Pinched bottom - not smacking...

[Mummyinggnome]

can I have opinions please?
Dh and I were both smacked as children. No real issues with it in terms of how I view my parents or anything. I imagine on the 3/4 occasions i remember it happening I thoroughly deserved it!
However, I couldn't bear to think of that for my babies. But, sometimes if they've done something shocking (like ds1 squeezing toothpaste over ds3 hair tonight) is it ever permissible to have a pinched bottom and sent to bed before his sisters. When I say pinch, it wasn't hard enough to hurt anything other than his pride.
Am I a shocking mother? Anyone else do this?

Sounds grim and abusive.

Pinching/nipping as a form of discipline is not something I have come across before...perhaps someone else has?

Don't see the difference between a smack and a pinch tbh.
Both causing pain / humiliation in response to bad behaviour

I dont agree with smacking. Pinching seems just as bad if not worse - spiteful.

Sounds a bit odd to me

I don't really get it...
You 'couldnt bear' to smack your 'babies', but you're happy to pinch them?

Smacking isn't necessarily about pain and humiliation. In fact, if it hurts, then IMO it's not smacking. It is also used to gain full attention and demonstrate importance of incident (the teaching comes in what you do after the smack, and that's the important part; and the part where you have to be mist careful, as words can so easily be bringers of great humiliation).

If you choose a physical punishment other than smacking (pinch, restraint, insistence on going to /remaining in one spot eg naughty step), you'll probably get similar outcomes. And as long as you're sticking within the law and not hurting your child, and see worthwhile outcomes from your actions, then it is up to you.

But it's not something I would do over toothpaste.

I have a Romanian aunt who did something similar - she never smacked her dc, but in situations where my parents might have given me a smack shortage her dc a pinch. I'm about 3y older than those cousins, and I remember vividly disliking what I saw. It seemed sly and nasty, in a way that a smack did not.

I have chosen not to smack or otherwise punish my children physically.

Why not just kick em in the shins?

Rather than pinching or smacking hitting your child why not just talk to them.
I never hit my children. I have chosen to communicate with them instead.

I'd rather a smack than a pinch. A pinch does (as fullfridge said) seem sly & nasty - a bit light a very tightly gripped wrist and a lot of hissing... just nasty.

I disagree that restraint and naughty step-type discipline are physical punishments. Physical punishment is about imposing your will upon someone through brute force or pain. Restraint - gentle restraint - and naughty step can be used as an opportunity to help the child to understand where they went wrong, and what is expected of them.

I never made a conscious decision not to smack my dc, it just developed when I realised that I could not teach by example if I did. I was also afraid of lashing out in a temper...what that might lead to...

I did, however, make a conscious decision never to verbally or emotionally punish my dc by mockery or nasty speaking. It's very difficult, when tempers run high, and those occasions fully justify my commitment to not smacking (or pinching, gripping or shaking).

Toothpaste in the hair does not justify a physical punishment. If one of ours were to do that, they would get a telling-off and would lose all bedtime reading immediately.

Why would you do this?

I don't see how pinching is any better than smacking, if anything it is worse, they are both things you would not want your children to do. I always thought there was no harm in smacking, as long as it was not hard and for a good reason, I have smacked DS, very gently, twice in his life. I won't be doing it again though, after the second time, he turned to me with hurt eyes and said "You shouldn't hit, Mummy" There is no arguing with that!

Is this for real? You can't stand to smack but you'd pinch? Keep your hands to yourself is my advice.

I think that pinching as a punishment is maybe something common in other countries/cultures. - not that I think it's ok!

Good grief.

How spiteful and nasty. What next, a Chinese burn?

No smacking, no pinching. Try proper communication instead.

"Physical punishment is about imposing your will upon someone through brute force or pain".

I think this is interesting. Smacking isn't painful, nor is it brutish. Trying to equate smacking with abuse is setting up polarising straw men. Especially if you ignore the fact that physical force is required to restrain, as you are using your size/power to enforce your dominant position. "Gentle" restraint is still physical dominance, and requires (unlike smacking) the child to be rendered powerless (and humiliated) for far longer. It's not something I would ever contemplate as a regular method of control for an NT child.

Smacking isn't painful?! How ridiculous, of course it is. Shall I come round and give you a few smacks? See how much you like it?

The way I smack isn't painful.

This is, once again, part of the difficulty in discussing this at all.

Adults who lack control such that they are incapable of smacking without pain are of course a different category and perhaps need special consideration.

I was smacked often as a child and even occasionally had things thrown at my head (the result of becoming too big to be held still and smacked) but pinching seems incredibly wicked to me, and on a similar note as punching a child. What's next? Are you going to start pulling their hair or shoving them about?

Edith - if your child hits another/you, do you smack hit him/her as punishment?

As for smacking not being painful how do you know? Have you tried it out on your dh or vice versa to check?

As a child I discovered there were ways of making a smack less painful (cupping your palm slightly for a smack on the hand to lessen the surface area) but that is more difficult if you are talking smacks to the bottom/legs etc as then the only way you can lessen the pain is by dodging the smacks... Which invariably led to more smacking because you dodged the first one.

God I loved my childhood

Why bother hitting smacking at all if it isn't painful?
Why not try communicating using words?