Slapping Your Children

I think psychological abuse as Dimple says is far worse long term.

I don't advocate beating your kid up, but i do think you should be able to physically restrain or shout at them to draw their attention from the bad behaviour and to attempt to make yourself heard above everything else.

My cousins kid, now grown up a bit, Is very physically big for his age and he was a nightmare jumping on you. punching you, kicking screaming His mum didn't really discipline him other than "please stop doing that" as hes booting me squarely in the balls.... Ill report back in ten or so years and tell you how he turned out as a teenager.

yeah i don't have kids obviously and i was "smacked" arm grabbed restrained, whatever as a child and seriously i do not see it as an uncross-able line in bringing up a kid but that is how i think now...
 
LateX'Dog said:
As i said above, i'm sure you don't use the baton in a meet and greet affair.

I've dealt with lots of police in my previous job and they never started a discussion with a baton to the face.
Click to expand...

stay at home dad, enough said.

probably surfs mumsnet during the working day and has misguided unrealistic views thanks to that forum
 
Xordium said:
1) I don't have children and would never smack.
2) I don't have children and would smack.
3) I have children, spend most of their waking hours away from them at work whilst my partner/childcare raises them, and would smack.
4) I have children, spend most of their waking hours away from them at work whilst my partner/childcare raises them, and would never smack.
5) I have children, spend most of their waking hours with them as their main carer, and would smack them.
6) I have children, spend most of their waking hours with them as their main carer, and would never smack them.
Click to expand...

Now we're getting somewhere. I suspect that this would be extremely enlightening.
 
Xordium said:
I also think it is far too simplistic to say do or do not smack as it never happens in isolation. The one thing I am certain of is that excessive and frequent smacking or smacking without love and explanation afterwards ie forgiveness causes great emotional harm and will cause development problems. I also think there are plenty more cruel things that parents do over and above smacking and what you hear parents say to their kids is far worse than some smack.
Click to expand...

Sums up my thoughts pretty well.

And yes, I have smacked (not slapped) my 2 older kids in the past (on their behind) when a given situation got to the point where nothing else was working to defuse whatever was happening. Guess what...sometimes, on very rare occasions, words aren't enough. It is a last resort which I've found I've hardly ever required using. Not done them the slightest bit of harm since then. (once time is taken to explain, in the easiest terms possible, why that action was taken.)

Proud of it? No. Felt awful having to do that to my own flesh and blood, little things i'd happily run in front of a bus in order to protect. Do I think I've caused psychological damage? No, they are bright, inquisitive and fantastically well behaved children, who are (within the context of their age) fully aware of where their behavioral boundaries lie and what the potential consequences are if they seriously misbehave.

These days, the "Stare of impending doom" works well if they try it on :D
 
Last edited:
arknor said:
stay at home dad, enough said.

probably surfs mumsnet during the working day and has misguided unrealistic views thanks to that forum
Click to expand...

Yes i am a stay at home dad. No i don't surf mums net, shockingly life as a full time parent isn't always sitting on the sofa. I'm lucky if i get 5mins to my self now that my son has dropped his naps completely.
 
[FnG]magnolia;26394669 said:
Now we're getting somewhere. I suspect that this would be extremely enlightening.
Click to expand...

There is another angle that no one seemed to pick up on from LateX'Dog's earlier post.

People who were abused as children tend to almost always go one of 2 ways, the complete opposite of what they experienced (as is the case with LateX'Dog), or they repeat the cycle with their own children.

So as well as all the options posted for the poll, there is an addtional cross-section of 'never phsycially disciplined as a child'/'physically disciplined in rare cases'/'physically abused'.
 
LateX'Dog said:
Science shows your wrong. :)

12-13 studies have shown that children who are abused have a higher probability of delinquent and anti social behaviour.
Click to expand...

Do you have kids? I don't. I just want to see what point of view you are coming from.

You use that word abuse. To me, smacking your child as a last resort to discipline them is not abuse. A child crying after they are smacked is most likely down to shock, not actual pain. It's a defence mechanism.

I would agree with the studies if by the word abuse, they mean actual beatings, sexual, constant belittling, etc.
 
LateX'Dog said:
If you exert your limb in a manner to do harm to a child, that is child abuse. You can sugar coat it and dress it up it what ever way you want. If you smack your child, you are abusing your child.
Click to expand...

LOL, this is funny.

99% of parent's do not want to smack their kids, and when they do, its a light slap. It shocks them, not hurts them.
 
Got 3 well adjusted kids (20, 18 and 8). Never smacked any of them. They were disciplined, but not with smacking.

Worked for us.
 
Going back 70/80/90 years I bet the vast majority if not all children were smacked as a form of discipline (and a lot more than just a light smack on the bum or legs), as it was the norm. There were more good apples back then than bad. One could argue that back then everyone cared more for one another and communities were closer.

All this 'smacking will create or is more likely to create a bad person' stuff is nonsense.
All this 'if you smack your child you are a bad parent' is nonsense.

If you never have to smack your child fantastic. Combination of parenting and having a passive child.
If you have smacked your child, sorry to hear. I know you didn't want to but I hope it brought clarity and developed their understanding.

Ultimately if you have had a child, and you get them to adolescence and they have stayed on the straight and narrow you have succeeded as a parent, smacking or not smacking aside. (if anyone quotes this and then uses the word abuse please remove yourself from this thread, I am not talking about abuse, and anyone who can seriously not draw a line between the two needs a re-think)
 
Last edited:
Dimple said:
What about the other 10%?
What about the child that no matter what you try and do by the anti-smacking book still does it?



Removing treats and naughty steps are still psychological abuse and believe me my 2nd child would not respond to picking them up and explaining in a nice way or removing from a situation.

Some of you act as though all children are robots with the same processor.
Click to expand...

Totally, you couldn't ask for 2 more different people than my daughter and my niece, both are ish the same age but have been different from day one.

One example being, my daughter on being put on the naughty step will fling herself around and go ballistic about being removed from the fun, my niece on the other hand will do what the hell she wants and then look at you waiting to be put on the naughty step, defiantly do her time and then go back to what she wanted to do again.

Obviously in this case the naughty step is a deterrent to my daughter, she doesn't like it at all so it works as a threat to her, my niece needed other ways of having sanctions made against her.
 
I got the belt taken to me a few times when I was a kid. I still loved my parents, have never committed a crime and am well adjusted etc.

Physical punishment is no big deal, as long as it's not a common occurrence. Most parents know where the line is.
 
This thread would go a lot better if we could agree in the first instance on there being a difference between a short, sharp shock slap to the back of the legs on the very rare occasions all else fails and beating / abusing a kid.
 
Thompson_NCL said:
I got the belt taken to me a few times when I was a kid. I still loved my parents, have never committed a crime and am well adjusted etc.
Click to expand...

Sorry but I don't accept that after reading some of your posts in other threads. You seem pretty damn far from well adjusted in my opinion.
 
When I think about this I look at it with equivalence. If I was to strike my 4y/o son the equivalent would be some guy around 7ft and built like an Olympic power lifter giving me a half hearted back hander, not good. Now thinking in those terms were a man of that size to lower his voice and instead of using his hands simply tell me in no uncertain terms I was out of order that would do the job.

I only have to threaten sanctions or lower my tone to get my children into line. My oldest son can be a bit of a problem due to his size 6-1"ish but I have that nailed too. He will goad me and just laugh off what I say thinking he can get away with things. I ignore him and simply tell him a sanction is coming, if he taunts me enough it's gloves off time. When he will not back down I pin him to the floor and rub my knuckles in his ribs (not to hurt but to tickle and annoy) he backs down and makes his apologies pretty quickly.

He has actually told me he does it on purpose some times to to get a play fight out of me because he misses being younger and doing that kind of thing more.
 
If you raise your kids so they are accustomed to 'slap/knock = wrong', then they'll never take notice of simply being told wrong.
 
JAzz said:
Of course you should be able to slap your child, when I was little if I was misbehaving then I'd usually get a telling off first and only if I kept on I'd get a slap. I knew if I got slapped it was because I seriously stepped over the line and that was the end of it.

Slapping your child doesn't means you've lost control of the situation, if you go full on and beat the child then that is completely not on.
Click to expand...

This
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom