Smacking! At what age do people thinking it's appropriate

[AlanasMum]

I was at coffee morning the other day and my 15m dd was playing up a little. Another mum commented and said wow I bet she gets a lot of smacks. I must have looked a bit shocked as it hadn't occured to me to smack dd before.

I've always been on the fence on this subject and figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Which appears to be coming quicker than I anticipated.

Message withdrawn

So fortyplus, having used every other method open to me, which didn't work, I was supposed to give up and let him rule the roost?

No way....

Must go, he's just come and kissed me, asked when tea will be ready cos he's hungry. He is considerate and well mannered. Not because hes afraid of me, but because he understands that good behaviour brings rewards, bad behaviour makes his life unpleasant.

wildwoman - I still feel like hitting mine sometimes!

well tea-time is upon us so I'm off to rustle up some Nigella like masterpiece, no doubt I will be back tc all x

Message withdrawn

clumsymum - no need to get defensive... what we write on mn is very black & white, isn't it?

I would personally never lock a child in a room. I have in the past smacked mine, which others say they consider to be a form of abuse.

But - having made the decision never to smack again when ds1 was 6, I have managed to keep discipline in other ways - usually by sitting them down and talking about their behaviour.

As I said before - however awful another person's child's behaviour was, you would find a way to deal with it without resorting to physical punishment.

Why not do that with your own chld?

Cod - you didn't throw the board rubber, did you?

"So fortyplus, having used every other method open to me, which didn't work, I was supposed to give up and let him rule the roost?"
No, you take yourself off on a parenting course. If the rest of us can manage without smacking children you can. Smacking is never justified.

(The abuse quote wasn't really mine and fp my parents chose to pay to send me to schools where chidlren would not be hit as they didn't believe in it and lobbied to get the law changed in schools)

Is it legal to lock a child in his room?

I would criminalise that as well I'm afraid. I think it's cruel and unnecessary.

Also I don't accept this argument that "some children" are so difficult to control that they need to be hit/locked up. Don't blame the child for your lack of any other parenting skills to call on when things get tough. ALL children are difficult and infuriating sometimes.

Locking a child in his/her room is apparently classed as a form of abuse.

A nursing colleague of mine has just completed a child protection course and while she has never used it as a form of discipline was surprised to find this out as was I.

x posts Greeny - no I don't think is is

how anyone can say that a tap of the hand is coldblooded child abuse is beyond me. I feel we should all take stock here for a minute and consider this. A smack is a smack is a smack,however one done with the intention to cause extreme physical pain or to get your children to obey you, or because you can not cope with their behaviour or to lash out in anger whether you later regret it or not, is total unacceptable and detriment to a childs wellbeing.I smacked my childs hand after several attempts to explain that her actions would cause her much greater pain, assuming my smack had hurt at all.It was done out of love and genuine concern for her safety.It was not evil or weird or twisted in any way and to be told it is. is completely crazy.Obviously with hindsight it was not the best approach and one i hope that i do not have to do again,but i stand by my convictions that it solved the problem at the time.and stopped any greater harm coming to her. like i said earlier she never even attempted to go near the fire again.imo she has grown into a well rounded, happy girl with a much greater understanding of right and wrong. I am no expert but i know my own daughter and i can honestly say that she has not been damaged by that experience.

I would actually diagree that I was in the category of someone "who smacks a child in cold blood, as part of a programme of behaviour modification with fear, humiliation and pain as the mechanisms for controlling behaviour" and therefore is " abusing and deserves to be criminalised in [Greenshots'] opinion". Yet by her definition, I probably am.

I didn't smack ds in cold blood, nor did I used fear, humiliation and pain as the controlling mechanisms. Indeed, I was trying to avoid fear or humiliation, as that is what the altenrtaitve at the time( a timeout on the stairs) would have caused ds. To the best of my recollection, those occasions I used it, he had got himslef into a blind alley of a tantrum and the shock off the smack (not the pain) gave him enough pause to able to start afresh.

Ds does not fear me - and he knows I don't hurt him. Humiliation is a matter of perpective - ds may find it "humiliating" to lose Golden Time at school for bad behaviour -are you going to say the school should be criminalised? (For the record, he has only lost 5 minutes of golden time - and that was for over exuberance during gym time - in 18months at school, so it shows he is generally a well behaved boy! )

Nobody has said that a tap on the hand is child abuse.

What I (and others) have said is that a smack which causes pain to a child is abusive, and a parent who administers such a smack in cold blood is an abuser.

I don't acccept the word "tap" as a description of a smack administered to a child in the circumstances. If it was a painless tap it would be utterly pointless and would not yield the disciplinary success parents like clumsymum and kittywits rave aboutes. Smacking hurts. And hurting children on purpose is wrong.

I'll have to agree to disagree - a tap on the hand that stings momentarliy (ie less than a second) is still a smack - and from my epxerience, it was successful, achieved its objective and was therefore not pointless. It was one of a whole raft of techniques that I used (and still use - although not that one, as I've explained before).

And if "not doing it while angry" means "in cold blood", then by your definition I am a child abuser.

prettybird, well said. i feel our attempts at reason here are somewhat futile.....

Yes, by my definition you probably are.

YOu must have some very weak children if a tap on the hand which stings for a few second is any kind of deterrent. I just don't understand it. Either you hit and it hurts, deters and you break the law or you do it light and they laugh at you.

And I agree matildax, so far your attempts at reason have been pretty futile.

I find it somewhat amusing Xenia that you are lecturing people about the evils of being a less than perfect parent when you made the comment (without any hint of irony) that you always tell your nanies that they shouldn't smack your children. We could argue all day about the potential damage that particular issue is doing to your children.....

FWIW, I am proud of my loving relationship with ds - and his of me. He is a loving, popular, well behaved boy, who does still have the odd tantrum but then what 6 year old doesn't, abnd msot importantly has a fantastic, ceheery idsposition.

At the end of the day, that's all that matters!

At the moment, I have more important things to worry about - like a mother who has a serious head injury, who is not being looked after properly, and a father who needs supporting - and loving.

Xenia - if you re-read my first post on this thread, you will see that I did it for max. 5 occasions and for a certain, short defined age span, while ds wasn't amenable to reasoning. He's not "weak" and at that age it was a deterrent - he learnt the lesson of consquences. I can only speak from my personal experience, as we can't all walk a mile in opther people's shoes (although some on herer seem to think that they can).

But because of my personal experience, I do get annoyed at blanket statements that all people who smack are child abusers.

And your lack of attempt to see any other opinion than your own is extremely worrying greenshoots.

Message withdrawn

I dont get what is wrong about Xenia telling a nanny not to smack her kids.