This will cause a hoo ha !

My DD quite sadly has lamented that her boys behave much better when they are with DH and I than they do at home. I don't have an answer for her beyond consistency consistency consistency -and no means no! The boys don't seem to resent it at all.

I was once in charge of a toddler in a screaming tantrum as her mother left the house, It looked as if she would throw herself down the stairs so I smacked her legs and she sank to the floor and I was able to grab her and drag her into the bedroom.
I told DD all about it and she admitted giving a few taps her self but only with that child. DGD ignored anything like the naughty step or waiting at the kerb.

She grew out of it of course and now her favourite sport is Judo.And she loves the discipline of this sport.

It is not unusual for children to behave better with their grandparents and for anyone other than their own parents - I am sure our own children were just the same! I do not think we should necessarily be patting ourselves on the back for that and assuming superior child management skills - it is just how things are.

I sometimes find the new way of parenting frustrating to watch because I am concerned that my DC are getting exhausted. But I do also admire their determination never to smack and to treat their children with respect. I also feel exhausted watching them!

If your child is just about to poke a fork into an electrical socket, do you say,if you do that I will take your favourite toy away, or do you leap across the room and rap the knuckles so that the fork is dropped?

widgeon why not just get covers for sockets?

Actually the child could in all probability poke the fork in and come to no harm. In fact, they could come to more harm if socket covers are used! www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5039454/Electrical-socket-safety-covers-are-absurd-and-dangerous-say-engineers.html

I love the 'gentle smacks' the 'small smacks' and the 'taps'
Would any of you smack your best friend or neighbour if they did something you didn't like
I was never smacked, I didn't smack my children, and none of them have smacked their children...... No angels thats for sure but why would a big adult smack a small child
As for the plug, road traffic danger etc why smack why not pull them away after all it's about educating them to danger not punishing them ....if a small child pokes an electric plug it's curiosity not understand the harm it will caused, so why not pull them away and explain the danger the fact that it may burn their hand and hurt them badly by smacking them, they will have no idea why they are being punished for exploring and for learning. well that's how I see it anyway

Is it really comparing like with like to ask if someone would smack/slap a friend who was being naughty? To begin with, it's a different kind of relationship and you can walk away (which you can't from a child in your care) if they really annoy you and not be friends with them, and secondly, an adult friend is not a child. A child is a different species (so to speak) from an adult; there is an awful lot of stuff that a child doesn't know about or understand when it comes to what is acceptable behaviour, and some of a child's antics are precisely to find those things out.

No, I'm still not advocating smacking children, just pointing out the weakness of the argument that asks about smacking adults.

And I still don't think a smack is always and automatically wrong where one's own children are concerned. A non-damaging clout (it isn't about hurting the child) once in a blue moon can say much more clearly than a thousand words of yabbering on being ineffective.

A friend once pushed me over hard enough on a mountain that I rolled a bit and could have hurt myself. Once I understood the reason (to prevent worse hurt) I didn't mind a bit. Actually, I didn't mind a bit at any time, because I knew she wouldn't have done it except for a good reason. I think kids can understand that concept too as regards a clout (I prefer that word to hit) that obviously isn't meant to hurt them, only to bring them up short.

It is not a comparison we are talking about bags it is principles. It is wrong in principle to use violence. Utterly unnecessary. If you could show me a study that clearly showed smacking children improved behaviour that I would consider the argument. In fact I think you will be hard pushed to do so because I know for sure that it has been proved the complete opposite. I can't remember the studies but undoubtedly anyone of our grans who worked ins social work will be aware these studies.

I don't call a corrective cuff violence. As I said, what I'm talking about is not about hurting the child. We're not talking about flogging.

Of course there hasn't been a study showing that an occasional smack improved a child's behaviour. Such a study would be impossible to design.

The point is that occasional physical correction, such as the lion cuffs I mentioned earlier, don't do any harm, not that they do any good. In other words, the result is neutral. It's not bad, nor is it good. It's harmless but, on occasion, effective for the particular moment concerned.

And, once again, I'm not advocating it, just saying good grief, calm down, to those who are shrieking as if it was abuse.

And on that note, thank you all for the discussion. It has clarified my thinking on the subject.

So if the result of the cuff is neutral -whatever that means- what is the point of it? And far from shrieking, I am crystal clear in my argument that slapping a child is wrong, however you wish to describe it. Why is it necessary when so many of us manage to parent our children successfully without resorting to even minimum violence?

When I say occasional, I'm talking about once or twice in a child's lifetime (its child-time), btw, not a regular occurrence.

My stepfather beat me nearly everyday .Was glad to escape to boarding school.☹️

Neutral in point of morally good/bad and at the same time effective where other approaches have not been effective. The effectiveness part sways it into a good result. Overuse would sway it into a bad result and probably not effective. My dad was frequently flogged at school (not a private one) but it didn't stop him doing the sort of stuff he got flogged for.

I'm with thatbags on this - the whole thing about slapping has been blown up out of proportion and become too emotional.
Talking about emotional, another aspect is that being a parent is difficult, and we do often get worked up when confronted with a stroppy child.
It's not often possible to be cool and calculating, trying to work out 'what's the appropriate punishment for this situation?' So we lose our temper occasionally and slap. And the child has to get used to the fact.
Parents aren't robots.

No one has answered my question though about how so many of us succeed in parenting our children without any resort to hitting, slapping, or cuffing whatever you like to call it? And to call my arguments hysterical is showing a weak argument.

Children have to learn, as triciaf has just pointed out, that if you behave in a way that makes people angry and don't stop it when asked and reasoned with, you are likely to provoke a response you won't like.

Oh bags that would never stand up in court though.

Hysterical? Where? I mentioned shrieking because I felt a few of your posts up thread were a bit shrieky in tone. My interpretation is all. It's allowed.

We're not talking about stuff that would go to court, ww. I don't think we're talking about the same thing at all. We are on different wavelengths. Seems to me it's time to agree to differ. You think any slap is unwarranted violence. I don't. I define violence as being about causing hurt or damage.

Show me a study, to use your 'argument' that shows that people who got the occasional corrective cuff as children were harmed. You can't. There isn't one. I bet the sort you were talking about were not about that but about systematic mistreatment.

I wish someone could show me how a stern look and a firm "no" could stop my cheeky GD from misbehaving. When she is given that response to her naughtiness, she promptly repeats the bad behaviour while looking me / her mum / my DH straight in the eye and giggling her head off! Well she is only 14 months old ...

For me indin it was a question of picking the right fight. So I simply ignored behaviour about which I didn't approve -no eye contact no reaction. But if that behaviour might lead to harm to my child then the offending article was removed or child removed - no argument - young children can't argue - might have caused a strong reaction from infant but that can be dealt with as a separate issue.

I agree with thatbags and her posts on this.I was clouted now and then as a child, as were my own children when it was warranted ( not at all often) and we have all grown up as well behaved ( towards others) and would probably have been the same if we hadn't been clouted....however, it did no harm either, and stopped the offending behaviour in it's tracks.Sometimes, reasoning with a child doesn't work.
Some advocate no slaps at all, some don't, there isn't a right or wrong on this matter, but what does matter is finding a way whatever it is to deal with bad behaviour, which is why we are seeing so many children running rings round parents at a very young age.As grandparents we don't slap at all, it wouldn't be right, we are not parents, but we tell them to behave themselves or they will be taken home.

Why then has my policy of no slapping etc worked? In fact as the children got older say from 5- onwards often an " Um!" Was enough?

Prior to that I was totally consistent in what I would or wouldn't allow. No question. Prescriptions were used very rarely. I picked my arguments very carefully, and largely only those I thought important, like bad manners, or unpleasant behaviour.
My DD has never slapped her children. And in all the times we've been looking after them, there has been only once when the law was laid down, and that was entirely because they were overtired.
Not slapping your children is entirely successful.

It depends on the children! Character comes into it.

No it very much depends on the parent and the strategies they adopt. You simply have to work out the lines to be drawn, and stick to them- it isn't easy and occasionally you are particularly challenged, but it so works and talking about it to my children they both have said how proud they were never to have been slapped in their lives, and I feel proud as well to have succeeded in my goal. Not that that will go down well on here!

As an aside I never hit my pets. The upshot is that they give me their absolute trust and are gentle animals that never snap, nibble or growl - except as a reaction to another aggressive dog. None violence works I'm telling you!!!!!!!!