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?

I have given mine a tap on the back of their hand but that was in danger more than discipline (once when she ran in to the road and the other when she went for the iron).
I wouldn't use spanking as a discipline but I felt awful the two times that I tapped my children.
I didn't think any parents used hitting anymore.

So some violence against kids is okay then.

No. Not okay in the sense that I would describe it as desirable. It's actually a very undesirable outcome.

But humans tend to have a reaction when somebody hits them in the face. Yes, even if that somebody is a child.

And if a mother slaps away the hand that just hurt her so badly that she required medical care? Seems like an instinctual response without conscious thought behind it to me. It's therefore imo excusable. (not a desirable outcome but still an excusable action... There's a difference.)

And it's just not comparable to somebody choosing to hurt their child or being unable to control themselves due to anger (or intoxication etc)..

@thedancingbear
I can't see how a parent slapping their child is any better than a husband giving his wife a tap.

You said the above up thread. Now if you apply the scenario where the wife hits her husband in the face with a metal pot, is it wrong for the husband to push her back or smack her hand away? Even if you think that violence is never justified, lucky the law disagrees with your black and white view of the word and recognises there are limited circumstances where it will be justified or defendable. Self defence being one of them.

Smacking always equals abuse, there is never justification. Whether it’s your child. Your spouse, your boss, your mum or a random stranger in the street you are slapping, hitting, punching or kicking, it doesn’t matter, it’s abuse.

Being a parent doesn’t give you the right to abuse your own in the name of discipline. Just like marriage doesn’t give you thr right to abuse your spouse in the same name.

Unless there is additional needs in the person hitting then it is always always abuse.

And yes I would have no qualms against abusing someone who I saw doing it. And I’d hope every single decent person would be the same. Sadly though they tend to hide it behind closed doors because they know it’s wrong. And they don’t want called out on it.

@Smileyaxolotl1

kaheki I’m not particularly pro smacking but your argument (which always comes up) is completely nonsensical unless you don’t believe children should receive any punishment at all. You wouldn’t send an adult to their room or put them on the naughty step or confiscate an item. You are also not responsible for the behaviour of other adults.

The state does send people to prison or confiscate earnings from crime or fine people. The British state doesn’t use corporal punishment.

I don’t see the point- what does smacking achieve?

That said, psychological type punishments like ignoring are just as bad imo.

nestisflown, sorry I will come back on that. I'm not trolling and am very happy to have a sensible discussion.

I found KKSlider's post problematic because it suggested hitting your kids in some situations, if not ideal, is excusable. It presents it as a grey area. I don't think we can treat it like that. First, on a fundamental level, I do think hitting a kid is potentially in the same category as a man hitting a woman - it's an abuse of a power relationship and on a moral basis I struggle to distinguish the two.

Second, if the discourse around the subject is not absolute - if we adopt a position that we shouldn't really hit our kids, but these things occasionally happen, you very quickly end up with posters saying things like braying the kids is 'tempting but ineffective' (a few posts above this one).

I don't think KKSlider is for a second an abuser (though if I'm completely honest I can't identify with the compulsion to hit my kids back). I do think there are plenty of people who need little excuse to hit their kids, and if we give them one, they'll fucking take it.

Do you see where I'm coming from now?

My two boys are now 26 and 30, and I know that it is possible to have discipline without slapping (or shouting for that matter, which is also inappropriate in my opinion). Firmness and routine and consistency are what matter, as well as reminding yourself that you are their parent, not their friend, and sometimes you have to insist on things that they don’t want. There’s plenty of time for friendship when they’re in their late teens, young adults. When children are young, they need boundaries and guidelines re. your expectations of them, behaviour-wise. That’s how you establish discipline, not by slapping or shouting at them. Discipline through fear is totally wrong, I think.

if you apply the scenario where the wife hits her husband in the face with a metal pot, is it wrong for the husband to push her back or smack her hand away?

Pushing back or pushing a hand away is fine. Smacking the hand away is iffy. KKSlider by her own description 'lashed out'. Each of these is different.

But children today are in general a lot worse behaved and less respectful than they were when we were teenagers

Jesus, the amount of times people use this kind of bullshit to justify why smacking is ok - do you know that since Socrates' time adults have been saying this about the next generations?

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room."

And yet the children I know, work with, live with and spend time with through volunteering are generally a great bunch. Of course they have moments of ridiculous behaviour and foolishness, but so did every generation of youngsters before them. I hate that adults believe that younger generations are this, that and the other. There are arseholes in every generation. And they're probably the ones smacking their children and trying to justify it.

I have never heard a valid reason for smacking where another response wouldn't have sorted the situation in a more positive way. I've never seen an excuse for smacking that actually made me think "yep, that kid deserved it".

I also think it's wrong to hit a child in any way, in any situation. Surely the idea is lead by example?

When I read that thread in the week about examples of abusive partners I wondered how on earth so many people grow up so fucked up. I wouldn't be half surprised it a lot of it stems back to childhood abuse.

No. Just no.

No I would not smack a child. I have raised two decent human beings who got to adulthood without being smacked and I have worked with children who have had very challenging behaviour without needing to hit any of them. I was hit as a child and it left a lasting emotional mark.

It's not discipline it's abuse. There is nothing anyone can say that will convince me otherwise and I work in a safeguarding role so believe me, I've heard all the excuses and justifications in the book. People forget that children are people too. The fact that it is legal to slap your child in this country in 2020 as long as you don't hit them with an "implement" or leave a lasting mark is shameful and says a lot about how we as a society treat our most vulnerable.

It's definitely never okay!!

I don't think KKSlider is for a second an abuser (though if I'm completely honest I can't identify with the compulsion to hit my kids back). I do think there are plenty of people who need little excuse to hit their kids, and if we give them one, they'll fucking take it.

Do you see where I'm coming from now?

I do see your point @thedancingbear when you put it like this but I don’t think attacking people such as KKSlider (who was just being honest about her experience of the subject) is a productive way of making that point. I think if you had started off with your last post which I mostly agree with, then that would have helped frame the discussion better. I defended KKSlider because she was posting in the context of the question of whether is it ok to hit a child as a form of discipline, to which she responded no. I think we’re all agreed (with the exception of a few people on this thread) that smacking as a form of discipline is an absolute no.

While there are grey areas- you’re right, if we framed the discussion say on domestic violence around the possible defences, that could potentially encourage abusers to continue/start abusing in the knowledge that the general public was sympathetic to situations where domestic violence was justified. At least that’s what I have taken your point to mean- which I think is completely valid and I hadn’t thought about it that way before.

I think most parents occasionally lose the plot and do a quick smack, but it's often instinctive and not an intentional thing. My mother remembers being smacked twice by her mum, and never by her dad. I was smacked a couple of times when I ran into the road, just a quick smack out of fright I think. I have smacked older DS when he hit his baby brother round the head with a toy, but it again was the instinctive smack across the bottom. Not painful but shocked him and he didn't do it again.

So half a dozen smacks in 3 generations didn't do anyone any harm I'm sure. To use smacking as a routine punishment is totally wrong. There are far more effective ways, and smacking causes more problems than it solves. I hate seeing children smacked

No it's never OK and it's not even an effective form of disipline. I am from the era when corporal punishment was very common in school and it was was always the same children who were hit. If it was an effective form of punishment their behaviour would have improved but it never did. I was never hit but seeing others being hit turned me into a very timid and anxious child scared all the time. People may say it does no harm but it does.

My father got off on bashing us around and calling it "smacking", being in control, getting to wallop someone much smaller, weaker and less powerful, in the name of being the great righteous moral tutor. I'm sure he wasn't the only one. Prick.

No not ever okay.

On the very very odd occasion where behaviour is dangerous or incredibly bad it perhaps could warrant it.
And what do you do when they do the same thing again? Or again?
Hit harder?

It doesn't work an it's abusive.

Not ok. I’ve never hit mine.

"No....unless you are stopping a child from injuring themselves seriously. Then perhaps a hand smack.*
I don't understand how smacking a child would stop them from injuring themselves. Just remove them from the danger. I don't see how hitting them is necessary or helpful.

No.
I remember being hit as a child. It hurt, and it humiliated (especially in public).

If you hit another adult, it would be an assault and you could end up in court. Why is it acceptable to do it to a child?

@Kljnmw3459

Tempting!!!!! But ineffective. You feel bad, child feels bad and nobody's learnt anything.

I learnt to be afraid of my parents, and that it's OK to hit people if they annoy you. Great lessons from my parents there. It took a while for school to undo number two, IIRC.