slapping or no slapping?

[Vindaloo]

I am a single mum, DD is 2 and half years now. She's a live wire and just being a normal cheeky toddler really. I have found myself slapping her on her bottom or raising my voice when trying to dicipline her. I always assumed I would be a chilled out mum, but I suppose being a single parent with DDs father choosing to play no part in her life and family living far away doesnt help. I hate it and it really upsets me and I feel so guilty and crap about slapping/shouting. I think I have some anger management issues. Any advice on what I should do? where to go for help?

Colditz - your ds sounds so cool.

Talked to dd1 about this thread. She said, 'But smacking is wrong, mummy. Those mummies and daddies should say sorry.'

With that I'm off. I'm getting far too sad thinking about the possibility that anyone can think that hurting a child is right. For my peace of mind I've had enough.

have just got home from children's farm where was witness to an awful thing - this mother (I presume she was the mother) was feeding her baby (10 months old, it looked) and it was cying and fussing a bit so she started shouting at it to shut up and then SMACKED IT. Everyone was just open-mouthed with horror and then this woman went up to her and gave her an earful and said she'd call the police if she did it again. that poor poor baby - what must she do in private if she thinks nothing of doing that in pubic?

dinny . That's the kind of behaviour I think the NSPCC are after - nb am not suggesting that the pro-smackers on this thread would do that to a baby. But people clearly do

dinny

it was a horrible thing to see. was thinking "what do I do, what doI do" so was mighty relieved when the woman stormed up. are you supposed to ring police if you see something like that?

I was adamantly non-smacking with dd but recently ds (nearly 2) bit her so hard he drew blood an it was my instinct to slap his hand (which made him cry) feel awful about it but didn't even stop to think...

From other people's posts I've read neither myself or any of the othe pro-smacking people would approve of bahviour like that. In fact I think I probably would have been the one giving her an earful.

what did this woman have to say in her defense, dinny? Just curious if she thought she had a leg to stand on?

oh, not trying to infer people that smack their childen would do this - just seemed an appropriate place to post it as it literally just happened. no offence intended to any pro-smackers (well, unless they smack babies, that is)

I can never understand the argument, "I was smacked and it hasn't done me any harm". Yes, it has, you are perpetuating the behaviour which was dished out to you.

couldn't hear what she was saying, only what the woman who'd stormed up was and she said "Oh, yes, you did, I saw you, we all saw you." so she obviously tried to deny doing it - also a coward (what a surprise). then the woman said "I'll call police etc etc" and the mother didn't say anything.

Children must be of an age to understand the discpline techniques used on them.

Just as you wouldn't understand a month old to uderstand a ctar chart, you can't expect a month old to understand being smacked.

Personally I didn't start to use smacks until about 5 weeks ago. ds is nearly 7.

but I'm 31 and I still don't "understand" smacking.

clumsymum, I am honestly not trying to be difficult here, but does your ds not have golden rules at school about not hitting people?
And if so (I think most schools have them) how do you and he relate that to your discipline methods in the home?
Does he not challenge you on this?

SP my ds is pulled up short by a sharp smack, which stops his temper/defiance descending into a red rage which neither of us can control.

I can stop an act of defiance becoming a full scale temper tantrum.

The three smacks he has received this summer have meant that a bad behaviour has been stopped, punished, over and done, whereas before it would have escalated, gone on and ruined a whole day.

That is why I think it works for us.

Clumsymum you have talked about your son and the fact you have gone through all the discipline methods from time out to actually giving away his toys, to no lasting effect.

How can you be sure sure that your 'last resort' of smacking will have any longer effect than any of the methods you have used previously? Where do you go next time? Hit him harder? This isn't meant as an attackl on you, I am genuinely interested in your view on this. I have a 6.5 ds myself and I know how challenging they can be.

I think it's counterproductive though. If he is 7 and has a bit of an anger problem it can be best to just let the tantrums happen, because the long term lesson they'll learn is that if you throw something accross the room then it'll break and you'll have to either fix it or go without. by cutting the tantrums short with a shock tactic - which probably won't continue to shock for very long btw - you're not actually teaching any lesson at all other than that you can acheive things with violence.

Marina, there are also rules at home that say he doesn't hit anyone here (which he has done in the past).

He may wish to challenge me on it. The explanation I would give is this. I will always tell him what he should/shouldn't do. If he persists/defies me I will tell him that isn't acceptable, and give him at least 2 opportunities to comply. If he chooses to persist in his behaviour then he will be smacked on his leg or bottom, and sent to his room.
I will not lash out at him temper. It is my job to show him how to behave. He is a child, it is not his job to discipline me or other children at school.

There are many things I am allowed to do as an adult that he is not allowed to do as a child. This is just another one.

He is

If the only person who suffers when a child has a tantrum is the child then fair enough, but generally it's not. And damage to their bedroom walls/door/furniture/toys is damage to the parent's property that they have worked hard to buy. If a smack stops this damage then great - sounds like clumsymum'shouse is becoming a nicer and calmer place to be because of better behaviour.

Can someone explain properly, with references not just opinions (not saying they're invalid but there's plenty of them here already), why smacking in terms of what we are discussing, ie not abuse, has long lasting damaging effects (and leave out the whole perpetuating behaviour thing because there's nothing wrong with perpetuating a behaviour if it doesn't have lasting damaging consequences).

Thanks.

Puddle, becuse it's working. In 5 weeks he has had just 3 smacks. His temper is already more controlled, his defiance is much less pronounced.

If I was having to smack every day I would agree with you. But I have vidence here that it is working in our case.

Evidence

some info here, liquid clocks

Thanks for the explanation clumsymum. I was very interested in your view because like puddle I have a ds of that age too, who can be extremely trying, although in a different way to your ds from the sound of things.
I don't think smacking my ds would help us at all - he responds best to time out. He loves company and being sent to his room to cool down does seem to resolve the issue before it escalates.

And thanks for that link Scummy