To assume this about people who hit their kids...

[NotDisciplineJustAbuse]

That they're probably not above hitting their wife/husband/partner etc or indeed their pets.

I don't buy into the 'discipline' crap as there are just far better ways of dealing with things. I'm sure smacking my husband every time he forgets to replace the loo roll could work but I was thankfully raised to use my big girl words and not rely on violence which will inevitably breed more violence.

I know but the world has moved on now. My point still stands though and is aimed at those who physically discipline their child, would you be content for a teacher to smack them nowadays?

Absolutely agree.

It's a lazy power trip for parents who have lost control and want to get it back quickly.

All the evidence points to it being harmful for kids.

Anyone who says they were smacked and now they are fine. 1) ARE you though!? Are you sure? And 2) if you really are it's in spite of the spanking not because of it

Ok, I'm biting

I was never smacked as an 80s child by my mum. I had no boundaries at all, as her talking to me and reasoning with me didn't work at all. Removing privileges had no effect on my behaviour either. I was an absolute shit at times.

XH and I decided one of our many early 2000s parenting tools in the box would be a short sharp controlled smack. Only when we were calm, never in temper. Our children would be warned it was coming if they continued in their behaviour. It was an extreme measure, but it was used. Other techniques were implemented before they were smacked. Not the "naughty step" or time out. I have several issues with that... Far worse than a smack imo.

As late teens, the children are now wonderful human beings. Empathetic, caring, understanding, loving, well rounded. I'm happy with the way we raised them.

I would assume they struggle regulating their emotions or haven't learned a more effective way to discipline.

Having said that, although I'm not a fan of smacking I think there may be a case for it in extreme cases. If I saw a child stepping on a bug, I would probably step in their foot or something just so they know how it hurts to have someone inflict pain on them. I knew someone who was a bit messed up as a kid and once just stepped on a snail because they could and were in a mood about something (they were that kind of kid, a real bully). Their sibling told on them and one of their parents stepped on their toe in hard shoes to teach them a lesson. The kid was still messed up, I think they were later diagnosed with some kind of PD, but they never were cruel deliberately to any animal again and went on as an adult to keep several well loved pets. So I guess it depends on the situation.

How do you know it didn't do you harm? Don't you think having things explained to you calmly would have helped more- that's how you'd learn? Your parents probably did some other sorts of great parenting tactics and it's probably those that helped you become fine now, not the smacking.
Do you smack your own kids now? What do you think that teaches them to do when they don't get their way? What if their wife or pet is 'disobedient' should they hit them too?

@Whatajokr Sounds exactly how I was with my children. They are adults now and don't appear to hate me for it.

Not really unless my child had done something like bullying. Because it might teach them that being hurt and made to feel shame does cause pain, it may help them reflect on how it feels when someone bigger and stronger than them takes them on! I would definitely rather have a a child that was smacked once and learned from it than a child who became a nasty bully.

I think it does also depend on how it's done.

If it's ' we need to carefully tbink through a punishment, we will do a spank' that's still not ok but it's different from grabbing a child and hitting them out of frustration/anger. I think the first can be done but otherwise good but misinformed parents but the second is obviously a huge risk

Me too, and I don't think I was abused, but I do think that particular strategy was wrong and didn't help me learn anything except to not get caught doing that particular thing and made me feel unsafe with my parents temporarily. I also am someone now who tends not to go to parents if I mess up now.

I think a lot of us are so scared to say that smacking is wrong if our parents did it, but we can still love our own parents and think they did a very good job but that particular strategy wasn't a good one

Agree

Or their partner if they forget to do the washing up or they run late?

I don’t think they’re more likely to hit their adult partner purely on the basis that they might hit back. People hit children because they’re smaller and pretty much defenceless against it.

Kids today are doing better in exams than ever - it's the lack of funding for staff in schools that has made behaviour worse not the lack of hitting

To those saying that it was the norm, therefore acceptable. It was also acceptable for a man to rape his wife, for a woman to not be able to hold property and to force the poor into workhouses. Why can we accept that those acts of oppression and violence were once normal and now considered appalling, but not the systematic bullying of a parent who hits their child/ren? Can we not learn from the past - it was the norm to hit your children but we recognise the massive impact it has on children? Or does preserving the rose-tinted view of your own parenting matter more?

Everyone knows that assaulting other people is wrong otherwise it wouldn't be illegal nor would it be called abuse.

Nana here with my view bringing up children back then. I read recently, "You can't parent your children the way your parents parented you. They belonged to another time. "

I changed a lot about how I parented, from the way i was parented, but not all (dysfunctional childhood). My children were 80s and 90s born.

So much has changed. I look back and cringe at some of the things that were considered acceptable and normal then.

Parenting now has much better practice. I look after my grandbubs on a weekly basis so my adult children can't have had it too bad 😏 I have 4 grandbubs and one cooking 😉

Granted, being a grandparent is a lot easier than being a parent. A lot of my generation often talk about how we parented. There is a lot we would do differently if we could.

@LadyMaryTalbotCrawleysEyebrows if your child bullied, a teacher smacking them wouldn't teach them anything except to hide it better!

Wouldn't you what the staff to work with their emotions and feelings to work out what's going on for them that means they feel the need to bully? Always a mental health or a anxious issue or lack of power in one part of their life that leads to bullying others in my experience.

All the posts here saying that it's OK if it is a controlled and thought out manner - somehow that's even more disturbing. To actually sit and calmly decide that the most appropriate response to a behaviour is to hit a child is abhorrent to me. You could calmly think of a multitude of consequences that don't involve physical punishment, yet the best you can come up with is a warning and then violence.

Agree

YABU, there are cultural and religious factors here.

I very much agree with this answer. There is so much literature nowadays documenting the long-term adverse effects that physical discipline has on children and their self-esteem. I don’t think any parent nowadays could honestly tell themselves that hitting a child is in the child’s best interests.

Im not sure that information was available a generation ago. I think there were perhaps some parents in 80’s and 90’s who genuinely thought that smacking their child would not harm them.

So, to answer OP, I think modern parents who hit their children are not able to regulate their negative emotions and may also hit pets when frustrated. Perhaps less likely to hit their partners as there are more likely to be consequences (there’s not the same power imbalance as with children & pets)

You were 'never hit' just 'smacked.'

'Smacking' is hitting. Hitting is assault.

I was hit as a child. My father also kept a garden cane on the top of the cupboard and would give me a whack with that occasionally. It got to the point that if he reached up to the cupboard I would panic and apologise, even if I hadn’t felt I’d done anything wrong.
Bit horrible really but I have a fantastic relationship with my Dad now so it definitely didn’t scar me for life or anything. I suppose they were just different times.

Yup, I don't think it's ok at all just that those parents wouldn't have been modelling flying off the handle and being out of control. Definitely not ok just perhaps slightly less risky than the unregulated ones. You're absolutely right that there are about 900 other choices of consequence to choose
From rather than 'have a smack.'