Gentle Parenting has failed, lets accept this.

[Zod666]

I read everyday about children's behaviour, even primary school age where they are out of control, don't fear or respect adults and this is all down to that loverly middle class BS known as 'Gentle Parenting'.

Let's just call this out for what it is, because it does not work. I have a friend who's 8 year old son does what he likes, is disrespectful, hits his mum and no amount of 'punishment' such as removal of electronic devices etc makes a blind bit of difference, he just does not care.

So how do we discipline children like this? is it really bad to give them a measured smack on the back of the legs/bum? Obviously there is a difference between a smack to correct a child and beating the hell out of them which is child abuse and should be prosecuted, and in England smacking is still legal.......

In years gone by their have always been kids that will go too far, and by this I mean the James Bulger killers who I think no amount of discipline would have changed their outcome in life, but for the majority of kids I feel we are failing them with this soft approach where there think they can do anything without repercussions.

AIBU?

in the 70s I would write a note ‘please cane this boy’ and the boy would take it to the the house master and get caned returning with a signature on the note

I was smacked a lot growing up by both my parents. My DM claims that she always felt that my F smacked us too hard, but she never stopped him from doing so.

As to how much it affected me, it’s impossible to say as my F also sexually abused my DSis and me. What I do believe is that it partly explains why neither of us told my DM about the CSA, because we thought we’d be in trouble as our abusive F would accuse us of lying and lying was always punished severely.

In her defence, my DM regrets it all and accepts that smacking is wrong. It has made it easier for me to have a relationship with her as an adult. I do believe that she genuinely didn’t know about the CSA, as her reaction when we told her 9 years ago was completely genuine, one of devastation. (We’d repressed the memories for many years, they came back when we had young children.)

In short, smacking only succeeds in making your children scared of you and much less likely to open up to you if there is something bad going on in their lives.

I would not be up for punishing a toddler as some kind of performance.

I never 'hit' my children, I tapped the back of their hands with my fingers, never the palm of my hand

What does that achieve?

Why did you do that?

Yes, but why resort to hitting them THEN removing the toy. When removing the toy was the thing to do. Skip the hitting bit.

The hitting served no purpose...

As for "no telling off" that isn't what we mean.

Child is told "do not do X, or I will have to remove toy". Child does X, you remove toy

At what point do you need to hit them???

And by your own admission, smacking them didn't stop them you still had to take the toy off them...

It has been proven, over and over again, in multiple studies conducted in different countries and cultures over many years, to be completely ineffective and have no measurable impact on behaviour long term, and some studies indicate it makes behaviour worse.

It baffles me that some parents enjoy hitting their children so much they will refuse to accept any research showing that it's pointless.

I have not read all the responses in this thread. I don't gentle parent. With that being said I don't equate gentle parenting with permissive parenting. I am not against smacking children but I don't think it work particularly well. I was smacked as a child on the odd occasion, I don't think it did me any long term damage other than I was bit fearful. I don't think being smacked was helpful as I received it when my parents lost control. Whilst I am not against smacking, I do not advocate it and wouldn't want to smack my children

So, why is society full of adult violence and criminality? All this people that grow up being smacked in the 1940-1980s... Why do they go on to break the law, not follow rules, harm other people??

I've addressed all this in previous posts

Really? Where? All I saw was you saying you would tell them ... hit them.... remove the toy. Nowhere have I seen where you explain why hitting was the correct response and how it helped (which it clearly didn't if you then had to take toy away after hitting).

Otherwise if hitting was effective in your world then surely that would be the end of it? Hitting stops the undesirable behaviour...?

You really haven't. Though it's interesting to note that your previous posts start by saying you "smack their hand" and that progressed to "a tap" when you were challenged.

Why do I need to justify myself to you, make your own comment on the OP and move on, let me have mine FFS

It worked for me, it was the way I chose to parent my children, i didn't 'hit' them,

I have 3 very confident, caring, kind, HAPPY, responsible and conscientious men I have raised that I am very close with are in very secure loving relationships and all have worked well at school, have gone on to do very well in work

Did I do something wrong - No

Hitting children isn't parenting them. And you know it's wrong because you've tried to change it to a "tap" after admitting you hit them. It's okay to learn, grow, and admit you were wrong.

That was just to clarify what I meant by a 'smack'. A tap or a smack on the back of the hand is not a hit or a punch.

Wonderful. If you think it is right to hit children as a way to teach them the expectations in behaviour, then, marvellous.

But you still haven't justified it explained why you hitting your children was the best choice. You admit it didn't actually work as an effective form of correction, yet still insist that it was right to do so.

If it is right and proper to hit children as part of teaching them how to behave, then, presumably had teachers had done the same you would have been okay with that?

But you intended it as a punishment/deterrent, which a tap on the hand wouldn't do. Clearly you hit them.

"the James Bulger killers who I think no amount of discipline would have changed their outcome in life"
Your tone seems to suggest that those boys were intrinsically bad whereas I believe that if they'd been born to different families their outcomes would have been different. One of the boys (can't remember which one) had previously asked to be taken into care because his home life was so dreadful. And his mother didn't even attend court. I think, but not sure, that the father was absent.
Of course what they did was horrific but we should consider the bigger picture and think about what drove them to do what they did.

I'd say you've got 3 lovely young men in spite of hitting them.

You hit your children. If you were confident in your decision to smack you'd acknowledge this rather than trying to change the language being used.

Where did i say things didn't work?

I did not hit my children!

I didn't hit my children!

I did not hit my children