Smacking children

I don’t agree with smacking children but I have to say some of the children these days are much ruder and brattier than we ever were. Their parents clearly don’t believe in telling them what they are doing wrong at all.

My mums weapon of choice was a big wooden spoon. She used to chase us round the house waving it around and shouting. I wasn’t a naughty child. It just seemed to be normal parental behaviour. Never questioned.

Iam64

CrazyH, yes it was reading that thread that prompted me to start this one. I didn’t want to post there, didn’t want to add to the OPs distress
Sumner love ?

The point about prisons is well made. The majority of people in prison didn’t come from anti smacking households

Years ago, the majority of people in prison came from smacking households. Now the majority in prison don’t. That’s just change over time.
I’m anti-smacking, but when I watch children assaulting their parents with kicks, slaps and punches at the park or in supermarkets, I do wonder about the claim that children learn from their parents. Are all those parents secret slappers, punchers and kickers or are all those children on the spectrum? Where did the children learn to do that?

In my childhood it was certainly normal for smacking to occur. A smack with a ruler in school, or, very rarely, a caning on the bottom. Chalk or board rubber thrown across the room.
Outside school, adults would threaten to box a child’s ears or take a belt to them. My parents smacked me on the legs or bottom, not badly, but enough to let me know my behaviour was unacceptable. I have memories of my mum chasing my sister round the dining table with a hairbrush, trying to spank her. We were often threatened with “ wait till your father gets home” and we were on the whole, good children.

Smacking by teachers and other staff went on at school too. It was not unusual to see children being smacked and shouted at by their parents in the street.
We now accept it as wrong, of course it’s wrong, but adult children will often find something to criticise their parents for and for those with young children now, don’t be surprised if they get criticism when their children grow up.
Just wondering what that might be about, Too much time online? Parents expectations too high? Too much fast food? I don’t know , what do Grans think ?

Being smacked, hit etc was normal in my school in the juniors,
rapped on knuckles , boys hair was tugged, head master would
grind his thumb between shoulder blades of pupils, boys were caned and on one occasion girls were, we got into school yards during summer holidays and slid on school roof, we were
reported, head asked who had been involved, we remained silent, he then called out our names, cane for sliding on roof
then again for not owning up.

I was smacked across my legs at school for getting a knot in my sewing. I was so scared of the teacher I had sat quietly pretending to se until she called me up to her desk. I was quivering in fright, so scared I wet myself. I was 7 years old. My mum went ballistic.

Oh course I didn’t smack my children. It is physical violence of the worse sort, where a much more powerful individual both physically and emotionally uses physical force to achieve nothing that an intelligent use of other strategies would bring about the desired result.

I find it utterly abhorrent.

My Mum and Dad never smacked me so perhaps that's why I haven't been a smacking Mum to my children. There are far better ways of dealing with it.

Sorry Anniebach for a sweeping generalisation.

Thank you Iam that’s no surprise, but I was puzzled when you said ‘anti smacking homes’ , I imagined every prisoner on
admission being asked ‘were you ever smacked’ .

My son was forced to eat liver at school. They gave up when he was sick all over the table. Encouragement not enforcement.

Thank goodness no one is hit at school now. My husband was beaten frequently which just made him belligerent towards the teachers.

EllanVannin, the naughty step or chair is often called the thinking step. Used occasionally, It doesn’t banish children for long periods, lock them in cupboards like one of my uncles was.

Anniebach

How is it known the majority in prison didn’t come from
anti smacking homes ?

I spoke based on my work life experience. I’ve asked google :
Ministry of Justice research series 4/12. March 2012
The aim was to understand prisoners circumstances and reoffending. It concluded prisoners childhoods and family backgrounds were often problematic. A large minority reported having experienced abuse, experienced/observed violence or bern in care.

I’m not suggesting a swift smack on the hand or back if legs equates to living with the kind of abuse some posters had to experience. I’m also not suggesting that everyone subjected to abusive behaviour goes on to abuse.
My point was simply that our prisons are overly populated by adults who had traumatic, abusive and neglected childhoods.

My husband says he and his brothers were hit with a stick kept by his mother for that purpose.
He doesn’t resent it one bit, says they probably all thoroughly deserved it.
He has only smacked one child on one occasion, and he still brings it up, and so does she!

We don't call it a naughty step, it's a time out...

Time to calm down and have a think about our choices. This is only when talking did not work, so talking can then happen after and we can make sure they understand their wrong choice and how to handle it differently in future

I was smacked and hit a lot as a child, sometimes when I was naughty but sometimes for no reason that I could work out. I grew up hating my mother for it and left home as soon as I could ,though as an adult we made peace. I didn’t hit my children except once when one of them ran out into the road and I was so scared I just let fly across the back of her legs. She never did that again, I must admit.

I can't remember my mother ever smacking me - but I almost wished she had. Instead, her form of 'discipline' was to belittle me and destroy every ounce of confidence and self-esteem I had, something which it took me the best part of 40 years to realise and something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I'm not saying I condone smacking, especially not in this day and age, but I would have got over a smack a lot quicker than what she did do to me.
And EllanVannin, I'm not having a go here, but what do you consider to be 'downright cruel' about the naughty step? It's not something I ever used with my children, so I'm genuinely interested in why you feel that way, as I know it's a punishment widely used by my parents nowadays.

I have three grandchildren living here, and I know it’s certainly not my place to smack them whatever the circumstances, but it would seem terribly wrong now, times change.

Kate,unbearable your father was so evil. It seems no one was there to protect and nurture you. How many suffer this still.

I wasn’t and didn’t smack, know those that were and they just accepted it was the norm. My two were easy children however. Yet one doesn’t speak to me anymore. The biggest sadness, as I adore her.If I see anyone shouting or snacking a child it hurts me, they are so small and can’t defend themselves and what does it achieve, that child will find any way they can to avoid it. There are children who would try the patience of a saint.

My cabbage hating daughter is fine and enjoyed her upbringing in the countryside

Any discipline based on fear is wrong in my opinion. I don’t want my children to fear me - and I do think that fear based discipline is abusive (in this day and age given what we now know).

Smacking is assault. I am ashamed to say that I smacked my eldest two children but not the third. There was a large age gap between them and I was re-educated in that time. My mam used to slap me across the face if I did anything wrong. It didnt matter where we were and it hurt both physically and mentally.

I was spanked as a child. So was Hubby. But I have never spanked my stepdaughter as I feel it is not my place, and I can count on one hand the number of times Hubby has spanked her since we have been together (and that's since she was five). She has always been a well-behaved child, but sadly at least part of that is due to the fact that she's been emotionally abused by her mother and stepfather. (The reason it was never reported is that they were never physically abusive, and her mom is a fabulous actress and was physically and emotionally abused herself as a child.)

Hubby told me that when he was a child and was smacked, FIL told him and his siblings to be thankful FIL wasn't using an army belt to smack them as his own father had! My response is, "So you're meant to be thankful he wasn't abusive???"

If we are able to have more children, I plan to avoid smacking if it is at all possible. I think there are better ways of encouraging children to behave.