This is probably a poorly-worded title but it's not a situation that's easily summarised.
Let me first and foremost state that I am 100% against smacking. I was smacked as a child and rather than the pain I remember the burning humiliation and sense of injustice it engendered, and I am determined never to do it to my child.
So how would you deal with this?
Whenever dd trips/falls over/wanders into something without looking and bangs her head/hand/leg etc, if MIL happens to be about, she will go over and repeatedly smack the object that dd has banged into and go 'Naughty table/whatever! Naughty to hurt dd!' and tries to encourage dd to give it a smack as well.
Now, while I can kind of see where she's coming from, given that our ethos is 'mummy doesn't hit, daddy doesn't hit, dd doesn't hit either', it flies in the face of everything we're trying to teach her. Plus I think there's something distinctly odd about hitting an inanimate object...
I'm not sure I can say something without it coming over as humourlessly pompous - although I have a very good relationship with MIL and she is excellent with children (she used to work for Barnados in their nurseries and is fantastic with all her GCs), I've never disagreed with her on parenting before because we've always been on the same wavelength, so I'm wary of causing friction over what may seem like a very minor thing.
However, equally I don't want dd to think it's okay to hit out at whatever hurts her (esp, as she's prone to tripping over the cat!).
Worse still, went out with a friend last week and she did exactly the same thing when dd walked into the chairleg! (Naughty Chairleg!!)
Have I lived a sheltered life or something? I've never come across this before and I find it very weird...