Beware - could be contentious - Smacking Bill - For or Against?

[JoolsToo]

They're trying to get a Bill through Parliament today to outlaw smacking altogether in Britain.

Your views anyone.

fyi - I'm agin it (the Bill not smacking) (oh what a surprise )!

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Just because I dont smack doesnt mean I have a lets be friends attitude towards my kids. But no i dont want them to fear being smacked by me either.
I was stating my own experience. It's great that your kuds dont have the same fear i had.

lisa, I dont smack but dont see it as a 'lets be friends' thing at all.

When ds has a tatrum I literally walk off and leave him! sounds cruel, but after a short while when I realises that nobody is watching him then he looses interest. I give him no attention for it and at the moment he responds. He is definantly the child and I am the parent and I dont think either of us confuse our roles at all! I am actually quite strict, but just dont smack.

My stance is although I understand that not all smacking is child abuse it is so hard to draw a line and although you might be able to see a distinction - some people cant.

I am not sure what in your situation you could have done with your dd and her out of control tantrums, to be honest probably the things that you suggested. but I couldnt smack even in this instance, because it would have been out of frustration with the child, rather than a discipline tool and this goes against my beliefs.

I am glad that it worked for you though as it must have been hard dealing with the consant noise.

Just for the record, yes my children have been smacked and no they are not growing up in fear of me. THey are very happy little children who like most push the boundries from time to time. We are a very happy household with lots of laughter and sillyness. The way some of you nonsmackers go on you think we were the wicked witch of the west who have unhappy, unbalanced children. It was a month and a half ago that ds last got a smack and that was because he'd run into the road.

I agree with MI?s first post. I was never smacked and neither were my siblings. I have never smacked my girls and never intend to. I think it is a myth that "a little tap" is necessary for a young child to understand something like a dangerous situation. Before I had children I might have thought that there were occasions before you could communicate the message fo "don?t touch" only through a "tap" - now I know better. Through tone of voice and facial expressions you can get the message across just as well. Maybe I am in the privileged position of having children who respond well enough to firm words and being removed from the situation and other similar tactics. I don?t think they are any better behaved than anyone else?s but maybe I am just lucky. They have had long tantrums but never so bad that we have found physical violence (in a moderate way blah blah) a solution. God help you parents (and your children) who find this your only solution to dealing with some of your more challenging domestic situations.
When I opened this thread I promised myself not to post, now look what all your posts have done to me...
ducking....

I think Iwould be against it I think.smacking in our house is the VERY last resort.Normally we just threaten DD with the naughty corner and this does the trick.We used to smack lightly to see if she would take notice but this just made her think if we could hit her she could hit us,so we soon stopped this.It can work some times but not in most cases.

woodpops - I don?t think smacked children and necessarily happier or unhappier. I just think that it is a shame for children of parents who use violence (and that IS what it is - no point pretending otherwise) as a means to teach their children how to behave/to stop what they are doing when there are other ways in tackling situations.
My belief is that a child stops what they are doing when hit because they don?t want to be hit again - not because they have learnt why not to do it in the first place. Sure, some children are too young to appreciate the morality/health safety issues of why not to do something, but that doesn?t stop you trying to do it. I think it also gives the children a meessage that it is ok to hit someone if they are doing something you don?t like/you think is wrong. Children develop a strong sense of their own justice - such as when another child takes a toy off them and they will learn to copy your own behaviour - if talking doesn?t work, hit them hard and that might do the job instead. As a teacher, I have seen this behaviour go on and so am not talking from my posterior. Sure, non smacked children so hit and smacked children can be angels, but there is a higher chance of children using physical violence on others if their parents use it in the home - fact.

woodpops, no one is insinuating that parents who smack are wicked witches of the west, or any other bogeymen, but it (parenting) can be done without smacking, which imho is better for both child and parent. it begets respect & dignity (imho)

I think it is very obvious on this thread that there are differing opinions on our approaches to parental discipline. So how can the government possibly have the one rule suits all, and then expect to enforce that legislation?

Lisa has found a reasonable way to control the situation (which for the sake of the family obviously needed controlling).

How can it possibly be anyone elses' business so long as it is not abuse? And if this was law would it be up to some social service worker to define what Lisa can and can't do to discipline an out of control 2 1/2 year??

Some things just don't warrant government intervention.

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Skate still loves me!

There is no way you could ever convince me that a smack is the only way to deal with a situation. I know that it isnt. Lisalisa - I would probably have put my dd in her cot if she wouldn't stop screaming - actually if she wouldn't stop screaming for 3 hours I would have taken her to the doctors - your case sounds completely extreme. I probably would have snapped too if under that kind of pressure but I don't think 3 hour tantrums are the 'norm'. Was she tired?

A three hour tantrum would of had me reaching for the gps as well. It must have been awful but what were the reaons behind it? Surely it is better to understand why and avoid such situations rather than hitting. What about distraction?

See, Enid. You don't believe in smacking. Lisa does. Who is to say who is right and who is wrong? What gives you or the governement the right to tell Lisa how to discipline her child?

I feel very strongly about the value of maintaining my career. By I certainly have no right to go tell SAHMs that they should go obtain paid employement and be like me. People parent differently. And even if you feel very strongly about the choices you make, it doesn't actually give you the right to impose them upon other. And the government, in my opinion, is any better qualified to make that call either.

And the government, in my opinion, ISN'T any better qualified to make that call either.

I also agree with other ways of communicating. I can control a class of 30 teenagers without even speaking. We communicate something like 95% with body language which is far more powerful than our voices or smacking. I doubt I could control them through smacking and I wouldnt want to.

Part of teacher training is behaviour management and there are lots of ways to manage behaviour without shouting. If you shout you've lost control of the situation.

I can let my 1 year old know when I dont want her do to something by my facial expressions and my tone of voice (not shouting).

In the classroom there are all sorts of techniques to manage behaviour and nowadays non are violent or humiliating.

uwila you miss the point totally. you working is your choice (and mine for that matter) as is a SAHM's choice to stay at home. using physical violence (however mild) against someone else (a stranger or your child) is (imo and Enid's) wrong. that's why there are laws against harming others through violence (ie strangers or someone you've fallen out with in the pub) and why there should be one against harming someone in your own family who has no say in the matter. violence breeds violence, in whatever form. it's our responsbility to break the cycle.

Oh come on now. Reality check. A smack isn't harming a child. When my kids get a smack it it lttterly a tap on the bottom or hand. It is by no means harming them.

Hitting, thumping, walloping a child is harming.

I don't like smacking... I think it's ineffective BUT I really dislike the idea of criminalising parents.

Consider these scenarios:

a) a stressed out mother of a toddler gives a light tap on the hand or bottom after said child has been hitting/pinching her mother and all else has failed. This is the only time smacking has been resorted to Unfortunately, there is a witness and she is taken to court. What you going to do? Take the child away from her? Is this REALLY in their best interests?!

b) a 3-year-old, despite never being smacked, joyfully goes around telling all and sundry that his dad smacked him (yes, my ds1 did this occasionally - would go through a phase of saying "you hit me" when we'd done no such thing). There is no physical sign of violence, but because a nursery worker has overheard it, action "has" to be taken.

Legislation is NOT the way to go here. FFS, social services are already overloaded and can't manage the cases that clearly already fall outside the law! EDUCATION is the way to go. Have compulsory parenting classes when people fall pregnant if you must. Don't make an even greater divide of US and THEM against the State.

My dad was slightly over the "reasonable chastisement" stakes. No, I didn't like it. Yes, I am very aware of not going that route with my children. Do I think I should have been taken away from my parents at the time? Hell no, it would have destroyed my life.

See, again, it's your opinion that a smack is wrong. But it is not every parents' opinion. We are after all discussing a smack, and not the kind of aggression that would bruise or physically harm the child. That is abuse and is already illegal.

*tiptoes in.......

I've tried to stay away from this thread but I have just one comment to make - I'm not strongly for or against smacking but I 100% agree with Uwila in this....

What right do the government have to tell us how to disiplin our children. I know they have to set guidlines for children who suffer from abuse but there is no way they can police this, even if they tried. It's ridiculous.

Tiptoes back out again

I think the Little Angels programme is an absolute fantastic way of showing that even extreme behaviour can be changed without resorting to smacking. I find it very impressive.
Teachers, au-pairs, childminders, nursery staff and nannies manage children without smacking, so it is possible. I suspect that even those who are passionately pro-smacking would feel uneasy about their children being smacked by nursery staff.
Sadly, 'walloping' ISN'T illegal - but only so long as you do it to children, not adults. At the moment you can practically hit your kids any way you like, as long as you don't actually injure them. And I think that's wrong.