Smacking 'does no harm if a child feels loved': do you agree?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

We're wondering how you feel about new research that suggests smacking does children no harm as long as they know it is for the right reasons and feel loved.

The publication of this study - which focused on teenagers, it must be said - is causing quite a stir, with, according to the Telegraph, 'parenting groups and charities [reacting] angrily to the findings, [and] maintaining that a child can suffer long term damage from physical discipline'.

In Britain, parents are not banned from smacking their children but it is illegal to inflict injuries causing more than a temporary reddening of the skin.

So, do you agree that smacking is fine, as long as it's tempered with a backdrop of love and affection? Or do you think that smacking is never the answer? Please do tell.

I changed my poo smearer standing up instead. Badge please!

Badge of RESPECT there, Chompie

How old was the child who was smacked on the changing mat?

"I was hit as a child and I can tell you that it did NOT make me feel loved. It made me afraid. Angry. Helpless. And I am 39 years old and I still flinch if someone makes a sudden movement."

Me too (and similar age). I wonder if that feeling will always be there, I suspect so. I remember saying, protesting, as I grew older, "you have no right to hit me".

It is the same garlic. I just don't see how rattling on about how your parents smacking you made you x/y/z/(insert destructive behaviour which you deny personal responsibility for here ) really makes a point other than that person refusing to grow up. If you were hit, that is in the past. If you hate, that is now.

Being hateful used to be regarded as sinful but now we are all supposed to feel sorry for that person for hating as though it were an inevitability. It is a choice not a consequence. Saying you hate your parents because they smacked or that you are irretrievably damaged because of it is pretty much as awful as believing smacking is good imo. Hate is every bit as confining and compromising as violence, as is assuming any person's faults are directly caused by the actions of another. That is true even if you are talking about abuse but it is absolutely ludicrous and against much of what is known of lifespan development to suggest that having had x experience in childhood will inevitably lead to y. It just isn't so. We have millions of experiences in real terms every day. Life isn't a novel with defining moments that predict the ending. The story you tell yourself about your experience is only ever partially true as memory is fallible.

Where in all of this it makes sense to make out that any parent who has ever slapped a child is x and their relationship with their child is therefore y and this means z is beyond me. There is such a broad range of human learning and experience in life. If a three year old getting a slap for having nearly killed his baby brother leads to longstanding relationship and personality issues well then we are all doomed I think because technically any loss of rationality on a parent's part is then capable of writing the future irregardless of other factors. Powerful stuff this. Takes away free will. The possibility of redemption. I might as well give up now, he is doomed because of one snap decision made by his mother at three. I might as well have beaten him to a pulp as that one transgression has taught him all sorts and ruined him for life. If that's the case then the fact I have had psychiatric treatment and have a psych diagnosis as well surely means there is no future for him. I mean if a slap has that power, the PND I suffered is surely worse. Why even bother getting treated? It's all over now because I have crossed x line and that tells the whole story.

Do people really think in such absolutist terms? Pretty rigid. Pretty unhealthy.

How many parents have encountered the poo situation without smacking? I for one. Its stressful but there are alternative ways.

Working you are talking about one offs. Not people who use smacking as a form of discipline. One offs are regretful. Repeats are ignorance.

How many people on this thread are talking about currently using smacking for discipline though? All I see are people saying 'well no matter what, I would NEVER because it is abuse and I could never do.that because I am a better parent than you and your children are fucked because of having you as a mother

IMHO

Smacking rarely works as a deterrent,if it did why would you ever have to do it again.

Anything physical that's a crime against an adult should also be if done to a child.

When you raise your hand to anybody you are showing a lack of ability to deal with the matter decently.

Most regular smackers will at one time have their child either laugh at them or say/think hmm is that the best you can do.

It does damage most people,some directly or emotionally others by just teaching them than violence is the answer.

Yes there are better ways and yes I believe if a parent continues to use smacking...it is highly likely to affect their children in a detrimental way.

I completely fail to see how smacking a child achieves any positive outcome whatsoever. If my children were, for example, throwing spoons at walls, I wouldn't want them to stop because they had been conditioned to expect a slap - it's just a deterrent and completely passes by any opportunity for learning & development. I would want them to understand, through more constructive discipline, that the behaviour is wrong, and why. (Or just not to misbehave at all.. :D ). I was hit regularly until I left home - and I was utterly terrified of my parents. In fact, I am still scared witless of my mother despite spending my working life in boardrooms grilling and being grilled by execs in frankly unacceptable pinstripe.
Parents might not be banned from smacking their children pre-non temporary reddening, but I believe that it is the emotional, rather than physical, damage that needs to be considered when a child is hit in this way.

I'd still come back to the fact we, as a massively intelligent life form, don't need to revert to violence to educate our off spring.

We are not cats and dogs or cows. We are comparatively blessed to work stuff out. And hitting our little ones betrays our evolution.

Interesting. Believe me I've tried everything. Mostly calmness and distraction works, so giving him a toy or book to look at may ensure he stays still. Plus reinforcing and praising good behaviour. But mostly DS doesn't like to lie still for too long (more than 2 seconds) and so wants to get off the mat and do something else. When he is prevented from doing son he gets into a rage and just flails and kicks and struggles. No amount of calming talk will work as all he wants to do is just get up and run around.

I think context can be useful here.
I live in America, where it's okay to hit your child with an object. Some people who advocate smacking (called 'spanking') as a form of discipline also often hit their children with wooden spoons, 'switches' (bendy sticks), belts and things like that. Some beat their disabled children with belts. Some who follow an extreme method from a book called "To Train Up A Child" have beaten children to death.

Most people think it's entirely unacceptable, but the religious right nutbags a minority of people insist that they have the right to discipline and chastise their children as they see fit, and the government interferring is no less than tyrrany. So although the people beating their children with electric cables until they cry/die are thankfully rare, society as a whole protects their right to do that.

(trivia sidenote: it's why the USA hasn't ratified the UN convention of the rights of the child. Because they want to preserve the legality of parents hitting their children with objects in America.)

People did that in the UK until a few generations ago - or even our parents generation. But it's not legal to do it in the UK any more, and it was definitely out of fashion in the 80s, say, to hit your child with a stick or belt, or certainly to admit to it.

Our parents smacked, but most would admit now that it's not ideal parenting. Some of our generation of parenting smack, but few of us admit to it or defend it.

Most people think smacking is unacceptable.

I think the way it's going, in the UK, it will soon be almost everyone who thinks it's unacceptable.

I think this is a cultural shift, and it's a good thing.

Working, I appreciate the time you've put into your reply. What you have been saying betrays more about you than you perhaps realised. I pretty much understand your points but you're so far away from understanding mine that we'd need a long and complex discussion to even reach first base.
I'm taking the liberty of feeding a few of your remarks back to you:
"The story you tell yourself about your experience is only ever partially true as memory is fallible." - This is heart-rendingly true. The 'story' is more commonly one about a happy childhood, concealing a painful reality, than the reverse.
"I just don't see how rattling on about how your parents smacking you ... makes a point other than that person refusing to grow up." - Everybody grows up, becoming the adult their childhood taught them to be. The adult who recognises dysfunction in herself, acknowledges its source and embarks on a programme of change is courageous, not weak or immature.
"Technically any loss of rationality on a parent's part is then capable of writing the future irregardless of other factors. Powerful stuff this." - Technically, yes, it is capable of such. In some cases it does. Yes, it is powerful stuff.

Anyway, maybe we'll meet on another thread one day, where such matters are the topic. Have a nice weekend :)

I tried it once, as I was exasperated with dd1.

She responded by saying "Don't smack me, that's my bottom!" And she was right, I never did it again.

So although the people beating their children with electric cables until they cry/die are thankfully rare, society as a whole protects their right to do that.

Not true. I agree that sadly there is greater acceptance for physical punishment in the US than in the UK, but every state has laws that define child abuse, and in the vast majority of cases, beating children with electric cables would be against the law; certainly killing them would be.

Well said, blackcurrants. Can't read those religious websites on how to "lovingly" paddle a child. Think they should be illegal, they get almost lascivious at some points.

Love your DD, Typos! You taught that girl wise values!

I agree that the attitudes of many in the US religious right regarding physical punishment of children is deeply objectionable on many levels.

Sorry, "are" deeply objectionable.

It progressively became more unacceptable for parents to smack children so say from the mid 90s most children weren't smacked ...
So these children will between 13-18 now..so are our current teenagers - they obviously must be more respectful, polite and much less violent than previous generations and the situation must have been improving for last 10 years or so ...
So is that the case?
Not sure about society as a whole but IME behaviour in schools has got much worse...

(DD1s secondary - a good school, not a deprived area - majority of children from 'nice' backgrounds - I am shocked about what I get told about happens in class - and these are first years. I know we would never have got away with swearing at a teacher etc - I went to secondary school with children from very mixed backgrounds (about 50:50 deprived and posher areas and left in early 80s before corporal punishment was banned in school)
Not saying bring back the cane or even smacking is right but am questioning whether it causes children to be more aggressive...

I get nervous about harking back to the good old days when young people were respectful, to be honest. Firstly because people have been complaining about the terrible behaviour of 'those young people' since the Roman Empire. (And there's evidence!)

In the good old days of, say, the 50s... there was more violent crime, it was legal to rape your wife, domestic violence was 'a private affair' and child abuse was rarely reported or punished.

But hey, as long as young people knew their place, eh?

I repeat -are these children (who we can assume have been smacked less ) - less aggressive now than 10 years ago? Is there any research either way? Are they more respectful?
None of the other points are relevant - it is nothing to do with the fact these are 'young people' - it is the timescale - these are the 'guinea pigs' - these are the ones that HAVE experienced less violence/corporal punishment than ever before...so in theory should be less violent and aggressive ...
(If attitudes had changed earlier we could be talking about 30 yr olds...or even 60 yr olds )
Unless DD is making it up - and I am pretty sure she isn't - the way the children in some of her classes behave horrifies me -
At my school the rest of my form were from the most deprived area - mainly in the lower sets but in lessons I was in the upper sets so mixed with (in general) the ones from 'better' areas' - and quite honestly I never saw anything like the level of disobedience from either background that apparently happens at DD1s school.
Maybe this is caused by some other factor ...

I do not in essence disagree with s asking children and have smoked my own, however what concerns me is publishing research suggesting smacking does not harm children. I'm uneasy that this kind of research could be used to justify some forms of physical abuse and professionals forming uncertain judgements about the physically punitive measures used by so e parents that may be damaging.

I know that is contradictory but it just worries me that many forms of sustained abuse can be dressed down as simply snaking in many cases.

Grr typos, humours as they are, smacking and not smoking my own children