Views please on MIL's bizarre smacking habit

[Lovecat]

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...

Sometimes I throw inanimate objects at them too and pretend we are playing a game called "catch".

Im such a barstard.

did anyone else read this is "MILs bizarre smack habit"

This thread has left me a little bemused.

Yesterday my DS2 tripped and banged his head on the sofa. I said jokingly to him "naughty sofa", I wasn't weird or suggesting that I really thought the sofa was naughty. It was just a distraction technique.

It worked. He was distracted and didn't bawl himself silly.

Now am I to understand from my thread that this means that I am teaching my child that violence is ok (even if toward inanimate objects?).

What with smokey prams, almost everything on here is a total over-reaction these days.

I meant [from this thread] not [from my thread]

Well quite dejags...

Although, I have to say - anything baby related (clothes, prams, toys and babies themselves) that smell of cigarettes is just minging really. But of course that really is another thread

Agreed VVV. I loathe the smell of fags and loads of other things.

This is why the good lord invented a scrubbing brush, bucket, hot water and soap.

Tis all too much for my simple mind today I am afraid

LOL at this thread. A friend's dh went as far as putting a chair in the naughty corner for time out .

I get the thing about distraction but ds has just come through a phase of expressing frustration by taking a swipe through the air (complete with bottom lip out), and if you're close enough he takes a swipe at your legs, and sometimes at anything else inanimate nearby. He was also a bit quick to take swipes at the other kids at nursery for about 3 weeks too, thankfully that phase has now passed (thank god thank god) but when we visit my family this weekend I will be having a quiet word with my dear step mum and asking her not to do her '"naughty chair!!" THWACK' routine which she does automatically without thinking. Whatever other good reasons there are for doing this, for my ds it will undo all the good learning work he's just done on "no hitting".

nailpolish - well I laughed even if no one else did...

I did wonder about that when I read it back...