Good old fashioned smacking

[heepie]

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?

Adolf Hitler was terribly abused by his father - emotionally and physically Think I read once he was whipped daily!

Sorry have just finished my Modern History GCSE hence my A. Hitler knowledge

Maybe it was Stalin then... Anyway you can't believe everything you read. Lighten up everybody.

VVVQV - on that basis we might all give up posting on MN. If we are only allowed an opinion if we are professionally qualified to give it, then we'll rapidly run out of things to talk about. So you can't give advice on a feeding thread unless you are a qualified child nutritionist. Or on a relationship thread if you aren;t a therapist. Or on a parenting thread unless you are a child psychologist etc etc etc.

It would make for a very boring site!

I've given my views - others have quite freely given theirs.

Vendiviki. HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE. Totally in agreement with you.

soapy, i dont object to opinions AT ALL (qualified or unqualified), more the derision.

I think its great if you can put forward sturdy arguments for or against, and make your position stronger by adding alternatives, advice etc.

Insulting folk by making unfounded comments about their psychology will only prove to entrench their postion, surely?

I think it does teach children that hitting is acceptable. Children learn by copying.

I do agree with your points about the silent treatment and shouting though 009! My mum regualrly used that as a form of punishemnt - for hours! I think ithat is just as bad. Like you say at least a smack was over and done with!

VVVQV - I didn't really set out to give advice - just to state, once again my position on smacking as I had been on some of the threads that Bloss linked to and wanted to make it clear that I, for one, had not been won over by her arguments on those threads.

I do think that advice is so hard to give in this area because if your basic tenet is that it is okay to smack - then you will smack - parenting being as stressful as it is!

If your basic premise is that smacking is under no circumstances okay - then you won;t smack - it just doesn't fall into the armoury of parenting tools that you use.

I suppose therefore that persuading someone that smacking is morally wrong and is an abuse of power is likely to get better results than telling someone to count to 10 when they are feeling stressed!

I think it would work better if it were a combination of both.

I know that at one point I felt that smacking was 'okay' as part of discipline. I have since been disuaded.

However, if it had simply been a case of someone saying "you are being a bully/morally bankrupt etc etc" without any insight into how they dealt with day to day parenting situations, I think I would have taken it more as a personal sleight, than a justifiable stance on a valid parenting issue.

The same applies to other subjects such as FF vs BF. Folk strolling on saying "formula is evil and you are harming your children by giving it" arent going to win many supporters, are they?

If smacking a child teaches that child that hitting other people is ok then how come lots of people/children who were smacked do not hit/ have never hit others including their own children? This is what I mean about Pop Psychology, you can't just apply one rule to all. Not all people work that way. I'm not into smacking, I think it is uncontrolled and uncreative. But to say that it is always an abuse of power it just not true. It can be about so many things and in certain situations I think it can be done without causing any real damage.

Message withdrawn

Bloss
Don't think the purpose of threads like this is to convince other people but to hear or read their views.
Please take on board the posts that make the distinciton between not liking an action and condemning parents. I was smacked a lot as a child but in other ways I had the best mum in the whole world IYSWIS

I think if you start out thinking you can control your children (using hard and fast routines for sleeping and feeding, shall we say?), smacking is likely to be in your parenting armoury.

Because, sometimes, the little buggers just WON'T do as you want.

But that's about them being people, not just small annoyances to adult life that need controlling either by letting them scream themselves to sleep or whacking them if they transgress. However lovingly you let them cry or "tap" them.

IMO.

ah hello hunkermunker

Codface

AH but Bloss you are being extreme too! No-one has said they are evil, no one has said they have no thought processes etc etc.

Your conclusion however is probably right - I see no position that supports smacking children as being worthy of a discussion and have little tolerance for those that choose to hit their children (or anyone else's for that matter).

I think I have always recognised on MN, that whilst I am in the main tolerant and supportive of other people's positions on various topics, smacking is my blind spot

As usual though, it is with no hard feelings or even derision as VVVQV suggests, just sadness for the children involved.

Because Bloss hitting someone that much smaller than you, because you decide it is a good idea and in their interest in my opinion is bullying!

I cannot think of any situation where it is right to hit a child. I am also failing to see your justification for choosing smacking as an effective form of discipline.

009 - because once you become an adult you base your actions on more than copying those people around you. I believe smacking teaches children that hitting is acceptable I do not believe that all adults who were smacked as children believe the same thing. (I include myself here)We grow up, mature and make our own decisions.

Modern Morals in Times2 today:

"I have never struck my children, which makes me feel morally virtuous. But when at the end of my tether I have often wanted to, which makes me feel morally base. Which am I?"

Well, it's a very long post bloss, I'll say that for it.

However you haven't addressed the crux of the matter - that hitting people smaller than you as a means of controlling them is cowardly, aggressive bullying in every context, and is recognised as such almost universally in every context other than parents hitting their children. And naturally now that we have reached the point - gradually - where legalised violence has been outlawed in every other setting, society is now beginning to accept that hitting children is wrong. If you continue to hit your children you will be breaking the law (in fact as Xenia has pointed out, you probably already are).

There's no way for you to justify this, is there? Just more and more long-winded indignant bluster with no actual substance and no reasoning. Because actually, you know it's wrong to hit people.

Smacking in temper is just wrong. Plain wrong. Honestly, my 6 year old has such a temper. i am so glad that I have taught him that yes it is OK to be angry and lose your temper but scream or hit the floor...please don't hit/hurt/mark your siblings. I think of him being a teenager growing up in today's world...when he is 16, how will he manage to control anger and emotions then. Start as you mean to go on and all that.

Those that think smacking is okay (I don't mean mistakes that are regretted) are being short sighted I think.

Do you think teachers should smack? When I was teaching I could pick out kids that were smacked, they were the ones using physical force rather than telling teachers when they had a problem

hi hunker
bloss, what I can conclude from your posts is that being prosmacking tends to make one prone to hyperbole, crass oversimplification and wild generalisations.
imo
but I am literally LOL at the idea that it is OK to smack because only SOME people are damaged by it. oh well that's ok then
and it is not analagous with banning umbrellas. it is analagous with banning hitting people with umbrella.

Harpsi, i love you

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