I did something awful this morning - I smacked my DS on his hand

[notcopinggreat]

Several times as well, and feel disgusted with myself.

He is 8, and both my sons had been awake and messing about since 5.30am this morning. Asked DS1 to go back to bed & he refused, then started back chatting & being rude. I got so angry that I really shouted, to the point my throat hurt. DS1 just grinned and mimicked me, by which point I lost it and slapped his hand.

I feel terrible now. I never hit my boys normally, but am feeling so over stressed & tired just recently.

I live on my own with the boys, and I've had lots of testing behaviour from DS1 especially. I know I was wrong in the way I reacted this morning, but I am not sure I am coping well.

DS1 seems fine now, but I feel so awful.

say "Sorry I shouldn't have smacked you, I did that because I lost control"

make-up

then tell him something about how bad he makes you feel when he is so rude and cheeky

make each other promises that you'll try to do better

(smacking his hand is not the end of the world, he was being incredibly rude and IMO he probably deserved it)

I don't mean 'make-up' as in apply make-up .. I meant make up with him

Agree with Twiglett.

Then, forgive yourself, learn from it then forget about it.

I know, Twiglett! I did apologise for smacking his hand. I said "Mummy is sorry she smacked you - I would never normally do that, but you did make me very cross when you were rude"
I told him that I didn't like getting cross like that & was sure he didn't like me being that cross, and that it wouldn't have happened if he had not been so rude. I also explained how very tired I was. Doesn't stop me feeling terrible though.

But you feel terrible because you're a good mother who recognises that what you did wasn't right. So... chin up!

well you've done everything you should IMO

tbh I wouldn't feel bad or guilty

your issue is your own personal feeling of guilt which I think is misplaced, you didn't knock him around, you slapped his hand (my father used to slap my hands, we had to hold them out for him ... my mother on the other hand used to lose it and steamroller us ie come at is with hands slapping as you backed away ... I don't have any terrible childhood memories, I don't feel I was abused)

I don't have that big a problem with an occasional smack , I honestly don't and I think I'd have probably lost it if my 7 year old had done anything like that

how is he reacting now?

Well put MmeC.

I doubt you did any long term damage.

Is the getting up early a common thing? If so, maybe think about tomorrow/other mornigns.

Maybe tell him you won't smack his hand again, but you will do x if he's leaping around at the crack of dawn.

Thank you both. I was prepared to be flamed on here, which is one of the reasons I have changed my name. I try to never reach the point I did this morning, but I just saw red & lost it. I knew I was wrong, I knew I had lost control, but couldn't stop myself.

He seems fine now - infact he seemed fine around half an hour later. I am probably suffering far more than he is!

The waking early thing is more to do with my younger son (he has just turned 5), but as they ahare a room, once he is awake (he is very loud when he wakes up) they are both awake! Not sure what to do about it tbh, as I don't have a spare room, and DS2 doesn't yet have much knowledge of what time it is!

notcoping, you are human. You had a human reaction to stress, but you still managed to control it enough to smack him on the hand rather than belt him around the head. You have apologised. I think you have done evrything you can do in this situation and shouldn't beat yourself up about it.

Dh smacked our dd (20 months) on the arm because she had his finger in a vice like grip of her teeth at the time (drawing blood) and it was a stress reaction. He was mortified and apologised to her and me. IMO, its not parents like you and him that we should be really worried about (unless it is happening regularly), it is the ones who do it without a second thought.

I hope things get better for you soon.

I do not hit my children either, but have smacked ds (4.10) twice and dd (3) once when it all got too much, was very ashamed afterwards. I am impressed that you are on your own with them and have got to 8 years without it ever getting too much. You sound like you are coping very well despite what you say so don't feel bad.

Don't worry - it happens. The fact that you are upset by it proves that you are a good Mum.

notcoping - you should give yourself a break. It is not the end of the world and you have apologised. It sounds like you are in a difficult situation. Rather than giving yourself a hard time over one incident it might help to look at what you can do to make things easier for yourself. I know i don't cope well at all when my sleep is interrupted and I'm not on my own!

At 5 your younger DS should be old enough to understand that it's not ok to wake everyone else up when he gets up. Try explaining to him that if you and DS1 are still sleeping he needs to be quiet. If going back to bed absolutely isn't an option is there another room he can go to to look at a picture book or even put on the telly (quietly!) until you get up? For me waking everyone up at 5:30 would even be worth a punishment -ie if you can't stay in bed or play quietly in the mornings then no telly for the rest of the day. Sleep is precious especially if you're coping on your own.

As for DS1 - is there any way you can enlist his help so to speak? Tell him it's hard for you on your own and as he's a big boy you're really counting on him to help you out by cooperating etc. Make it worth his while - if he acts more grown up you will treat him more grown - ie let him stay up 1/2 hour later than DS2 or something.

Thank you all for your supportive messages. I was expecting a real grilling after starting this thread, but felt so bad & needed to get it all out.

I have only been on my own with the boys for 10 months. We live in a 2 bedroom house, so the boys have to share a bedroom. Up until the separation, the boys had always had their own room, so it took a lot of getting used to.

I was letting DS2 go downstairs & watch TV when he woke early, but he only did this quietly for so long. I tried this on Sunday & got up to crushed Easter egg all over the carpet!

Their dad says that he doesn't allow DS2 to get up before 7am, so I started trying this, but with no success. He is a very noisy child.

I feel totally exhausted, so may try to grab an hours sleep before school pick up time.