Smacking children

Nobody is suggesting he should be beaten until he stops having a tantrum.

Sara1954

I have a grandson who has the most terrible meltdowns, they come out of nowhere, he’s absolutely out of control.
Slapping him would have no affect at all, you would never be able to physically put him on a naughty step.
We just sit it out, till eventually, completely exhausted, he falls asleep.

This makes an important point for me Sara1954. Some children are more of a challenge than others. Some are awful toddlers but ok teenagers.

We had a clear policy of no smacking with both our children.
I "broke" it once with my 2 year old daughter when she stuck her damp fingers in an electric plug hole - I pulled her hand away, tapped her hand quite hard, said "No!" very firmly ...she stared at me in shock, I stared at her in shock ...and we had a cuddle!! I then sat with her and demonstrated "No fingers in plugs" and "Hurt" etc in various ways! We actually had plug covers everywhere and the cover had accidentally got left off when Hoovering I think!

We used "thinking time" quite a lot and both children had a corner in their room for thinking and calming down with calming things to look at. They both knew that once calm, whatever the problem was would be discussed.

It generally worked for us but I do remember how easy it would have been to lose ones temper and smack ...on "those days" that we all have!!

I know that many on GN will say there is no difference but to me a little tap on the hand is vastly different to being beaten with a belt or ruler/ stick . My thing was a "look" ?I used to say " if give the look at you know you have done wrong" , although I have probably given a few taps too.

GILLT57 About the worst thing anyone can do is force a child to eat, especially something that it doesn't like. That's worse than smacking and has far longer lasting consequences too.

I was kind of proud of being smacked, all our large extended family were smacked fairly often.WhenI went to grammar school classmates would be concerned if I had hand-shape bruises, but I just thought, Well, you're different, but where I come from it's normal and we're tough enough to take it.
As someone said, it is the shame & fear that do the damage, & because we weren't hit all that hard, & it was normalised, I was honestly much more upset by going to the dentist. I think I smacked my elder son twice & my younger one once, not in a temper or for control,but to deter them from dangers. But I wish I'd never smacked them at all.

I have a grandson who has the most terrible meltdowns, they come out of nowhere, he’s absolutely out of control.
Slapping him would have no affect at all, you would never be able to physically put him on a naughty step.
We just sit it out, till eventually, completely exhausted, he falls asleep.

Iam64 I agree, it's not always the smacking itself that is the problem it is the fear and the emotional stress it causes

I haven’t seen any posters who tried or succeeded to avoid smacking children, suggest that one slap across the legs (for example) equates to a child having an abusive childhood. Any more than anyone suggests standing over a child sobbing on the step iss good alternative form of discipline

Setting boundaries, in a calm, kind, consistent way is part of bringing children up. Something that hurts, humiliates or frightens children isn’t ok

I don't know what percentage of people in prison were smacked or not smacked. What they do have in common is a disregard for authority.
What I do know is that being made to abide by established rules or suffer the consequences at an earlier age, might have prevented many of them ending up in prison.

No. It is never OK to smack a child, never has been, never will be. Smacking is abuse. Abuse is always wrong, always has been, always will be.

Grandma70s

I never used the ”naughty step” or sent them to their bedrooms. I have an awful feeling they wouldn’t have stayed there if I had!

When they were old enough, I found fining their pocket money was effective. They were allowed to earn it back with good behaviour.

Haha yes, this reminds me of when I was about 12, I had two friends who were twins, not identical. I never saw them smacked. We were too old then anyway, but they would be told off and sent to their room, even if I was there.

One twin was definitely better behaved than the other, so she would be in and out of the room in about ten minutes. The other, much naughtier one, should have been there the rest of the afternoon.

She wasn’t though. They lived in a bungalow, so she just kept climbing out of the window until her parents gave up and laughed it off.....bless her.

I never used the ”naughty step” or sent them to their bedrooms. I have an awful feeling they wouldn’t have stayed there if I had!

When they were old enough, I found fining their pocket money was effective. They were allowed to earn it back with good behaviour.

My three dgd all respond in different ways to different forms of discipline. One just requires a firm talking-to. Another rarely responds well to any form of discipline or chastisement. The third is somewhere in between the two.

Since my last post, I've thought some more about this, and I still feel that in some instances, and with some children, a quick smack at just the right moment (at the very moment of the unacceptable or dangerous action/behaviour ) can be the quickest, most effective form of 'training' young children. Not of punishment though, which to my mind is a totally different thing.

I still won't be doing it with my grandchildren, though.

What about hitting in temper? Not a deliberate punishment slap.
I well remember a morning making the beds and eldest kept jumping on them and rumpling everything . Finally I swept him off with my arm and he fell resulting in a black eye.
When we were out people would ask him "what happened to your eye?" He would reply "My Mummy did it.!"
I was more careful after that.

My daughter removes toys/games from our GD as a punishment.
It really seems to work!

My mother still struggles not to hit out at my if I say something she doesn't like!

I smacked my children, and I regret it now.
With hindsight, I am not convinced that it actually made any difference to their behaviour, though they were always perfectly behaved in public. But smacking was the way my husband and I had been disciplined, and it was still the 'normal' thing to do.

Obviously, things have changed and my dgc are not smacked. Do I think they would be any better behaved if they were? It's hard to say. Their behaviour is certainly not as good as their dads' was when out in public, but I doubt if smacking would help with that - removing them from the place where they are causing a disturbance might, but that's something that their parents have never been prepared to do. Discipline-wise, that is the one and only thing that I would do differently from their parents - not that I would tell them that, unless asked for suggestions.

"Ok, so you just hit someone and hurt them. That's very wrong so now I'm going to hit you"

The first time I saw someone use the ‘ naughty step, time out ‘, I felt so sad for the child. She was left there probably around 10 minutes....a lifetime to a small child, crying more and more. It was horrible to watch.

A quick slap on the hand, accompanied by a ‘ No, that’s naughty’, to my mind is much better. It was so alienating for the child, and she cried for ages afterwards. My children tended to look more shocked than cry after a smack, possibly because it was so rare.

To me, putting abuse and one short smack on the same level is like saying hanging and a suspended prison sentence are the same! It’s also totally disrespectful and insulting to people who have really been abused.

My mother slapped me across the back of the legs a few times, but I was generally a well behaved child so it didn't happen often. The worst was the being made to sit at the dinner table, sobbing, as the food I was gagging over got colder and lumpier. My Mum was a good cook, but there were just some things I didn't/couldn't eat, and it was a dreary and unhappy battle for us both. When I had my children, Mum said she regretted those dismal mealtimes, my tears, but her doctor, and everyone else had told her that this was the only way to deal with a fussy eater like me. Time change, understanding changes. It goes without saying that I never did that to mine, and I would like to say I didn't smack, because I strongly disagree with violence, especially against someone smaller, but twice I smacked my son, in temper and I bitterly regret it. We have talked about it, and he doesn't remember at all, still doesn't help with my guilt though.

I welcome the change in culture around “smacking” ie assaulting children.
I was hit as a child by both parents, and also in school in Scotland was hit around the legs in primary school, and caned in junior school. Usually for crimes such as spelling errors, not behaviour.
I wasn’t a perfect parent by any means, but did try and help my children to understand how to manage their frustrations, fear and anger, which all children experience, without resorting to violence.

Iam64

EllanVannin, where does your information on use of time out/thinking chair/naughty step come from? It’s nothing like the way I’ve seen it used.

By the way, if an apology is needed, why is it wrong to ask/? One of my grandchildren was asked to apologise to his younger cousin. He’d pushed him over in temper.

Me neither. It's not humiliation and gives them a chance to think about what they did and then apologise if they hurt someone eg pushing another child over as Iam64 says.

I have only seen it used rarely.
Slapping a child who has hit another child or pushed them over is counter-productive.

"Ok, so you just hit someone and hurt them. That's very wrong so now I'm going to hit you"
I don't get that.

EllanVannin, where does your information on use of time out/thinking chair/naughty step come from? It’s nothing like the way I’ve seen it used.

By the way, if an apology is needed, why is it wrong to ask/? One of my grandchildren was asked to apologise to his younger cousin. He’d pushed him over in temper.

I'd be a millionaire ( or a public nuisance for reporting ) the amount of times I've seen kids being smacked in public, also hung by their arms when getting off a bus. Jeeze, there's far more cruelty than a slap on the bum.

Rather than being humiliated,*Callistemon, yes. A slap is over and done with but being physically led to a step then DEMAND an apology from a child---good heavens !
Even deprivation works well---no favourite sweets.