OK - all you non smackers - what would you do instead then?

[lisalisa]

Message withdrawn

Yes of course it is MI's perogative!! after all who the hell am i to know whats right or wrong for you!

I would use the same phrase as MI "never forgive". The hurt itself was quickly forgotton but the abuse by an adult of their greater strength when I was so much smaller and unable to defend myself as well as my dependence on my mother for food and shelter made it a betrayal of a child's trust. Also it was a quick fix release for a frustrated adult and a resolution to a situation which showed she was not interested in the reason why I misbehaved.

I am not saying that in all cases where the parents smack the relationship becomes toxic. A lot of other factors come into play, like how emotionally supportive a parent is otherwise and the personality of the child. But why take the risk?

Helenemjay, you mentioned your sister's children. Make no mistake, the effect of using other methods like reasoning etc, WILL take longer than a short sharp smack. But if possible, do keep an open mind and revisit the situation when the children are older.

I agree with Enid that it is strange to want to hit a child. I am by no means perfect and have done my fair share of shouting. But I have never felt the urge to smack my dd - despite her many tantrums and deliberate defiance.

Is it because once you do it (and miraculously the child shuts up), a barrier is crossed?

Contrary to how i may sound, i do respect other peoples parenting choices, my sister is a fab person and i wouldnt ever dream of telling her she was wrong or arguing her choices - its not my place, they are her kids and she is a fabulous mum! BUT her eldest child has on many occasions physically struck out at his baby sister or my kids, and my sister just says to him 'now that wasnt very nice was it? i think you should sit on this chair and think about how naughty that was' - WTF - he doesnt care or he wouldnt have done it, he sits there for all of 30 seconds jumps down and goes to play something else shortly before lashing out again! Talking works for adults - who are old enough to understand what your getting at, kids need to see that if i smack someone or cause hell im going to get a warning or two and then swift comeback that leaves no room for negotiation! You cant teach small kids like they are adults because they are not!

Its not a 'want' to hit your child blueshoes - what sort of person would want to? i love my kids, its not normal to want to hit someone you love! Its about need, children do not have the same level of understanding as adults, and they have very little empathy, yes naughty step does work - it works well in our house i dont go around smacking my kids every touch and turn, i do it rarely, and if i can use other means i will, but as far as a screaming yelling uncontrollable tantrumming child goes, talking and naughty steps dont always cut it!

Agree with most of what Scummymummy and Caligula have said.

I know I was smacked as a child but I only can recall one occasion when this happened; I was around 12/13 at the time. If you remember being smacked, surely it must have been on a fairly consistent basis and for minor things?

ds has been smacked twice this year (once by me, once by dh); as for dd, I can't even remember the last time - in fact neither doesn't recall ever being smacked (I asked her earlier today). What she does remember though is time-out/naughty step and mentions it from time to time. I tried both methods ONCE when she was about 2.5, never again.

Don't know what I'm trying to say really. Maybe I just try to keep an open mind and go with the flow; I don't really have a parenting 'method'.

Well I remember my mum sacking me a couple of times, including once when I was a teenager. For me it wasjust the sgn that I really had gone too far and she had lost the plot. TBH, I think I prefered that than her saying I was a really bad person, stupid etc... I would been much more hurt by that.
blueshoes, I am really impressed by people like you who have never felt the 'urge' of hitting their child. I think a lot of us here have lost it one way or the other because our little darlings are v good at pushing our buttons. Children are good at bringing the best but also the worse out of us. Now does it mean that we are allowed to be abusive ? NO. Does it mean that we are allowed not be perfect all the time, loosing it, shoutig or perhaps even smacking ? YES I think so.
Gosh, I would really like to be like you.

I smacked ds1 about 3 weeks ago, before that im not sure quite along time though - its not a regular occurance! i only remember getting smacked about myself about 4 or 5 times in my entire childhood - should i be scarred or something??

Hmmm - so children need to be smacked!

I don't think so!

There are more ways than one to raise children and I'll go for the version that doesn't involve hurting them and doesn't risk (looks about a 50:50 chance from posts here) of having a troubled relationship with them when they are older!

I also think that a tantruming child is the last child I would hit - they are out of control and have to be taught how to regain that control for themselves - whacking them really isn't giving them any skills in that at all!

Funnily, I know almost no parents who smack their children and they all seem to have in the main lovely well-behaved children! So no *need8 doesn't come into it in my book!

Helenemjay, I am glad you use smacking as a last resort. I know from your other threads (eg bf-ing) that you are a fab parent and want to do good by your children. But have to admit that I find it slightly more chilling to think that an adult should smack a child because they felt the need to. Perhaps I just have a longer time frame about whether a particular parenting method is working. I don't expect the tantrums or the aggressive behaviour to stop immediately, but I will voice my disapproval/remove offending child for as many times as it takes to get the message across.

Perhaps the message will sink in the NEXT time, and the child learns that this behaviour is not ok and thus self-regulates. If not, I will just keep plugging away or change tactics if this goes on for too many months.

youknowwhat, I am not saying repeated abusive shouting is better than a short sharp smack. But truly, I have never felt that the need to make physical contact with an offending child to hurt or shock.

soapbox, I was just reading the thread again.
You are worried that our children will not forgive us for smacking because we are supposed to know better than that. Well, do you know that 70% of 5~6 yo have been smacked before? That's a lot of children that will never forgive their parents. Or is it about somethingelse and the quality of the relationship we are building with them ??

soapbox, still jealous that you have much better controo of yourself than I have ... There is a difference between what you decide in a calm environment and wht you do in the heat of the action.
soapbox, re the fact that you don't know of parents who are smacking, that's because noone dares saying it. And that's why some of us will go on MM to get some idea on what relly goes on behing dorrs....

LL - I totally sympathise with your dilemma. I have a VERY willful ds1(3.6) who has pushed me to the very limits on a regular basis.
TO my utter shame I resorted to smacking him for the first time last week and I've felt utterly utterly sick about it ever since. I was so exaushted, so sick of the defiance/inability to reason, I couldn't make time out work and he had a tantrum which blew up out of all control. I normally ignore them but it got to the stage where he was kicking the door so hard he made his foot bleed and was about to hit his brother. I just snapped and I feel totally awful about it now. It did stop him but I can honestly say that I will never forget the look on his face when I did it.
I beat myself up on a daily basis (yep - I am that insecure!) about my parenting and have to constantly defend my (previous) anti-smacking policy to my parents and my sis who are of the 'it never did me any harm' school. When I rang my sis and told her about the smacking incident she was shocked that he'd managed to get to over 3yo without one!
Sorry rambling, but what I wanted to say was that your post struck a cord with me and I'm now trying alternative approaches - most of which have been mentioned already.
I think the post that has made me think the most was Oliveoils - and I'm now trying to head off the tantrum by offering a hug and 'i love you'. I know that once ds enters the tantrum he's past the point of no return, but I'm learning to spot the signs early and try to head it off. Once the tantrum is in full swing I'm going to use the 'ignore, ignore, ignore' policy which seems to be universally accepted as most effective on here. I've noticed that ds1 craves attention - much more so that ds2 so we're trying a charm offensive where we're praising the good behaviour. We used to do this a lot more but for reasons I can't explain really we've slipped into a very negative 'don't do that, stop, shouting' vicious circle. I think as you mentioned it has a lot to do with trying to juggle the competing demands of other children.
I bought the 'how to talk so your kids will listen...' book and am going to try to read it this week. I hope it helps me to communicate better with him so that I don't resort to the shouting, negative scenario we were in last week.

I think its verry difficult with strong minded, willful children- maybe we should have a sep thread! I also keep having to repeat the mantra 'he's only 3, he's only 3'. I think i possibly expect too much from him, but at the same time want to instil discipline. Not sure if any of this helps, but wanted you to know you're not alone in struggling with this one.

I was smacked really rarely as a child, maybe 5 times in total but the one time I really remember was when I was about 10 or 11. My parents hasd just had a nice new hall carpet laid and before I went out to pay said "don't get mud on this carpet" of course I went out and messed about with mates and ran back in through the front door a couple of hours later trailing mud all over the nice new carpet. My mum was completely enraged and smacked me . I remember being really upset that she had smacked me because I hadn't been deliberately naughty or done something dangerous, I had just been childish and unthinking. I also remember thinking that if she had done the same thing then nobody would have hit her. This experience makes me determined not to smack but as dd is not yet 10wks I've got a long way to go and I may change my mind.

YKW - I think it's much easier to control yourself when you have totally shut the option out of your tools IYSWIM!

It would just never cross my mind to hit them - and they are 8and 6yos now - so well past the smacking age anyway!

Having said that, I have never had much of a problem getting them to do what I want to - they wouldn't have dared come off the naughty step - although goodness knows what they thought I was going to do to them

I also find counting to three still works an absolute dream - but have no idea what will happen the day I get to three and they haven't done what they are asked.

I was never one for lots of talking about having done something wrong - it was always a complete withdrawal of attention, not some long winded rambling!

And tempertantruming children were just left where they were and the rest of us all went off and did something fun while they composed themselves. Even in shops I would just park the buggy up and walk round the corner until it stopped - keeping a close eye out of course

I'm not going to tell anyone else how to raise their children - but equally I do feel that if people say that children 'need' to be smacked, I have to tell them that that is just not the case!

youknowhat, I think that's a fair point.

Just for the record, the reason I smacked my ds this year was because for no obvious reason (to me) he suddenly bit his sister with such force that he drew blood. I tried to pull him off, which caused even more pain for her as he would not let go, so I hit him on the nose with the side of my hand so that his mouth would open. It wasn't an urge or a need, it was an instinctive reaction.

For your info Soapbox my ds has been kicking me in the legs and biting lumps out of me is pure rage since he was 14 months old, he is my child and so of course i love him, but he does have anger issues, we have seen child behavioural psychologists and he has had many assessments and all anyone has learnt is that he seems a very bright normal child who has a very serious dislike of authority (apparently his daddy was the same i am told), i am his mother, and i can wholly assure you that before i had more kids and it was just me and ds1 i tried every method you can think of to curb his little 'attitude' until he was 2 i was living alone with him as a single mum and i sat with him screaming and biting and kicking me every night until 4 - 5am as he was sure he wasnt going to bed and i was damn sure he was! - at 14 months!!! Even my GP and HV told me they couldnt help me as they had run out of ideas!! so sorry but yeah i feel occasionally he needs a smack when all else fails!!

I too think lisalisa was very brave to start this thread and i think if she feels that sometimes talking and warning and naughty steps dont help then she shouldnt be made to feel bad about smacking her dd, its not nice no, and i always feel bad if i have to smack my ds, but sometimes its neccesary i feel!

haven't read the entire thread but would just like to add my two pence worth:

• I don't believe in smacking and have never smacked my 3.5 yr old twins
• BUT I have never experienced the sort of behaviour that ll describes
• my mother didn't believe in smacking and never smacked my sister or me BUT she did smack my brother about 10 times in total because he got out of control as described in the initial post;

therefore (sounds like an essay ), I think there are a small minority of children who do need a smack very infrequently in order to sort them out.

Phew - I hope if I have any more children I don't get one of them!!!

Good luck ll - if you give your DD every other chance then I think you are doing the right thing with a short sharp smack

I do agree that children don't need smacks, soapbox and Enid, definitely. I think there are other ways to do things and I would be devastated if I hit my boys. Really. I think I only don't hold against my parents because they basically felt the same way but lapsed from their own ideals every once in a while under pressure, as we all do in different ways sometimes.

blueshoes- being caned regularly is just awful and not my experience at all. I don't think being laidback would make much difference to difficulty in processing and forgiving that kind of treatment. I was also never ever smacked in a "you have done this terrible crime and now I'm going to hit you" way and think I would have found that unbearable. I was hit very occasionally with a flailing hand by parents having a bad day and failing to live up to their own ideals, basically. (My mum would probably have posted on mumsnet angsting about losing it if mumsnet had been around and it had floated her boat.) I find that very forgiveable, personally. But it isn't the situation as described by you or mi, where it sounds like hitting might have been part of a quite complex emotional and physical abuse pattern. That's rather different from a slap as part of a rare parenting lapse.

I think if someone on here has been 'part of a quite complex emotional and physical abuse pattern' and they find it difficult to disassociate themselves from the difference between the occasional smacking of a very naughty and stubborn child, to 'physical abuse' then they shouldnt take part in a thread like this as the important line that seperates the two are blurred for them IMO.

Helenemjay, very fair point !! A lot of people here seem to have v strong reactions re smacking because of their own experience as children. But no one seems to have mention the difference between occasional samcking and regular hitting.

soapbox, I think it is very easy to judge people. As I explained, I have been smacking DS1 when I lost it. This is not a regular occasion and I always feel guilty about it. But just saying 'I think it's much easier to control yourself when you have totally shut the option out of your tools IYSWIM!' Just shows that you have been making a judgement on me and my parental abilities wo knowing the circunstances. So, for your information, I have had PND after the birth of DS1, badky enought that I could be thinking that if he was dead, life would be much easier. I did love him but obvioulsy wasn't coping. So yes, I have been smacking him and it is probably more difficult for me now to control myself and not to smack him again. But from where I am coming, I think I have made great progress. Be aware of drawing conclusion WO knowing the entire story!!!
That does not change the fact that the temperament of some parents are less compatible the ones of their children and that, by itself, will make parenting more difficult. As having a strong willed child. You might actually have an 'easier life' than others....So don't be too quick at jusdging people please.

I was thankfully never smacked by my parents and I have VERY strong objections to smacking children under any circumstances.

Just to say lisalisa that I totally sympathise with you and I bet there's loads more mumsnetters out there who have/do smack their children in similar circumstances but won't admit it. No-one ever really wants to do it, anyone who has can't believe they've been driven to it ... "I always said I wouldn't ... I'm totally against it" - yet it does give instant results when needed, like "enough's enough" to a really stubborn child. You know it's not exactly setting a good example, but it works!
Isn't there some old Chinese saying, "never judge a person until you've walked 100 miles in their shoes?" Bet many of the posts are from people who have no idea how bad things can get - both childwise and lifewise (stressed with no support). You've been given loads of good advice, most of which you've already tried or considered or is difficult to do in your situation. Good luck - and my sympathy!!