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Original poster

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

480 replies

AlanasMum · 21/03/2007 17:14

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.

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fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:02

Thanks, Greeny

My boys think I'm lovely - that's what matters to me I enjoy the heated discussions on mn - it's sad when people take things too personally. I could launch a scathing criticism of someone's post without for one moment thinking that they were a bad person.

We all need to keep sight of that, don't we?

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:04

VeniVidiVickiQV I'm less than 25 miles - probably not far enough! But if you like I could base a scientific experiment on your son - smack him one week then not the next and keep observations on his behaviour.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 26/03/2007 19:05

OH. P.S. We had to put a security chain style lock at the top of our kitchen door. The stairgate and the shoulder height door handles were not a deterrent to keep him out of the kitchen and away from sinks, cupboards etc.

He has been able to drag a dining chair across the kitchen since he was 14 months old.

Greenshoots · 26/03/2007 19:07

YES!! I wish that were more widely understood. I get very heated and I know I overstep the mark sometimes - but this is something I feel really, really strongly about. I'm not sitting here having a laugh and trying to wind people up for fun. It's funny, on this thread Xenia and I have agreed on pretty much everything, but previously I have had run-ins with her and I couldn't have seen how I would ever agree with her about anything. I have also had amicable and friendly discourse with fannyannie and with kittywits - but on this issue we always end up daggers drawn.

It's not about personal dislike, it's not about point-scoring, it's about the issue in hand. Or it is to me, anyway. I would expend this much emotional energy and time over something that didn't matter to me, just for the sake of winning an argument.

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:07

VVV - so the smacking isn't working then?

Greenshoots · 26/03/2007 19:08

wouldn't, I mean

VeniVidiVickiQV · 26/03/2007 19:09

He also likes to attempt to light the grill and switches the gas on. Bathroom has to remain shut too. Things get flushed, or soaked under the tap.

Oh, and if you dont gaffer tape his nappy on and put his sleeping bag on back to front, he pulls it off in the morning and pisses and shits everywhere, and throws and smears (sometimes eats) the poo.

I can deliver by courier at no cost to you

Hillary · 26/03/2007 19:10

I used to be beaten all the time usually at night by my father.

He was a very very violent man, if I did something to upset him or stood in the wrong place he would beat me. You could never do right. I was not a naughty child but when you get hit or beaten and you don't honestly know why which most young children dont you think "oh fuck it I'm going to get beaten anyway so what the hell".

I lived in fear ok you may not beat your child but its the same when you smack them, if you hit them for everything they do wrong they wont think they can do anything right, they loose interest in pleasing you they act up. Its a classic synario.

I remember sitting on the stairs listening to my father beat my mother, my mother pleading and begging, he would then lock her outside in the freezing cold. I would run to my bed but he would ... well I'm not going into it but its a horrible life to lead.

To fear your parents, we are here to love them, how do you think your child will ever go to you with a problem if they are worried about how you will react. They dont!

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:15

Greenshoots - same for me with Xenia - she has made me SO cross on occasions, yet on this thread and some others you can really see her caring side, with a little light heartedness thrown in.

That's the best of mn - put your views in black & white and you can't retract them - you have to take the flak! I find it interesting that I sometimes write something in a tongue in cheek way and people take it literally and take great offence.

I suppose we can all be very direct - in rl I wouldn't be as controversial. I know people who 'tap' their children and I don't preach at them or urge them to learn from my mistakes in the same way as I have on here.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 26/03/2007 19:15

The only time he has been smacked is when in blind panic he has gone to dash into the road, or stretched up stood on his temporary tower of teatowels and chopping boards and grabbed the kettle which was at the back of the worktop, but he had got to it. I know you are having a jokey 'dig' forty, but i havent said anywhere that i implement smacking as a regular form of discipline.

Just the other day he ran into the road outside our house.
Admittedly we live in a cul-de-sac crescent but, the woman driving down the road tooted the horn at DS, and he got out the road, and she proceeded to tell me to "keep an eye on him" and "just be careful, okay". Because I dont know this already.

Also, he ran away in the snow outside DD's pre-school a few weeks ago. I only managed to keep track of him because of the footprints he left in the snow. He simply took off in one direction and carried on walking.

Greenshoots · 26/03/2007 19:17

I am sorry to read about your childhood trauma Hillary . These threads do dredge up awful memories for some of us. I don't equate the occasional frustrated smack - or even smacking used calmly but "mildly" as clumsymum describes - with the kind of lawless horror you describe (and I have a similar background) - but I suppose it does add an extra ounce of vehemence to my determination never to allow violence into my home in any form.

It sounds terrible Hillary, I hope you're OK. It can be very painful when something triggers memories like that.

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:17

VVV - think what a perfect child he'd be if he'd never been smacked!

Runs away feeling bloody glad that she's well past that stage with her own kids

Greenshoots · 26/03/2007 19:20

VVV everyone knows you're a big softie

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:21

Hillary I had a friend whose father was like that - always after he had been drinking. Strangely it all stopped abruptly when she was 16 and a neighbour called the police.

She says that it has never been mentioned since, until recently when he babysat for her and opened a 2nd bottle of wine. She asked him not to, and told him that seeing him slurring brought back unhappy memories for her. He replied that it did for him, too.

He has always been the perfect, loving Grandfather.

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:22

VVV - wouldn't it be better to put reins on him?

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 19:26

Oops, sorry - can't wait for an answer as the hordes are just arriving home

harpsichordcarrier · 26/03/2007 19:33

nah greeny, the prisons are chuck full of people who have been smacked. bursting at the seams with them.
ime.
tbh I don't see much distinction between smacking/tapping/threatening to smack as a deliberate course of conduct (as opposed to a one off, end of tether thing). I think it all eats away at a loving relationship.
If your dh/dp hit you deliberately, to change your behaviour, or threatened to hit you, I don't think you would care if he "tapped" you or "slapped" you or "smacked" you or "insert your own euphemism" you. if he deliberately inflicted pain and humiliation on you, how would that make you feel?
that's how your children feel.
we all lose our temper, and we should all try to control it, but it is forgiveable in te context of a loving relationship I think.
to deliberate, calmly hit - that's another matter.
imo.

Judy1234 · 26/03/2007 20:21

There's no argument to win. The law is the law and the smackers have lost unless they can do it so lightly it doesn't leave a mark.

VeniVidiVickiQV · 26/03/2007 20:48

What, IN the house?

No point anyway, he has been able to escape from a 5 point harness for about 8 or 9 months now.

Doodledootoo · 26/03/2007 21:49

Message withdrawn

sauce · 26/03/2007 21:55

I can't believe that this thread has less postings than the one about Cod (495-471)! something fishy going on...

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 22:10

Xenia - but when I used to smack it was so lightly it didn't leave a mark - except on the one occasion that led me to decide to stop altogether.

I still came to feel it was wrong because of the humiliation involved.

I can remember my parents smacking me as a child - but I wouldn't say they ever hurt me physically. Being smacked made me cry because it humiliated and enraged me - not because of any pain.

powder28 · 26/03/2007 22:29

Reading back through this thread and reading some horrific accounts from peoples childhoods has only reinforced the fact that smacking is just unnacceptable.
It's very distressing to watch someone bullying their own flesh and blood into a constant state of fear and panic. I had a year of it living with my sister and her dh. They didnt hit their dd but they punished her constantly for various things, and ganged up on her. They would put her in her room with the door shut at least twice a day.
ONe night i came in with my mum and my 2 yr old niece was beside herself. Her crime? Apparently she had 'been like this all day' so rather than calm her down they frogmarched her to her room and didnt let my mum kiss her goodnight. She was so distressed she threw up. It was at that point my mum went in and started cuddling her. My sister and her DH practically told my mum to go away but my mum said she wasnt going to let her granddaughter go to bed in that state.
That was just one incident. My niece is highly strung but thats not her fault.
My sisters husband is a horrible bully. I feel he has changed my sister in a bad way, and I dont think he is fit to even be a parent.

fortyplus · 26/03/2007 22:34

That's terrible

We all learn a major part of our parenting style from our own parents. People who hit have invariably been hit themselves.

I think things are moving the right way in general, though. Our generation is able to express emotions far more openly. Children aren't hit at school any more.

Hillary · 26/03/2007 22:58

Its horrible thinking of the past and how parents treated you. Brings back all memories.

Children dont realise they are doing wrong they dont deliberatley go out to cause bad its our job to guide them. I have a wonderful mother & daughter relationship with both my girls we cant bare to be appart, we laugh and joke and I ask her opinion on everything - she's only 3! She know's I'm here for her and that she can reliy on me, that's a parent. If she does something I disaproove(sp?) I tell her in a calm tone and she accepts it. Dont get me wrong I am known to shout if pushed but shout is all I do & only if there's risk of danger (like taking seatbelt off or running accross road etc)

Why don't people take the time in bonding with their children instead of shouting at them and expecting them to be mind readers.