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

[emkana]

... smacking

well said custy I am sure most childrens whole view of the world changes when someone lifts a hand to them It will stay with them it did me.My brothers and sister still remember being smacked and it was awful In that minute of the smack you both fear and hate the smacker there is no need for it.

If it worked you would only have to do it once

that's your experience noddy but it was different for me.

I was smacked when naughty but it didn't change my view of the world - I didn't know what the 'world' was! Yes, it made me think twice if I was about to do something I knew was wrong - sometimes the thought of a smack worked sometimes it didn't. I certainly don't look back and think 'how awful' not in the least.

Think smacking's vile.

Also think breaking a child's spirit through threatening, etc, is vile.

Mine just run wild.

I also abhor the "naughty step" which I think is demeaning and false and just makes the parent look like they enjoy controlling arseholery.

ah x posts.

no, it may take once for one person and not for another. I learned gradually that stuff I was going out of line with wasn't worth smack and I might as well just behave myself!

I have never seen anyone use a smack that's not beein done in anger.

And if you don't do it in the heat of the moment - then what? You choose to hit your child? Classy. If you're truly rational when you smack, why not choose another way to help them control themselves?

Or is it just "you're smaller than me, you will do as I say, oh, you're not, OK then, well, I'll hit you, ha ha now you won't do it again, will you?". Great stuff.

I don't do naughty step as dd1 gets even more distressed

I praise the good and (try to) ignore the bad

dd1 is very sensitive so a look can usually work, dd2 is, er, challenging at 2 so I may be made to eat my words.

I do shout though, try not to, but we are all human.

I have probably smacked a couple of times, all in anger and it made me feel like the biggest shit in the world.

I love you hunkermunker

I have smacked and I've felt guilty afterwards. Not because of how my child would have felt because at the time I felt they deserved it but because of what other people might think!! And whilst no one is going to call the social workers or the police if I don some hideous fashion item, or drive a clapped out old car but knowing that some busy bodies can and will phone the authorities because they (who have nothing whatsoever to do with my family) think that they know my children better than me, that they know my circumstances better than me, see fit to judge me because I do something they do not do.

Oh for the days when you were scared to tell your parents that you'd been belted at school because it would have meant another telling off that you deserved it

Oh yes, those were the days. Those halcyone days, when children lived in fear, and didn't feel they could confide in their parents about being beaten at school because their loving parents would give them more of the same. [biff] [thwack]

Indeed now when a teacher physically removes a disruptive pupil from class the parents are up at the school claiming assault. See case the other week.

"If it worked you would only have to do it once"

Same could be said for any punishment - naughty step, sending to room, grounding, removing of toys etc etc - how many parents that don't smack still have to use the same punishments for the same misdemeanours over and over again???

Whoever said that "kids just don't like being disciplined" got it completely right.

It's the last vestige of the intellectually incompetent, IMO.

oh and I "hated" my mum for ages when she grounded me......perhaps she shouldn't have done that????

my school days were halcyon - I got the slipper once too (undeservedly imho) I still loved that teacher though - he was ace!

"It's the last vestige of the intellectually incompetent, IMO."

u sayin im fick or sumfing HM

Voluptua, Thats one of the problems now. It has become harder for the people who should be in authority to exert that authority, because there are no sanctions that really bother the children.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily advocating re-introducing the Cane (altho' there are some children for whom even that may work) but if a teacher can't effectively give out a punishment without parents complaining, then where do children learn that there are rules, a line that cannot be crossed?

I must say I never understood the line that if you'de been caned at school, you got another smack at home. Just like if I have to give some punishment to ds, I don't expect dh to do it again when he gets home. Mind you, when ds got in trouble at school one day last week, I did ban TV that day.

I think it was more a case of 'well you must have deserved it' not another smack.

I've been trying to make the point about lack of parent support for teachers on the 'chips throught the fence' thread - that's one big lesson in flouting school rules and authority.

QoQ, loads of smackers use the 'last resort'/'only thing that really works' line. That's why it matters how much you need to repeat it.

Walloping your children in the knowledge it won't do anything to improve their behaviour is even worse imho.

I am suprised at the statistic TBH. I just figured with so much advice and info out their on other alternative forms of punishment (ones which are said to be more effective in the long term) that less people would be smacking their children. DD is 4y5m and so far I have never felt the need to smack her at all. Other techniques have worked. I never intend to smack her.

I have also never seen smacking used when not in anger.

It is that, hunker - indeed, many pro-smackers are fond of defending their behaviour by pointing out that many animal species "discipline" their young with physical blows. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me!!

So how is this thread coming along then?