Slapped my 6yo boy this morning - am I evil?

[Rococorita]

Can't stop crying. My 6yo DS was acting up before school this morning. Wouldn't get dressed, shouting rude things at me, and finally whacking me. I snapped and slapped him - quite hard - on the cheek. I have never done this before. He was shocked and burst into tears. On the way to school I told him I loved him and was sorry but he said he hated me and would never kiss me again. I'm a complete wreck.

Have I done irreparable damage - and should I be turning myself in to social services immediately?

Oh leave her alone FGS!
She may have come across as a bit holier-than-thou but only about hitting her kids.
We don't half pick and choose whom we judge on here!

Rococorita, I'm certainly not judging you either. I hope you both cuddled and made up this morning. If, as you said, you are seeking new strategies, do a search on here; There's lots of good advice in the archives.
Good luck

I am sure that Rococorita does not need social services or any outside help. I am sure she is an excellent parent.

If she wants emotional support with dealing with challenging children then parentlineplus might be a good place to turn to. They run a range of parenting workshops which are open to all parents.

Why do smackers always assume that non smackers are lying?

I wonder if it were deemed ok to give a child a slap on the legs or bottom for bad behaviour, if people like the OP wouldnt have to actually reach the end of their tether and do something like this, which yes, is wrong, but no one here should be judging her. I wonder how people in isolated tribes discipline their children? People who are not influenced so much by modern society? Genuine question

I hope the poor op has read the supportive posts and realised she is not a monster.
Just a mum who made a mistake and feels terrible about it.

No you're not evil or have done irreprible damage.

Don't forget there's always parentline 0808 800 2222 if you have no one near when you are desperate for advice or support.

Bloody hell. Must remember to drop my F4J id when posting on serious threads

Hello
No you are not evil as your post shows how bad you feel about it. You are showing remorse.
But I want to mention that this could be a turning point in your relationship. You could really talk many times with him in the future and now about how it was a really really wrong thing to do, and make it part of the family history, however uncomfortable this makes you. Helping to teach your children about handling their own anger, for instance, with this episode as an example of how grown ups can fail to handle their own anger...
Or you could do what my mum did when she was violent once and then tried to sweep it under the carpet. (She ran across the room and kicked me with all the force she could muster - I didn't know to tell anyone when I was 8). Anyway, I really think if she had talked to me and done the above, we could have stayed close as human beings. But as I was never once told by her or anyone else that that behaviour was wrong, we just grew apart as I was afraid of her.
I have every confidence that you can make this work for you and show yourself to your son as a loving human being capable of acknowledging her mistakes and correcting them. And perhaps be closer than ever as a result.
My granny always talks about how she slapped her daughter (my aunt) in the street when she tried to run into the road, and how two old ladies shouted at her that she wasn't fit to be a mother. But this story, that she freely tells, has become part of family folklore. She stays with that daughter at least once a month, is close to her, and at 87 is very close to her greatgrandchildren through that daughter.
It's how you deal with it now I reckon.

If the OP is still around and looking for some helpful advice, I would thoroughly recommend reading Redmist's thread in Parenting about feeling vicious towards her children www.mumsnet.com/Talk/67/452207

Not only might it help you understand that you are not alone nor a terrible parent but the thread also has some truly inspiring suggestions about how to cope when feeling overwhelmed - plus its so supportive and wonderful that it made me cry.

Sorry if someone has already suggested this and I've missed it on the thread...

I can't help but wonder whether the 21st century softly softly 'no smacking' approach to naughty behaviour is the thinking that is also applied to both the jailing of householders who use force to defend their properties from burglars and the criminalisation of mugging victims who dare to assault their attackers.

My I have never met a child who has committed a grevious offence.

Well they do exist (those boys who murdered James Bulger for example) but my post is just musing on the way that any kind of physical punishment is now frowned upon, in all areas of life.

And given the national pastime of stabbing, I wonder if this way of thinking is helpful.

Manny, please don't suggest that if those boys had been given a good smack they wouldn't have commited such a horrific act.

Mary Bell commited a similar murder 30years earlier and her mother was forever beating her.

I just don't think physical violence is ever the way to go.|It is not really something that can be graded as where do you draw the line?One persons smack is anothers slap and so on.And what do you do when it doesn't work?Take it up a gear?If you teach luttle people that those bigger can over power them in that way then you can't expect them not to do the same.Smacking is nearly always an experssion of your own frustrationa dn anger A one off like the OP where the perpetrator is full of remorse and is genuinely sorry is not the same as someone considering it a form of discipline.

And I don't think the rise in teenage knife crime is down to lack of smacking either.

There's an enormous difference between lack of physical discipline and just lack of discipline.

Though my personal opinion is that this is more down to lack of opportunity and low aspirations.

I agree,Noddy.
For me, I don't see how I could justify preaching to my kids that physical violence is wrong if one of my discipline strategies is to smack.

Though I don't think that's the case with the OP.

true red cardigan.

My educated guess is that if you ask a violent offender if they were smacked/received form of physical punishment as a child, the answer in 99.999999% of cases would be YES. I am willilng to bet my house and husband on it!

But I just think there are so few effective deterrents in today's society. Years ago, when caning and similar were allowed in schools (and I can recall vividly the fear - and therefore the acknowledgement of a boundary - that my English teacher's cane on top of his blackboard generated in his pupils), there was more respect for authority and less child-related crime. I personally, think that there is a link between the disempowerment of teachers/parents in their methods of discipline and the rise of the 'I can do what I like' generation.

Manny, the boys who killed Jamie Bulger came from homes where violence and neglect were commonplace. In fact, one of the boys lived in a home where he and his siblings were encouraged to bully and attack each other.