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

[emkana]

... smacking

Have just scanned this thread and wanted to add my experience.

My parents hit me, a lot. Mostly for 'talking back' as they called it. They never hit my younger brother, a lovely quiet boy who always said sorry as soon as he'd done anything wrong - and sometimes when he hadn't...
We both get on pretty well with my parents now. They look after ds (2.4) once a week and are wonderful with him. My father has apologised many times for being too strict but my mother can never admit she was wrong. I love her but we don't have the close relationship I know we both want because I can never forgive her. Hmm, my eyes are pricking as I write this.
My parents were loving and caring in every other way but, in my experience, being hit by the people you love destroys your confidence and your sense of self worth.
Sorry for the long post.

I think kids really need boundaries in their life to feel secure. If a child thinks its the boss and has too much power thats not good for them. But also its important that their spirit isn't crushed. How awful if a child is well behaved just because its frightened.
I would be prepared to never smack again and find other tactics so that it could be made illegal for the sake of all those kids who are being battered. They should be protected by law. And it is such a hard thing to define.
I think it has been successfull in parts of europe hasn't it?

Kittywits, you know full well what other discipline techniques people use because I remember discussing this with you at least once before, when you suggested time out in the garden was abuse.

Message withdrawn

Bugsy, I've forgotton some, however, i'm sure there are many more people who can offer up different ideas. Don't be so bloody nasty. I'm asking a perfectly nice and acceptable question, trying to find out what others do as alternatives.

How can you compare hairwashing and medicine giving to smacking?FGS that is ridiculous smackers will say anything to justify their actions to us perfect parents

I called it lazy parenting as it takes an awful lot of effort to change your parenting methods to a non smacking one when you have been brought up with smacking.
As I stated before I did smack ds (he is nearly 13) when he was toddler for certain things, I was smacked as a child - a lot.
I changed my mind between ds being 5 and my dd being born 4 yrs later.
It's much harder work, it takes more conversation, more planning, more awareness, more compromise and it also takes saying sorry and leading by example, how could I ecpect my daughter not to be aggressive towards other if that's what I teach her? Hypocrisy gets you nowhere IMHO

But if you choose to smack, it's your right and your parenting choice. It's not any of my business per se.
this post is just my experience and my humble opinion by the way.

Noddy - show me a perfect parent and I might just try to.

When I have good conversations on these sorts of threads Piffle I find it usful to find out what other people are doing. Sometimes I might agree and sometimes not. It always makes me think and re-evaluate what I do, which can only be a good thing to do.
As a mother I am always trying to improve on situations and on the rare occasions when I smack I do think whether I could find alternatives etc, that would work for us in our particular situation.
I think many mothers must do this. If at the end of it I decide that a smack is indeed warranted, it is not because I am too lazy yo do anything else, on the contrary, I have thought very hard and considered the most appropriate thing to do.

And I can compare them because from my DS#2's POV hairwashing is hell on earth.

BTW I consider this a good and useful conversation

I've smacked very occasionally but try very, very hard not to. Why not? Well one simple, non-theoretical reason is that I'm a full-time WOHM and we have a nanny to look after the DDs. I would be utterly horrified to discover that our nanny had smacked one of the DDs, as 99% of people who employ a nanny would be. So what makes it OK for me but not her to smack them - I'm a better, more thoughtful 'smacker' or perhaps because I have a more important and permanent relationship with them? I can't square it, so I don't do it.

I understand completely where you are coming from Issymum. I would never let any one but my dp lay hand on my children ( even then I don't like it and TBH he has only done it very gently about twice in the eight years that we have had kids),I don't like to smack, but I can square it.

Sounds like we're all trying to do the best we can as parents but the point I was vaguely and inarticulately trying to make earlier is that smacking can cast a long shadow and can ruin your future relationship with your kids.

Kittywits, you asked about alternative disciplining methods and I'm not sure that's how I'd think of it. Once you've decided that smacking isn't an option (and that you're as likely to smack them as teach them to be fire-eating, sword-swallowers) you just use the rest of your parenting armoury as best you can. Does that make sense?

Well, I am as anti-smacking as ever - that ain't gonna change

But what I do take away from these debates is a grudging realisation that, for me certainly, my horror of smacking is partly the result of an upbringing that was characterised in so many diverse ways by fear, humiliation and the enforced sense of my own utter powerlessness. Smacking was only a part of that. I experienced both the kind of cold-blooded, ritualised physical punishment that is drawn out and humiliating, (the preceding lecture, removal of clothing, long reproachful silence afterwards - it's just cruelty, isn't it?) and the more unpredictable lashing-out in temper which really should be called hitting, because it isn't smacking, it's just someone losing their temper and hitting someone else.

I honestly don't know what it feels like to be a child for whom smacking is part of a loving and stable family. I find it very dificult to imagine how that could exist as a coherent scenario. I feel very befuddled when people talk about having been smacked and yet having no mental scars, no resentment and a perfectly healthy relationship with their parents. I simply cannot see that. I am limited by my own upbringing, as we all must be in different respects. Although with the adult, analytical part of my mind I do find smacking self-defeating and morally indefensible - but how objective am I being, really?

Perhaps that is why I am drawn to these discussions like a magnet, even though I loathe the subject, find it saddening and embarrassing and infuriating.

The joy of being entitled to ones own opinions

Oh GLT, you've articulated so well what draws me to these discussions too. The powerlessness is absolutely what I remember from my childhood.

Having realised in my late 20s that it wasn't all my fault, I have tried to build a healthy relationship with my parents, but I can only do this because I know they wish they'd done things differently.

When I was a child both parents smacked but there was a big difference. Dad would put us over his knee and smack our bottom if we were bad. It hurt. But that was the punishment and then it was over. Mum was the scarey one though. She would lose it, hit anywhere often face scream, shout rampage. She ripped my shirt off once. She wouldn't land many but we used to think she was going to kill us. I felt bullied and put down by her. She was a lovely mum at other times. Now as an adult I understand her difficulties and we have a good relationship but I am very keen not to be like her.

rosy exactly like my mum...
I know that if I smacked, then I would probablt resort to it when angry as well - which was exactly what my mother used to do.
My abiding memory of my mothers parenting is reduced to one incident where she held me (8) and my younger brother's (6) heads under the bathwater after we had splashed water on the floor. My youngest brother (18 mths) was also in the bath (and had caused the splashing) one is glad she only had two hands.
All the good things she has done as a mum are overshadowed by that incident, I was terrified of my mother as a child and we have never been close.
This memory is enough for me to know, I never want my kids to feel like that about me, that fear...

Jesus Piffle, that's terrible

Has your mother ever apologised or acknowledged that incident? Mine "doesn't remember" all the horrible things I remember. So that means they didn't happen.

I'd like to share my non-smacking meathods if anyone would like to give me a scenario?

rosy and piffle - . Truly terrible. I confess to getting mad but I can't imagine how you'd lose it to such an extent. Thankfully I don't recall anything like that when I was a child although I do remember a few smacks and they were few and far between.

I witnessed something on Sunday that reminded me of this debate. DD and I were walking back from the shops and in front of us there was a family - mum, dad and little girl about 4 I suppose. The lo was skipping along and kicking the wall beside her - not doing anything wrong but mum kept yanking at her arm and telling her to stop. Reached the road and were waiting to cross - lo carried on jigging about and mum, with no warning, slapped her face and told her to stop because it was dangerous near the road. LO stopped but didn't cry. Dad then decided to enforce paternal discipline and walked in front of her, put one hand on the side of her face and then smacked the other side, hard, with his other hand. Cue lo bursting into tears. I nearly burst into tears . They then dragged her across the road against the bloody lights which seemed much more dangerous than what she was doing!!). I jsut thought that it was strange that one smack upset her and the other didn't. Maybe it was the cumulative effect - 2 grown ups ganging up on her? Or was it that it was deliberate rather than heat of the moment. Or may be she was used to mum doing it? It made me think I must admit. Will try to take a few more deep breaths and count to ten a little more often.

Rosy, Piffle and Joelallie those are all horrible, horrible things that have happened. I find it hard to put in words how I feel when I hear about these things.

My mother smacked me occasionally when I was out of control and to this day I think it was justified and I don't have a problem with that at all.
Her method of control was far more unpleasant and underhand. It wasn't until I was an adult and had terrible insecurities with relationships that I even began to realise how damaged I was. My mother is a manipulator and a control freak, but nothing is overt. She would move the goal posts so that i could never 'win'. She would tell me know one liked me, that I had no friends, that she would be my friend etc. etc.
Once when I stabbed myself accidently with rusty nail in my hand she told me I would probobly get poisoned and die,Ii was only about 5 at the time, anyway you get the picture. If all she did was smack I would be a much more secure and well rounded person today.

Mumby, it sort of makes sense, but what do you do for instance when your children are very disobedient or rude. How do deal with that? How do you let them know the severity of their behaviour?

Thankyoupoppet, thanks for the offer!
Let's say you have repeatedly told your child(4 years) not to draw on the furniture.
You have already taken away as many drwaing instruments as you can find, told them off, showed how cross you are, made it quite clear it must not happen again, they only draw on paper etc. Then somehow your child has found a pen and has scribbled all over the brand new expensive sheets on the guest bedroom bed. What would you do?

I'm getting a bit emoional reading this, as I never realised that some of the "anti-smackers" had, had such abusive experiences.

I would never smack my children if I were in such an angry violent state. If I get mad, I shout sometimes, but I don't smack them in anger.

I too was abused - by my Dad, he used to come into my room when I was sleeping, drag me out of bed while I was still half asleep, pull down my clothes and beat me and tell me not to make any noise. As a result I started to suffer fits when I went to bed, because I was so scared of going to sleep in case he came in and woke me. I was six, and I became really withdrawn and no, I haven't forgiven him and would never leave my children with now him as a result, unless forced to (has happend on two emergency occasions and I made sure someone else was there with him). To this day I've no idea why he beat me as it wasn't related to any incident as such - I think he just came home in an angry mood.

In complete contrast my Mum gave us the occasional slap on the back of the leg. As said earlier,it was when we were being very naughty and as a last resort and not often. It was always directly due to something we'd done and I never doubed for one minute that she didn't love us. Her smacks left a little sting but did work - we immediately stopped what we were doing (tearing around, throwing things or whatever) and I still find it laughable that anyone could seriously think that her little stings could damage us - physicaly or mentally.

I occassionally smack DS in exactly the same vein as my Mum, when he's being very naughty and after several warnings. I would never, ever do some of the things described below, which to me are plainly abuse.

I completely understand now why some of the other people on this thread are so vociferously anti-smacking. Your experiences and what you describe as "smacking" I would describe as abuse. However, I do think its important not to confuse the little sting administerd by a loving parent as one of a range of considered parenting techniques, with the cruel and abusive behaviour suffered by many children. In fact I think it belittles the children suffering real abuse, to deliberately confuse the two in order to try and form an arguement. It is also not a slippery slope; I would never abuse my children in that way; precisely because I know from first hand experience how much damage it can do.