I'm astonished that so many people are in favour of...

[emkana]

... smacking

feeling anger is human. children feel it too. they learn to deal with their own by witnessing what you do with yours. they may internalise it, they may express it far and wide, but be sure that they feel yours very intensely.

if we feel we have a lot of anger and dont know what to do with it, we need to get help with that. i admit i need help with it, whats so bad about that?

Nappiesgalore...there are other things that parents do to their children everyday that have the same set of emotions attached...

Cry
Pissed off
Confused
Upset
Resentful
Trust less

...But thats a different thread altogether.

Is pinching ok?

MAM, are there?

If I was making either DS all the things on that list each day, I'd be very, very disappointed in myself. I'd go and sit myself on the naughty step and smack my own legs, I think.

NappiesGalore - great posts.

Speaking as someone who can actually remember when I was two years old - hitting/smacking did not make me love my parents less. They did not do it very often (like myself), they did it out of love and care because I was in danger or not doing what I was told. I can remember once being smacked by my dad and all I felt was huge disappointment at letting him down and feeling ashamed. I wanted to make it up to them. Some of you may view this as a terrible way for a 5 year old to feel and that it may have blighted my personality - nonsense. I can now look back as a mother and understand how frustrated and worried my parents were and that they needed to make me understand the danger I'd put myself in. Them reasoning with me would not have worked, I was determined to sneak off and had that been the only form of punishment then I'd have done it again and been sneakier knowing that I'd get away with it and the worst would be a telling off. The smack made sure I didn't do it again. What I'm saying here is that different things work for different people and parents and kids are individuals. No-one here is advocating a sound thrashing or regular beatings that the smacking issue seems to conjure up. It's a short sharp shock to make you realise what you did was wrong - works for some, not for others and only the parents are the best judges of what works for their child.

Hi joelallie,

You asked about the being angry bit and of course kids do pick up on our emotions so quickly. My DS asks me 'are you getting frustrated mummy' when he hears the tension in my voice. I think the key to it is being aware of your own anger, and trying to do something to diffuse it.

With my mother it always boiled over into some form of physical punishment that left me in no doubt that I was to blame for everything wrong in her life. If she had been able to see what was causing her anger and frustration, and take a step back from it (and me) things could have been so much different.

noddyholder,nappiesgalore,hunkermunker,I absolutely agree. from the child's point of view smacking must be completely baffling and devastating. Many are saying they smack because reasoning takes too long or children are too young for reason, do you explain to them why you have just hurt them? is this not reasoning? Also, why do we see smacking or reason as the only options? My dd is just 2, is too young for drawn out reasoning but understands a warning and knows that if she continues bad behaviour after being warned she will go to the naughty step. It doesn't hurt, she doesn't cry (usually) about being sent there but prefers not to go there and will normally heed the warning. One final thought to all you who do smack, I am a teacher, why is it ok for parents to smack but not me? (I NEVER would smack a pupil of course)

MaM - so what else do you do to your kids daily apart from hitting them that is, which hurts upsets and confuses them? do they have at least one adult in their life who they can turn to for protection from all this pain? or do they just call childline when youre not looking?

a child throwing a strop because they cant have a new power ranger is not the same as a child hurt and upset because the one person in the universe who is supposed to love and protect them is unable or unwilling to think of a better way to communicate with them than by hitting.

hi HM

I think the thing that comes across from CarlaJo's post (which ties in with my own memories of being smacked) is that it is really confusing. I can remember going to sleep with my hands under my pillow (I was smacked on the hand) in case somebody came in and smacked me. I definitely wasn't smacked alot, and I think this fear was a bit like being frightened of monsters under the bed(I was also frightened of a sausage dog coming into my room and giving me rabies and the wicked witch of the west). However, what it shows to me is that smacking in itself is not a good way of enforcing discipline. It never really changed by behaviour. All smacking taught me was that my parents sometimes smacked me - you need to have the positive enforcement of good behaviour, ignoring of bad behaviour etc. etc. as well - and I have found that if I follow all the more time consuming methods of promoting good behaviour smacking an almost 3 year old just isn't necessary.

I agree Toe - if a child is too young to understand reasoning, how do they understand that its OK for mummy and daddy to smack a child, but not OK for a child to hit a child or the child to hit mummy or daddy back?

BTW what sort of behaviour would require a smack?and how do you decide?

"i admit i need help with it, whats so bad about that? "

EH?....nothing at all. Why should there be?

I am pro-smacking when it is used responsibly, yet to read the extremist way some of you anti-smackers have described smacking, I'd be very worried if you hit anyone like that. I was smacked as a child, and I will certainly do the same with my own children as part of a range of punishments when required, but to actually hurt the child in the way that you've described is not what I call smacking; what you're talking about sounds more abusive than anything that I would do.

To have a thoughtful discussion on this topic I think you need to get away from unhelpful extremes and view physical punishment along a continuum. The black or white viewpoint of 'hurting vs not hurting' your child is of no benefit to anyone. After all, what constitutes 'hurt'? Being told off is hurtful; being sent to a naughty step is potentially hurtful; being smacked (in the sense that I understand it) is also hurtful. Unless we naively believe that it's possible to live a rose-tinted life wrapped in cotton wool and free from pain of any sort (which obviously nobody in this discussion does believe), the real issue should be: to what extent do we choose to 'lovingly hurt' our children for their own good?

The point of discipline is surely to teach a child what's right and wrong and to enable them to live an integrated and balanced life in society. Our aim should never, ever be to destroy them - yet taken to the extreme (as you have done with smacking), any non-physical method of punishment could humiliate and destroy a child even more seriously and permanently than a non-abusive smack on the bottom.

Pedd you have put it so eloquently ((applause)

For me, the difference is that I would think it was funny if DS tried to send a child to the naughty step if they were having a fight at nursery - I would not think it was funny if he smacked them. I don't disagree that there are worse things that can happen to a child than being smacked - its just I don't understand how you get over the "its OK for me to smack you, but not for you to smack anybody else" problem.

the "its OK for me to smack you, but not for you to smack anybody else" problem and not forgetting to mention the "I have no idea how a child learns anything from being smacked any more than I would" problem.

peddy what a hopeless argument Teach them to live in society?By using force(however light)when you get in to a disagreement?

Nappiesgalore...you havent the faintest idea what youre talking about and I dont like what you are implying about my parenting skills.
The one time I smacked my DD was when she ran out into the road. She has never done this again. It was not an act of anger or pre-meditated violence..it was because I was frightened for her life. What is so uncaring and unprotective about that??

Noddyholder, you sound like you've missed the point of my argument. The point is that as adults we react against smacking as an act of 'force' or physical violence because we lump it together with punching, kicking, guns and knives - in other words, when we take an extremist point of view on the matter. You can do exactly the same thing with any type of punishment - I could claim that by telling your children off you're emotionally abusing them, or that by sending them to the naughty step you're illegally incarcerating them. But I wouldn't, because that would be silly.

Madame Platypus - I agree with you, it is incredibly difficult to get a young child to understand the difference between who is and isn't allowed to smack each other, but is that really your main reason for being anti-smacking? There are lots of things that parents do their children don't understand - can any parent on this discussion honestly say that they have NEVER had to repeat themselves time and again because their child forgets/ doesn't get it/ for some other reason? Unfortunately that's life, there are no easy answers, but on the issue of discipline, I believe that by using a range of punishments combined with unconditional love, the best we can hope for is that we will eventually have the desired impact on our children as they grow and increase in their understanding of the world.

Voluptua - thank you, and what a fabulous name.

Dinosaur, I've worked with other people's autistic children...you have a much tougher job than most of us. If I were in your position, I'd probably do the same.

Peddy, my main reason for being not smacking DS is that I think it would have about as much effect on improving his behaviour as if I started to do a morris dance every time he misbehaved.

Anyway, Have just come across a full page ad for "I smack and I'm proud" on the back of the Guardian lol . They are obviously hoping to get high viewing figures from outraged lentil weavers (counting self as lentil weaver in this instance). To be fair, I read a review of the programme and from what I can make out the people featured in it have about as much in common with mumsnetters who smack as the breastfeeding programme did with mumsnetter attachment parents.

should read "my main reason for not smacking DS"...

I find this subject difficult, I was smacked as a child, although I don't remember it and I don't think am violent now. However I do have a bit of a temper - like my mum, who did the smacking.

I have not smacked dd (2.5) but a few times I have - when tired, grumpy, etc - lost my rag at her and everytime I feel awful! It is not reasoned, just kind of 'WHY DON'T YOU JUST STOP....' kind of thing. Her little face crumples and I run out of steam and feel shit. I just know that if I had hit her - as I have been tempted - I would have felt even worse.

i have become anti smacking as i have come to understand the collective impact on children. I used to be in the "i was smacked and it never did me any harm" brigade; however in societies where no hitting of children (and I do think we should use the right word and not give it a cute and acceptable word) is tolerated, there is little or no phyiscal abuse of kids. as long as we say its acceptable for adults to use force against children to any extent, we expose other peoples' children to unarguable harm. Is it really too much effort to find another way to control our own children for the sake of ones who can't defend themselves from violent parents?