Smacking children

EllanVannin

A slap wouldn't have been for nothing Callistemon.

So, if you did something wrong now, you're happy to be slapped as chastisement?

(I can see this going round in circles)

I was physically abused by my parents but mostly by my mother. She hit me on the top of my head (which bled profusely) with a heeled boot. She also hit me with a washing line which left raised marks on my legs. I was hit many times with slippers and belts and whatever my mother could get her hands on. Even a yellow plastic bucket!! She also threatened me with a poker. I was terrified of her. I also remember a teacher at infant school, Mrs Alliwell, hitting me so hard I was sobbing and couldn’t catch my breath. That was for getting blue paint on my hands. I’m 65 now and still remember that. At junior school no one could talk to me because I cried all the time. I had scabs under my eyes from crying so much. At about 8 or 9 I took a handful of pills because I was so unhappy and felt so unloved. Hitting children was just accepted back then. I grew up with loads of criticism and have never found true happiness. I’m ashamed to say that I smacked my two children but nowhere near like I was smacked. My two always knew they were loved and as adults we have all discussed how I treated them as children. Everything was brought out into the open and we are very close today. Both my children are wonderful adults with successful careers. They do not hit their children and I’m very glad about that. I don’t believe smacking helps.

EllanVannin

Blondiscot a naughty child loves an audience. Just don't give him/ her that audience and totally ignore it.
Only ever take notice and praise them for being good, never make a big thing about naughty behaviour as they know it attracts attention.

Tried that, as I used to with my own children, but has no effect whatsoever on him.

A slap wouldn't have been for nothing Callistemon.

Blondiscot a naughty child loves an audience. Just don't give him/ her that audience and totally ignore it.
Only ever take notice and praise them for being good, never make a big thing about naughty behaviour as they know it attracts attention.

EllanVannin

Physical violence is what's used today, Callistemon, what I used in the 60's was a " corrective " slap, no violence involved, a huge difference.

So you'd accept that someone twice your size who thinks you're doing something wrong could come up and give you a slap across the legs?
They would just be correcting you.

Only once did my parents go to my school regarding treatment
by staff, I was being told to put my pencil in my right hand ,I am left handed, parents were furious, told form mistress I was
not to be encouraged or forced to use my right hand , I was left handed so I was special, I felt like chocolate.

Physical violence is what's used today, Callistemon, what I used in the 60's was a " corrective " slap, no violence involved, a huge difference.

EllanVannin

Anything that's used as a threat, such as the step is WRONG !

So what form of discipline (if you want to call it that) would you or did you use instead then? And, again, I'm not having a go here, I'm genuinely interested as I have a very hyperactive and often 'naughty' four-year-old grandson, so I'm always looking for new techniques to use with him.

Two of my DC used the naughty step as time out.
One DGC hated it, would cry and get very cross and make everything worse.
His cousin would go and sit quite happily and hum away to herself. In fact, if she knew she'd been naughty she's say "I'll go and sit on the naughty step for a bit, shall I?".

Better than using physical violence on a person a quarter your size.

Anything that's used as a threat, such as the step is WRONG !

The " naughty step " to me is a form of humiliation and I just think it's dreadful as opposed to a swift slap on the behind or backs of legs, which is invariably forgotten about as children carry on playing.

There is just something about being led which to me is unnatural and I don't like to see it. It's intimidating and bullish.

Callistemon
Yes it was junior school, and we had to eat it all.
Most of the food was disgusting, but liver and onions, with swede, and lumpy mashed potato was my worst fear.

I think in my day, special training was provided for junior school cooks to make meals as revolting as possible Callistemon.

I remember how we'd hide our grey mince under our grey lumpy mashed potato and yet, the puddings were always good. Maybe the pudding cook received different training.

Sara1954

Callistemon
I remember sobbing into my liver and onions, just couldn’t eat it, gagged on every mouthful.
I would have much preferred a quick slap

Was that at school? Dinners at junior school were truly horrible, how could they have made them so bad?
I'll never forget the gristly meat, the custard, full of hard little lumps.

I never forced mine to eat anything either,my mother had been a fussy eater all her life and didn't make us eat anything as long as we tried it once .I had a wee boy who was very prem and a terrible eater I used to spend whole days in tears cooking meal after meal to entice him to eat .At 15 months old he weighed just 17 pounds .It changed one day when he decided to just eat what the rest of us were having and within weeks he would eat anything .His favourites were sprouts and big chunks of cucumber ,anything grown in the garden or in his Papa's greenhouses .His daughters are both very good with food ,I have never eaten any fowl since I was a baby when I found out it was wee fluffy chicks ,or so my sister told me

I can't remember being forced to eat the sprouts but persuaded, ie "Daddy grew these sprouts, they're good for you, full of vitamins, children in Africa are starving" etc etc which would be termed emotional blackmail these days.

They all clapped the first time I finished all my dinner (I was a very skinny child).

Callistemon
I remember sobbing into my liver and onions, just couldn’t eat it, gagged on every mouthful.
I would have much preferred a quick slap

halfpint1

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

I realise now that I was abused as I was persuaded to eat just two sprouts at Sunday dinner, I hated them. Now I love sprouts, cooked, raw, any way.

When I was table head at junior school the headmistress told me that if I let anyone leave anything on their plate, she'd stand over me and make me eat their leftovers, gristle and all. That's abuse. My mother rarely went into school but she did on that occasion. I was not threatened again.
That same headmistress hit me very hard on the knuckles with a ruler. Vile woman.

I was smacked at home, a proper whacking 5 or 6 times on the bottom, usually by my father. We were also smacked in primary school on the bottom by class teachers, and for more serious misdemeanours caned by the headmaster. This was in the 1950's and at a school in a very middle class area.
I smacked my children occasionally, which I now regret.
My grandchildren have never been smacked.

I was smacked by my mother and once by my father. I was a strong-willed child. My mother was the chief disciplinarian. she had probably been smacked as a child as I can remember being chased down a garden path by my maternal grandmother smacking me on the backside with a pan.
As an only child, I had to be perfect and I wasn't. I would much rather have had a smack finished than "Wait till daddy comes in' torture. I often told my misdemeanour before my mother got the chance. He would say don't do it again giving a reason and mum would storm out.
I trained as a teacher and anti-smacking came in. When I had a family I used my teacher tactics. My family cannot remember being smacked though I remember one for running up and down a slippery cast iron bath.
The naughty step hadn't been invented but in school, it was often a chair placed away from other children with a sand timer for a set time.
If asked they will say they were children of a teacher and were good children at home. One was bullied at school as a youngster and recently owned up to being a bully when they were in senior school. They said what you suffer you give back. Maybe that sums it up. None of the family smack but I have made one of the grandchildren have time out to calm down. their mum does the same.

In 1983 I worked in Fulham, teaching at an all black charity for women returning to work, ages ranged from 19 to 60. The students were from different islands, there was some tension as we were all in one room all day. One day it kicked off and two women had a fight, I was terrified and ran to get the Principal. Barbie - from Barbados - strode in, slapped them both very hard across the face, and walked out.

When I queried her method, as I understood from my training you shouldn't have any physical contact with a student, she said that was how her mother dealt with bad behaviour . She said she was regularly beaten as a child, with whatever was close to her mother's hands, that's just 'how it was'. Eye opening.

I was never smacked as a child. In school the boys got the cane, girls didn’t. I can remember when I was little army friends of my dad who visited with their 14 year old son, weren’t happy with his behaviour so his dad took him outside and beat him up. We were appalled even though my dad would often give my brother a clout. This brings me on to say it was very sexist that girls didn’t get the same harsh treatment as boys.

nanna8

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.

Yes...we’re too focused on the ‘ smack ‘ It’s a distraction to the real problem which is lack of authority, which can be there without the need for smacking most of the time.

Smacking was rare, and a last resort. Two of my children never needed it. The offence for which a smack was given...was never repeated.

At the same time, I knew people who smacked with no authority, and it didn’t work. The children just laughed and ran off.

It about getting perspective. I wasn’t perfect...but so far, all my children still speak to us?.

They have enough to contend with with their own children ?

I think DiamondLily has it nipped in the bud on the other thread. She says, and forgive me if I don’t get the quote exactly right.....^a short slap on the back of the hand or legs, is oceans apart from abuse^

No doubt science will one day tell us we got it all wrong now, and reverse it all.