Whether to smack or not

[Awenamanger]

Hi, was just interested in your opinions on this subject. I read a piece in a book which may be interesting for debate. Please dont lynch me btw

'Myths that surround the use of spanking:

myth: Spanking is harmless.
fact: sspanking makes parenting more difficult because is reduces parents' ability to influene their children, especially when the children are teens and too big to be controlled by phsyical force. Also, authority figures should be trusted and respected, not feared.

myth: I was spanked, and i'm ok
Fact: You made it despite being hit; hitting increases the probability that you are more likely to use agression to handle conflicts

myth: if you dont spank, your children will be spoiled or run wild.
fact: nonspanked children are better behaved than are children of parents who spank. non-spanking parents tend to pay more attention to thier children's behaviour and tend to do more explaining and reasoning, which helps children to develop internal controls.

myth: Prents spank rarely or only for serious problems
fact: Parents who spank tend to use this method for almost any misbehaviour; many do not even give the child a warning - they spank before even trying other things.

myth: It is unrealistic to expect parents to never spank
fact: It is no more unrealistic to expect parents to not hit a child than to expect husbands not to hit their wifes or employers not to hit their employees.'

Source: Fontaine & Fletcher, Mental Health Nursing 5th Edition, 2003, Prentice Hall Press. Adapted from Straus M A (1994) Beating the devil out of them: Corporal punishment in American families, Lexington, MA, Lexington Books

I dont know if I am unusual but I do not smack my ds.

good fight starter well done-could do with being a bit more extremist really but a good attempt

I am not that brave

Oh.. and in the US one of the top 5 causes of child death is homicide..

Right... shall i start then?. I saw this earlier and didn't comment.. Thought i'd wait to see what other people said but as noone has i guess i will!
I am interrested to know where you got your miths and facts? are they yours or did you get them from a study... Although i do not believe that children should just be smacked for anything i will smack my son in certain circumstances. It doesn't happen often as it has to be VERY bad bahaviour for me to do it. I have trouble with:

myth: Prents spank rarely or only for serious problems
fact: Parents who spank tend to use this method for almost any misbehaviour; many do not even give the child a warning - they spank before even trying other things.

This is very generalised and not A FACT that all parents are likely to follow this trend.
It's VERY VERY different at my house, my ds always gets a count of three before he gets a smack (If that is what has been threatened, as sometimes it's for a toy to be taken away or not to get sweets on sweetie day etc). And this is only if he is doing something that he has been told about previously.

For example:- i wouldn't smack him for pulling all his clothes out of the cupboard, putting them in the bathand turning on the tap. If it was the first time he did it. (Kids get crazy notions sometimes!) I'd tell him off, tell him why he shouldn't do it, and explain that he will be punished if he ever did it again.

If he did do it again, then he may get a smack. But it would only EVER be back of the hand or on the bottom. And it's not done to hurt him. It's more a matter of he knows that if he's made mummy cross enough to smack his bottom then what he's done must be really naughty. And like i say, it's rare because most of the time the explaination is enough.
(incidently the example i used didn't ever happen, it was all i could think of).
Sorry on review i see that you did post the source of your info. But i think this person must have conducted a very small study. Some of the points i agree with, but the whole idea of banning smacking at all and the point i have commented on annoy me. I think parents need to stop and think about "how they use" smacking if they do.
Ie don't smack your four year old for punching his sister!

My goodness this is a long post! sorry!

Tasha thats ok. I referenced it as I said thought it might make for an interesting debate.

I think smacking is bizarre, but everyone knows that

lol I just read the end of yours too shows me for jumping in with an ansa without reading it fully.

I think I am kind of lucky as I always said I wouldnt smack my son, and I havent. Not saying that makes me better btw.

I do find it hard tho as he has actually told me to smack him when he had a paddy and I used the time out on the bottom step (I don't generally raise my voice either) The reason he wanted a smack it transpired was cos his daddy smacks him. He says xp smacks hard enough for it to go through his clothes to hurt, xp also apparantly shouts, throws his toys away and by his own admission sends ds to bed in tears and ds falls asleep crying. IMO ds is 4 and a very sweet loving child and I do not agree at all with xp methods but as they are not illegal or considered abusive i have very little say. i do make xp aware that i keep my eye on things tho.

It is hard explaining to a 4 yr old that people dela with things in diff ways esp when he knows i thinking smacking isnt nice.

Firstly, I have to say, I have smacked my daughter, once, on the bum when she was climbing into the boot of the car from the back seat when I wanted her to get out and was having to stand in the middle of the road in traffic waiting for her.

But, I do think that to accept it as a norm is a bit weird. I smacked her because I lost my temper - it didn't tell her anything other than 'mummy's cross'. I wouldn't use it by choice, which is what some parents do. Do you remember the US book that came with a rule or stick to use to smack with? Like planning it made it acceptable. Hitting people is just wrong.

Smacking only makes the parent feel like they're doing something. They're actually not achieving anything other than venting anger. It's the same as shouting.

Once you start smacking, or shouting, you generally have a job trying not to. (I don't mean at the time, I mean as a method of discipline) And it just doesn't work.

If I disagreed with someone in the pub, say refusing to give up my seat, and I 'smacked' them then everyone would be horrified. Why do we think it's ok to smack our kids?

I smacked dd2's hand the other day because she pushed dd1 down a (short) flight of stone steps and if I hadn't been there to break her fall she could have been killed - well that was my knee jerk fear and I was so furious and scared. We were all really shocked by my reaction. It's the only time I've ever done it and all three of us were aware that I had temporarily lost control.

dd2 has mentioned it a few times since as ' that time when I did a bad thing to ***' - but the fact that it seems to have had an effect doesn't excuse it in my view and I can't see me ever doing it again.

Awanemanger, I think that your xp could be considered abusive towards your child. At the end of the day your son's being physically hurt and by someone much bigger than him. If he came home from school saying one of the children in his class had done those things what would you think? Why is it acceptable that it's his dad? (Just asking, not implying that you should be worried or taking action!)

pk - i agree with you. I have spoken to solicitor and confidentialy to ss & nspcc for advice. I have been advised to always be there for ds and that as it is occasional it is considered acceptable.

It is not acceptable tho as why should a grown man feel he had to smack a little child? When i have confronted him he says.. 'it was ok for me growing up, an i turned out all right'. I just want to say, you think so do you? It is all right to reprimand a defenceless child like that is it? Look at me I am getting all riled now.

It makes me sick to my stomach how he acts sometimes. You know i do believe he loves ds but that doesnt excuse his pig ignorance.

I really really hope they make it completely illegal.. then we'd sort it.

Oh and did you know the doctors used to hand out sticks with which men could beat their wifes with. We have had womens rights now how about childrens.

I have smacked dd1 and dd2 (hands only), and nearly always it has been when my patience is pushed to the limit. Inevitably it only escalates the situation and I wish afterwards that I had not. Guilt weights very heavily.

I can only think of one situation where it might be totally justifiable - if they were to run, unthinking into the traffic or similar.

Agree with what's been said. I have smacked, but onyly when I've been pushed to the limit. Grandson has never been smacked at least not by me or DH (he is only 23 months). However, I the other day, he was doing something that was realy beginnning to p me off and I asked him if he wanted his hand smacking. he promptly put out him hand, smacked it with his other one and said "naughty". Don't think smacking will be an option with him.

It is good to see that there are like minded mums around

I feel really guilty if i tell little one off and he crys. I question if i could have handled it differently or better. Always questioning/reflecting on how I parent.

Part of it is cos I didnt have the best time as a child and that makes me want to be a better parent.

your xp that you are smacking i mean. Gosh that could have sounded bad.

I thought you might have been advocating handing the dirty deed to another person!

i know that is unless anyone here is offering to smack my xp

I'd be very interested in having the answer to the following. If smacking is not OK because you wouldn't do it to another adult - then using the same arguement, why is it OK to put a child in their room/stairs/watever you use for 'time out'. I wouldn't accept that from another adult, but it seems to be perfectly acceptable to do it to a child.

I don't generally smack, but I don't believe the child/adult comparison is fair.

If an adult runs into the road and gets injured, the adult is to blame. If that happens to a small child, everyone blames the mother, because the mother should have stopped them.

My point being that yes, children have less rights, but this is because if children had precisely the same rights as adult, we simply could not discipline them. You can't send a 20mo to prison for willful destruction of property

And you can't give them the vote either!

exactly.

I don't smack anymore. I didn't really feel comfortable with it, but didn't have a consistent alternative until the last few months - Mumsnet and Little Angels have been very helpful. I did try at one stage to use it as a normal method of discipline (under pressure from other people, for about 3 weeks), but found it didn't work and I didn't actually want to.

But I wasn't happy with my approach to discipline (I felt it was haphazard and not very focussed) and so tried to find a better way. Positive Parenting by Christopher Green is a very good book, but I think you need constant back-up, not just one book. I've just done a parenting course, which has also been very helpful in suggesting alternatives to smacking.

I think it's very, very important that parents agree on this ? I think it?s a powerful enough source of disagreement to split up otherwise loving couples! I feel sorry for any mother who has to stand by and allow anyone to smack her child, even if he is their father. Awen, must be awful for you ? you have my sympathy.

Ok, but what about the actual "teaching of consequences"? Children of a very young age often have different tolerances to different punishments of varying degrees. my Ds couldn't care less about a favourite toy being taken away for example, there's no regular pattern of treat which can be denied, if I say there will be no story before bed etc he has the disposition where he is going through the "so what" phase and he's only 3 1/2! The one and only thing that makes him sit up and listen is the physical act of a smack and I can see it's because he feels he's lost my love and doesn't want to do that. He's obviously reassured afterwards when everything calms down that I love him more than anything and that doesn't stop when I get cross.I can honestly say that when the occasional smack is administered, there is no repeat of the same behaviour. It may be administered for another reason at a later date, but when he is is in a paddy, there is no amount of "getting down to his level, looking him in the eye etc, firmly but calmly telling him what I dont't like etc....." The smack stops him in his tracks and forces him to listen. I can then explain afterwards why things went that far and why his behaviour was inappropriate. I don't go 'round smacking him as a general rule, but I have no qualms about it. I do believe it's a tool in the toolbox to be used and the ultimate consequence. No it's not nice, and for DS I know it works, as I say It's learned behaviour, he won't do it again. The frequency becomes less and less as he learns his feelings towards this form of ultimate punishment. He is not scared of me in the slightest, we adore each other and trust me you have to see us to believe us. But with his personality, he is indifferent to any other form of discipline.