Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Original poster

Good old fashioned smacking

780 replies

heepie · 02/07/2007 13:20

I don't believe it did me any harm and I do wonder why the previous generation, ie mine, was so much better behavied than the current, ie my kids. I find the softly softly, ignore bad reward good behaviour does not work with a strong willed child and find myself more and more thinking what was wrong with a good old smack? Peeing on the floor right in front of you with a big smile on the face surely warrants more than the removal of a star on the reward chart? And whacking little brother over the head with a heavy object? Not eating something very nice and edible that I have slaved over in the kitchen? Why must we never tell our children to eat what is in front of them when I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I was finished? I don't have an eating disorder. I think it's time I through all the modern how to bring up children books out of the window and remember how it was done when I was a child? Anyone else feel this way?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
purpleduck · 02/07/2007 18:33

I don't agree with smacking, but I am quite strict about some things..Ie it is unacceptable to hit other children or be deliberately nasty.

purpleduck · 02/07/2007 18:34

Which is to say that i never smack (in case that wasn't clear!!!)

akaJamiesMum · 02/07/2007 18:36

Have to say I am a non-smacker but am getting increasingly tempted to cross the line at present as DS at 4.5 is being an utter nightmare.

UCM · 02/07/2007 18:39

I have smacked my DS, BUT is has been in a situation where I couldn't reason with him so in my opionion it was the right thing to do. He will be 4 in a couple of months and now, taking away a toy or sending him to his room is just as effective. I still can't exactly reason with him but I do try. Pointless really.

Talking about the being 'proud', I don't feel proud, I don't like smacking him. BUT I don't think that everyone has the patience for time out etc. I don't. Short sharp shock has always been my approach especially if it involves him hurting his little sister. I wouldn't smack him for not eating but I would if he did something that endangered him. The times he has got a smack I can honestly say he hasn't done whatever it was at the time again.

I doubt I have ever left a mark. You would have to really really hit (notice I said hit, not smack) a child to leave a mark through jeans or tracksuit bottoms.

I don't have to smack him now as he understands that if I threaten to take a toy away or send him to his room I mean it. But when he was little, he didn't.

UCM · 02/07/2007 18:41

And reading that back it was totally grammatically wrong, sorry.

BreeVanDerCamp · 02/07/2007 18:54

I have not had time to read the whole thread, however can I just point two things out.

The private schools are already on holidays.

Heepie has exactly the same posting style as RosemaryWoodehouse.

UCM · 02/07/2007 18:57

Well Bree, even if she is a troll. It still raises the point that some parents use different methods for discipling children. I know we have had this many times before and believe me I have taken on board so many alternatives to smacking, so it's good to air it every now and then

fanella · 02/07/2007 18:58

She's been playing scruples again..

GodzillasBumcheek · 02/07/2007 19:11

If the OP does smack for all the things she mentioned she is going OTT. But she is right about one thing - there has been crime throughout the ages but has it always been so obvious that people just look at the law and laugh?? If so - are there alternatives to what we are doing as a society and why have people got such a lack of respect for others? Talking about using manners as well here. And not saying corporal/capital punishment is the answer!

MadamePlatypus · 02/07/2007 19:14

Except for during world wars, I don't think crime is worse now than it has been during other periods of history. Victorians, Georgians, Elizabethans - I don't feel that they were more civilized then than we are now.

Professorfilthymindedvixen · 02/07/2007 19:19

Those of you who do smack (or 'tap' or whatever you want to call it.
What do you do when your child is 5 and hits another child for not doing what he/she tells them...?

Please do tell.

3andnomore · 02/07/2007 19:25

That is where the phrase "do as I tell, not as I do" (somehting along those lines) would come in handy, Prof....lol...

Chirpygirl · 02/07/2007 19:26

I was smacked as a child and it did me a lot of harm.

I was smacked if I didn't finish my meal and as a result I have a very bad relationship with food. Just because this didn't happen with you (all you various posters) doesn't mean it won't happen with your child.

And Xenia put it better than I ever could

By Xenia on Mon 02-Jul-07 16:56:07

fed up with the checkout girl at Tesco? Why not slap her around the face for bad service. That'll teach her eh...

UCM · 02/07/2007 19:48

Hopefully DS will have learnt by then that smacking another child is wrong. I have told him to tell me, and I will deal with the other parent.

You can go on & on about parents smacking but some parents, me for one, believe in it. It's my way of parenting my child and if I am on here in 10 years time moaning that my child is a deliquent, shoot me

Greensleeves · 02/07/2007 19:49

I'm sure I remember you on the last one of these threads UCM, evangelising abuot how you had seen the light and would definitely never ever smack your ds again

UCM · 02/07/2007 19:50

Chirpygirl, the reason it's not okay to smack adults is because they (allegedly) know how to behave!

Greensleeves · 02/07/2007 19:52

By UCM on Sat 19-Nov-05 14:48:27
"Reading this in the cold light of day does indeed sound awful. I feel quite guilty now. I will try some other methods. Sometimes it's hard when you are trying to get out of the door to go to work and DS won't play ball. But it is wrong to smack him, I know it. I think someone here mentioned that the smack is for me not for the child. They are probably right."

Now you're saying "some people, including me, believe in it"?

Chirpygirl · 02/07/2007 19:53

But by that logic if a child does not know how to behave then they should be smacked?
Why not spend a little longer teaching them how to behave?

BonyM · 02/07/2007 19:54

When a tap stops working what do you do? Do you smack?

When a smack stops working what do you do? Do you hit?

What about when a hit stops working?

And what do you do when your child is old enough to hit you back (and for it to hurt)?

The reason people smack children is because they are smaller than them - they won't hit back, and if they do, it won't hurt. The same people don't hit adults that make them angry because they know that if the adult hit back it really could hurt them.

Sometimes my ex-h made me soooo mad that I really felt like hitting him. I didn't.

Sometimes (very, very occasionally) my children have made me so mad that I have felt like hitting them. I haven't.

If it is wrong to hit an adult then surely it is so much more wrong to hit a defenceless child.

Those of you who say you only "tap" or it doesn't hurt, then what is the point of doing it? How can it have any effect?

UCM · 02/07/2007 19:54

True, that was when DS was very small. I didn't, for a while, but then I did, again.

I have taken on board, in fact have pursueded many of my friends that alternatives do work. Some have never smacked, some still do.

But, not every person is the same, I do not have tons of patience. I really don't. I would rather smack and then recommence whatever activity we were doing. It's all very well for those of you are very good with children. I don't think I am, so that's my way.

BonyM · 02/07/2007 19:56

UCM - "Hopefully DS will have learnt by then that smacking another child is wrong."

It is wrong for him to smack another child but it is not wrong for an adult to smack a child?

What???????

UCM · 02/07/2007 19:57

I will also say that NOW, sending DS to his room or taking away a toy is just as effective. But it wasn't at the time as he simply didn't understand the reasoning and as I have said earlier, I could stand there telling him reasons not to climb on the roof but he wouldn't get it.

Chirpygirl · 02/07/2007 19:57

I should add that if you smack your own child, then it is not my place to say I think you are wrong (although I probably do) but that parents who smack should understand the long term consequences and not dismiss them with 'it never did me any harm'

As an example my brother was knocked off his bike by a car, it didn't do him any harm (luckily), but I wouldn't recommend it to others, do you see what I mean?

BonyM · 02/07/2007 19:58

These parents who say "It never did me any harm".

Does anyone think they doth protest too much?

UCM · 02/07/2007 19:59

OK OK you got me, when I have smacked him for walloping his little sister, I was wrong.

BUT I have never smacked him for hitting another child of his age as such, I have always told him to tell me.

So he did. He used to come and say I have just walloped xxxx, I am sorry.