Active discussions

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Original poster

Smacking children can affect schooling Smacking children can affect schooling Smacking children can affect schooling Smacking children can affect schooling

527 replies

papillon · 01/06/2004 16:35

this

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Set a reminder
Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:14

sorry secur, like i say, i would push and shove and do anything i could in a scuffle like way. but hitting to me, means that in control i would for eg slap him round the face. there is a difference. fighting to get away from an attack is not the same as hitting. hitting would be having got away and kicking him. semantics aside, I don't think standing fully in control and hitting someone is right in any circumstances: is that clearer?

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:17

the thing that i find most disturbing about this arguement is not parents that have lost control and hit their child (that is totally wrong, but we all make mistakes, this is a particularly bad one tho). what i find awful is that someone can cooly justify using corporal punishment which is what hitting a child is. hitting. a. child. think about it for a moment: I find it hard to believe that anyone can believe that it is just another strand in their parenting skills armoury!

glitterfairy · 04/06/2004 14:19

But secur we dont live by our instincts alone we have reason and intellect as well we try to work out right and wrong. Yes sometimes we react adn I for one have done it just as you did on the stairs we are protective but we have spent a long time creating much that is beautiful adn good in life not by instinct but by our brain power which is sometimes at odds with our instinct. Why do people give their lives for causes? that is not instinct it is beliefs and they are important.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting
secur · 04/06/2004 14:23

Message withdrawn

secur · 04/06/2004 14:30

Message withdrawn

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:36

secur, i think i answered your last point in my posts: no of course i don't think it is possible or desirable that we be (or that our children see us as) perfect parents. that is why a mistake is a mistake. for me the thing that is incomprehensible is the defence of a 'policy' of smacking...do you see the difference?

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:38

argh, didn't read you right: unfortunately i do think there are people (lots of them women) who have to view their parents as perfect: it's a form of defence...to acknowlege a mistake is to open a can of worms they would rather not look at (i'm not aiming this at you bloss btw). i think this attitude is sadly v common amongst esp. women with regard to their relationship with their mothers.

secur · 04/06/2004 14:40

Message withdrawn

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:42

i think that arguing that smacking is a reasonable part of one's parenting repertoire is a policy yes: again wordage probably not best...i don't think that smacking is a 'right' that a parent can claim...don't worry i didn't take you wrong: hope the same goes..

secur · 04/06/2004 14:43

Message withdrawn

aloha · 04/06/2004 14:44

Bloss, it is true that there are other aspects of my parents abilities as parents that I think were pretty rubbish, but I vividly remember the sense of outrage - a strong belief that what was happening was wrong and an abuse of power - when I was smacked as a kid. I felt the same about the old b*tch of a teacher who used to hit us with a hymn book in primary school for talking in assembly (possibly the root of my atheism ) I even remember telling my parents at quite a young age something like, "When you are old and weak, I will put you in the nastiest old people's home I can find and hope they smack you there." Now I am older and my parents are not in the least infirm, but still, I wouldn't put them in the home, but that's only becauese I am a saint! I think my parents were a bit startled by my reaction, but you can't say I didn't warn them I would hold it against them!

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:44

the worst incidence of this that i have ever seen and i am a stupid worthless piece of shit for not having done something altho, god knows what (if there had been a law i could have) was a woman on a bus repeatedly slapping what looked like a very young baby (under six weeks i'd say) for crying...the baby was hysterical...i can't believe we didn't do anything...i feel v ashamed of myself for this...

secur · 04/06/2004 14:46

Message withdrawn

secur · 04/06/2004 14:49

Message withdrawn

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 14:51

it was bad. tbh, i was summoning up the courage to say something rather than just looking conspicuously appalled when she got off the bus. she looked v harried and sleep deprived and tbh i know that it was ignorance not malevolence...but it was absolutely awful. and should not be legal, no way.

Hulababy · 04/06/2004 14:53

Oh sophable - that must have been awful. TBH I am not sure I would have managed to say something either mainly through shock and being stunned. Unbelievable. Yes, that should definitely be illegal.

aloha · 04/06/2004 14:53

Sophable, don't be so hard on yourself. We've all been there. I did once yell at a woman for hitting her small child around the head, but more recently was on the bus with a woman who kept slapping a toddler strapped into his pushchair on the bus for mild fidgeting and he was really crying. It was her sole interaction with the poor child. I felt very tearful and upset but I didn't do anything except glare. I wish I could just have called the police - and would have done!
As for hitting a baby - well, that's why I want to see a ban. These parents really don't think they are doing anything wrong, and they need to be told.

aloha · 04/06/2004 14:55

BTW Sophable, you really are very hard on yourself. Still PMT???? If not, don't say such nasty things about yourself - they really aren't true.

MeanBean · 04/06/2004 14:55

But Sophable, don't you think someone who was doing that really needs help, rather than punishment? Chances are it wasn't so much ignorance (I can't imagine anyone so ignorant that they don't know a six week old baby shouldn't be hit), but sheer exhaustion and stress.

Hulababy · 04/06/2004 14:57

MeanBean - i think perhaps they need both. Punishment to realise they are wrong; support to show them how to deal with the situation again. Regardless of reason, no one should be allowed to hit a baby without repercusions, surely?

Heathcliffscathy · 04/06/2004 15:00

i have v non-punishment view on the law meanbean. i think the law is there to intervene to protect people (all people, but esp the vulnerable eg children) not to punish them. I don't really believe in punishment in the sense that i don't believe in intrinsic evil (this is a whole other thread, that i am so not going to start). so no, i don't think she needed punishing. but the baby needed society to intervene on it's behalf. definitely.

aloha . i vaccilate wildly between delusions of grandeur and self-abnegation: i believe the technical term is that i am narcissistically injured (not vain as in common parlance, but have a poor sense of self and need validation). i don't think i'm in any way rare in this...

seriously, i know i shouldn't do it, and you're right to haul me up on it. i am lovely not still pmt (it arrived last night can you believe!)

secur · 04/06/2004 15:01

Message withdrawn

secur · 04/06/2004 15:04

Message withdrawn

MeanBean · 04/06/2004 15:06

I suppose the issue is what repercussions one would advocate. As Secur says, this behaviour is probably illegal anyway, but the problem is how to deal with it - by prosecution or support? (or both?)

mears · 04/06/2004 15:08

This is such an interesting thread. It is one that is very similar to the breast/bottle feeding debate - there will never be agreement.

I am in agreement with Bloss and used smacking as a very effective tool without 'beating' my children. I myself was smacked and did not have schooling or emotional difficulties. I had tried time outs etc and at the end of the day felt a swift smack which was over and done with, was less emotionally traumatic and drawn out than sending the offender to their room etc. I warned that smack was coming if they didn't stop whatever behaviour was going on that was unacceptable. Children will always push the boundaries and I would try other methods which frankly didn't work. A smack put an end to the behaviour then I wished I had just done it in the first place!

My youngest is now 10 years old and I could not tell you when I last smacked - a large number of years ago. I will send DD to her room now because at the age she is it is an effective punishment. However, as a screaming toddler it didn't do much good. Smacking does not make your children scared of you - they are scared of the smack IMO. Discussion always needs to take place after a punishment no matter what it is.
For parents who can discipline their children without smacking - that is wonderful. Children are not all the same and also behaviours that parents will not tolerate are not the same. I am absolutely in agreement that children should not be slapped about the head and I have also seen parents hitting their children in public that has distressed me. There is a difference between hitting and smacking IMO, but non-smackers will never recognise the difference no matter how it is explained. Suffice to say, I do not regret smacking when I had to, and found it to be very effective at stopping the problem behaviour there and then. That does not mean a child will never do the same thing again. It meant I didn't need to resort to smacking again because the warning of a smack was enough. The debate will go on....