montreal mike

I mean just one smack on the bum, nothing vicious. Some are horrifed at the thought of laying a finger on a young child but i am all in favour of it. It does wonders. OR should we let them get away with it? It is hard to reason with a three year old, no?

Nu-Shooz

I've slapped mine on the bum when they have been bad..i wouldn't do it now though, they are bigger than me

Ben W Bell

< walks in. Realises the conversation is about spanking children. Walks out disappointed. >

Coffeepot

No i don't agree with it, full stop violence towards a child should never be tolerated, ( now stands back for the fireworks )

montreal mike

But is it violence? My guess is that we have all been spanked at one point or another and are probably too old to remember it. My guess is that it doesn't screw us up psychollogically in later life. So what is the choice? Do nothing and bite your tongue?

bandit

I don't have kids, so maybe the reply isn't realistic.

I don't believe in violence, however I do not disagree with a short sharp 'reminder' about who is the boss. If this is done correctly, it should not be seen as violence, and it shouldn't be used by parents resorting to the last available solution to a problem.

I truly believe that humans (being animals) should take some lessons from them, in the rearing of their kids. You don't usually find a pup / foal / calf that disobeys it's mother. That is because they give short bites / kicks / ears back behaviour.

I've seen one parent (my ex boss) never lay her hand on her daughter, and her daughter was 'the boss' in the relationship which isn't going to help either in the long run.

Of course you cannot generalise on either side, but I for one don't disagree with a slap, but I do very much disagree with violence, and each should be viewed as different...

Ok - I'm writing this, and the smell of a skunk is coming through my front window - frankly putting a kid a room with that smell would be enough for anyone to know right from wrong.....

Bx

montreal mike

I guess the word 'indulge' caught your fancy?

Coffeepot

I have never smacked my 7 year old, We reason with him have done since he could talk, just discipline in other ways, would you hit a grown person for not doing what they are asked ?

i was hit as a child and yes it has scarred

I did smack my older boys on occasion and feel terrible about it, it was sort of expected then, Since then i have had training in child care and how to deal with children it really isn't necessary

The thing that most parents don't do is listen to there children they have a lot more understanding than we give them credit for

Be firm and stick by what you say and teach a child NO means NO right from the start


Wonder if that works on OHs as well

montreal mike

Problem is that it is hard to reason with them at a young age. Someone who, an an adult, can recall being slapped must have been really badly whacked, it seems to me.

Coffeepot

Yep certainly was and i see lots of children still smacked in temper by there parents because they don't know how to deal with them,


If you remove a toddler from say biting another child, into a restricted area ( play pen or push-chair ) if your at toddler group, the child is given a time out then when he/ she goes back into play they bite again i would take them home they will soon learn that they have done something wrong ?

I have seen mothers bite there children to show them it hurts children learn what they live, unexpectable behavior has to be stopped i agree but don't see how smacking would help ?

There are so many ways to punish a child without resorting to smacking .

Lorna_D

Smacking makes the adult feel better at the time, but not in the long term. It just goes to show that they cannot control the situation and don't have the skill or inclination to find out why the child is acting out in the first place.

Judy in Calgary

I don't believe in spanking kids.

Like Coffeepot, I did hit my kids a few times, and I also feel terrible about it (and did immediately afterwards as well).

I hit my kids when I was angry, frustrated and at the end of my tether. I am not proud of it and would love to be able to turn back the clock to do things differently.

Still, some psychologists say that, if one is going to hit a child, it's better to do so when one is angry. I have read that a child can actually understand, up to a point, that a parent is angry and that that is the motivation for the spanking. They say that the child feels more injured, emotionally, if he/she is under the impression that his/her parent has hit him/her in cold blood, so to speak.

A sobering thought is that a large percentage of old people who experience elder abuse at the hands of their children are people who spanked their children when they were little. That is, statistics show that the chances of your experiencing elder abuse rise if you were in the habit of spanking your children.
x

mclauchlan35

We have smacked our kids, although it was once in a blue moon. Usually sent to the rooms first although oldest daughter is 11 and hasn't been smacked since she was 5.

Youngest daughter is 6 and hasn't been smacked for a while either but yes they both have had the odd smack to the backside, the other thing is it was always one smack, you see some parents in the supermarkets and stuff and it can be 3 or 4 rapid I don't agree with that. The other thing is mine always got one smack to the backside my old man used to smack me round the head.

So I say if it's the odd time depending what they have done then I agree but everytime they do something wrong or doing it excessively like some I don't agree with that.

BristolUK

I was spanked as a child. Slippered, actually.

Almost ritualised - into my mum's bedroom, pants down, over the bed.

I can't say it did me any harm, other than it was embarrassing, but I don't agree with doing it.

Lucky for me I was never tested - never having had young kids. The stepkids were already 12 and 14 when I came on the scene.

dbd33

I'm with you. I was gobsmacked when we went to Australia to see people openly hitting their children in public, it was like stepping back fifteen years.