Parenting Professor says that she supports smacking children

[ThisAmpleCritic]

Quote:
Prof Ellie Lee, a family and parenting researcher at the University of Kent …supports the use of smacking, said: "It would be great if we could just be nice to children and think they would just be nice back. But the reality of it is, is that in order for children to understand the rules of society, and to learn how to behave in a way that is moral, and that is good, we have to have boundaries, and boundaries have to be backed up."

AIBU to think this is a disgusting attitude and her credentials should be challenged? Children deserve protection from
violence and aggression from their caregivers. Why should they not be given the same rights as adults, who are free to test boundaries without fear of physical assault?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2eyke83yz9o

I’d never smack my child, either. Your DD sounds lovely. My DS is a live wire, not always well behaved, he might settle down a bit when he’s older. He has a lot of crazy energy!

She CAN be a handful. I have videos of her when she was little literally bouncing off the walls. Her teachers would never have believed it.

The thing is, your DS is who he is, do you not think that some of the other children might be the same, need the same things? They’ve just been frightened out of it.

Yes, 100%. One of the little guys is a partner in crime to my DS. But he wouldn’t do it at home… They have loving parents, but it’s just normal discipline in their lives.

It was acceptable when I was growing up in the 80s. I didn’t get hit, as I was good, but my sister did. Funny now, she’s the golden child, I think my parents felt guilty about it all.

And my sister hasn’t forgotten it, either…

I was on a long car drive down to Cornwall on Thursday, and happened to hear quite a long piece about this on Radio 4.
That comment/quote was read out/discussed, and I didn't interpret that has pro-smacking personally. Just stating a known fact that children need boundaries. But I don't know this professor or her views.

But anyone with a science background knows this is a tenuous study at best. There's a million factors that come into place to determine exam results. Implying "smacked as a kid? crap GCSEs" is very poor and unreliable science.

every child is on some form of ehcp

The statistics show you are utterly wrong.

All research into children and families is unreliable. It obviously doesn’t allow bench science and is riddled with confounding personal and social influences. Academics who cling to one theory or another about bringing up children do so just because they’re part of that academic grouplet within some social science subject or other.

Parenting is instinctive. We do what we think best.

Laws on child punishment and cruelty are made out of - perfectly reasonable - concern, not with evidence.

Anecdata doesn’t help either. For every well-adjusted non-smacked kid there’s a little horror who wasn’t smacked. And vice versa.

And smacked violent horrors who learned that that’s how you deal with issues. You forgot that cohort.

The words ‘vice versa’ did that job, I think.

@followtheswallow The thing with the forcibly removing thing is that much as it is unpleasant you only need to do it a few times. So if they are misbehaving at a party, go home. Maybe the other one suffers but the other child has also just seen that you hold the line. I have taken my younger one home from a party before cake because he wasn’t listening. I think he was 4. He was astounded because I think he thought I wouldn’t carry it out in front of his friends.
At some point (even at 2) they work out that no means no and that you will take them home. It’s not an empty threat. You can remove them or remove an object. They will scream and shout and tantrum but you have to ride through it.
I never explain myself in a tantrum. That is for later in a calmer moment- you did X, this was not okay, this is why I did Y. But in the moment beyond a couple of warnings there is no negotiation.

One of my kids was MUCH livelier than the other. I had to parent him differently. I would give him more running around/decompression time. He needed more visual/verbal cues about what was next. And I didn’t expect him to do what I did for his brother in terms of sitting still for long periods. But we built it up and he’s almost 10 and can sit through a play/concert/long journeys etc. He’s still ‘bouncier’ than his brother but he’s polite, well behaved, conducts himself well in public and in school. My job is not to change who he is (he will always be chatty and I suspect the life and soul of a party) but I need to give him the tools to cope with in a bigger wider world.

A raised voice, sharp tone, immediate consequence… it doesn’t have to be ‘being a pushover parent’ or smacking!

Ha. If only @PotolKimchi . If only!

I earnestly followed this advice with ds - no effect whatsoever!

I was out in a cafe with DD1 when she was a preschool. Out of nowhere she suddenly screeched incredibly loudly. I held her hand, looked her in the eye and quietly and calmly said (using my best teacher voice) 'That is completely unacceptable. If you do that again we will leave immediately'. She then behaved perfectly for the rest of the meal and an older woman came over later and told me she was very impressed with my parenting. No violence required, just clear boundaries.

How old is he now?

And how many times have you taken him home from an event because he's misbehaving?

Five and a half.

@FruAashild gosh, no idea. Quite a lot though. When he was younger I sometimes felt like we spent more times leaving places than staying there and it really did damage our relationship for a long time as I felt like his adversary rather than his parent.

Ok so you should still be doing these things. All children develop at different speeds in different areas of their... development. So your son might be really advanced beyond his years in some ways, average in others, and delayed in others still.

It's a bit like talking or potty training. If he hadnt achieved those things by now, you wouldn't just stop trying to encourage the structure around toileting or working on communication.

It can honestly take some NT (yes not ND, NT) kids until 10 to learn some of the emotional regulation and impulse control that others learn at 5. We are all different.

That is great indeed, hence why I said it’s not for every infraction. You only need to spank a child a few times, they understand boundaries very quickly.

You don't need to hit a child at all.

I should still be doing things that don’t work? Why? What purpose does that serve? That’s just lip service isn’t it? He is generally OK these days (alone anyway) … I guess this is what I’m saying, it wasn’t parenting, he just eventually outgrew some behaviours.

Because you want to enforce the dynamic that what you say, goes, and that you follow through with what you say.

Right but if they don’t care then it’s largely pointless, and truthfully I think a lot of so called consequences do fall into that category. It’s also difficult to manage if you have more than one child or if you’re somewhere they would actually like to leave, given the choice (or if the session had ended and they kick off about leaving …)

So if you know that is likely, you put in an incentive that will occur if they transition from the last activity smoothly. So say, a milkshake on the way home. If they choose to kick off, no milkshake.

Or if they manage to tolerate an activity they do not like, they get a reward. If they do not manage it, they do not get it and/or they lose a privilege they usually have free access to.

I know you say that I'm wrong because 'you know your child' but I still don't believe that every other technique anyone has ever recommended failed with your children no matter how well and consistently used but that smacking would have been a total and instant success and it's just your bad luck to have been parenting in a time where the one and only effective technique ever has fallen from favour. You describe a child that fights to the extent they can overpower an adult - but a tap would instantly stop them? I think you'd have to hit that child very (unacceptably in any era) hard to make a difference if they're in that kind of rage, especially anything other than the very first time ever you smacked.i

And if they don’t?