I’ve smacked 4 year old and feel terrible

[Cantwait4summer94]

My son who is four is playing up a lot for me recently, he is absolutely brilliant for everyone else who looks after him but for me he is becoming more challenging.
he kept pushing his baby sister who is nearly 11 months and wouldn’t stop even when I asked. He then threw something heavy at my face and I’m sure I’m going to have a black eye tomorrow. I got up and slapped him but it wasn’t just once. he has since said ‘I’m so sorry mummy’ but my behaviour was out of order

God your replies are just painful now. Do you think every child that is smacked at any point should be removed from their parents? If not; why not?

Wow - you really are trying to ignore the facts aren’t you. It doesn’t matter if you think he has forgotten it, or if he’s ‘absolutely fine now’, or if you or others on this thread thinks hitting / slapping/ smacking ‘works’. You can hold all these beliefs but everyone agreeing with you needs to know hitting a child is an assault as it would be with an adult. It is illegal. Please accept this and then accept help, rather than laugh at people trying to point out the seriousness of what you have done.

Absolutely this and it's a million times worse when it's an adult hitting a small child. They are dependent on you entirely and can't remove themselves from the situation the way an adult can.

And just as an extra bit of info for those people saying ‘oh it’s only once, you were cross, he will be ok’ please read more about it. This is taken from the Welsh govt website.

It isn't illegal in England at the moment

And here is the link for reference.

www.gov.wales/ending-physical-punishment-children?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrNnN4d6e_QIVj5ftCh0EZQBFEAAYASAAEgKESfD_BwE

it underlines the seriousness of what people are trying to explain to the OP. Also, we don’t know which part of the UK she lives.

I’m not even sorry for saying this but there’s never an excuse for laying hands on a child

if your partner hit you out of anger, frustration or whatever then it would be labelled as abuse and rightly so. Hitting a child instead of an adult does not make it any less abusive

i think you should seek help and counselling as to why you chose aggression as your reaction.

and to those who can justify this - your poor kids. We NEVER have the right to lay our hands on a child just because we’re triggered by their behaviour.

''@Cantwait4summer94

Perpetrator of domestic violence 🤦‍♀️

I’ve heard it all now 🤣🤣''

Actually you have completely lost any kind of sympathy that people might have had of you with this type of post.

There is nothing remotely funny or to be snarky about in your story or on this thread.

People have expressed concerns about the fact that you lost your temper repeatedly hit your child.

I think those are completely understandable concerns to have.

People would have sympathy for you if you were truly mortified and realised and accepted that what you did was utterly wrong and that there is never any justification to repeatedly hit a child in this way.

Instead you have tried to minimise it throughout this thread and only agreed with people who said you have done nothing wrong and who are pretending that when you hit a child is it only ''smacking'' and somehow justified, although they know full well that if they did the same to an adult they would face a well deserved trip to the nearest police station.

I don’t want your sympathy.

I’ve had a lot of good advice on here which has been helpful and I’ve apologised. Why would I keep punishing myself over it instead of just moving on and never doing it again?

Just because some people don’t agree with smacking or want to parent their own child that way doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It also often works pretty well!

Did you tell his dad that you slapped him?

Yes

I dont think I agree that it works well, there are lots of reasons why its not thought to be useful or helpful to parenting

But what people are really struggling to understand here is what is considered abuse and assault and what isnt. Their own opinions are not valid when its very clearly set out in law and child protection thresholds

This incident would not be viewed as assault or abuse. The OP is not a DV perpetrator

Some parents use physical discipline as part of their strategies. The are entitled to do so (in England) as long as it falls under the categories of 'reasonable chastisment' and there are parameters for that. What OP did falls under that too.

Theres another thread running at the moment where a mum has found out that her own mothers partner hit her child round the head. That does not fall under reasonable chastisement and should be reported as an assault. This also is not the child's parent.

Easily the most balanced, sensible post on this whole thread, I completely agree.

It really really doesn't work. How does using violence teach a child not to be violent?

I’ve also reported your comment because you clearly like to bully people

I think you are getting a very hard time here, OP.

People make mistakes, including parents. This was a mistake. A big one. You reacted badly after being injured by your child and lost control. It isn't acceptable in the 21st century, and we have moved on from an age not so long ago where it was deemed appropriate. That said, as a one-off where no marks were left on your child and you apologised for your behaviour, your son will certainly not be scarred for life. I also don't think he will feel unsafe in your care, or that his mother doesn't love him.

You clearly are not a domestic abuser. You clearly love your children. You clearly feel guilt over losing control and hitting your son. You clearly don't want that to happen again.

I have been there. Not all parents have, but not all situations are the same. It's very easy to judge when you didn't get kicked until your nose bled, or got a black eye from something being lobbed at you.

I suggest you follow some previous posters' advice about parenting books. Also, Supernanny-style time out has been very effective for us.

Good luck and I hope tomorrow is a better day.

I have a 5 year old step son and if he goes to hit/throw something I ask can I have a go first (I don’t ever actually do it but the realisation that it would hurt if it was done to him is normally enough to get him to change his mind) To which he says no and then will change his mind about throwing it - I also have a 21 month old and a 5 month old.

Once when he was 4 he kept throwing things and himself at/on top of his brother when he was about 13 months - if I moved him to a different room older brother came running in and if I removed older brother he would get to the baby before I did. I flipped my shit like no tomorrow. We have him 50% of the time - I don’t ever shout and I shouted and cried because I was so mad at him I actually had to put myself in a timeout, put the baby in the cot and him in his bedroom while I calmed down. Determined to never flip my shit again - I haven’t, I think it’s been about 12-18 months since. We have a 3 times then time out. So I’ll say once and if he ignores I’ll go down to eye level and say so I’m going to ask you 2 more times. You get to decide if you want to listen. If you chose not to listen you will go in time out. So for example, if you ‘don’t push your sibling’ (I can’t remember if you said the gender) you can go and play, if you do push her you will go in time out. Then I’ll ignore him and leave him to do whatever, if he did it again I’ll say right this is the last time I’m telling you. If you do it again you, you are choosing that you want to go in time out.
I find that reminding him it’s his choice helps to deescalate. If it does so happen that he goes in time out in his bedroom after the 5 minutes once he’s calmed down we say next time should we do it on 1 so we don’t need time out. And then I’ll also ask why he chose to go in time out instead of play with his toys to which he says I don’t know - then again we say that next time we can do it straight away and then we don’t need to be sad etc etc. if it’s with the iPad I’ll ask - did I chose to make you not listen or did I ask you 3 times very nicely then he says sorry etc etc. - but don’t apologise for putting them in time out at any point as it justifies their behaviour and puts you in the wrong for putting them in time out essentially negating the whole thing.

This has only worked for my step son, we’ll see if it works for the other 2 once they’re older.

As for hitting your son, you’ve said sorry so move on and work to improve your response when you’re enraged. Apparently I was smacked on my bum by my dad when I was 3/4/5 and I had no idea until I was told about it, your son won’t be traumatised by it. I have issues displaying/feeling anger and almost always come across as very chill both instances where I’ve gotten angry that I can remember in the last 5 years are when my sons safety has been threatened - both times by my step son but he’s only a child and he just wants the primary attention so I don’t blame him for it - both times I just shouted which for me was horrible as I don’t shout I just raise it a little and take a tone to show I’m serious which normally gets listened to. But I felt very guilty after because I’d scared him so I cried about it after on both times - the method above has helped on very basic kid strops i.e. teeth brushing, iPad, tidying up etc.

My mum smacked me. Quite a few times growing up. My mum also loves me to bits and I love her too.
I’ll never play the victim when she has parented me and corrected me when I’ve done wrong like kids inevitably do to sometimes just to push your buttons.
I'm not violent and would never hurt a fly and I’ve been brought up well to understand what was correction and what is abuse. My mum was not abusive.
I would have been very upset and worse off if I was taken away from her because of this.
it’s very different to my dad who never smacked me but I’m not even close to him and I would sometimes question if he really loves me.
your child loves you and you clearly love your child that’s why you feel this way. , please focus on parenting them the right way and bringing them up to be decent. I’m sure you’ll be both fine as you continue to parent your child with love.

I should also add that I’ve got kids and do not smack them because I’ve found other ways to parent them that works. luckily my button has not been pushed so far yet.

I remember growing up, a friend of mine would rather his parents smacked him when he messed up, he found being spoken to/ talked through about what he did wrong really harrowing. 😀

This is a very hard one and something I worry about a lot. I was actually planning to make a post about it. Maybe I still will. I have always promised myself that if dh ever hit one of our kids our marriage would be over and I'd be pushing for supervised access only.

You don't hit children. Ever. My job as a mum is to protect my children and to keep them safe from physical harm at the least. Those are my principles.

But then reality isn't always that neat, is it and who are those principles really benefitting? Is it really in the best interest of my children to break up the family and put them through all the chaos and heart break that causes, to lose their father (who is at all other times a good, kind and very dedicated father just as I assume the op probably is) because of a one-off mistake just so I can say I was true to my principles? And getting even more realistic he probably would not lose access bexsuse of a one off slap so they would still have to see him anyway just that I wouldn't even be around to protect them?

And what if it was me who lost my temper? If I was in OP's position. I have never hit my children or even wanted to but you never know what you will do when you are truly pushed. You can never say never. Would it be in the best interest of my children to take myself out of the picture? I am pretty sure it wouldn't be.

Op, this is the position you find yourself in and the problem is honestly, now that it has happened, there really is no good and fair solution. Neither to you, nor to your family and definitely not your childen. You have to understand the gravity of what you have done. And you have to understand that this must never ever happen again. Stop rmakinf excuses for it. Don't have a cup of tea and tell yourself you were pushed to the limit. Do not feel sorry for yourself. I can see you are already rationalising what you have done saying he is never good for you and saying that now he is already again laughing and playing (and so the slap didn't affect him at all). You have to understand that this situation must not happen again.

I can only suggest you do what everyone else has suggested, ie take a good hard look at yourself and make sure that you have got coping mechanisms in place that will mean this will never ever happen again. I like the idea that someone suggested of having at least ten strategies to fall back on to calm yourself. And apologise to your child. And promise him this will never ever happen again. You owe him that. You are his mum. Your job is to keep him safe.

If it was my family, op, I'd leave you. Maybe I shouldn't fool myself that it's for the kids but I just couldn't live with someone who physically assaulted my child.

Having said all that I do wish you and your family the best and I feel very sorry that you are in this position.

Op, guilt serves a very specific purpose, which is to stop harmful behaviour. Don't let go of your guilt too easily. Do think of constructive ways to not let this happen again but don't be too quick to forgive yourself and chalk this up as a one off mistake. It's very easy to think you will never do this again but remember that you did wrong. Your guilt is there to protect your child.