I lost it and hit my child. Please tell me I’m not alone/help me feel better

[alrightbab]

I am feeling terrible. Please don’t make me feel worse 😭

after being wound up something rotten by my eldest child (repeatedly, over many hours), I slapped his bottom. He cried. I cried. It was awful. Lots of hugs and apologising but of course I still feel dreadful. I am masssively sleep deprived with newborn and just lost it.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who has done this. I follow a load of gentle parenting people online and can’t help thinking about all those posts where people say that merely shouting at your child negatively impacts their brain development and I’ve done something so much worse.

if you’ve read this far and this also happened to you how did you manage to stop it happening again?

solidarity with anyone else feeling like the worst ever parent

Yes I did once, it was in lockdown and even worse as I hit him (3 year old) round the face. Immediately hugged and kissed and apologised, I think how you deal with it afterwards makes a huge difference. Never happened again. I'm sure most of us have done similar at some point, feels awful though but a terrible parent wouldn't care X

You need a strategy op so you can stay calm and not do it again. I found a couple of books good, how to talk so little kids will listen, and 123 magic.

Did it once. With my oldest, had a newborn too. He was 3 I think, and wouldn't stop tantrumming. In his hand. It left a mark. I had totally lost it.

I cried, apologised. Over and over. Couldn't have felt worse.

Never did it again.

He can't remember it at all now. I still being it up occasionally, just to apologise. He's midly bemused.

If you've never done it before nor will do again, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself.

If it happens again, it may be a sign you need more support tbh. Or some strategies for when you're on the edge.

It's not so much what you do first that matters, it's how you take responsibility for your contribution and repair your relationship that matters. Sounds like you have worked hard to repair things and take responsibility for your own feelings and actions so I think you're in the clear relationship wise.
The problem comes in your mind where you believe, "bad parents never get angry" or whatever. Then when you start to get angry your brain tries to blot out your"bad" side until your anger gets out of control and you explode and do something you regret.
Once you accept that anger is normal and it's sending you a message, you can start to accept that part of yourself and it can let you know it's message quietly!
Good luck

Oh don't feel bad you smacked his bum no big deal. This was a normal everyday thing Not long ago. In the 90's kids would get slapped in the playground by their mums and even teachers wouldn't bat an eyelid.

I vividly remember my mum apologising as she dropped me at school having hit me that morning. This was 40 years ago and I can still recall the feelings of confusion and hurt - the apology meant nothing.

How old is your child?

Stop with the self pity, you've struck someone defenceless who relies on you. You should feel bad for a time.

If a man hit his wife and then felt sorry for himself and said he was tired and she annoyed him for hours- how much sympathy should we have for him?

Focus on putting some strategies in place so it never happens again.

"Help me feel better"? Really? That's your primary concern?

You hit a three-year-old around the face and you don't think you're a terrible parent? Just because you care? That's not enough.

I disagree vehemently with smacking but in an extremely sleep deprived state I hit my child across the face. It happened just once and I still feel terrible about it. He was absolutely fine, subsequently, and is now a strapping adult without a care in the world. I was not a terrible parent. You shouldn’t judge.

I'm fine with judging a parent who slaps a three-year-old child across the face. And then comforts themselves that at least they care.

I'm sorry 💙

i Hope you’re very happy up there on the high moral ground, judging others from a place of utter superiority. You have no clue what it’s like walking in someone else’s shoes, yet you have the utter cheek of handing out judgements. Well it must be wonderful to be so bloody perfect. Well done you. 👏

@alrightbab you've done it now and you can't change that. You don't say how old your child is and how much they'll understand an apology.

That apology should not include any excuses or explanations because that's placing the blame back on them. 'I'm sorry but...' is not an apology.

Then you find a way to never do it again. Walk away, find some strategies to manage your emotions, get some extra support.

All these people saying that smacking doesn't harm children is wrong, it does.

Objecting to the minimisation of hitting a small child around the face is not claiming a moral high ground or perfection, @Groutyonehereagain. It's basic.

Hitting a three year old in the face is disgraceful.

Would you be ok with your husband hitting you in the face so long as they immediately hugged and kissed you afterwards? Or would that just be more fucked up behaviour?

'How you deal with it afterwards' is not a cure all. Hugs and kisses don't cut it, you need to look at why you lost control and how to never do that again.

Morally I find it worse than a man hitting his wife. At least the wife is an adult who can (theoretically, it's obviously not simple) remove themselves to safety. A child is completely and totally vulnerable, and programmed to love, trust and rely on you. Hitting them is abhorrent, and it's really sad to see people minimising it on here.

The double standard between an adult hitting another adult and hitting a child is shocking.

Someone starts a thread here and says their partner hit them and they would rightly be advised to end the relationship.

I was winding him up- still not ok.
They were really stressed out- still not ok.
It was a one-off because they were tired- still not ok.

So why is it ok to hit a child? Please can the 'it never did me any harm' brigade please explain the difference when it's a child being hit?

People arguing about not judging parents for hitting their children. In Scotland, all forms of physical punishment are illegal. www.mygov.scot/smacking-children

This is a serious line to have crossed and a time for anyone to realise they need help to ensure it doesn't reach this level again.
There are support services for parents and resources to help you cope and respond in a more appropriate way. It sounds as though you need a break.

How and why would anyone "help you to feel better"? You absolutely deserve to feel guilty for what is basically an assault. Sobbing apologies over your child will reinforce the upset and trauma he/she feels. Apologise, explain why hitting is unacceptable to your child and never, ever let it happen again.

I am a 77 year old grandmother. I have never hit my children, nor as far as I am aware have my offspring hit my grandchildren.

There is never any excuse. Sleep deprivation is normal when parenting babies, you know that. Tantrums in a toddler are normal - you know that. Parenting a child is an enormous responsibility - you know that.

Strategies should be thought through and put in place before these inevitable events - it isn’t rocket science.

it is never ever right to use violence on a vulnerable child, and yes you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

When my son was 3 and my second child was born. I was on my own with the kids for a few weeks as my husband had to go away. I completely lost it and smacked my 3 year old on the leg. I immediately knew I'd gone too far, apologised and never did it again. You will get posters basically telling you to self flaggelate in the town square but that's not going to solve anything.

Recognise what happened as the warning sign that it is and make sure it never happens again. How are people who are struggling supposed to reach out for support when they are faced with all this judgement? Op obviously knows that she has done wrong and it's clear that this was a blip in an anotherwise gentle approach to parenting.

Op something that I've learned is that when you even get to that very annoyed phase, it's because a boundary hasn't been enforced properly earlier on. Try looking up Janet lansbury...her approach takes a lot of the stress out of parenting small children in calm, respectful way. It's not gentle parenting as you know may know it: it's all about respectful boundaries and helps put parameters in place that protect YOUR mental health too.

You can start over and not let this define your relationship with your child. My son has no memory of what happened, I never smacked him again and we are very close.

You need to make sure it doesn't happen again op. Also the poster who smacked her three year old round the face - that's really bad - and you should feel shit about it. Jesus Christ

Forgot to add that after I smacked my son, I reached out to a respetful parenting Facebook group that was run by an expert in the particular model (RIE). The members of the community could not have been kinder or more sympathetic, and they certainly disagree with smacking! They recognised why I had lost it and showed me that it was crucial that I moved past it and focus on moving forward in the relationship with my son. Smacking my son was a low moment in my parenting, the lowest in fact.

I apologised, drew a line under it and never did it again, neither with him nor subsequent children.

I can’t speak for the pp, I’m certainly not perfect. But I manage to get through each day without assaulting children in anger. How low is your bar?

OP, you don’t need people to make you ‘feel better’ at this point. You need to find a way of making sure this never happens again.