Grayling defending smacking

[seventiesgirl]

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

larrygrylls,
Of course I wanted to please my parents as a child as all kids (I presume) do. As I said, the power over our kids is incredibly big. They admire us, they try to please us, and from time to time they misbehave and drive us nuts (at least they drive me nuts from time to time)
I cannot see how smacking adds anything but abuse of that power over quite vulnerable beings. Because when they grow up you stop smacking. It is only done in children. I could not understand it as a child, I cannot understand it now. I have been tempted a couple of times, being utterly out of control, to harm my own children. I am glad I did not, although I cannot say I never shout or loose it. I am not always restrained and perfect.

If I ever put a hand on my kids I would not find any rational way of justifying myself as some of you seem to be able to do.
.

I want them to think about not doing things for reasons not because it is "against the rules"

sorry HImalaya, what does that mean "for reasons"? what reasons?
the reason to not do it IS that it is against the rules, isn't it? otherwise it would be ok

and I didn't say I thought they were naturally bad.

you can guess and the answer is yes, but I'm not about to start a discussion about religious views, for or against - that's a whole other thread....

To be able to smack you have to essentially believe that the feel of your hand striking another person has some sort of power to change who they are. If you believe that then you should effectively be able to carry it through in life. If you stop once they get bigger what is the message? It is a loss of control and something to be tackled and if it is not done in anger/frustration and is planned then you need to get help.

noddyholder the answer is: deliberate disobedience and defiance.
and you don't have to strike, but you do have to punish.
some choose to smack, some don't

the important thing is that the punishment should fit the crime

Deliberate disobedience and defiance? Really? Smacking is not discipline its abuse

You can explain why something is wrong and move on You do not 'need' to punish and your children don't have to obey you! You can guide them and love them without smacking. It is wrong people who do it only argue it out because they know what they are doing is violent.

noddy x-post
ok, say you are speeding. you know the highway code, yet you deliberately chose to ignore it. naughty noddy!
you are caught. you get fined. would you speed again?
probably not, because you want to avoid another fine.

and the police officer stopping you is certainly in control, by way of having the authority to give you a fine.

so what is so mysterious about doing the equivalent to child? a 9-months old baby will understand no! more the expression on your face, the gesture, the tone of voice - but even they get the message: stop.

please read my previous posts, I just can't keep explaining it again and again.

AH but he doesn't hit me!

I am 47 I have an 18 yr old son who has never been smacked. I was smacked as a child and hated my mother for it as did/do my siblings. You will never convince me (hides thread)

amazingmum,
People who speed, do not tend to stop whent they get caught once. You have no idea about criminology and policies of deterrence. So do not make analogies that do not work at all.

amazingmumof6, not sure about the point of your post. But even without smacking it terrifies me: "massively relieved that they were forgiven"; wanting to 'suffer' to redeem guilt...

Spot on, chameleon. For some reason amazingmumof6's post really chilled me.

"I have asked the same question repeatedly on these threads and never had an answer. What could a child possibly do that is so bad that you feel the need to strike them? and I am assuming it worked and you never had to repeat it."

Well, the last time I smacked my 3.8 year old, he was trying to push the pointed tip of a toy dinosaur into his 2 year old brother's eye while having a bath together. He knows "we never touch eyes". He knows why this is. He just decided to push the boundaries with a little "experiment" and I actually know him well enough to see by the expression on his face that he was deliberately pushing boudaries, and not innocently experimenting. He got a smack on the back of his hand and got pulled out of the bath. After he had apologised to his brother and explained why "we don't do eyes", he was allowed back in.

What did the smack add? Force of argument. I smack very rarely so when I do, he knows he has gone too far.

You couldn't just take the toy dinosaur away from him then, Larry?
'Force of argument', my arse. 'Force' plain and simple.

Your answer is upthread noddyholder when I described a time when I smacked my DD. No-one on this thread or any similar thread has come up with a different way of dealing with the situation that I hadn't already tried/was possible at that time.

I'm still open to suggestions.

And no I haven't had to repeat it!

Twofingers,

And what would that have taught him? If I poke my little brother in the eye, I lose my toy. He is a bright little boy. If he is annoyed enough, he may well choose to do it again in the full knowledge that he will lose one of his less favoured toys.

Also, I just don't get the idea that a child can decide to do something he knows is massively wrong and suffer close to zero consequence. What kind of a life lesson is that? When he puts his hands in the till at work, they won't just take the till away, he will get fired and reported to the police.

And children who are slapped never, ever do the same thing again? Come on Amazingmumof6..

If they want to do it they will do it. They will get better at not getting caught. Or if the problem is bickering or fighting with other siblings the problem of dealing with others remains, and may become harder to tackle if the model of dealing with difficult interpersonal relationships is the one where the bigger one can use physical force to impose his or her wishes on the smaller as pointed out many times on this thread. You might succeed in stopping something in the very short term but you are going to be dealing with it again the following week.

'Deliberate disobedience and defiance' are in the eye of the beholder to a large extent. How might things break down to such an extent that you would perceive a child's behaviour in this light, or that a child would be so poorly immersed in your values or disengaged from the daily routine or team requirements that he or she would 'defy' or 'disobey'? How have relationships and communication broken down to the point where there are orders or instructions to disobey? The point of positive discipline is to have the child gradually internalise your values.

A lot of bad management practices that parents wouldn't get away with in the workplace managing others or in school teaching others are tried in the home. Anticipation, planning, working with and not against the material you have, personality-wise (yours and the children's), establishing a general tone and good two-way communication could all be helpful and could obviate the need for corporal punishment. Yes I am talking about toddlers here. A little psychology and a lot of preparation and organisation go a long way.

noddy
first of all stop saying it is possible to love them without smacking! you make it sound like smacking is all I ever do!
the word "punishment" is not interchangeable for the word "smack"!

I explain why something is wrong or not allowed, but if they ignore it I'm supposed to move on? HUH? I don't think so.

and yes, they do have to obey!
if I tell them that they need to put their shoes on because we are going in 5 mins (warning time given, reason given mind you!!!!) they just have to do it. they have to oblige.
I'm not prepared to have a 20 minutes discussion about the importance of footwear every time we leave the house, nor will I reward them with a sticker if they independently decide to do so because they happen to feel like going out.
it is not their decision that we are going or when we are going, it is mine. because I'm the parent and not they, and I'm responsible for getting them to school on time!

so yes, I expect obedience. I lead, they follow - for now that is. they are allowed choices and decisions and independent thoughts and ideas. they are allowed control over loads of things, believe me.

I tell them to listen to me. and I listen to them too. I tell them that within a decade they will be much smarter than me, and that I will be more than happy to follow them then, but for now I'm in the driver's seat and they are the passengers.

I don't think many people ask for loads and most issues where I expect my children to be obedient is either about health & safety or plain practicality.

Why do you not poke a brother in the eye? Is it because it hurts the person who gets poked? Is it because poking in the eye could injure the eye? Combination of the two?

And hurting the child who pokes and hauling them out of a bath neither hurts nor has the potential to injure?

If a child as access to sharp objects in the bathtub then I think the parent unwise enough to allow that needs their head examined.

It's not always possible to see bath toys under suds or two small bodies and a child could sit on one accidentally and sustain an injury.

An example of a little anticipation or preparation on the part of the parent going a long way.

Math,

Umm, nope. It is not because it hurts primarily, it is because it is on a completely different level, it could seriously injure or blind. And, nope, a smack on the back of the hand and hauling out of the bath does not carry either of those risks.

And, as I explained, he knew very well the seriousness of what he was doing. His favourite bedtime story at the moment is a book about the body where we discuss the eye, its fragility and why you should never put any object anywhere near eyes. Am I (and just about every RL parent I know) unique on this board for having children who sometimes deliberately test firmly set boundaries? By the sound of it, all the other parents by virtue of their fantastic positive parenting skills, never suffer any disobedience or challenges to their authority, their children are merely working out how to be angelic and occasionally getting it wrong. In modern parlance....yeh, right!

mathanxiety I didn't say they never do it again, stop putting words in my mouth.

but it is less likely - and as posters explained, in some cases once was enough

Math,

It was not a needle, it was the horn of a plastic toy triceratops! If they sat on it they would get a sore bum and move out of the way. However, if actually pushed into an eye, it could do damage, as could just about any bath toy.

But, thanks for the parenting lecture.

I've never smacked my kids.

But, I can understand that there are times, particularly with young children, when they won't/can't listen to reason, and a little smack (not enough to hurt) could be enough to interrupt the bad behaviour.

Personally, I find the a stern word does the trick. Done right, it's like hitting the reset button. But not everyone can do 'stern'. My DH can't. He doesn't smack, either, BTW. But what that means is that he just can't discipline them very effectively in certain situations - and regularly ends up in a war of attrition over the naughty step.