Do you have a feminist perspective on smacking children?

[LRDTheFeministDragon]

I was just wondering about this one. For me, part of feminism has to do with thinking about the vulnerability of other groups, and perhaps especially about bodily vulnerability. And I hate the idea of smacking children, which I could justify on that basis, but which I must admit I hated long before I had any coherent feminist position.

So I was wondering, if you see yourself as a feminist, how do you feel about smacking children? And do you feel that your position is related to the fact you're a feminist, or do you think the two aren't related?

wholly - yes, I see what you're saying about deterring the child ... but isn't the argument that you smack precisely because the child hasn't understood why s/he needs to stop whatever s/he is doing?

i do not smack because i feel it is wrong to physical harm a child i also feel it steps over being respectful, having to harm someone to get them to do as you want or to protect them how is that a respectful way to treat another human being. though i have felt i could have smacked ds i don't if i did i would loose respect for myself as a parent as i would have lost control

its a lazy way to parent too for many, its hard and often draining explaining over and over again but i would explain in something is wrong 100 times rather than smack as all that teaches is when you do x, y or z you get a smack so if another child does x,y or z then surely it is ok for them to get a smack too

i am not in favour of using time out i only use when i feel ds needs to calm down or that i need a bit of space. i do nto even like using the word punishment and discipline these are terms we use when talking about the most dangerous criminals in our society yet we use the same terms when dealing with children it is so negative

I think I am a feminist, and I agree with SGB. I very rarely smack DS but there are times when nothing else reaches through to him - maybe I am a shit parent, I don't really think so (although you all might) - and a 1,2,3 and leg/bum tap gets through. Mostly we don't get anywhere near 3 - but if we do, I have to follow through. I haven't resorted to using 2 1/2 but I do stop after 2 and say "don't make me say 3".

I have never hit him in anger but he's only 3.8 - I'd be worried about myself if I had! I am sure that by the time he is old enough to reason with better, smacking will be a thing of the past.

being a feminist is not why i do not smack ds but the respect issue is a feminist issue so yes i guess it is tied in in some ways

is smacking more prevalent in cultures where women have less control in their lives maybe. i have been shocked by the level of violence used towards children by my own family (asian) and it is totally acceptable

"but isn't the argument that you smack precisely because the child hasn't understood why s/he needs to stop whatever s/he is doing?"

exactly - but a small child is sometimes just not capable of properly understanding the details of why, but they still need to know that they must stop.

again, I don't use smacking, but I do see it as an acceptable technique, if not usually the most effective.

losing it and hitting in anger is the way that battering starts

Should say though, after saying that I agree with SGB, that although I might think many adults need a good slap, chances are I wouldn't be offering it! I'm not that brave.

thumb - I certainly don't think you're a shit parent. I didn't want this to be a 'who's the worst parent' thread, and if it were, I can win it (as can Stripey), as we haven't got children and that makes us pretty useless as parents. I'm just wondering about attitudes really.

wholly - but you said before it wasn't about hurt/humiliation, it's about deterring the child. What I'm asking is, won't the child just not understand that? S/he will think it's just about hurt/humiliation if s/he can't understand why the smacking is happening, right?

I think that if you're hoping to raise children not to use violence or threats of violence against others (except maybe in self-defense) then part of that is actually modelling that behaviour to them. So I think that there is a conflict between feeling able to use physical chastisement against children while we accept it isn't a suitable way to behave in other relationships. Particularly because a huge role of parenting is teaching your children how to have other relationships.

I don't think it makes people bad parents to have smacked - I do think that there are ALWAYS ways of dealing with the situation which model better conflict resolution skills for our children - which surely give them a better starting position to intrinsically understand consent and self-determination issues from. I don't think this is limited to smacking but is common to many of the ways we (in general in society) discipline small children.

I also think that by the time you get to the point of smacking you've usually missed a number of opportunities to intervene in a more educational* way already. Though I think that's exceptionally hard when people parent in isolation anyway.

*educational probably isn't quite the right word, but in a way that teaches them more about why to do or not to do something or more socially acceptable behaviour.

I ALSO don't think that using force for restraint is comparable to smacking - I mean, I wouldn't really worry about if I had consent to grab/shove/pull an adult about to step out in front of a car. Or about to harm someone else. But I wouldn't go around shoving and pulling people who did things I didn't want them to do or because I was fed up with them. I don't think a protective action is the same as a punishing action.

And, I also don't want to bring up children who do or don't do things because they're afraid of the consequences, but who behave with respect to others because that's the norm for them. I think getting through to children with a smack means that they're behaving for the wrong reasons.

Though I'm not sure that I think it's a feminist issue, except that I don't think children should be exempt from the general way I would expect to treat other people.

I think I could just have said I mostly agree with HerBex :) and that I said 'I think' far too many times but this is all just opinion.

Thanks LRD. :)

Re the hurt/humiliation thing - the first time ever I smacked DS, he was shocked more than anything else. In terms of hurting him, it would have hurt less than him banging his leg on the chair (a frequent occurrence) and it certainly wasn't done to humiliate him - the deterrent is, IMO, to stop him doing whatever it was that caused the smack to be administered in the first place. He doesn't want to be smacked - so he learns not to do the things that will bring the threat of a smack.

I don't know - probably deeply flawed but it does seem to work! I think he'd rather I'd smacked him for not picking his toys up when asked, than do what I did, which was bag them up and put them in the garage (an excellent strategy that works for about 6m, IME, before it has to be done again).

Having said that, there is a woman in my playgroup whose DS is v. similar age to DS and he doesn't give a shit about being smacked (it's more common where I live than in the UK) and even offers his bum for smacking rather than stop doing whatever mischief he's up to. So smacking is ineffectual on her DS.

anastasia - that makes a lot of sense. It also gets me thinking about what people say about modeling good male/female relationships for children.

thumb - just thinking about that child you mention who doesn't mind being smacked - I remember reading Charlotte Moore (columns in the Guardian) saying how awkward she found it that her oldest actually quite enjoyed the sensation!

I know someone who claps her hands when she wants her DD to stop doing something. I admit, I am a bad person and up to now I have generally been repressing a bit of a snigger when she does it, but I wonder if she's getting the same shock response like that?

WhollyGhost, I see it the other way round- I can understand that sleep deprivation, anxiety, and fear can lead to a one off situation where hitting out at a child about to run into the road can happen. I don't agree it's the right thing to do, but I can understand it.
I think that 'I plan to hit you when I feel like it, during your childhood, to maintain discipline'- ie making hitting the child premeditated is wrong.

I agree SinicalSal that children are naturally dependent, but feel that means we have a greater responsibility not to hit. Adults with learning disablities, and people with later stage Alzheimers (sp?) are also depenedent, but we would not agree to using smacking to discipline them.

Anastasia makes a good point about it being about learning, and I think this is also key- when you see a parent smack their child, and then the child turns round and hits them....gives the best example. I think we believe that violence is wrong- and I'm guessing that the view on here is that it is an overarching feminist perspective- then we should want to instill that in our children, and the best start to that is not hitting them.

No feminist perspective per se; my children got smacked for... darting into the road.

Usual punishment was loss of privileges, early bed, no games [not much TV watched so a pretty ineffective punishment.]

A couple of weeks later I got screamed at by a mother (yes, I was doing the school run) for pointing out a nice fluffy squirrel in the tree. I then compared it to the gruesomely burst squirrel in the road.

"Don't run into the road, it would make daddy very sad if you were dead like the squirrel."

Apparently I was psychologically harming my kids. In their 20s, they don't seem permanently damaged.

As it happens, I went to a school were boys into their teens were beaten; remarkably ineffective if the teens in question are accustomed to being hurt playing rugby etc. Diminished the teachers more than the boys, and its effect on me was to make me a convincing liar.

OneMore - you know, that is the sort of thing (the squirrel) that I'm afraid would have fascinated my gruesome little brother!

I just remembered a story about us. DD must have been just over 3 because we were in a department store that had only just opened (googled when it did). I remember having an exceptionally bad day, and being really tired and hungry. But for some bizarre reason I thought that the end of THIS day was the best time to just stop and get her some new shoes while we were coming home through town anyway.

Also being tired and hungry, she objected half way through trying on shoes and tried to run off. I picked her up and held her, and she descended into a tantrum. She'd taken off her shoes before this point and I sat her down to try and put them back on, but she started kicking her feet to prevent me. Instead of just shoving them in a bag I carried on anyway, and though she was pulling her feet AWAY from me one of them caught me right on the side of my head. It hurt so much that I started to lash out, despite having always been against hitting, but she also realised that I was about to; and (just like I would normally do if a situation between children looked like it might escalate into aggressive behaviour) she quickly said ''member we don't hit people'

If we normally hit for misbehaviour, she wouldn't have had that lesson instilled in such a fundamental way that at the age of three she was confident in taking action to prevent someone bigger and stronger than her from hitting her only using words. Because she wouldn't have had that deep seated belief that no-one at all had the right to hit her. And I'm proud to have played a part in instilling that in her.

It has taken longer for her to learn the control needed to stop herself lashing out in anger - but I don't see how that learning process would have been aided by giving her conflicting messages that in some circumstances it was acceptable to hit.

(sorry, perhaps should have said again - obviously that's an opinion that I don't think my child would have learned that lesson so well if I'd given conflicting messages and not trying to present it as an argument that parents who smack are awful or anything like that AT ALL)

agree that modern sockets are not dangerous, but would be wary of assuming that small children in high tree houses are necessarily safe - I grew up in a rural area outside the UK where safety precautions were not the norm - three of our closest neighbours' children died in farm accidents (falling in a slurry pit, kicked by a horse, falling off the side of a tractor and under the wheels, the children involved were from different families). There are often high rates of childhood mortality in other places and times, which are just unthinkable to us.

I am not prepared to risk my dd learning road sense the hard way, and if that means using reins or even smacking, so be it. She is not yet capable of grasping how dangerous the roads are, so it is my responsibility to keep her safe.

With fires, I'd be more worried about them playing with fire, or throwing toys near it than that they'd wander over and stick their hands in. If there are always plenty of adults around, that risk is minimal, but the reality for most households is that dc are not being watched at every moment.

This is going to sound poncey, but while my anti-smacking stance isn't borne of feminism per se, it sits in the same 'things for a better world' box in my head. It's more to do with non violence, respect and not being a hypocrite. How could I tell DD off for hitting and then hit her?

But Goth you could tell your DD off for putting her brother on the naughty step, for example, while you do it yourself. Discipline/guidance is an authority thing.
I agree, smacking isn't in my big Box of Good Things, but it's not always a bad thing in some situations.

Also, violence often exists on a continuum. So while some parents will smack and only smack, for others the smacks, turn into slaps, turn into punches etc. I was told that in the Scandanavian countries where smacking was banned, there was a drop in the number of children murdered by their parents.

I wasn't going to come back on this but it's pissed me off all day so I will.
"Just as "Dont make me do this" is often said to a woman before she is hit." yes, thanks SO much for comparing me to an abusive partner. OBVIOUSLY I'm going to punch my DH now as well.

It's kind of the point for the child to realise that it IS them that is responsible for the disciplinary measure, whether that is a tap on the bum or being sent to bed early, sat on the naughty step or whatever. Teaching them that actions have consequences and that those consequences aren't going to be pleasant for them helps them to learn responsibility.

WHEN he's older and can be reasoned with and have it all explained out properly so he understands, then the consequences will be appropriate to him then.

dorisnextdoor - so what sanctions do you use for your young children? What non-primitive punishment would you use to deter a small child from hurting the baby? What would you do if you had a small child who was hell bent on putting themselves in danger e.g. darting across roads or escaping from their car seat. Do you consider enforcing time out an abuse of power?

I don't personally think smacking is an effective parenting tool for me - but that is based on my own circumstances. It is astonishingly judgemental and stupid to judge other parents in the way you do, simply because they have chosen a different approach.

There is a world of difference between an abusive parent lashing out - whether verbally or with their fists - and an ordinary parent who smacks.

"in the Scandanavian countries where smacking was banned, there was a drop in the number of children murdered by their parents"

and nothing else changed over those years, which could have explained that

small details like having parents who had not lived through world war II could have had no effect compared to a change in the legislation on corporal punishment