Grayling defending smacking

[seventiesgirl]

Never did him any harm apparently. The tory party are such a bunch of tossers. Whatever next?

The waffling on talk about socket protectors reminded me of my mother slapping my face so hard that I actually propelled across the living room, from the edge of the sofa, after my sister rammed wicker from a chair, into the plug sockets in our lounge.

My sister blamed me and before I could say otherwise, I was on the floor yelping, with a lovely red hand print across my face.

In my 38 years, I've never forgotten that. I've also never forgotten the sound of my mother sobbing when my feckless father left us alone for a woman half his age. Or how she went without food, clothes, treats etc so many times so that my sister and I could simply eat.

Or how she worked all the hours she could to keep the roof over our heads........

I suppose she thought I'd done something dangerous that day and her gut reaction was to scare me into never doing it again?

Shame it wasn't me in the first place which is another thing I dislike about only using smacking to discipline - at times, some parents are far too quick to smack first and ask what actually happened later.

I have smacked my DDs, but I'm not proud of having done so and it's not a form of punishment I would sanction or recommend, as Grayling seemed to be doing.

I don't smack,but I am very firm with my kids.I like most kids of rthe seventies was smacked ,rarely but it did happen.

It hasn't affected me,my relationship with my mother.For some real smacking ,you should have seen me and my 5 brothers ,there was some real violence there.My brothers beat the shite out of each other
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So I don't do it, and I do think that parents can use other tactics,but honestly I don't think that a smack on the hand will damage a childs psyche for life.

recall smacking someone any child is a question of authority and responsibility.

I'm not in charge of other people's children as I'm not their parent.
it's not my job to discipline or reward them. I wouldn't smack them and I wouldn't breast feed them either. or whip their clothes off and kiss their yummy tummies. or pay for a window they broke. simple

other peoples's kids don't belong to me, I have no parental authoroty over them and while I might care and love for them I do not answer for them.

What elephant? ( puzzled?)
i hope people wouldn't smack other people's kids! I'm not sure if I would want my dc to witness smacking anyway if I wasnt there- there would be a lot of fear in the air and anger and a child cannot get away, even if not the one being smacked.

I used to know someone who smacked her toddler and I had to stop seeing her as the shouting and slapping in front of my 18mh ds kept him awake at nights after we had been to her house. He would get very stressed on the way there.
She didn't slap or tap my child but she was very handy with her own.

I remember going to a friend of my mum's house quite a lot in the 70's as her dd was my age. I didn't particularly like the dd but I think my parents wanted to get a break and it was a reciprocal arrangement.

The dad was terrifying and strict. I remember he slapped the dd across the face at the table for doing very little. Wasn't nice.

All I know is they say not to smack because "violence breeds violence" Kids don,t get smacked these days but are more violent than ever so how does that work?? Look at the riots last year, gangs of violent, nasty horrible "kids". Also banning smacking will only stop the parents who "smack" it won,t stop those who "beat" and abuse, who lets face it are the real problem in society. My parents approved of smacking, I was smacked twice because for me it was a deterrent and it worked, I think parents should make their own choice.

I've read the first 10 pages, so it may have been answered since, but for those advocating smacking I've not yet seen a distinction or viable explanation as to why that method of disciplining is any different from me 'snapping' and hitting my wife 'as a short sharp shock' because she hasn't respected my boundaries up till now...
I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I honestly can't see the difference.

I say this as a parent who has smacked once when my son was 3 or 4 years old. I hope and intend never ever to do it again. It worked, but I listened (secretly) to him telling his younger sister about it afterwards. Maybe he's forgotten it now, but I felt ashamed and disgusted that I could cause that much fear in someone I love so much. Never again. (Or is that the argument wife beaters use...)

Polka those mothers smacking but "not smacking in anger" that you have witnessed clearly have psychopathic tendancies as to hit someone (sorry "tap") who is 2 feet tall, who you profess to love, when you're "calm and controlled" is frankly bloody weird.

And I don't see why being referred to as "the smackers" is offensive. It is factually accurate from what has been posted.

Calling it "tapping" may make you feel better Polka but you are just lying to yourself. It is hitting plain and simple.

amazingmumof6 you lost me ages ago! Don't know what you're going on about in your last post but I think you must be answering someone else. But you are misguided if you think smacking is effective. If it were you would only need to do it once!

Clear expectations of behaviour, clear boundaries, loads of love and a realisation that children are just that, children finding their way, are what work for my 9 year old DS. His toughest "punishment" is feeling that he has let himself, me or his father down if he behaves badly.

Signing off this thread as the smackers views are so entrenched that they cannot hear (and refuse to listen to) any other way to be.

Good luck one and all. I'm sure your children will all be fine. Afterall, a smack didn't hurt you....

karasmummy well said, totally agree with you

You can't defend smacking on the basis of 'it never did me any harm'. Every child is different and though it may be true that some children are not affected in terms of self esteem and relationships, it is definately true that lots of people are. Regardless of whether or not any physucal damage is done, it can be a breach of trust and some people will remember incidents of smacking their whole lives. And while it might be true that some parents include smacking as a controlled part of behviour management, as a last resort or whatever, it often says more about the parents frustrations, or possibly issues about being smacked theirselves .I've seen it happen too many times where parents have completely lost control and this loss of control can be as scary as the smack itself. Children need parents that are in control in order to feel safe and they need parents that model the qualities they wish their children to inherit. Personally I would never touch my chilld in anything other than a loving way.

General point: if you accuse someone of over-thinking something, it's generally because you've under-thought it. Just sayin'.

This struck me: "Personally I suspect a controlled tap on the bum would have stopped things instantly but instead we had an afternoon of hell."

That is very possibly true. Sometimes, smacking a child is the quickest way of enforcing the behaviour you want enforced. But it got me thinking, parenting isn't always about the quickest way of doing things is it? Children don't fit into our neat schedules, that's one of the frustrating, agonising things about childcare; the endless, tedious waiting you have to do, to ensure that your children learn how to function in the world they're in.

There are so many occasions where you feel like you do when it's 5.28PM and you're just about to leave the office and if you don't leave by 5.31PM you will miss the early train and not be home until an hour later because of train time logistics and your boss's boss strolls in with a question which you know will take 6 minutes to answer. I've lost count of the times I've felt like that, waiting for one or other of them to work out how to put that garment on, how to fasten that shoe, how to put that cup away. I think back with horror to the time they were little.

I just feel that sometimes, sympathetic as I am to how awful it is to have an afternoon of hell (I've had plenty of them), those afternoons of hell are part and parcel of that long, laborious task of teaching our children to behave properly while nurturing their self-esteem and proper values. I'm definitely not of the martyr school of parenting: I'm all in favour of cutting as many corners as possible wherever possible; but personally one of the basic things motherhood has taught me, is that I sometimes have to accept that there's no shortcut and I have to take the long, circuitous, irritating and fucking difficult route and much as I hate it and wish there were always a short cut, sometimes there just isn't.

Karasmummy Mon 04-Feb-13 19:23:43
"All I know is they say not to smack because "violence breeds violence" Kids don,t get smacked these days but are more violent than ever so how does that work??"

Do you really believe that no kids get smacked these days?

Ime most of the out of control children I have come across have parents who regularly smacked them and screamed abuse at them when they were little. On the whole, barring SN or trauma, children with parents who are quietly authoritative tend to grow up with respect for adults. They learn self control from seeing it.

And as for kids being more violent than ever, what time in history were kids less violent than now? The Middle Ages? The Early Modern Period? The days of the Victorian slums and the London mob?

I must admit when I first worked in a secondary school I was horrified by the lack of respect for the teachers by some kids and how out of control they were. Some students were absolutely wonderful however. It sounds a cliche but it just wasn't like that when I was at school in the late 70's/80's.

I think times have changed and smacking was acceptable when I was growing up, corporal punishment was still used in schools (not in mine). I do remember being smacked by a teacher aged 5 for making a mistake? but then the teacher had got it wrong so she effectively hit me for getting my work wrong (which wasn't) not for being naughty. I hated her and my mum used to drag me to school as I refused to go.

This post is scaring me (&scaring me) I don't want to smack ...my parents did very occasionally - eg when my sister ran across the road... I have been interestingly watching super nanny and her techniques but from what I have read on here that doesn't work.

twofingerstoGideon What do you think your parents should have done? Genuinely interested

What do I think they should have done? (a) understood and acknowledged that 'touching things' like my sisters' dolls, occasionally answering back, not doing homework on time, etc. is fairly typical childish behaviour; (b) resisted the temptation to pit - in my father's case - 6'4" of solid muscle against a small child; (c) controlled themselves.
Luckily, rather than take the attitude 'it never did me any harm' I've taken the attitude 'it does a great deal of harm' and have never meted out any form of bullying or physical punishment to my child. After all, why would I want to hurt the person I love most in the world?
The point I was making in my earlier post was that it was an ineffective punishment because I continued being (in their eyes) 'naughty'.

There is one fundamental flaw to all arguments about smacking and that is the pure emotiveness of those who oppose it. How can anyone make a logical argument to people who assume that by taking a different course of action you are a "psychopath"?

Smacking is only abusive if it is abused as a method of discipline. A time-out can be abusive if a child is left in their room for hours. In all forms of discipline there is an extreme which is called "abuse". The smack is not abuse if it is not hard and not used often and equally if the child knows where they stand in relation to the discipline.

I am not going to sit on here and defend my choices endlessly about how I choose to discipline my children. I have thought quite hard about the best ways to get the best results from both of them in terms of behaviour and I know why I do things.

I have seen people who are really proud of the fact they don't smack do really bizarre things - but actually that is alright because at least they have not smacked. And as for non-disciplinary routes I feel they should be taken with a pinch of salt given that most children nowadays are really badly behaved and disrespectful towards adults.

To those who don't smack I have a question: do you ever shout at your dc? Or get really, really angry?

I used to be so fearful of my mother's rages, sometimes they'd go on and on. Shouting and ranting what a terrible child I was Far, far more damaging than a quick smack.

I'm not condoning smacking btw just pointing out there are other bad things to do to a child.

amazingmumofsix (reply to pages back..)

In general children learn how to behave in shops, not to draw on walls, climb bookshelves etc... with age, whether they get smacked or not.

Toddlers grow out of toddlerhood.

You really don't need to take toddlers into antique shops, have breakable ornaments around etc... just so that they can do their toddler thing, get a slap and "get taught a lesson" and "learn right from wrong".

I don't see how slapping children can teach them the moral reasoning to know right from wrong. How does that work?

I don't get why people think it's okay to violently assault someone, solely on the basis that they are tiny and totally powerless against you. It's just weird. If someone posted here that they hit their colleague or adult family member because they were unreasonable or disobedient, they'd be eviscerated. Yet it is fine in some eyes when they're children, let alone BECAUSE they're children? I'll never forget seeing some hag at school smacking her son, yelling "NEVER" smack "HIT" smack "ANYONE" smack "SMALLER" smack "THAN" smack "YOURSELF!" and even as a kid, the irony struck me.

Hitting a kid is lazy. It's quick and it means they're scared so they do what they're told. It does not get them thinking about what they did, in fact the reverse because they'll be focused on the humiliation and hurt. It doesn't cause them to think about how to adjust their behaviour in line with what seems right - just to avoid getting into trouble when you're there to catch them at it.

It's also inherently inconsistent, because people smack when they're pissed off. How the parent is feeling at any given moment will play into that. It isn't as if reasoning with a child or talking over why what they did was wrong will change from event to event in that way. It is also not a harmless thing to do. Smacking was banned in a Nordic country (Sweden, perhaps?) and before that they, like us, had kids beaten to death by parents with semi-regularity. That started to fall after the ban, and is now very low, because social expectations shifted. If you have a culture in which most people smack their kids, you give people permission societally to be violent to them. And some people will not know where to stop, or be able to stop. You also have people reluctant to report parents who may clobber their kids abusively, because the feeling is that the level of violence may be normal rather than dangerous.

Even without that I hate it. I hate the idea that there is an acceptable level of violence an adult can use against a child. And yes, I was hit as a kid, because it was the 70s and that was normal then. It did do me harm, and my relationship with my mother harm. And she says now she wishes she'd known better, and had more constructive ways to discipline, as she likes using them with her grandchildren and she thinks that violence was actually a miserable lose/lose.

I just don't get how or why anyone can defend or justify violence towards kids as a norm.

"To those who don't smack I have a question: do you ever shout at your dc? Or get really, really angry?

I used to be so fearful of my mother's rages, sometimes they'd go on and on. Shouting and ranting what a terrible child I was Far, far more damaging than a quick smack.

I'm not condoning smacking btw just pointing out there are other bad things to do to a child."

Yes, of course. But that's like saying a man who verbally abuses his wife may as well hit her too.

And before anyone says that's a ridiculous analogy, the saying "rule of thumb" comes from the days when it was lawful for a man to beat his wife as a means of discipline, provided the implement was no wider than his thumb. Corporal punishment of women was just as acceptable and just as hotly debated in the past as it is over children now. It's archaic to think you have the right to beat someone who disobeys you, IMO.

perfectstorm - you are talking about "violently assaulting" and others are talking about smacking. There is a difference.

I invite you to smack an adult, then explain to the police how it is not a violent assault.

Note: you would be laughed at. The definition of a violent assault (the legal term is battery, actually; common assault can just mean scaring someone into believing you are about to hit them) is to strike someone with the intention of hurting them. Please explain how that is not a smack?

Though thanks for the perfect example of how people rationalise away what smacking actually is. If someone's husband does it, he beats her. Yet if a parent does it, it's just sensible discipline? Sorry, I don't think so. Abuse is abuse, right? Because it's about the abuser, not the victim? How does that alter when the victim is guaranteed to be far smaller and completely powerless, when up against the perpetrator? Please, do explain.