you're not allowed to hit them. Not because you got cross, not because they worried you, not because you were having a shite day, not because anything. You just don't need to smack children to encourage good behaviour.

DS1 has autism and I genuinely believe if I had ever smacked him I would have lost his trust. He knows I absolutely have his back, he knows my expectations, he knows how to manage himself well, he knows how to show respect and he knows never to resolve issues with violence. There are and were consequences for crappy behaviour, but they were always consequences which helped him learn and having read the full thread I am no more convinced that there's ever a justified reason for slapping a child.

Haha yeah, the 1960s. The decade when young people were so deferential, proper and adherent to traditional rules and ideas about respect and behaviour! Anyone who truly believes that really must have been on acid the whole time.

I'm glad you asked that than just throwing verbal abuse my way So your kids have do deal with being smacked but you can't take people disagreeing with you and call it verbal abuse?

I'm not afraid of apologising if it doesn't work. Aplogising doesn't make it ok. 2 of my friends parents have been stopped from having relationships with their grandchildren because they hit their children.

You're actively planning and visualising physically abusing your children - human beings who can't defend themselves.

It is the smug superiority, based on zero actual evidence, that grates.

This is about our moral code. Should we as a society condone hitting children? I think the gradual consensus of opinion is no - not ever. There may very well be no actual evidence but then do we need any? We decided it was right to ban fox hunting, corporal punishment etc etc on the basis that we think it's morally wrong.

You're right - it is a cultural thing but like so many issues, attitudes change gradually and I personally think we will see more and more countries following suit.

@LizzyAnna99

I was hit as a child and now I think if I’m getting shouted at by someone (through school etc) then I would be hit for it. I’m very anxious now.

How can you hit someone you love?

Me too. Because of this, I avoid confrontation, sometimes doing myself a disservice because of it. The times I think were especially damaging were when I was smacked for something I didn't know was wrong. How was I to know that the man on the pavement was blind, that he would stop walking suddenly, and I would bump into him? My mum carefully explained why I shouldn't have bumped into him, then she smacked me. It's a memory that's followed me into adulthood, and it made me fearful of days out, in case I got smacked unexpectedly, and had the humiliation of being made to cry in public.

The other day, I saw a small child heading towards a road. The child was promptly grabbed by the parent, and rightly so, and it was a relief not to see the child being smacked, which would almost certainly have happened if it was the 1980s; that child would then be crying and unable to hear the parent's message that it's dangerous to run towards a road.

A book from the 1980s arguing against hitting children observed: "many parents regard it not just as a right, but as their duty to hit their children. Our language has developed a remarkable vocabulary to cover hitting children: slapping, smacking, spanking, clipping, clouting, walloping, tanning, cuffing, six of the best, slippering, whacking..."

Eh? Someone said they'd hit their kids but apologise if it didn't actually stop them from misbehaving? Either I've missed something or smackers are even....less clever than I've been giving them credit for. And I don't give them much, believe me.

I don't think I've ever hit anyone do I'm not sure why I would have broken that rule by starting on my kids. I really never needed to to have authority.

So far so good no need to smack them. Now even if I wanted to he is 14 taller than me and a black belt in karate. I'll have to chase him first and that means running. I'll pass.

If the decline of corporal punishment is the reason that behaviour in schools is worse now than it was 50 years ago, how do you explain that behaviour in schools has also declined within the same time span in countries where corporal punishment was already banned 50 years ago?

In fact, my parents who were teachers used to read with some kind of horrified amusement about the poor behaviour in English schools in the 70s. (Now they admit they are glad not to be teaching in any country.)

People love to give out about children and teenagers. Years ago when I worked in a local shop, I always found the teenagers to be some of the most polite customers. It was the middle aged and older customers who were rude and spoke horribly to staff 90% of the time. It was very rare that a teenager or younger person left without saying thank you 🤷‍♀️ anecdotal I know but just an observation.

I do think that older generations like to look down in the younger generations, and I disagree with it. If people really think that the way to make children behave, and that bad behaviour in schools is down to not hitting them, then their part of a much bigger problem.

I did it, in the eighties.

I was wrong.

Of course it’s not ok. And I’m really shocked by those claiming there is no evidence against it - there is loads, including links with depression and other mental health problems, suicide and addiction, and either perpetrating or being victims of domestic abuse.

Yes, lots of people smacked their children in decades gone by - back when people basically believed children should learn to obey adults without question, to be compliant, to be seen and not heard.

Nowadays there is perhaps more understanding that children need to learn to make good choices for themselves and not just be scared or beaten into submission. And also that bringing children up to obey adults without question and feel no ownership or agency over their own bodies might not actually be a good idea.

It isn’t ok to assault someone just because you have reached boiling point. It just isn’t.

People who smack like to claim that they only use it in a completely reasonable way, despite the fact that they’re either doing it because they lost their temper, or because they’re making a calculated decision to assault their child - both are utterly fucked up, and I refuse to deny that just to avoid hurting the feelings of someone who is offended by being told that inflicting physical pain and humiliation on their children is selfish and wrong.

However offended you feel, it’s nothing compared to how your child feels when you hit them.