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

I wouldn’t bother replying to that poster. No one that judgmental is worth it, they’re so far on the ground you can’t reach their level.

I got repeatedly hit as a child on the bum. I was a nightmare. But I turned out fine and no damaged

I’m sorry for your experiences, but no it’s not relevant to this thread. Your experience was sustained and long term, this OP’s actions are nothing like that.

Same..."you're going to get a beefin (smack) from your dad when you get home". God the waiting was horrible. Just a different era (80s) and parents did what was done to them as kids.

Didn't do us one iota of harm.

We laugh about it now with our bloody amazing dad.

OP I wouldn't beat yourself up about it. It's a different era now with smacking not so commonplace, but a momentary lapse will not affect your child. Its how you are to them 24/7, being supporting and caring, that's what they will be impacted by most.

The little person was out of control? I think you were. Or were you hitting her in a controlled way?

I've never hit my child. All you parents saying it's something everyone does, it isn't, it isn't okay and you should be bloody ashamed of yourselves.

This thread is sickening.

I didn’t suggest they were. As the thread had diversified into a more general discussion, I contributed. As I said earlier, there are several similar comments. Why single out mine?

Honestly children these days are spoilt beyond recognition. Most are raised in a nursery setting then straight onto school. Parents are too busy with their careers, second marriages, posing on Facebook out with their girl mates.
Smacking might be condemned these days but children are not more loved and cherished then they used to be 30 years ago.
Instead their lost and confused with no boundaries, many don't even know what flipping gender they are. Many don't have a mum at home half the time, no hot dinner on the table, past from pillar to post.
So you can all berate OP and other people who've smacked their children but before you do take a look at your own parenting and think to yourselves about whether you've all done your best . I may have been smacked but I had my mum there every day, I was never second to a career, a man, a friend. Her whole life was about me and I knew it and I felt loved and cherished unlike half the kids out there these days!!

I got smacked as a child. It didn't affect me.

It clearly did affect you because you, as a grown adult, are defending the concept of smacking a child.

You are defending hitting a defenceless child to assert dominance.

Are children today 'spoilt beyond recognition' or 'past (sic) from pillar to post'?

Given you say 'I had my mum there every day, I was never second to a career, a man, a friend. Her whole life was about me and I knew it and I felt loved and cherished unlike half the kids out there these days!!'

How are today's children spoilt beyond recognition? You seem rather confused. Are you on the ?

@Clymene

Spoilt because they are allowed to play up and do whatever they want because mum and dad are too busy on Facebook or hitting deadlines at work instead of focusing on raising their children to be respectful, loving, caring people.

Yet the generation you're talking about your parents raising are the generation you're berating - so were they really that great?

I don't condone hitting children - far from it! - but I think the occasional smacked leg is not a major crisis, and that the level of self-castigation going on here is out of proportion. If children learn the hard way that parents can sometimes run out of patience and become very cross indeed is nothing if not useful.

He was probably asking for it, he'll think twice about being like that again, won't he.

Just kidding.

But it was routine for those of us in our late 40s etc if we were naughty, and it didn't do us any harm.

So please try not to worry xx

All this over a smacked bottom.
Man to be a kid born today and live the easy life xD

Apologised? Why?
By all means feel horrible about it. That's natural. Saves us from wallowping our kids with impunity. But don't take it back. Now they know they can pull all that shit again whenever they want.

I agree, smacking is not ideal. But it's not the end of the world. In your situation situation dunno, I might have smacked them too. And yes I would have felt guilty. Wished I'd have thought of a different solution perhaps.

But now you've more incentive to look into other options.

It's a smacked bottom. S/he'll be fine.

Jumped to the end.

I'm 60.

I was spanked as a child, maybe 2-3 times. Over the knee, clothed, 6 or 8 whops. At the eldest, 8?

I learned boundaries. Theirs. Which were absolutely fair.

Oddly, my relationship with my parents didn't disintegrate.

I'm now a parent to 22/24 year olds. Both got a single whop across their nappied rears as nappy-aged wearers. When they'd so overstepped the mark they needed that reminder.

The 'eek eek eek!' About this amuses me.

@GoodChat maybe, but that's only because the government and the powers that be have manipulated mums to work by making life so unaffordable and have managed to convince people that life is about obtaining 'stuff' a house a fancy car etc and that equality is about women giving birth and then getting back to their careers so they can pay tax and pensions and be a supportive good little wife who foots half the bill a man used to foot.

@strongcupofTea
Honestly children these days are spoilt beyond recognition. Most are raised in a nursery setting then straight onto school. Parents are too busy with their careers, second marriages, posing on Facebook out with their girl mates

Strong cup of cliches might be a better name 😀

I wanted to.

"Help me feel better"??? You sound like you are the victim, you aren't so stop with the pitty party, stop reading shite online "gentle parenting" Christ, you hit what sounds like a very small child. I have no sympathy for you and hope you feel shite. My oldest 2 are only 18 months apart, I also had a 3rd, I'm very familiar with how being totally fried feels with very small children, BUT I've managed to avoid doing something stupid like hitting them. If this happens again you need to get up and take yourself away, out the room, stay there until you calm down. Also stop reading rubbish, it clearly doesn't work.

@strongcupofTea - you seem to be confusing spoilt with neglected which is what you're implying.

I work full time and am absolutely horrible as I've got a career and my poor neglected child was in nursery from 9 months.

But you know, no one's ever hit him.

I was hit with a stick when I was a child. And whacked by both parents on several occasions. That was the way it was back then and although I realise it wasn’t great, I can honestly say that my relationship with my parents is incredible and I adore them, so it certainly didn’t affect my feelings about them, nor did it traumatise me.

That said, it’s a different world now. However, you are only human and sometimes people lash out. You won’t have scarred your child for life or anything like that. Give them a cuddle, have a little cry to yourself, but please give yourself a break. Tomorrow is a new day x

@elenacampana, well good for you. Hope you feel better now 😐

As long as you've never smacked your child who cares right. I've worked in child care and I can bet my house that your child was hit by another child in nursery but you wouldn't have known about it because you were busy at work.

Well you're all throwing cliches for children who were smacked and how they're all damaged by it. Funny how there are so many comments proving you wrong.

But when so many people are telling OP it's absolutely fine she may carry on doing it. I think it's important for her to be told it's not fine and she mustn't do it again.