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?

Bloss I had to respond to your comment 'self righteous nonsense'.

I tried to look for your arguments pro smacking and I think I found some, but none actually outlined the evidence that smacking is either good for your child or works as a long term measure. I would be glad if you would explain these points to me as I am baffled.

BTW is intelligent smacking the thing where you use a bit of willow tree or a utensil so your child doesn't flinch whenever you try to touch her...or is it where your child is humbled and then you can have a cuddle and a talk about her behaviour? I've read of these things but never actually known anybody do them.

I'm really interested in your arguments, please comment.

It is my principle not to smack and I never have. The same goes for naughty step and time out.

I don't think that parents who spank their children are bad parents. I just think they have a different discplinary style than the rest others.
I am assuming you are talking about a smack on the bottom. The problem with spanking is that most parents do it because they are angry.
I do not spank for numerous reasons. One, my child is to tough and would laught at me. Two, I think it is confusing to a child to hit them and tell them hitting is bad in the same sentence. Three, in agressive children spanking will often make the child even more agressive.

While I say this, I still do not think it is a crime or damaging done under right context. I just think, if you can find a more positive way to guide your child to better behavior, you should try.

everyone is shocked by the notion of a child being spanked on her bare bottom in public. I can assure you that thirty years ago this was perfectly acceptable and I certainly witnessed it on several occasions. as was beating with canes, belts, slippers, sticks, plimsolls and in my school a massive wooden spatula.
(as Xenia said, with an obvious effect on burgeoning sexuality, pain,nakedness and humiliation)
thank god those days are gone.
that is what good old fashioned smacking means. I hope that in thirty years time all smacking will evoke the same kind of reaction.

Don't agree with smacking at all. Why do some people think it's harmless, it's not. We were never smacked as children and I think when you see a parent smacking a child it obvious that the parent has lost their temper. What age do these parents stop smacking their kids? When the child is old enough to smack them back?

I remember my infant school headmistriss making naughty (fidgity, not paying atention in assembly)boys go to the front of the hall, in front of everybody, pulling down thier trousers and smaking their legs.

This was considerred acceptable almost twenty years ago. I remember it very clealy, so it obviously had an impact on me.

Thank heavens this wouldn't' happen now.

I went to a school where The still paddled. I don't understand how parents could have let someone else displine their child like this. Although it was never as bad as at your school Scarvo

One thing that would infuriate me, is if someone else spanked my child. Even if I did spank my child, which I don't, I would not want someone else doing it.

The reason being is noone loves my child like I do, when I am disciplining my child it is from a place of love. I do not discipline my child because I am mad or irritated but to teach them how to be better people.

Someone who else disciplining my child does not have that love vested into my child.

Some people may be too stupid to understand what I wrote but I said you're more likely to smack if you're working class and uneducated and that is a fact. The middle classes don't smack their children as much. I didn't say no middleclass parent has ever smacked a child.

Anyway I hope people are now clear about the law and obey it.

I assume there is less chance of losing control and resorting to smacking if you don't spend much time with your children.

I think it is unhelpful to judge people who feel so helpless and stressed by looking after children 24 hours a day on their own, that they sometimes smack.

That is a situation that society should be helping with, by providing a support structure.

Sleep-deprivation, stress, loneliness and isolation feel the same whether you are rich, poor, highly educated or illiterate.

And these parents are not the same as parents who routinely smack because they cannot be bothered to find another form of sanction. It is disingenuous to castigate all parents who smack as uncaring child abusers.

Xenia
I don't ever think it is right to stereotype people the way you just have. I would love to know where you learned it is a "fact" that the working class and uneducated are more likely to smack their children.

I once had a college professor in a child developement class, tell the entire class the proper way to spank a child. I thought it was misguided and outdated of him but he was definitely very educated. And he was educated in child developement.

I also know a lot of educated people who beleive, "spare the rod, spoil the child." But that doesn't mean most religious people spank thier children, anymore than most working class people are more like to spank thier children.

I really am not trying to jump you. I think you had good intentions and a bad choice of words, which I am guilty of myself on many occasions.

LOL at UCM nobly going down with the ship "I stand by my posts" How delightfully British

OMG!!!

Is this bloody post still going???

Really people, I think we should have realised by now that we are never going agree on it!

Have to add before i deregister from MN (well ok i may check back in a few hours to see what people have repied - or if i get people partying after i'm gone

AudreyFforbesHamilton was bang on in my case - Sleep-deprivation, stress, loneliness and isolated...
this is the first afternoon, no sorry, first two hours i have been at home with no kids and no chores to do in 9.5 years...and why? Because i keep getting whopping migraines (with which i feel nauseous too btw) from using my pc more than an hour a day
Which is why i am deregistering. Goodbye...it's been nice knowing some of you

replied, not repied. Although pies may be added if you so wish.

I don't think you really needed anyone to confirm it but yes it is a bit of a class issue but as it's increasingly being seen as wrong it will die out anyway.

I never said it was abuse. That's a very strong word to bandy around. It's something that is often illegal and can be dealt with by warnings and education in most cases.

"Physical punishment and the parenting cycle: a survey of Northern Irish parents
Teresa Murphy-Cowan *, Maurice Stringer
School of Behavioural and Communication Sciences, University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK

*Correspondence to Teresa Murphy-Cowan, School of Behavioural and Communication Sciences, University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland.

Keywords
parenting; physical punishment; Northern Ireland

Abstract
The intergenerational transmission of physical punishment was examined in a questionnaire study of Northern Irish parents (n=371). Participants completed measures of commitment to and use of physical punishment, hostility and a retrospective parenting report on their parents' disciplinary behaviours. The results reveal that 91% of Northern Irish parents report using physical punishment to discipline their children (including 44% who smack only very rarely). Retrospective reports of working class parents suggest that physical punishment by grandparents at low, medium and high levels corresponds to the levels of reported punishment used by participants with their own children. Middle class parents who reported low or medium levels of parental discipline displayed a similar pattern of intergenerational transmission. However, middle class parents who reported receiving higher levels of punishment were found to use lower rates of punishment with their children. "
www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/40002926/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Not everything in life can be settled by quoting an 'academics' opinion.

Some things are just, life. I certainly don't over analyse everything I do as a parent. I would end up in a padded cell.

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yawn yawn yawn

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I could have written the OP about 5 years ago. I was badly physically abused by my parents in the name of discipline (I can only assume), but the basics is that I grew up believing it was normal. Weare biological designed to trust our parents and assume that their view of the world is right. I thought airy fairy new child care ideas were silly. Then when I finally realised Id been abused, I finally looked at the way ID been raised. It was tremendously difficult to admit that my parents had been wrong. Now these parents were ridiculously bad, and I couldnt see anything wrong with their methods until a few years ago. Imagine if your parents, just smacked a bit. I can totally understand how someone could grow up believing smacking isn`T as bad as all that.

I am totally against smacking now because I think children should be seen as human beings, not as objects that we can assert our power over. I belive parents are in a position of considerable power, and smacking is a betrayal of trust and power.
That is beside the other arguments that it doesn`t actually work as a form of discipline, and it teaches violence.

Although, there are DEF worse behaviours than smacking and physical abuse. With a smack, the parent somehow does face what theyve done. They see the childs hurt and humiliation written on their face. Since getting to know my MIL, IVe realised there are much more sinister ways of bullyin that are more socially acceptable. MIL divides and rules the family and has never really "allowed" members to love each other. SHe plays siblings all against one another so the focus is all on her. She nitpicks, criticises and bullies, and uses emotional blackmail, and wonT let her children "go" in such an underhand way that it took me a year of unexplained misery before I realised she was the cause.
I find this worse than smacking itself because this form of abuse perpetuates into aldulthood whereas smacking tapers off (when the child gets big enough to hit back, I presume, as in my case).
HAving never come accross abuse in a snidey, knitpicky, underhand kind of way, but always in a very overtly angry way, I was shocked by this and I find it more sinister than smacking.

Ref McDreamy's post:

I was told on Monday (child protection course)
that the numbers of children physically abused
in Scotland has not changed since the new anti
smacking law came in (applies to children under3)

The proposed ban on smacking under 3s never came in
(see for instance news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=31&id=47032007 ).

However the new law does allow a court to take age into account. You can see the law that was in fact brought in here:
www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/acts2003/asp_20030007_en_9#pt7-l1g51

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