do you struggle with NOT smacking because you were smacked as a child?

[titferbrains]

3 yo dd gets up and mucks about after I have put her to bed every night, despite taking away toys, turning off beloved music, promising to stay in bed, chats with me, DH, DM etc etc.

I find I just speak to her in a very cross voice (Like a scary teacher) which she then imitates when playing with her dolls "Go to bed! Right now! I don't want to hear it!"

I am so fed up of it and often want to smack in this situation to teach her a lesson. I am really anti smacking but it is so hard not to!

I know all the proper parenting solutions but how best to deal with feelings around having been smacked and get rid of desire to smack my own kids?

I was not abused but my mum spanked me pretty severely a couple of times and she also spanked my brother once in a way that terrified me.

I don't want dd to be scared of me and I don't want to use violence against her in any way. But the other day, for example, she pinched DS's cheek when I wasn't looking, not hard but she does this all the time and i am constantly worried that she will one day really hurt him. I was very cross and pinched her cheek and said does that feel nice? it left a red mark and I was so horrified but I also feel so protective of baby and I don't know how to dampen down those GRR I AM MOTHER HERE ME ROAR IF YOU HURT MY BABY I WILL HURT YOU feelings. I remember this from when DD was a baby, the sense of wanting to protect is so damn strong...

Sorry for ramble, any thoughts?

Honestly? I would disagree with your view that you were not abused. Your mum used physical violence against you and your brother and you were terrified, that is abuse.

Also, what you are talking about is not using physical punishment as a means of disciplining. What you are talking about is you feeling that you feel that you might lose control over your negative emotions. That instinct you are talking about means that your actions will be spontaneous, and therefore in anger. Not that I condone using smacking in Any way for controlling behaviour, at all, I do not, but you are not even choosing this as thought through way, but through loss of control.

You are at risk of harming your child in this way, as hitting in anger means you could firstly terrify your child as you yourself were, and secondly, you could do much more harm than immediate pain.

I think you should consider what support you could get to help you manage these feelings. Talk to your gp? Child line? I don't know where you would be able to get support, but you must do.

I was smacked a lot as a kid - randomly so I would get a whack for something that the previous day wouldn't have merited a smack. I hated my mother fora long time and the way she screamed and hit me affected our relationship badly for many years. I forgave her and I understand now that she was hitting because she was unhappy and left in the shit with 2 young kids while my father was away for months at a time. She was furious with my Dad and she didn't handle it well. Sometimes people don't.

Are you projecting in the same way do you think? When you are raised in a negative environment it gets hard wired into you. I have a temper and I am not saying I have never felt the desire to smack but I know it's because of me not because of the children. So I don't.

It's a line I just can't cross because if I ever believed that my children could think of me the same way as I thought of my mother it would break my heart.

I was smacked. My view and my mothers are very different. But ultimately it did not always stop me from being naughty (and therefore getting smacked). And do you what that is part of the reason I will not smack it doesn't work if it did you'd only ever have to snack once.

Ice an almost four year old and she sounds quite similar . There are days when she goes to bed nicely and others where I feel terrible walking down the stairs not wanting her say to end on a bad tone.

No I don't struggle with hitting, I just don't, despite being hit excessively as a child. I do struggle with my anger though and am tormented when I display anger with my children or shout. Its quite a hard cross to bear and I think people who had healthy childhoods don't realise how lucky they are.

This is a really good question i think.
We were all hit as kids, and i have to stop and really really restrain myself from hitting my son.
I have never hit him and he is 8 years old, so it can be avoided and just cut out of the eqausion.
I could have throttled him on loads of occasions, but i have found his "currency" and always used that against him...it changes and differs form one week to the next!

Always always follow through too.
My sisters are the same, dont think that they have ever hit thier kids either.

We don't smack.

I was smacked as a child.

If I'm honest, when my temper is rising and I'm beginning to lose it I have to restrain myself from smacking my children . To be clear, I do not smack them, but I do get the urge to and have to be careful to walk away. I think a lot of things that feel "instinctive" as parents come from our own v early experiences of being parented. There is evidence that the parenting we experience, especially aged 3 or less, has lifelong consequences.

On the plus side, I am constantly surprised that my children do not engage in physical fighting with one another and extremely rarely hit or kick. I thought from my own experiences as a child and things my mum said that this was normal sibling behaviour. I am now wondering if role-modelling violence/non-violence plays a part. Of course they may start all that as they get older shooting my theory to pieces .

I was smacked, never hard, but I found the experience so humiliating. I can't even bear to think of it now. So I would never do it to my kids and am vehemnetly opposed to it. I do understand the urge but as others have said that is about me losing my temper and control not about effective discipline.

It is possible to deprogramme yourself I think but it takes constant vigilance. When 4 year old DS is really testing me (always tends to be him rather than 2 yo DD) I do the counting thing - " I'm going to count to 5 and I expect you to stop etc.) " It gives me a few seconds space to calm down and gives him a chance to back down and not lose face. Works most of the time but I always follow up with time out if he fails to comply!

I find it takes the heat out of that few seconds when I can see red.

Smacking is the very opposite of control and it doesn't work.

interesting to read these posts. I think I need to think more about my anger, I think I get very frustrated at all the changes I have had to make in order to become a parent, at the end of a long day, it can feel like I have given a lot and I get DD's terrible behaviour (not all the time!!) in return. She is my first so I haven't gotten to the other side of this behavioural hump, I am sure she will settle but it is quite a challenging time because I sometimes just fail to have the words to tell her off or say the appropriate thing.

Sometimes she is really naughty and I am first speechless then just tired like pls, why are you doing this?? I am just not interested, I don't want to have to parent every second of the day. That's what it is, it's the relentlessness of having to have a response and an appropriate parental reaction to remind DD to behave or whatever because I want her to grow up to be a pleasant, polite, well liked woman. I want her to be a better person than I am.

I really don't want her to have my issues, of which there are many. I guess I need to be even more mindful of the memories she will have of these early years. She is already saying things when she has been good like "you're not cross any more", "you're not sad" , " you're happy now" etc so I know I need to do better at being a pleasant parent and maybe not such a strict one.

off to bed. Feel a bit horrified with myself having typed this.

I don't struggle with it as such, but I do often think how much easier it would be to just smack the DCs rather than trying to find alternative strategies that ork with each of them. And I do find that, when I get into situations where I know I would have been smacked as a child, that the urge to shout takes over far too much. It's as though I can avoid the smacking but the strain of doing that distracts me from not shouting.

I was smacked too, both in the heat of the moment and as cold blooded punishment. I don't smack and never would for a whole raft of reasons. But I do find myself getting overwhelmingly angry. I had never wondered if it was related to being smacked. I have dark thoughts about locking the DCs in cupboards and it frightens me (not that I'd do it, that I even think it iyswim). peanut that's a good tip to calm down. I'm watching this thread with interest..

I was smacked excessively for years by my mother, not for any wrongdoing but because she was bipolar and when she felt shit she liked to make everyone around her feel worse. Was impossible to predict and nothing I ever did seemed to help. I was pushed downstairs, locked out in the cold wearing pyjamas, hit with a slipper, had mugs thrown at me etc etc. Also subjected to constant verbal abuse along the lines of "you're evil", "I'll make sure you never have friends", "I wish you hadn't been born" etc.

I have MASSIVE anger issues now that I'm a mother. I'd never hit but I struggle to express anger properly. I either bottle it up or scream like a banshee. Desperately trying to sort myself out but it's so hard. As mentioned above, those who had good childhoods don't know how lucky they are.

My DD is the most wonderful little person and I desperately want to get myself into a better place for her.

Don't know about you but the "I was hit as a kid and it never did me any harm" brigade really pisses me off!

I wasn't smacked very much at all as a child, my mum didn't smack me beyond maybe 3 because she hated it. My stepdad did and they argued about this.

My mum was depressed and would row a lot with stepdad including violence against him and a lot of verbal abuse. They got through that and are still together.

I am extremely quick to anger. I have 3 boys, the oldest is 9 and I have never smacked them. My DH and I agreed this was not the way we wanted to parent. He was smacked excessively. We have on a number of occasions when we have run out of tactics just acknowledged to each other that we have wanted to, I think it is healthy to admit this but not give into that urge.

I am about to start cognitive behavioral therapy for depression and I am hoping it will help me find good ways to deal with anger. I can't tell you how many times I find myself apologizing to my boys for shouting yet again

OP, don't be too hard on yourself for experiencing anger. Of course it's good to find appropriate ways to deal with it, but we are only human. The main thing is that you haven't smacked your dd and it is within your ability to control that.

Some very sad childhood stories on here

I pinched my brother a lot as a child - my mother did what you did and pinched me to teach me a lesson... not that I remember her doing it. I do remember her telling me many times over the years that i was a terrible pincher and she had pinched me to teach me a lesson. She was proud of herself! I hated hearing about it.

I was smacked without much forethought as a kid. As was my brother. The slightest infraction seemed to warrant a smack. Shouting and threats were commonplace. Even when we weren't being 'naughty', just not doing as our parents wanted... like eating enough etc. Made for a pretty unhappy childhood. I don't smack & try to keep calm regardless of how frustrated I'm feeling. A smack is just an easy out.

In short. Yes.
I was smacked when I'd been really naughty as a child by my nanny - never because she was frustrated and just wanted somebody to take it out on. I don't harbour any bad feelings or issues because of it.
I guess I must be in the 'didn't do me any harm brigade' which people seem to hate so much.
Smacking does not necessarily make you an abusive parent, although I do realise it's no longer acceptable in wider society.
In my opinion, you have to do things sometimes which may seem cruel, but it's important to have control over your household. When my kids were small (3+) and they played up at bed time, they would go outside the back door and be ignored for a couple of minutes - after that, all they DO want to do is go to bed. I have threatened it dozens of times, but only carried it out probably 5 times in 10 years over 3 kids. I'm comfortable with it - but I'm also aware that some of you think probably think that's abusive.
I think it's kinder and less abusive to nip it in the bud as soon as it starts rather than waiting till you are so frustrated you are having to stop yourself throttling them. If you are out of control yourself it is almost impossible to gain control in a situation.
Strict doesn't have to be unkind.

Interesting to see how people react to their own childhood. I wasn't smacked as a child and I didn't know anybody else who was either, but we did have confident, authoritative parents, so for me smacking simply isn't related to effective discipline. In my world effective discipline is something maintained by non-smackers.
But I could see how it would look totally different if I had had a different background.

I was smacked and it did impact on me, I knew even as a young kid that the reason I was being hit was because my Mum was tired, frustrated and very impatient, it was rarely that i "deserved" it.
I struggle now with recognising when I am reacting to my kids becasue of how I am feeling rather than to what they are doing. But with practise i am getting much better and can look outside of myself and think, on a different day I wouldn't react to this in this way it's because I'm knackered/stressed etc I am very proud to say that I have never smacked my kids and really hope I am still able to say this in 20 years time.

titferbrains - I used to get really nnoyed at ds1, his behaviour was very challenging (extremely violent to his siblings, othe children and us, very defiant) til I went on the incredible years parenting course, totally changed our lifes.

I did a couple of times smack him (once after he made his 3 day old brother bleed from a huge scratch). I hated myself for it.

Basically we realised from the course that all of their behaviour good or bad is to gain attention be it a well done or a shout. So if you ignore the bad, or really gently but firm say for example 'stop running' or better still 'walk please' and then overly praise the good it makes such a difference.

That's a key point, I think. There's a difference between being smacked because you misbehaved very badly but something else entirely when it's unrelated to behaviour and simply due to the parent being in a bad place emotionally. The fear I felt was because it was so unpredictable. No amount of creeping around quietly, tidying up etc made any difference. I was beaten up because it was raining. Because my mother's sister hadn't phoned, just random stuff. I remember feeling physically sick with fear and finding it hard to eat. And that made my mother angry too.

I don't hate the Never-Did-Me-Any-Harm brigade, just find it frustrating that childhood smacking is often perceived to be about correcting bad behaviour and the child deserved it in some way. I still don't condone that either but am aware that my experiences make it hard for me to view smacking as non-abusive. Sadly, i think on this thread, smacking as discipline is actually a rarity. And it seems that those who struggle most with anger come from emotionally unstable, violent backgrounds. This is making me realise even more that I need to sort my issues out for the sake of my little DD.

Yes, I was smacked and I hated it. I really struggled not to when the dcs were little, though actually not dc3; I do think I retrained myself.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that they were never smacked themselves, but they smack their own dcs, has anyone?

Which always makes me think it DID do us harm, those of us who were hit as children, it's made it harder for us not to see hitting as the answer.

sorry pressed too soon!

so for your dd and bed I would do this

1. explain very calmly in the morning that from today once she is bed she stays in bed. Make out like it will the best most amazing thing in the world,remind her and tell everyone you see that dya (obviously in her hearing) be really over the top about what a good girl she is to do this, but don't mention at all how rubbish she usually is.

2.make a sticker chart with her and go on about because she is such a good girl at staying in bed that she will get a sticker. Once again making out that this is the most exciting thing you've ever come across.

1. At bedtime so your routine, and then remind her how amazing she is to stay in bed.

1. when she inevitably gets out of bed, say in a nice quiet voice, it's bedtime you stay in bed. (repeat this three times)

1. when she gets out of bed again just walk her very boringly back to bed, no eyecontact, no noise, no annoyed faces and repeat probably about10 times.

don't lose it at all. in the am give her a sticker for staying in bed do not mention or talk about her getting out of bed a 1000 times at all in her hearing. But do tell everyone that she stayed in bed.

repeat this for two weeks and I pretty much guarentee you will crack it.

other points: to help her wind down: no tv for an hour before bed, have a good repeated quiet bedtime routine, design one with her and talk about it , have no tv/computer in her room, no stimutates (chocolate etc an hour before bed), dim lights, cuddlly stories quiet voices etc all really help.

good luck. we did this with all four of ours and it works everytime (even with the really challenging child)

if she breaks it just start over agin

Op I think lots of parents go to bed at night thinking "I shouldn't have said x/should have done y/why aren't I a better parent?" So don't be too hard on yourself.

I think the second DC are always easier because we have been there and done that with DC1. This carries on for ever My eldest is at uni and found the first week very hard. So our DD was 19 and we were worrying about whether or not we were dealing with that situation correctly [she wanted to come home, we wouldnt go and collect her, she is now in second year and loves it].

I'm just telling you this so you are aware, parenting always goes through hard bits, so you cannot be too hard on yourself or you will never survive!
It was a revalation to me when I realised I could say to DD1 "Sorry I was a bit hard there, Mummy was just a bit cross because you did Xpinched the baby. I shouldn't have done/said that to you. Lets have a cuddle"

I expect some people would say "Oh you shouldn't ever say sorry, you are making a rod for your own back etc etc" But if we did something we regretted to anyone other than out own child, we would apologise.

Regarding her bedtime behaviour, have you tried a rewards chart?

Alice miller author of the 'for your own good' is a good book to read about discipline, effects of smacking and impact of people saying things like, 'its done me no harm' or 'its for your own good'.

I don't smack / hit because I believe it's bad role modelling. How can you tell your child it's wrong to hit others when you hit them.

Sometimes I do get the urge to smack (not sure why when I'm dead against it), just have to rise above it.

I also was smacked as a child - 4 smacks with a big metal spoon on the backside.

I think overall it's a very good thing that, as a society we have moved away from corporal punishment and intimidation. I also think, for the most part, parents take their roles much more seriously than they did in the past and are eager to ensure their children have a balanced and happy upbringing. Whether that's down to education, fear of guilt or just that we are more understanding and empathetic as a race I'm not sure! Breaking the cycle is the hardest thing and I agree if you smack your children they are much more likely to go on and do that to their children. What worries me is that the decline in discipline in general has been very steep and sudden and I fear that maybe parenting has gone too far the other way. I am sure that our next generation will learn from this and hopefully right the wrongs we have made (and make some new wrongs of their own!). For some of us that had little parental input or 'nurturing' and were bought up by the nanny/boarding school it's hard to make that huge leap into something so alien - but, because we are all now much more analytical about our emotions and feelings we try, very hard not to make the perceived mistakes that our parents did. I know that my mother wouldn't have bought us up any other way, even now. Children should be seen and not heard - it wasn't unkind or abusive. Just a little sad.
Good luck in whatever you find works for you - and the fact that you care enough to raise your concern about the smacking means that you know its not something that is right for your family - you have done very well to get to this point without resorting to it - I'm afraid I can't say the same for myself. Hopefully my children will be insightful enough to learn from my mistakes.