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 liked to believe smacking did me no harm, but when I think back to my childhood my brothers and I used to have vicious arguments ripping the hair off each other and hitting each other with the sweeping brush or wooden spoons. But I know it was the norm in those days.

My children have never been smacked, and their only arguments are verbal and name calling - they might nudge each other but that's as bad as it gets!

Discipline can be painful - in many ways for varying goals, throughout life. My aims in disciplining my children has been to train them towards responsible,respectful adulthood, & consideration for others whilst showing them tough love at times. The last swift, single spank on my child's leg more than 2yrs ago, meant I haven't heard a swear word directed towards their sibling since.
Is my child damaged? No
Learnt how to behave better? Undoubtably

my ds1 spent this morning smacking and hitting his brother at every opportunity. He is 7. I have tried talking to him telling him off and telling him its totally unacceptable removing him from the room everything. So its simplistic to say children that aren't smacked don't get aggressive. I even said I don't hit you so why do you hit your brother and he replied wouldn't even hurt so hit me then I don't care! !

Working, I can't put my finger on exactly why your posts arouse such indignant offence in me - I don't want to keep reading them so am not going to bother trying again.

Your air of superiority, coupled with your belittlement of others' life experiences, is repugnant especially since you base your arguments on vague, self-contradictory logic. I don't believe you pursue mindfulness in your life because mindfulness is always taught with compassion. This is a quality you demonstrably lack.

You appear to have read the outside back cover of a schema therapy handbook, flipped through a Femail self-help article and decided that made you an expert on psychology, not to mention intrinsically more worthwhile than everybody else.

To clarify, your opinions on corporal punishment are utterly without value. You can't even differentiate the amount of physical violence you deem "harmless smacking" from that you call "abuse" or "excessive". Your concept of the potential psychological damage to be caused by either of these levels (or is it three) is feebly understood yet you, dangerously and erroneously, insist such damage may be "dismissed" by the sufferer.

In all, you write very much like an habitually abused, now abusing, apologist for violence against children. Your attitude is offensive.

Where is there a lack of compassion?
Do you think it's "compassionate" of a mental health professional to tell Sir BoobaLot that she is psychologically incapable of overcoming her past? How is anyone supposed to live with that sort of sentence placed on them?

I don't think I'm more worthwhile. I feel NO superiority. I am talking about an idea here - an idea that people don't have to be perfect, an idea that your past doesn't have to define you, an idea that there is always room for the present to have hope.

I can't understand why anyone would find it more offensive to be told there is always hope and that you shouldn't believe anyone who writes you off than it is to be told you are damaged beyond belief. Honestly, why is that a better way to think?

What I said in my post to Sir Boobalot was said with warmth and compassion. Perhaps I am not a good writer, that's fair enough. It's part of my OCD to write in a sort of pernickety way and I am trying to work on it but sometimes I am better at it and sometimes I am not. I am sorry if what I said seemed offensive. I meant it in a spirit of PLEASE don't believe people who tell you that you have to be ill forever because of your past.

That to me is a message of hope, compassion and peace. The prevailing message in some psychiatric circles that you are buggered as soon as you have experienced severe distress seems absolutely damnable to me. It is writing people off, playing God etc.

I never said smacking was harmless, I said I don't agree with it, I said I don't like it... I'm just ALSO saying that believing that smacking causes mental illness when you can't undo being smacked condemns you to mental ill health forever more and is a profoundly hopeless position to take as an adult. What's uncompassionate about asking someone to consider if that is helpful for them? Why would it be more compassionate to say "oh yes, sorry, you are write, some people are absolutely damned by their past forever more".

I actually don't believe anyone regardless of experience is damned by their pain but I do find it harder to reconcile how people overcome severe sustained abuse having seen my father go through it.. but yet I know that people survived the Holocaust and Victor Frankl wrote of finding humanity in even that situation.

I am a bit shocked you decided I am "an abuser" though!

believing that smacking causes mental illness when you can't undo being smacked condemns you to mental ill health forever more

No, you are completely wrong and have hopelessly misunderstood the purpose of psychotherapy. You can't undo being hit, but you can attempt to repair the damage and fill the holes left by your inadequate upbringing.

I am sorry if what I said seemed offensive.
Accepted.

The other thing to note is I don't belittle anyone's experience but I have come to think that the story anyone tells about their life is who they are... so in saying to Sir Boobalot "don't believe that story", I am saying "you are whole and fine the way you are and you suffer hugely, but you are not broken/damaged/irreparable because of your feelings".

It is hard to communicate this in written language because you can't say it in a warm tone, or at least I don't know how to.

I think of Walt Whitman: we all contain multitudes. Taking a position that anything means that the past can never ever be something that doesn't cause profound current pain is one that causes an awful lot of suffering and ongoing pain for people and it has for me in my time. If I had one wish it would be that people wouldn't get trapped in stories that cause them ongoing pain.

I apologise if I am not getting that across.

"No, you are completely wrong and have hopelessly misunderstood the purpose of psychotherapy. You can't undo being hit, but you can attempt to repair the damage and fill the holes left by your inadequate upbringing."

I haven't hopelessly misunderstood the purpose of psychotherapy.
I was talking about a situation in which a poster said that she had been told she was psychologically incapable of dismissing the past. That is a profoundly damaging position to be led into.

I suppose I just don't buy that you can fill those holes. I think those holes/experiences/hurts will always be there, but you don't have to let them define your current experience. That's mindfulness, in essence. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy which is a form of psychotherapy, the idea is that we have made these associations and they will come up from time to time but they do not have to result in what we experience as and call mental illness.

So you can have distressing thoughts/images/memories but you can find a distance from them and continue to live a whole and valued life, one in which you accept that what was, was and that what is, is. Not in a way that means you accept it passively e.g. it was okay/I deserved it/it's nothing to worry about, you just accept that it was painful and that is your experience of it and you notice it, realising that the YOU who notices it, your true self in a way, doesn't feel the pain now. You make contact with the present moment. You stay grounded. You move on.

And if you make a mistake or you have a shit day or even in my case, you make one horrible mistake and smack your toddler on the bum because they floored their ten month old brother potentially killing them, you realise your deviation from your values and you gently and without harshness or destructive self-critical thinking return to what you were doing.

Am I finding all this easy? Am I heck.. but I had years of old school psychotherapy raking over the pains of the past and it only ever made me feel worse. This stuff actually gives me hope and space to breathe again.

Aaaargh.. "but I have come to think that the story anyone tells about their life is who they are" should read "but I have come to think that the story anyone tells about their life is NOT who they are"

I appreciate that you are trying to get something decent across, Working. I agree that you aren't expressing it well. I'm surprised you don't see how rude you were to SirBoob.

I am saying "you are whole and fine the way you are and you suffer hugely, but you are not broken/damaged/irreparable because of your feelings".

I am not whole and fine, Working! I used to think I was. It was more than a shock to find out the truth. People who are "whole and fine" do not live the way I have lived, make choices like mine or share the values I thought normal. These are facts, not stories or whining.

Broken or damaged do not mean irreparable. What a strange idea!

The above is more about psychology & recovery than the thread topic, so I'd better add that - while my beliefs & values were afflicted by an abusive background - children who are smacked will grow up with a place in their hearts & minds for bullying. (Bullying is the exertion of superior size, strength or power to gain compliance.) It's unavoidable. The extent to which it affects them will depend on a number of things, but I'd prefer children to grow up having zero acceptance for it.

That's fair enough.

I guess it is impossible to convey here. I have reread my post to Sir Boob and I don't see the rudeness, I'm afraid. I see me saying that anyone who tells you that you are psychologically incapable of dismissing the past should be strung up.... that is a comment on the stories that SirBoob was told about her pain, not about SirBoob. I distanced "smacking" from abuse in a clumsy way, I can see... but where is the rudeness in saying that maybe a whole hearted belief that an experience in the past was directly causative of mental illness that is severe is part of the ongoing pain? It is "rude" if you believe that we shouldn't speak openly about these things, that the purpose of discussion about these things is to just nod and express no opinion about mental health because it is mental health. I expressed a different opinion of how experience works in psychology - that is not a statement about Sir Boobalot, but about the ways we talk about psychological distress - ways I believe trap people in endless cycles of illness and suffering a lot of the time.

"People who are "whole and fine" do not live the way I have lived, make choices like mine or share the values I thought normal. These are facts, not stories or whining."

Who decides this though? What is the "fact", here? I am asking you seriously. I understand that if you write that, you have most likely lived through some very painful, perhaps self- or even other-destructive experiences and at times the way you have thought and/or acted has differed from what is verbally defined as "the norm" in our society.

Yet 1 in 3 people will at sometime meet the criteria for a psychiatric disorder. 1 in 2 will think seriously at some point in their life about

ending their own life, maybe even making plans. There have been points in history where whole societies have done the most unspeakable awful things that they and everyone around them believed to be "right" and "normal". "Normal" is a strange concept. People do terrible things, wonderful things - sometimes within the same day. If someone who suffers/experiences pain/does stupid things is not "whole and fine" at their core, who is? Where are all these people who never suffer, never feel rage or bitterness or anger and never lash out or hurt or do things they are deeply ashamed of?

The "you" that I am talking about in the sentences I use is the person who is there beyond that life story, the essence of a person - once we would have called it soul, I have had it described as the core of someone. That abides regardless of experiences, negative or positive and is recognised in the new psychologies. That "you" is whole and fine and it can be accessed. That "you" is not defined by a past, only the thinking mind can define a self by things that are not currently present.

I don't know if that makes sense... but if we are going to link back to the topic, if you believe that the fact you were smacked/abused/hurt/suffered/experienced serious pain means that you are not whole and fine, that is a thought, a story or a belief that can be damaging and can bring fresh pain into each day. That is what I think people can learn to walk away from. This does not mean living without pain, memory or suffering. It just means you can learn a bit of distance from identifying with that pain,memory or suffering in a way that brings pain into your current life.

I also think that when people come onto threads like these saying "I am better than that", "I would never", "I could never be pushed to act like x or y or z" they are buying into this idea that people who do are less than. I've been called an abuser, an apologist for violence, someone who has crossed a line that no normal person would that will damage my poor three year old forever, rude, superior.. all sorts.. because I have a different opinion on what is meant by the "harm" of smacking and how it might manifest in adult life than is the current social norm. I'm not telling anyone they are rude for expressing their opinion though, because I probably would have been frothing at the bit if I read this five years ago. In fact, I vividly remember ranting hugely about a CBT therapist who told me the solution to a particular situation was to either accept something or leave it because I thought that was insensitive. Now I sort of get what she meant.

I just spent a fantastic day out with my three DC all playing and interacting nicely for the first time in six years!

Three months ago I calmly explained to middle DC I was going to smack every time he hurt someone physically or verbally so he could understand what being hurt felt like.

Nothing else seemed to work, not bribery, forfeits or isolation.

I did it privately and explained why and apologised each time.
I hate doing it but I hate the misery of my other DC more.

First day it was a lot by the third day it was once a day now it is once a week or less.

No more missed treats, time outs etc.
We can enjoy meals together.
Other children will now play with him.
He is so much happier now.
Punishment is over and done with quickly and I do not feel bad about constantly repremanding and taking things away to no avail.

He is still cheeky and does not listen but is no longer cruel.
I wish I did it 5 years ago.

I rarely smacked my children and DC1 and DC3 can count on one hand the times.
But our lives were becoming a misery due to the abuse dealt out by DC2.

Children are individuals and not all respond to time out or losing treats or toys like my other two do.

smacking teenagers - you must stop doing that once they are too tall for you to reach them!

Omg apologising and then doing it again kind of negates te whole meaning of sorry. That just sounds sinister

I dont agree with it, how can you smack your child and expect them to understand that they are not too do it!
I was smacked as a child i remember feeling sick to the stomach when my mum said 'i'll tell your dad when he gets home'

I'd agree that smacking isn't psychologically harmful in isolation

I agree with noddyholder.

"I did it privately and explained why and apologised each time" - I find that chilling. What value does your apology have? He's going to twig pretty soon that saying sorry in your family means nothing.

And you hit him to make him see what it feels like? Even when he's not actually hitting someone else, but just verbally "hurting" them? How is that supposed to help him stop his behaviour? You may have a short-term success with your tactics, but it won't last. You say he still doesn't listen and is "cheeky", so it isn't teaching him anything.

At the very least, you're telling him you don't want to hit him, but he is making you do it. What a lesson for life that is.

Are you saying your boy is 6 now? I'd be expecting a lot more from my child than "cheek and not listening" - from 2 or so, he needs to learn that there are other people in the world, that hurting others is not on and that his parents are to be respected. Why on earth is he hitting other children at his age?

Children should not be smacked. It should be made illegal. Children should be able to live in a home free of an atmosphere of threat of violence and fear.

The environment has nothing to do with the smacks - a child in a loving home or a cruel one still should not be smacked by an adult who thnks that phyiscal violence is an acceptable option for parenting their child.

I know people who smack. Their children smack as well, and see hitting others as an option. Their parents still smack, even though they say themselves it doesn't work. Their child still misbehaves, or is sobbing, so the offending behaviour stops.

The real root of the the behaviour problem is still nt addressed and an opportunity for teaching a child that hitting is not socially acceptable is missed.

The excuse when slapping and hitting their dc is " I love him / her so much but they drive me mad. They have to learn. They won't listen to anything else," makes me cross. Go to parenting classes if you can. Talk to other people how they control themselves. Think and find other ways to handle situations from parents who don't hit on forums such as these.

Hitting kids for whatever reason should never be ok.

I was smacked and will never smack my kids as a result of the emotional scars it left.

I was smacked. I honestly don't feel it harmed me in any way.

But I don't smack our two. If I'm teaching violence is wrong, then it's hypocritical to use it against them.

Not in anger or to humiliate? That is surely impossible

If I were to get to the point of lashing out and smacking my child then I have lost control. I dont agree with physically punishing children.

noddy
I mean that you should never smack a child if it is as a result of you having lost your temper.
I think reasoning is the way to go and am even less convinced by how appropriate smacking is as a punishment of young adults.

If a smack genuinely is a last resort type of punishment and used rarely I don't see how it could be psychologically harmful.

My own parents were particularly violent, more than 'just a smack' so I have seen how things can quickly get out of control. I think it's a big no - any sort of violence makes a barrier between child/teenager and parent. It has not been an option with my children - I see it as lack of self control and a very bad example.