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?

this is quite helpful

www.nspcc.org.uk/html/home/newsandcampaigns/physicalpunishmentmediabriefing.htm

could you email me your address, Marina? have lost it!

Clumsymum it's been working for just over a month. Can you envisage it not working though? What you would do if you say to your son 'do that again and I'll smack you' and him saying 'I don't care'? I have had this response from my son when I have threatened sanctions in the past, but I have always had something else up my sleeve.

Thanks for the link scummy, I've read the article. Two issues with it spring to mind immediately -ameta-analysis that incorporates unpublished disertations implies alow quality research base unfortunately or that there wasn't enough published research to prove the point of the author. Secondly 'coproral' punishment is not well defined enough - for all the reader can well we could bediscussing the occasional smack but equally we could be discussing daily use of a belt, completely different. I'm not rubbishing it, it makes some good points - but not enough to make me begin to question my POV. I still think a combination approach isefective andnot damaging. Will go and read the nspcc one now.

My thoughts on the NSPCC argument:

"If the assault of children were treated in the same way as the assault of adults, then mild hitting would not normally be prosecuted because - as with mild hitting between adults at present - prosecuting such matters is considered to be a waste of police and prosecution services' time. (This is known as the de minimus principle.)" - this would still criminalise parents who smack mildly and occasionally and the case has not been made that this type of discplining is harmful in the long term.

"[the ammendement to the law] It will not work to change the culture governing how we treat children " - again the case has not been made as to why we should not accasionally smack to discipline a child.

"Hitting can be both emotionally and physically harmful. Hits can get harder, sometimes involving implements, and things can get out of control, especially when families are under pressure. Shaking can and does kill babies. " - that's not the type of smacking myself and others on this thread are advocating. Of course if aparent loses it in anger and the hitsare too hard that's wrong, but that's not what we're discussing.

"Violence can breed violence. Teaching children that hitting is an appropriate way of resolving conflict can contribute towards a more violent society" - This comment is not based on research that looks solely at occasional smacks, it'sbased on research that looks at frequent, often angry, episodes of coporal punishment.

...Still to see anything convincing.

If you smack your child for smacking another child kittywits, then what exactly are you hoping to teach them?
I'm not saying that just saying "that's not nice" is enough either, but if you smack your child in any instance, and then tell them that smacking others is wrong then you are a hypocrite ( not you personally, but anyone who does this)
Most children have far more intelligence than some people credit them with, and if this leaves me confused then I am sure that a child would find this confusing.
Personally I feel that the most important part in my children's discipline is consistency. i.e If smacking is wrong, then it is just as wrong for me to do it as it is for them to. Likewise if I feel that something is wrong it is wrong in public and at home too.
How do children know how to behave if your expectations change all the while?

But when you smack a child you are teaching them that "hitting is an appropriate way of resolving conflict".

I can't understand how anyone would think otherwise.

So if you have a conflict, then you expect to hit someone or be hit yourself to resolve it do you? that is absurd!

sorry puddle think I may have misread your post

cazb I was responding to liquidclocks who said she saw nothing convincing in the NSPCC's material.

From her post:
"Violence can breed violence. Teaching children that hitting is an appropriate way of resolving conflict can contribute towards a more violent society" - This comment is not based on research that looks solely at occasional smacks, it'sbased on research that looks at frequent, often angry, episodes of coporal punishment."

Well said earlier, Custy, ditto

If your child goes and hits another child and you immediatly clout them without explanation and expect them just to learn from it that's very different to if you have been through timeout twice, explained why they shouldn't do it and then on a third attack take them aside and tell them that because they have ignored you you are going to smack them and then send them away to their room. I think this is different because it applies an end point to the behaviour and also a 'serious' consequence - time out for some children just isn't enough. You're right that children learn behaviourally, if they know they can get away with a behaviour and just have to goand sit on a step or a corner for a bit then there are occasions where it may not work. However, if they know the end consequence to them is that by hurting someone else or damaging property is that they get a smack, they're less likely to try.

And I think my comment about the nspcc article was valid - they're not talking about smacking as we're discussin here. That's the whole problem 'anti smackers' catastrophise the whole thing and blow it out of all proportion.

Although i agree with neither circumstance, I can understand smacking in temper.
what I cannot understand is why someone would stop and think about it, warn their child that it is going to happen and then inflict physical pain on them!

I think the point that the link makes that I agree with quite strongly- other people have touched on it here too- is that instant compliance (of the sort that I defy any parent not to have wished for occasionally and the sort that clumsymum is advocating smacking to achieve) is NOT worth any cost.

I have been having an intermittently tough time with my 7 year old twin sons this summer. This is MY fault- I am tired from trying to combine doing a passable dissertation with looking after them- this involves lots of very early morning starts so I can actually get some work done in a quiet environment and I am knackered by early afternoon and they aren't getting enough positive attentioon some days. The flat is a pigsty, we are eating shit and I have been on a shorter fuse over a longer period than they have ever known.

We had a just awful day a couple of weeks ago at the park when I found myself, not unfamiliarly, in a situation where we were doing an activity- trying to shoot basketball hoops- that one boy was enjoying immensely and that the other was finding enormously difficult and frustrating. The frustrated boy was behaving extremely badly- belittling his twins efforts while proclaiming against all the available evidence that he was the best in his class at basketball (er, wtf?), running off with the ball, trying to impose rule changes, growling at gently given and well meant advice, stomping, yelling, displaying v poor gamesmanship and generally doing his level best to ensure that if he couldn't get a ball in the net then no one else should have the opportunity and the whole world should know that he was livid with rage. Tried empathy- it is frustrating when you can't do something, esp sport if you're a boy, I think- and making him take time out to calm down, suggesting a change of activity. Nothing doing and the next thing I knew he had launched himself at his brother after the latter successfully got the ball in the hoop. I lost it. Really screamed at him. Asked if there was something wrong with him because this sort of behaviour was not normal. Frightened myself and both boys. Frustrated son dissolved into real gulping, gutted, my mummy hates me tears and confessed that he thought maybe there was something wrong with him because he really, really did want to win and it seemed so unfair that he couldn't score even one basket when he was really trying hard... Were they both good for the rest of the day? You betcha. So if you want instant compliance I can really recommend emotional abuse in the form of becoming a horrible bitch mother from hell, frankly. But that doesn't make it right. I really will be ashamed of myself for that forever.

I'm not saying people who smack are inflicting similar damage as I did, by the way. Not at all. I think what I did was much worse than smacking. But I do think that "achieves instant compliance" isn't necessarily a good justification for anything, tbh.

SM, beautifully put.

OK then - alternative to smacking for this scenario then please:

You're at a busy junction with a 2 year old in a pram and a 4 year old holding your hand. The four year old breaks free and tries to run across the road, you have to let go of the pram to go and catch him putting yourself and the 2 year old in a dangerous situation as well as the 4 year old. Thankfully you're all ok but the 4 year old is laughing and thinks what he did was funny.

How do you make the point, quickly, that what he did was not funny and he must NEVER do it again?

Obviously I think I would give a smack and an explanation with my 'cross' face. What would you all do?

Personally I would use a wrist strap to hold on to the 4 year old.

Liquidclocks can you not see the irony of hitting a child to show the child that hitting is unacceptable (in your example).

I think that the parents on this thread who describe how they smack calmly and lovingly after two warnings are rare to be honest.

Liquidclocks I would put him in reins. And he'd stay in reigns until he could be sensible at road crossings.

Of course he would also get a short explaination of why what he did was wrong, why I was putting the reins on and what he would have to do (ie the beaviour I wanted ) that would make them come off again.

When mine were 4 they were allowed to walk (read run) without holding my hand on pavements as long as they stopped at the kerb and waited, then held my hand crossing. Any shenannigans and they had to hold my hand the for the rest of the journey. They weren't horrendous with that sort of thing though. If they had been I'd have gone for reins/wriststrap as others have suggested.

Can someone PLEASE tell me when it became soooo dreadful to expect a child to do as they are told?

The term "instant compliance" has been used here. I think you believe that Kittywits and I want robots not children, We don't, but I do want to be able to get to the dentists appointment without having to ask my son 6 times to put his shoes on. I don't expect to have to start getting ready 1/2 an hour earlier for everything so I can explain why he has to put his shoes on. Or to give us time for timeout when he won't get ready cos he's playing his computer game.

If doing as you're told when you're told is "instant compliance", then yes, that is what I want. I expect a 7 year old to behave in this way most of the time.
And that is what is happening now.

SM, sorry but I don't think that nay of this was YOUR fault.
Chidren used to have to fit with teir parents work/occupation and sometimes put up some more 'difficult' times because mummy/daddy is tired or busy. I think that a child should learn that too and at 7yo I would expect some sort of understanding from them.
Saying that, I don't have any problem with your post or your reaction.

And for what it's worth, reins wouldn't fit my son by the time he was 4, and I detest wriststraps for two reasons

1. If a child falls wearing a wriststrap they can break an arm or dislocate elbow or shoulder.
2. I actually think they are pretty humiliating, akin to putting a dog-lead on your child. A four y.o. should know not to run across a road. Liquidclocks method gets that point home quickly, so that next time, the child will remember.