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

If you can’t see the difference between a
parenting context and a sexual context then I don’t know what to tell you. Yuck.

I was smacked plenty. I'd never do it to my own kids. But I don't think it's physical abuse the way hair pulling or shoving or thumping/ punching is, and I think it's worthwhile being clear on the differences. It's possible to be frustrated and lost for better options and smack, but still be a December enough parent, or was back then anyway. I've experienced both and I think abusive behaviour from parents is very different. As in, they were abusive, but not because of the smacking.

The people claiming that smacking is the only effective parenting technique - should teachers do it, then?

I'm not a perfect parent and I don't have perfectly behaved children, but I correct behaviour by removing them from the situation, consequences (as natural as possible, but sometimes has to be an imposed one), a firm tone, and making it clear in advance what behaviour is expected and then reminding every single time that isn't followed. Surely even if you do smack you have to do some of these things too - no one smacks in every single situation, surely?

I wasn't smacked as a child, which is perhaps why I find it so bewildering that anyone thinks the choice is hitting your children or just letting them go feral.

Holy false dichotomies Robin!

I can’t help but feel there is a middle way, between being friends with your children and striking them when they misbehave. 🙃

I was smacked extensively when I was a child, and I absolutely did learn to behave excellently. Y’know, the way people do tend to comply, when not complying leads to experiencing physical pain at the hands of the people in charge, who are bigger and stronger.

My parents weren’t abusive. They genuinely thought they were doing the right thing at the time. The parenting books they were reading advocated smacking.

The interesting thing is, that even well into my early 30s, I was protesting that corporal punishment was fine and it hadn’t done me any harm. And then one day someone pointed out that it kind of had, because I’d grown up into the sort of person who thinks it’s ok to hit kids. And I was like 😳🤯
(I do now think there is a degree of Stockholm’s Syndrome type impact making adults robustly defend the harm that was done to them by their parents.)

Fast forward a few years, I have 3 boys with DH. We are militant about standards and discipline - inculcating them with the importance of compassion, self-awareness, good manners, character, integrity - what you do when nobody’s looking. Being decent and responsible.

And we’ve managed to do this without ever, ever, EVER smacking them. They are sweet and merry kids - we have a great relationship with them, and get comments all the time from their friends’ parents on how polite and helpful they are.

Obviously they are not perfect, and the absolute boneheadery that DH and I are subjected to on a daily basis is Geneva Convention level, but they are kind and funny and decent.

Which is all a really long-winded way of saying that it’s perfectly possible to raise kids to NOT be entitled little recidivists, without ever raising a hand to them.

Our boys look to us as a place of safety - not as a source of fear and pain. I would never want them to feel the terror and worry I felt, knowing I had messed up and was going to be smacked.

I agree that a lot of damage is caused by parents trying to be friends with their kids. And not wanting to enforce boundaries, because enforcing boundaries is not enjoyable, as well as being difficult and repetitive and exhausting. I know too many parents who have used the iPad to numb their child’s angry or sad feelings, to disastrous effect.

So much of good parenting is intensely boring and repetitive. It’s hard to keep at it. As Jimmy Carr says about parenting, ‘Tough choices now. Easy life later.’
Thanks OP for the interesting thread.

You can't hit another adult if they annoy you

The way my children behave towards me sometimes is behaviour that would be reportable under most workplaces’ bullying and harassment policies or a police matter. I wouldn’t hit an adult but I also would not be expected to put up with it.

I sympathise with the national trust woman. When you feel powerless you say things in anger you don’t necessarily mean.

FFS, decent enough parent!! Not December enough 😂

No, she's talking nonsense. It is perfectly possible to have firm boundaries in terms of children's behaviour and take charge without resorting to violence. Hitting children is bad, lazy parenting and anyone who does it is an abuser.

When I compare this paragraph of how it is expected to parent to day with my own childhood and envisioning the amount of cajoling and reasoning that is suggested for modern day parenting being expected of my mother I laugh.

There has been a considerable and consistent deterioration of society over the last two decades. Significant increases in violent and out of control behaviour in secondary schools.

Isnt it funny that this coincides with a significant shift in parenting norms.

💯!!

It's not abnormal either. Many mammals do it under stress.

this, children need to understand that societal rules are not optional. There is a big difference between battering a child and a tap
on the back of the hand. You cannot negotiate with a toddler; they can’t process what you are saying but as a parent you have a responsibility to keep them safe.

It's a completely rational response to danger. Mammals tend to invest a lot of resources into their offspring after birth. So it makes sense to focus those resources into the offspring most likely to survive. Brutally, it's better to eat your babies to recovery the energy from them and remove yourself to safety than it is to continue using valuable calories producing milk for offspring that another animal may kill.

You can understand that when something has become a negotiation, you've already lost your boundary without the solution being a smack though. It should just be better upholding of boundaries.

Smacking a child is physical and emotional abuse. There’s no defending it, no context in which it’s ever acceptable. The fact it’s done by parents, the ones the child should most trust to be safe with, is appalling. I really, really cannot stand people who defend or advocate hurting children

If a toddler can't understand words, tone of voice or being removed from the situation why would they be able to discern the cause and the effect and therefore the lesson of being smacked?

Hang on, you’re actually suggesting physical force and hitting is better for under 3.5 year olds than older kids?
I mean that’s just barbaric.
Hitting children is wrong full stop but hitting a toddler? Honestly what’s wrong with you.

I was hit as a child, the type people are advocating for on here. I hated it, it hurt, it humiliated me and taught me nothing. I could never hit my children as a result. We have found firm boundaries, fair consequences, respect and talking was far more effective. I suspect the decline in behaviour has been more about the lack of boundaries and inconsistency as opposed to a decline in physical punishment.

My first post on this thread read ‘Smacking is awful and I don’t want to ever return to it.’ So no, in a word.

But it does render us more or less helpless in a lot of scenarios. And I want us to be honest about that and stop the pretence that all we need are firm boundaries.

I haven’t but I do think some kids need a good smack to sort them out. I saw a mum smack her child once after really trying to reign in his behaviour. One smack and he stopped behaving like a little brat and spoiling it for everyone else. I looked around and could see everyone probably thinking good!

In what type of scenarios?

It's so bloody easy to parent without smacking, it really annoys me that people pretend it's hard.

1. Love your children and spend time doing fun things with them
2. Set a good example; model good behaviour.
3. Identify and praise positive behaviours
4. Do not reward bad behaviour with attention
5. Keep an eye on them and step in and physically remove them when they are being a danger to themselves or others.
6. Natural consequences where possible. If not possible then no electronic devices.
7. Go back to number 1

If you do this consistently then by 5 the hardest part is over and you can enjoy people telling you what wonderful children you have for the next decade or so.

You also suggested the less developed a child’s communication and understanding is the more the need for physical force which is just fucking mental.

What are all these many scenarios that can only be dealt with by smacking?

Helpfully, I have one from this afternoon. (I have a few actually.)

My nearly three year old was on a small climbing frame and shoved her brother off. There was another toddler on there with her. If I’d forcibly moved her she’d have started kicking and screaming and would have kicked the other toddler. Her brother didn’t want to leave. I could have forced her down and I’d have had to have had her in pretty much a stranglehold to stop her getting back on (and don’t underestimate how strong an angry toddler is; she’d have been biting me, attacking me, writhing around - I’d have had to have held onto her really, really hard to stop her going back.)

So what do you do? I have no idea whatsoever. I am sure I’ll be told what I should have done and I’m also sure it wouldn’t have been remotely practical (this is not personal to you, just my experience of toddler threads on here.)

No, I said that you can’t reason with a toddler.

This is the second time in 24 hours I have seen media mentions and then commenting supporting violence against children. Different continents and completely different forms of media. It almost makes me wonder if there is a conspiracy to move the Overton window.