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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be shocked at another mums discipline methods

73 replies

suzybsue · 07/01/2010 12:14

As the weather was so bad yesterday, i invited a
lady from down our street to come over with her 2 DCs. She is quite religious and regular church goer. Her DCs are always pretty quiet and far more well behaved than mine. Anyway we got chatting, and she told me ,that they normally do as they are told (as mine are a real handful) and if they do misbehave " i get the slipper out" Is that not illegal these days?

OP posts:
LittleMrsHappy · 07/01/2010 12:55

To use a object (slipper) in disciplining a child is classed as a assault on a minor. This would be classed as unreasonable chastisement, which is part of section 58 children's Act 2004.

You can smack your child if you have a open hand but not a fist or use any kind of implement.

Also administered on nay part of the body which will not cause harm (head and face area, torso etc) and also when smacking your child it also cannot leave a visible mark (reddening of the skin)

Hopefully she was joking if not, she is breaking the law under the Children's Act

Southwind · 07/01/2010 12:56

ROFL

KurriKurri · 07/01/2010 13:30

As others have suggested, you may have misunderstood. She was probably referring to one of these And was proposing to stuff her children inside it if they got out of control. A sort of winter version of the naughty step.

Maybe she just thought you'd enjoy an anecdote about a slipper wielding parent

ImSoNotTelling · 07/01/2010 13:44

I'm not sure why everyone is taking this thread as a joke? Has the OP got form or something?

LittleMrsHappy · 07/01/2010 13:46

Thats what I was going to ask ISNT, although the sentiment is their lol.

ImSoNotTelling · 07/01/2010 13:48

Anyway our next door neighbours invited us around for a drink with DD1 when she was about 6 months. They have older children - teens and older.

During the course of conversation they recommended physical punishment (as they called it) and the children started reminiscing about the wooden thing they used to use.

We were and and looked at 6mo and thought, um no way.

I am positive they were not joking. They are also very religious as it happens, their children don't wear makeup and dress modestly and all of that sort of thing. Obviously there's not a link between religion and this per se but maybe a much more traditional way of doing things? i don't know.

They are all very nice though.

somewhathorrified · 07/01/2010 13:48

Some christians believe the bible when it says "save the rod, spoil the child" at least I assume it's in the bible they all quote the same thing. So I'm wondering if it's some religious imperative to use an implement ...no judgment btw, just thought it may explain something.

shockers · 07/01/2010 13:49

At a church that I went to for a short time, all the parents used wooden spoons to discipline their children "because hands are for loving"

MrsNarcissist · 07/01/2010 13:52

I knew a born again whose children had to kneel and beg for forgiveness after a spell with hands on heads.... nothing to do with his religion he was twat with or without it, just seems worse when people supposedly answerable to God do these things.

thumbwitch · 07/01/2010 13:53

my sis has been known to tell her children that she'll rup their arms off an beat them senseless with the soggy ends. I doubt they fully understand her (they're all under 6) and of course she'd never do anything of the kind - but it makes her feel better.

She doesn't smack them either.

pagwatch · 07/01/2010 13:54

no. I think the op just sounds like the person was joking. The use of 'show them the slipper' sounds contived and the kind of self concious thing people use in Enid Blyton style dramas or when they are taking the mock serious "they are well behaved because I beat them" way.

I use I beat them or I lock them in the shed. Thinking about it , it is a joke I make usually to deflect the fact that my children are bahving reasonably and the other persons child is being really challenging. When that happens and the other person mentions it you have few choices. You either start arguing "no they are being awful" which only works if they suddenly join in being awful
or "they are not usually like this" which I usually use because ithasthe virtue of being true
or " they are only good because i beat them or show them the slipper"

It is covering a social dilema. The alternative is " yes I am a great parent and your children are awful" which goes badly at coffee mornings.

I think that is what may have happened here.

Thats all
( plus my slippers had to be posted)

WhoIsAsking · 07/01/2010 13:54

ISNT - do an advanced search. Seems to be a recurrent theme for this poster. Slippers and spoons and tights, OH MY!

LittleMrsHappy · 07/01/2010 13:54

Religious in what way, as the bible old or new testament and in part is part of the 10 commandments.

thumbwitch · 07/01/2010 13:55

OP - having re-read your post more carefully - just getting the slipper out is not a problem - only if she actually uses it on them would it be one. The mere threat of it might be enough to bring her DC into line.

Morloth · 07/01/2010 13:58

Sometimes I make DS go and get my slippers.

BadRomance · 07/01/2010 13:59

Well this is quite a big thing in the news at the moment - there's an article on it almost everyday. I have no idea.

Either this is lazy journalism ...again....

or.....neighbour is a loon

KurriKurri · 07/01/2010 14:00

Morloth, making anyone touch my slippers would be classed as cruel and unusual punishment, and definitely illegal.

ImSoNotTelling · 07/01/2010 14:06

I don't know, she's only replied to a few threads and other ones as well.

Not like that tights loon nutter who rocks up from time to time

Anyway, having read the OP again as well yes i can see it could have been a joke! It does happen though, and people are surprising comfortable with talking about it

What is this "hands are for loving" business shockers? i don't get it. I think my neighbours must go to that church.

BadRomance · 07/01/2010 14:07

Oh no is it the tights troll again

The one that had teenage daughters that sweated in them (shudders at memory)

ImSoNotTelling · 07/01/2010 14:09

No I don't think so. The one tights thread by this OP looks quite normal.

The tights troll is something else isn't she.

ChilloHippi · 07/01/2010 14:11

Some would say that's why her children are well behaved. Perhaps we could learn from her methods...NOT!

ImSoNotTelling · 07/01/2010 14:13

Having said that I am crap at spotting trolls

flimflammum · 07/01/2010 14:18

It might sound funny to some, but it's not that far-fetched. In my (Catholic) primary school in the 70s the ultimate punishment was being sent to the headteacher for the slipper. It was no joke, you were actually hit with it.

pagwatch · 07/01/2010 14:19

ah yes. But that was the 70s. I think a lot of us were threatened with the slipper back then. But not really 40 years later

Morloth · 07/01/2010 14:24

DH loves to tell the story of the time his Mum broke the wooden spoon on his bum while he ran away laughing, waaaay back in the 80s. It is funny, because DH by all accounts was a little snotbag who possibly deserved a full nuclear strike rather than a wooden spoon.

Of course this is the same MIL who thinks we are too hard on DS if we tell him off.

It is the "slipper" part that makes this story unlikely IMO. Sounds old fashioned and made up.

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