Smacking children

It makes you wonder how some of those teachers were allowed near children.

MissAdventure

So we can assume it's ok to hit your child once, as long as you then feel terrible about it.
It's ok to spend a fortune sending your child to school where they hit them for you, using implements specially designed for the job.

I can remember when DD came home from infants school (a state school) and said that our neighbour's son, in the same class, had been held upside down by the ankles by the teacher and swung around as punishment to show the others what would happen if they misbehaved. I always found the little boy to be lovely.

Blondiescot thank you

My daughter and I saw a woman knock her child to the ground with a violent smack when we were in IKEA a few years ago. We were traumatised by witnessing it so heaven help that child. My daughter reported the incident to the police but they said they couldn't do anything. It still upsets me to remember it.

in the 40s/50s both my sister and i were smacked as children by our mother, never by our father. she used to smack us with her hand, and also kept a thin cane to hit us around the the legs and if that was not available then anything near to hand. i remember having a full hot water bottle and even a chair thrown at me, she was very bad tempered, unlike her siblings, my aunts. we used to run next door to our nan who reprimanded our mother on several occasions to no discernible effect! we just accepted this as our lot, assuming it happened to all children. it didn't cause us any lasting harm and we both smacked our children when they were young. as many have commented, there is a world of difference between smacking and violent abuse. we only had cuddles from our father, never from her, and were never told we were loved. in hindsight, i think she must have had problems, mental or otherwise, that we knew nothing about and in later life she was (literally) a closet alcoholic.
incidentally, my father only ever slapped me once and that was when i was nineteen. i had been out with a boy and came home with a lovebite on my neck. i was innocent (we were in those far off days!) and didn't know about such things. my father however was of the opinion that you only got them when you were doing things you shouldn't. i wouldn't have dared, how times have changed!

As a child I received more emotional abuse and occasionally was smacked, I'll take the smack over mind controlling emotional abuse any day. A good smack every now and then will not hender a child's growth, "spare the rod spoil the child" is true in my opinion, just never smack while in extreme anger or stress, a loving tap will not hurt a child or else they grow up and beat up a parent with no thought or regret.

When I was three I was playing in the garden when my mother called me in for dinner. I said “just a minute” . Mother said “when I call you you do as you are told and you don’t answer me back”. And smacked me. That was over ninety years ago and I have never forgotten it.

So we can assume it's ok to hit your child once, as long as you then feel terrible about it.
It's ok to spend a fortune sending your child to school where they hit them for you, using implements specially designed for the job.

catladyuk

Foxie48, what is a taws?

A tawse is a leather belt, which was split into two or three 'tails' at one end, which was routinely used to hand out punishments in schools here in Scotland until it was banned in 1987 (although private schools were allowed to continue using corporal punishment for around another 10 years).
My FiL was a saddler and making the tawses was a regular job for him. Some teachers had them made to their own particular requirements. One (very expensive) private school had their own unique design which was more like a leather ping-pong bat than a belt.

Our mother beat us. Even in public. To me it’s akin to an adult woman (for instance) being in a violent relationship. Always in fear of saying/doing the ‘wrong’ this and getting smacked, hit or punched for it.
I have never used physical abuse on any of my 4 children. It’s completely wrong and unnecessary.

I worked in a Child Protection department for a number of years, dealing with children who were horribly abused in all ways.?

A light smack, as a last resort, doesn't really compare.

I was smacked, very occasionally, in the 50's, and I smacked mine, very occasionally, in the 70s.

All of us survived just fine, no one traumatised, no one in prison...???

For some reason, carrots always made me vomit. My mother didn't push it, but the school dinner lady did - until I threw up all over the floor....?

My dad just had to look at me and that was enough!

There were three of us as children.
My Dad once quite proudly said if he didn't know which one of us had done something wrong, he just hit the nearest child.
If they were the guilty one they'd accept it, if not they'd soon tell him who had done it.
He was genuinely surprised when, as an adult, I told him that was lazy parenting and unacceptable.

Foxie48, what is a taws?

My brother had a psychotic teaher at his prep school who randomly would pick the boys up, feet off the floor, by their hair then beat them round their ears with his other fist. I don't think it made my brother or any of his friends into a better person. Physical violence against a child is not acceptable. 'Just a tap', 'just a smack', sorry (not), but this is not a 'just a' thing t do to someone smaller than yourself. I wonder how many wife beaters were physically chastised as children? Doubtless studies have been done, but outside my field. Methods of managing bad behaviour should not include hitting, the use of physical bullying. My mother was hit by her (hugely cold) mother, usually with a hairbrush. Her loving father never hit her and she did not hit us. I could never bear seeing a great big man hitting a child, it did seem even worse than seeing a mother do it, but I'm afraid it really shows a lack of understanding of how children tick. So glad it is outlawed now, it at least stops those who get a kick out of hurting children maintaining it is normal accepted practice. Emotional abuse is of course abuse too and very damaging, but adding bruises to it doesn't help.

I can't tell you how many people end up in therapy rooms because of being abused as children, and that includes physical and emotional violence. Forcing a child to eat food, screeching in a voice that has the implicit "don't do it or else..." message, and slapping all count as forms of abuse. There are no accurate statistics but what we do know is that there is a tendency for children who suffer such abuse to encounter mental health problems in the future that may or may not lead to criminality. There is also a tendency for a proportion of children whose primary care givers smack them to seriously reason that those care givers are exercising a power over them which they want to achieve for themselves and this is done by trying out this form of violence on younger siblings or animals. From this they graduate to being violent adults.

I have no recollection of children being smacked at school although I am sure they were; I know two boys were caned for writing graffiti in the boys' toilet, a very rare occurrence in 1957, and we were very shocked; the rarity of the punishment emphasising the severity of the offence.
People forget that a punishment such as smacking may well set an example to those on the fringes of bad behaviour; those who are considering joining in for the kudos they will gain, think again when they see a humiliating and childish punishment meted out.

I was smacked occasionally at home, and once for disobeying my ballet teacher's instructions when she was called out of the room. The pianist was left in charge and told us not to continue with the exercise we were doing; I was enjoying it and carried on, because I knew and liked her. She left her piano stool, gave me one sharp smack , said not a word and sat down again. I was mortified, and very ashamed.
I wish I could say I apologised at the end of the lesson but I didn't. I was terrified she would tell my mother but she never did for which I was endlessly grateful.

I had the occasional smack when I had crossed the line.

I do remember the public caning, once at primary school, and another at secondary school, of boys caned by the Headmaster for whatever transgression felt this merited. How barbaric was that.

I once lightly smacked the back of my son's hand when he absolutely refused to stop whatever it was he had been told to stop. The look of utter betrayal and hurt on his face I've never forgotten, will always feel bitterly sorry for, and I never smacked him again.

Mind you, there is an often told story in my husband's family about the time when as a stroppy teenager, his mum hit him about the head with a handful of clothes hangers! She was hanging ironing on them at the time, so I suppose he was lucky it wasn't the iron.

I don't think children were better behaved when they were routinely smacked. I think they were sneakier about being badly behaved.

Violence seldom if ever solves anything. Violence against those unable to defend themselves is bullying, pure and simple and is never justified against children.

My daughter was no tearaway but she was no angel either. She was never smacked, even if it was occasionally tempting, and she grew into a well-balanced, bright, capable young woman doing all right for herself in her own terms. Anyway, who wants a goody-goody for a child/grandchild?

I was smacked as a child. In fact, I had times in my childhood that I was unable to go to school because of it. I chose not to smack my son. At the age of 7 he came to me and asked why. I told him because I didn't think it was the right thing to do. He asked me to spank him the next time so that he could be like his friends and get hit and then can go and play right away instead of having to come in and no longer play. I agreed and cried through three spanks on my sweet little bad boy's bottom. He told me that I didn't have to do it again because he didn't want to punish me again.

I'm 74, and still remember to this day the times I was smacked. Once by my stepdad when I was 8, once by a teacher when I was 10 - both times on the legs. And once by my mum when I was 13 - a slap around the face.

I spoke to my mum about it several years ago and she said her mum smacked her and she saw nothing wrong with it.

I never smacked my children.

Absolutely Anniebach, this is assumption and judgy at its worst!

It's never ok.
I was never smacked, my 5 children were never smacked and, as far as I know my grandchildren are not smacked. Violence breeds violence.

Why are we discussing this now? It has been illegal for years to chastise children by smacking, spanking or beating them.

I was born in 1951, my parents were convinced that it was possible to bring children up without physical correction, but on three occasions that I remember either my sister or I had our bottoms smacked. Mummy having rather stupidly said, "If you do that again, I will smack your bottom!" then found herself in the position where she felt forced to carry out her threat.

I doubt three isolated incidents in a loving upbringing damaged either of us, but that has in no way turned me into a believer in corporal punishment of any kind. I remember very, very clearly my parents' relief at the abolishment of capital punishment.

Children who grow up without love, empathy or even just ordinary kindness will, in most case be uanable to show others these traits.

The unforntunate thing here is that no-one seems really to have addressed the problem of how to deal satisfactorily with the many occasions on which a child just will not do as he or she is asked or told - often thereby running a risk of hurting themselves or others.

Avoiding, quite rightly, smacking children has led some parents (and teachers) either to allow their children to do more or less as they pleased all the time, or led them to use other forms of discipline that may not really be any healthier or better than smacking.

A lot of my generation, given the choice as a child between having their bottom smacked or having to listen to mummy or daddy going on, and on, and on about how naughty they had been would greatly prefer the smacked bottom to the lecture.

I grew up in a smacking and belt home. Once when I was five, the paperboy hit me with his bike and I got a broken collar bone. When I got home from the hospital, my dad beat me with the belt on a bare bottom for playing in the street (which we did every day). I was traumatized by the whole hospital experience and beaten when I needed comfort. I grew up to be against any physical “handling” of mine or other children that I might witness. I have three brothers who were also hit and they grew up to be addicts and quite violent people.