I smacked my 4 year old son and I hate myself. How can I make it up to him?

[DrWife1]

I have a beautiful 4 year old son and a 9 week old baby.

My son is lovely but can be a bit defiant at times, nothing major (not listening, running across roads, refusing to eat meals, throwing toys or clothes, refusing to get dressed). He shouts at us and hits us when he is told off.

This morning he had refused to eat breakfast despite us being very calm and nice. He threw his spoon across the room and ran away and screamed and shouted at us both for about 10 mins that he wanted his spoon back (it was lost from the throwing so I got him a new one). We both stayed calm and he eventually ate his breakfast.
Took 1hr for him to eat a tiny bowl of cereal. By this point he was going to be late for school.
We went upstairs to get dressed and I helped him shower really fast, I dried him and brushed his hair. I had laid out all his clothes so it was easy for him to put them on but he refused to get dressed. He was insisting that I dress him.
I calmly explained that he could do it himself as I had to sort baby and I would help him with the tricky bits. He threw all the clothes off the bed and refused.
The next 30 mins I tried to convince him to get dressed but he just cried and screamed and kept throwing the clothes about.
I put him in his room to calm down for 3 mins. When I came back he still refused and carried on throwing the clothes in my face. By this point it was 9am (school drop off is 8.40am).
I totally lost it and went to put him in his room again for time out, he tried to stop me closing the door so I grabbed hold off him by his arm and shouted " stay in your room and stop being naughty". He still tried to stop me closing the door so I smacked him on the leg.
I've never smacked him before. He looked shocked snd terrified.
I took myself out of the room to calm down. When I came back I hugged him and apologised. He said "why did you hit me mummy , you really hurt me". He immediately got dressed and was very subdued. All the way to school he was subdued and sad. I kept telling him i loved him and that i was sorry for hurting him.
I hate myself. I was smacked alll the time as a child and i swore i would never do it to mine.

Will he hate me or feel scared of me?
Right now i feel like i don't deserve children and I have failed as a mother.

There are worse things than smacking.

You’ll probably get absolutely hammered on here. But honestly, it was a one off. Just never do it again

I don’t condone smacking but I do think that what you describe sounds pretty major, sorry if that sounds like I’m being critical but I do think you need some strategies that work!

You haven’t failed. You have a difficult morning and you’ve done something you regret in face on repeated difficult situation. You apologise to your son. You telling him hitting is wrong, you shouldn’t have done it and you promise you won’t do it again. Then you seek advice from your HV and or his school on dealing with his behaviour.

Sounds horrendous OP. Smacking is not acceptable as you know but it sounds like you were the end of your tether. Apologise tonight when he’s home, explain you shouldn’t have done it and lay out expectations for morning.
He sounds like a toddler tantrumming not a 4 year old. I think you need to be a bit firmer. Not eating breakfast- fine take it away. Give a cereal bar on the walk to school if complaining of hunger. For goodness shake don’t shower in the morning! Have a bath or shower before bed. Being on time for school is non negotiable. Time outs when you are late won’t work. Do you have a DP who can help?

You haven't failed. You aren't a terrible mother. You are someone who is incredibly stressed and needing support.

I am completely against smacking, however I recognise you just lost control.

Act normal when you pick him up today.

I would suggest trying to make mornings easier.

1. You don't need to shower him in the morning. That's adding time and stress.
2. If he is dicking about with breakfast, don't force him. He won't do that forever after going to school hungry.
3. Won't get dressed? He goes to school in pjs and get dressed there. It's not the end of the world and he will only do that one once !

Go easy on yourself !

Could he be struggling with coming to terms with the new baby op?
Maybe spend some time with him 1 on 1 and make sure he knows he is still 'important'
It's so hard with 2

OK so not your finest hour but not the end of the world either. This one incident isn't going to damage your entire relationship. Kids can be nightmares sometimes and honestly I think I would have struggled to keep calm as well.

Sit down with him tonight before bed and have a chat about what happened. Apologise for hitting him and tell him you shouldn't have done it. Then have a chat about his behaviour and how you both move forward together.

How old is baby? Has his behaviour changed since baby arrived?

He will likely remember and feel bad about it but he will also understand when he’s older that you’re human. Both my parents smacked me, with my dad it was calculated, he would wait until my mam left and then hit me. My mam would hit me at the end of her tether and much less frequently. I forgive my mam, I will never forgive my dad.

You know it isn’t right, you want to change and you feel bad which shows you can be a good mum. Do you think he’s acting out due to the new baby? Would he eat anything easier for breakfast that you could take with you on the school run? Like a brioche, for more difficult mornings.
Can you make a star chart and make getting dressed fun. You need to find a way to ensure you never ever get to this point again. But you know that

Meh. He got a one-off smack, big deal. He's not going to remember it and he won't be traumatised forever.
He'll be fine OP. Move on

Having a small baby can make looking after older children very difficult. I'd just try to lower the standards you can and make things as easy as possible so you don't get anymore stressed than you have to in the morning.

Just apologise and vow never to do it again.

Make your life easier though, ditch the morning shower and just get him dressed, he's only 4 and it'll take two minutes instead of a drawn out drama. I got dts dressed well into y1.

The baby is still tiny his little world is still all out of whack.

Be kind to yourself, you have a four year old who and a little baby, its really hard work!!
Just say sorry to him, explain honestly why you did it in a clear way.

"You made mummy feel really cross because you wouldn't get ready for school and we have to get to school on time because it is the rules, and sometimes when people get really cross they hit, but it is not OK to hit and I am very sorry"

Have a cuddle and move on, you have taught him that we are all human, we make mistakes, we say sorry and forgive. That's a great lesson to lean!

Also, skip the shower, he is so little, there is no need to shower in the morning!

that incident needs to stay a one off.

I’m sure you have lots of strategies you use normally.

Some to try would be

Forget the shower in the morning? A bath in the evening surely better and can be fun.

At least ditch the upstairs downstairs thing in the morning. Dressed before downstairs and a T-shirt over to protect day clothes from breakfast.

Don’t fret about breakfast, honestly. Take a banana for the car on the way. Cold
Toast can also be eaten in the car or given to teacher for break time as an exception.

Natural consequences ie don’t eat, feel hungry till we can next eat, not don’t eat get a wound up mummy

Lower your expectations of him for a bit - what he could manage 10 weeks ago may have dropped back a bit due to new baby.

Honestly I wouldn’t tip toe around apologising either. I just wouldn’t smack again if it wasn’t the way I wanted to parent.

You snapped. It’s a one off. Provided you don’t do it again it’s lesson learned. I do think you need to destress your mornings by making it clear that if breakfast isn’t eaten in 30 mins it gets left.

Agree with PP - develop different strategies OP. For the school morning especially - At 4 years old children have no concept of time at all. So " "hurry, hurry we've got to be at school in 15 minutes". Repeating every 5 minutes Is unlikely to work. Believe me I've been there!
Can you draw up a plan for him - wake up / bathroom / dress /breakfast / shoes etc. And if he does them maybe a small reward like you will sing a song to him on the way to school. Or tell him a short story on the journey

Oh love. You haven't ruined your relationship, it'll be ok. Sometimes I think these things happen to jolt us into remembering the kind of parent we want to be. A newborn and a preschooler is tough, I've been there. Other people have posted good advice about strategies etc but I just wanted to say this.

Draw a line under it, apologise and move on. I bet he behaves badly sometimes, would you want him to dwell on it and feel he had to grovel forever or would you want him to apologise, explain that he knows it is wrong and then just try his hardest not to do it again? I bet it's the latter and that's perfectly acceptable for you to do as well. Everyone messes up. It's how we come back from it that matters. If you go over the top and start doing stuff out of guilt then you'll just make it into a huge deal, which it isn't. It's not great parenting but you know that and you can put other strategies into place to prevent yourself from getting to that point.

You have a newborn, you're probably exhausted.

He has a new baby sibling, that probably has a knock on effect on his behaviour, emotions, reactions etc.

Mornings (and four year olds!) are stressful at the best of times!

Do you have a partner? Help in the mornings would probably be the most effective strategy but if that is not possible then you might be able to think of something else.

I find that I tend to lash out and do/say something I don't want to when I feel something (like arriving to school on time) is slipping out of my control. Trying to remember that you can't control their behaviour, (only your reaction to it), and it's not your job to control their behaviour helps a lot. And think about being late - yes it's not great to be late, but it might feel worse to lose control? Try to keep that in mind if you're feeling that panic about being judged about being late.

Have you read the book How To Talk? There is a great app that goes with it too, which I have started to use and it helps me centre myself when they are being utterly infuriating/I feel myself losing control and it reminds me of the strategies that I want to use.

As the slow eating was a problem today it might work to change the routine so that he gets dressed first and eats later (choose non-messy breakfasts, like a bread roll rather than milky cereal if necessary) or just to have a cut off in mind for breakfast-eating to ensure that you still have plenty of time to get out the door in time.

As far as the smacking you know it wasn't good, so now you need to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.

It sounds like he is desperately trying to wrestle your attention back onto him and away from the baby. Not your fault at all, but there has been a big change in his life, which he doesn't know how to deal with.

I'd try not to engage with his attempts to get negative attention, and give him loads of positive attention, where you can. For example if he is slow eating, give him a set amount of time, warn him when he is running out of time, then take the food away. With the dressing, is there any way for now you can just help him. I'd imagine telling him you couldn't help him because you needed to sort the baby would be likely to be upsetting. Maybe accept a bit of a backwards step in his independence for now, while he adjusts to the new arrival.

Young children get jealous of new babies. He wants you to help him get dressed so he can have a bit of attention and care.
It would have taken all of 30 seconds to sit with him and encourage him to get dressed.

I know it's hard with a baby and another child but pick your battles.

You've apologised. Act normally when you've picked him up from school. If he mentions it, sit him down and explain you were wrong and that hitting isn't how you deal with frustration.

Come up with a plan with him about how you both behave when you're frustrated in future.
It might help him stopping hitting too.

It's so hard, you really, really need to give yourself a break.

I echo pps in that you are making this very hard for yourself.

Scrap shower, do up, dressed, play, even tv for ten minutes and easy non messy breakfast.

It's not clear but you say we, did you both sit trying to get him to eat for an hour? I would cut that right out. Eat together or just let him get on. He will be looking for extra attention and he certainly got it if both mum and dad sat for that time. I don't think mine even sat at Christmas dinner that long.

I wouldn't necessarily mention the smack again unless he does. You have apologised. Move on and have a happy evening. Try and not create it into something it isn't in his head.

Make sure he understands that it is not his fault (as kids naturally tend to interpret things that way). Explain that you made a mistake, lost control, that you're sorry, and will make sure it doesn't happen again. If he wants to talk about it, empathise with him finding it scary. You could talk about how sometimes things act out of character, like a friendly dog might bite if it was hurt or very scared.

Then be kind to yourself. It's great that you are trying to make changes, you don't need to beat yourself up. As a one-off this is very unlikely to do any long term harm, it is repeated patterns like this that could be harmful.

Work out how it got to that point, what stressors and triggers made you lose your temper (sounds like maybe you felt guilty or stressed about missing school drop off). Make changes so that you can feel confident of remaining calm.

It might be helpful to talk to a therapist about the impact your own childhood had on you, if you'd like to: it sounds like it you had a hard time in some ways.