“The problem with children these days is that they need a bloody good hiding”

[TheHeadOfTheHouse]

Said by a relative in his 70s.

I’m noticing that the older generation (over 60s) seem to think that although they were beaten to a pulp, they still think this is the correct way to bring children up.

We have Autism and ADHD in our wider family. Older relatives don’t seem to be very tolerant of this and keep implying that the cause of this is too soft parenting.

A relative was having a debate with me the other day saying how parenting was much better in his day, police could hit you, teachers used to cane you etc and how there wasn’t the behaviour that we have these days.

He was very defensive when I told him that I’m very glad all that has been abolished.

“Yeah, but we didn’t have teenagers stabbing each other back then”

Hes one of a few people I’ve come across lately who is all for hitting children.

It seems to be were Autism and ADHD children are concerned that it seems to provoke people saying this

I don't think you can make ageist sweeping generalisations like that.

I'm 55. My mum smacked me and dSis. When she saw how my two were parented (authoritative, calm, strong boundaries, no violence) she told me she wished she had done it that way. People can and do change. My mum's upbringing was very dysfunctional and she did far, far better with us than her parents with her, and she wanted to do better still.

I have sometimes wondered something similar myself...I have an autistic DD and we have lots of the related challenges such as school refusal, can't eat with the family because of the noise, too anxious to attend after school clubs etc. We are sympathetic and try to accommodate this to an extent, but sometimes it seems to make things worse...

If the explosion in numbers of children with ASD now is due to better awareness and diagnosis, then presumably there must have been similar numbers of children with what would now be called ASD 40ish years ago. Certainly, Mumsnet seems to be full of middle-aged women who have recently been diagnosed with ASD/ADHD. However, I don't remember kids being on reduced timetables, or children suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, gender identity issues (all of which are particularly common in children with ASD). It's not that I don't think many children in the 1980s were neurodivergent (there were lots of kids who were unkindly thought of as weird or odd), but they generally seemed to be able to cope with life in a way that many children (my own DD included) can't now, and I wonder why that is. Could it be something to do with how we raise children now? Is it screentime? Discipline? Perhaps it's connected to more households where both parents work outside of the home? Something about the style of teaching nowadays? These suggestions are just idle musings and I'm not intending to offend anybody, but there has been an enormous change in both how many children are diagnosed with ASD etc and how badly it seems to affect them, and I think it's worth considering why this might be.

As I say, I am the parent of a DC with ASD and I just want to do the best for her...but am sometimes unsure what that looks like.

This is a "dick head relative" problem, not an "over 60's" problem. Why is ageism so accepted on this site so long as it's aimed at older generations? I'm 33 but God willing I'll be 60+ one day and I'd hate to be lumped into a "child beater" category based solely on my age (as I'm sure most people would!)

I only know one person who would openly agree with your dick head relative, and he's 36. So just to reiterate, your issue is with violent dick heads who batter kids or think battering kids is a good idea - not over 60's.

I'm in my later 60s, I was never beaten as a child, though I once had my knuckles rapped with a ruler by a teacher. Our son was never hit either at home or at school.

However, I do think that there are many parents who have failed to set boundaries for their children, perhaps hoping for an easier life. Children need strong boundaries. There is a growing culture of entitlement and many parents think their child can do no wrong, especially when they are having issues at school. They fail to see this doesn't help their child in the long run. That doesn't mean I think we should bring back corporal punishment but something needs to change.

Same here. I agree with everything in this post. I started teaching in the 80s, corporal punishment was banned in schools in both LAs I have worked in.

I agree with all of this

I'm in my late 50s and totally agree that hitting children is wrong. Both my parents hit me & my sisters; my dad slapped my youngest sister so hard on her leg it left a handprint. We all grew up with low self esteem & no confidence. My dad wonders why we don't want to care for him in his old age. I think he's got a selective memory.

@CatSighs

Trigger warning: self harm and suicide

I was a child in the 1980s.

You say you don't remember reduced timetables, kids with anxiety and depression and self harm.

I was anxious and depressed. I self harmed. I tried to kill myself multiple times as a teen.

My parents didn't want anyone to know. They were ashamed of me and punished me for not coping. School didn't know. My parents wouldn't take me to a doctor as it was too shameful and I needed to toughen up and learn to cope.

I was bloody lucky to survive my teen years.

People could leave school at 15 until 1970 so any violence from them would not have been a school issue. Those who chose to stay on and do exams would be less likely to be the violent ones.

I went to a grammar school but my younger sister went to a secondary modern where the bullying was so bad that she truanted for her last year as she was scared to go in. She left at 15 in 1971 (August birthday).

Oh aye, and who are these over 60s you’re “noticing”?

My husband is in his 60s, and was horrified at the beatings I (in my 50s) took - but that really wasn’t the norm for his age group as children either, you know.

You spoken to one person in their 70s. Ageist cobblers.

Not ageist according to MN towers.

That's not the view of the older generation, of which I am one, it is the view of your relative. No one in my age group thinks hitting children is acceptable.

I’m 62 and don’t think kids need to be hit. What a sweeping g ageist generalisation.

I think too many of us, certainly of a certain age, have been hit and or humiliated by teachers. Thank god they wouldn't get away with it now. It would be very stupid indeed to have that experience and think it was ok to hit kids.

“We have Autism and ADHD in our wider family. Older relatives don’t seem to be very tolerant of this and keep implying that the cause of this is too soft parenting.”

It is, separately, both.

Which means the good parents in challenging situations are judged wrongly, because of the many lazy shit parents.

I talked to my mother about how she would wind up my dad into chasing us and hitting us, sometimes with slippers or belts. We would do something wrong during the day, silly stuff, kids stuff, and she’d say ‘wait till your dad gets home.’ Everything would go back to normal until dad walked in and she’d start shouting at us again, out of the blue. Most of the time we’ve forgotten what the transgression was. First she denied it ever happened, then she said it wasn’t that bad annd everybody did it, then that we should be grateful because her father chased her upstairs with a knife. Ok mother, so anything short of threatening your child with a knife is acceptable parenting.

this was in the 80s and early 90s, my mother is in her early 70s now. It’s got nothing to do with her age though, it’s because she’s a narcissistic psycho who I haven’t spoken to in a very long time and have no intention of speaking to again.

and my dad doesn’t get away with it either. He was definitely egged on by my mother but he wasn’t averse to a bit of cruel and unusual punishment himself, although his MO was more psychological cruelty, and of course he did choose to be my mother’s attack dog. He very ill now though so I can’t ask him how he feels about it.

I was definitely scared of the consequences of playing up when I was young. It never stopped me from doing stupid shit though, and it hasn’t made me a better person either.

I’m not sure many were “beaten to a pulp” lol, but smacking was used to previous generations.

Times change. 😗

Exactly

“Yeah, but we didn’t have teenagers stabbing each other back then”

Point out that "back then" they had the gangs run by the Krays and Richardsons, to say nothing of the Moors murderers and the killers of three police officers in Shepherd's Bush. Apparently corporal punishment didn't deter them.

Not so much smacking but I do think more authoritative parenting needs to return. There is only so much reasoning you can do with a toddler or preschooler sometimes a sharp 'no' and thorough disapproval is needed to make them realise they have crossed what is acceptable. Routines along with enforced and consistent boundaries help.

I think part of the issue is both parents are often working and exhausted and just give in to some behaviours to keep the peace.

Not only is this not common to people in their 60s and 70s, but it's far from universal in the genuinely elderly. My dad is 85 and is mentally and physically scarred from years of regular beatings at grammar school. His mother was also appalled by the scale of the violence that was deemed acceptable against small boys in the 1950s.

I do have older relatives who have trotted out the "give 'em a good clout" bullshit, and it's undeniable that there is less legal violence against children than in previous decades, especially since it was outlawed in schools. Interestingly, though, on MN and elsewhere I am noticing more and more younger people - younger than me in my 40s - who are scornful of non-physical forms of discipline and non-authoritarian parenting, and are moving back towards more high-control models and smacking/shouting/"because-I-say-so" parenting. So I think attributing these behaviours to "the older generation" will age badly.

I think it’s more likely that these children, who’s needs weren’t being met and who were prone to frequent meltdowns/lashing out due to either ASD, ADHD, trauma etc, were then actually sent to “special” schools (not like the specialist schools we have now but perhaps like a much more severe PRU), borstals, or just left the school system either via truanting, or to learn a trade/enter the workforce. Or in the case of one of my family members, put in a home for the intellectually disabled. At least that is my family’s experience from back in the 50s/60s.

Now there is a greater (if inadequate) effort to help these children stay in mainstream education, we are more aware of their struggles as as a society we have moved to encourage children to be more open about their feelings and emotions, and recognise it is wrong to force them into situations that are severely detrimental to their wellbeing simply because we can.

Again, in reference to your point on gender identity issues, do we know for certain that more children are experiencing this? Or is it a case that it is seen as more socially acceptable to experiment with your sense of self without risking being beaten to death, assaulted, or any of the other risks that faced members of the LGBTQ+ community? (Not saying that these risks don’t still exist today but not to the extent they did a generation or two ago).

@CaptainMyCaptain "I went to a grammar school but my younger sister went to a secondary modern where the bullying was so bad that she truanted for her last year as she was scared to go in. She left at 15 in 1971 (August birthday)."

So glad you were immune from bullying in your grammar ivory tower....

Absolutely! OP is making a horrible ageist generalisation, when this is her relative. I'm nearly 60, and all of my family are - and we've never had this attitude, and neither have any of our friends.

Fucking hell. I'm so sorry. My mum was heavy handed but never managed to get my dad involved. He was naturally gentle, as were his parents. Beating little kids is never, ever ok.