Smacking yes or no

GreeBo

kunst nugget wrote: »

Well, if you want to teach your kids violence is an acceptable way to solve your problems, bully for you…

Well if you think psychological breakdown is better, Abu Ghraib for you.

until you accept that a smack as a reprimand is not violence or abuse I can just counter everything you say by stating that your approach is mental abuse.
otherwise no logical debate is possible and you end up looking like a zealot.

I'm on the fence about this one.

I was smacked as a child, as were all of my brothers. I know it's not a nice thing to do. On the other hand, what has it been replaced with? The feral brats these days have no fear whatsoever.

awec

There is some amount of hyperbolic crap on this thread.

100% nothing wrong with giving a child a slap on the ass. Not hitting them with a fist, not hitting them with a spoon, not hitting them with any sort of weapon. A slap on the back of the legs is minimal pain and the child knows they did wrong.

It is not beating a child. It is not child abuse. The analogy of "would you hit your mate if he annoyed you" is possibly one of the worst ever.

The "parents who smack are poor parents" is absolute crap. This "it's a loss of control" is also total crap. You don't smack your child because you've entered a fit of rage and lost self control ffs. You don't do it out of anger where you actually want to hurt the child. You are cool, calm and controlled when you do it.

Poor parents are those who raise disobedient children, who continually misbehave because they know they can get away with it. It has nothing to do with smacking or not smacking, a smack is just another form of punishment available to parents, it is certainly not the only one.

I think the problem on this thread is a lot of people just don't understand what "smack" means in this context, and they are making weak and blatantly incorrect assumptions and then trying to justify it with weak and blatantly incorrect analogies. Beaten with bars etc, did people really type that nonsense with a straight face?

You can pull out corner cases to try and make some sort of argument that smacking is child abuse but of course it's totally irrelevant to 99% of cases where it is a completely legitimate form of punishment.

omega man

awec wrote: »

There is some amount of hyperbolic crap on this thread.

100% nothing wrong with giving a child a slap on the ass. Not hitting them with a fist, not hitting them with a spoon, not hitting them with any sort of weapon. A slap on the back of the legs is minimal pain and the child knows they did wrong.

It is not beating a child. It is not child abuse. The analogy of "would you hit your mate if he annoyed you" is possibly one of the worst ever.

The "parents who smack are poor parents" is absolute crap. This "it's a loss of control" is also total crap. You don't smack your child because you've entered a fit of rage and lost self control ffs. You don't do it out of anger where you actually want to hurt the child. You are cool, calm and controlled when you do it.

Poor parents are those who raise disobedient children, who continually misbehave because they know they can get away with it. It has nothing to do with smacking or not smacking, a smack is just another form of punishment available to parents, it is certainly not the only one.

I think the problem on this thread is a lot of people just don't understand what "smack" means in this context, and they are making weak and blatantly incorrect assumptions and then trying to justify it with weak and blatantly incorrect analogies. Beaten with bars etc, did people really type that nonsense with a straight face?

You can pull out corner cases to try and make some sort of argument that smacking is child abuse but of course it's totally irrelevant to 99% of cases where it is a completely legitimate form of punishment.

Perhaps some scenarios are extreme but a slap on a small child is an act of physicality and in many cases aggression. If slapping a child can be considered as a practical parenting tool then why is it deemed socially and legally unacceptable to slap in general, adult v adult situations, be it domestic or in public etc?

I've yet to see a parent smack a child in a calm and controlled manner as you described! Personally I feel smacking a small child is akin to an adult using a certain level of force against another adult in order to get their message across (as opposed to self defense). It's just not the way adults behave in a civilised society. We use other skills to deal with these situations but yet some feel it is perfectly fine to raise a hand to children to show/threaten them into remorse or a change of behaviour. Interesting.

Oh and yes I have kids and no I've never hit them. Am I perfect? absolutely not and neither are they angels 24/7

Fourhead

There is no need to smack children. Just put them kneeling on sharp stones for a while and they will get the message.

josip

josip wrote: »

Sometimes we are too close to our own sermons.

I wish you luck improving that problem in your own life. But if you have anything on topic of the thread to add I am all ears.

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Feel better knowing that my story is one mostly of the past.

That much at least we are wholly agreed on.

oldyouth

I was never smacked and I never smacked my own kids. I always used withdrawal of privilege as a weapon of choice. Start young and stick to your threat and it should work. I never had a problem and my (extremely biased) opinion is that I have 2 extremely well tempered young adults as sons

GreeBo

omega man wrote: »

If slapping a child can be considered as a practical parenting tool then why is it deemed socially and legally unacceptable to slap in general, adult v adult situations, be it domestic or in public etc?

Because children are not adults; you can have a logical, reasoning approach with an adult.
Do you reason with a dog or give it a smack when its misbehaving?

The reason you smack a child is because they know exactly what a smack is and can associate it with their behaviour, learning that if the continue the behaviour they get another smack.

Reasoning with a 3 year old isnt going to be very successful as they more than likely have no idea what you are talking about.

Shenshen

GreeBo wrote: »

Because children are not adults; you can have a logical, reasoning approach with an adult.
Do you reason with a dog or give it a smack when its misbehaving?

The reason you smack a child is because they know exactly what a smack is and can associate it with their behaviour, learning that if the continue the behaviour they get another smack.

Reasoning with a 3 year old isnt going to be very successful as they more than likely have no idea what you are talking about.

So thinking this a little further, you would be happy for say police officers to slap an unreasonable drunk rather than simply restrain him?

josip

GreeBo wrote: »

Reasoning with a 3 year old isnt going to be very successful as they more than likely have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm not anti slapping, but by your logic, the child gets a slap even though you believe they will have no idea why they got it?

Perhaps I'm reading too much into 1 line here and if you elaborated a bit on it I would understand better.

GreeBo

Shenshen wrote: »

So thinking this a little further, you would be happy for say police officers to slap an unreasonable drunk rather than simply restrain him?

Police officers are entitled to use *reasonable* force to restrain someone who is unreasonably resisting...
the key word there is *reasonable*....a smack on a childs ass/leg is reasonable, for some unknown reason people are equating this with belts and iron bars.

sunflower27

Shenshen wrote: »

So thinking this a little further, you would be happy for say police officers to slap an unreasonable drunk rather than simply restrain him?

Oh man, I give up.......

Shenshen

GreeBo wrote: »

Police officers are entitled to use *reasonable* force to restrain someone who is unreasonably resisting...
the key word there is *reasonable*....a smack on a childs ass/leg is reasonable, for some unknown reason people are equating this with belts and iron bars.

I wouldn't mind "reasonable force" on behalf of the parent if they're trying to restrain a kid throwing a tantrum - but to me that would mean taking the child and putting him/her into a quiet space where they can't hurt themselves or others and allow them time and space to calm down.

I'm not sure I'd call smacking them at that moment "reasonable".

GreeBo

josip wrote: »

I'm not anti slapping, but by your logic, the child gets a slap even though you believe they will have no idea why they got it?

Perhaps I'm reading too much into 1 line here and if you elaborated a bit on it I would understand better.

They know why they got it, because they are able to associate their behaviour with the result (i.e. a slap) of course assuming the slap follows the behaviour within a reasonable amount of time.

I think a child is far more likely to associate a slap (pain) with bad behaviour than a conversation, this obviously depends on the age of the child. As the child grows up it should be more and more possible to reason with them logically via conversation.


Its a logical extension of Pavlovs experiment with dogs.

GreeBo

Shenshen wrote: »

I wouldn't mind "reasonable force" on behalf of the parent if they're trying to restrain a kid throwing a tantrum - but to me that would mean taking the child and putting him/her into a quiet space where they can't hurt themselves or others and allow them time and space to calm down.

I'm not sure I'd call smacking them at that moment "reasonable".

Thats your perogative, I think that slapping a child who is throwing a tantrum is appropriate and reasonable.
To me, putting a child into a quiet space gives the child no feedback that their behaviour is inappropriate and unacceptable, in fact personally I think you are enabling that behaviour.

There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this one imo. Im defending my right to slap because I have a huge problem with the "slapping is evil and clearly wrong" opinion.

Shenshen

GreeBo wrote: »

Thats your perogative, I think that slapping a child who is throwing a tantrum is appropriate and reasonable.
To me, putting a child into a quiet space gives the child no feedback that their behaviour is inappropriate and unacceptable, in fact personally I think you are enabling that behaviour.

There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to this one imo. Im defending my right to slap because I have a huge problem with the "slapping is evil and clearly wrong" opinion.

I can't help thinking that providing feedback to the child will be much more effective once they've calmed down.

As I had stated before, my parents employed slapping as a regular tool in their "education" of me. I was prone to tantrums, and would have been slapped for them on a regular basis.
I remember the day I stopped throwing them - it was the day I was in the car with my mother and a friend of hers. When I kicked off, the friend of my mother turned up the radio to a volume loud enough to drown out my screaming and wailing and left it at that until I stopped after some 10 minutes or so. She then pulled over, took me out of the car, knelt down in front of me and told me that screaming wasn't ever going to get me anywhere, and that she knew I was smarter than that.
We then continued on our journey and I cannot remember me ever having a screaming fit again since.
I was about 3 or 4 years at the time.

Jiggers77

GreeBo wrote: »

Police officers are entitled to use *reasonable* force to restrain someone who is unreasonably resisting...
the key word there is *reasonable*....a smack on a childs ass/leg is reasonable, for some unknown reason people are equating this with belts and iron bars.

I think it was the initial post at the start of the thread that has people talking about the apropriateness of belts etc when punishing kids. You might want to revisit my staring thread

GreeBo

Shenshen wrote: »

I can't help thinking that providing feedback to the child will be much more effective once they've calmed down.

As I had stated before, my parents employed slapping as a regular tool in their "education" of me. I was prone to tantrums, and would have been slapped for them on a regular basis.
I remember the day I stopped throwing them - it was the day I was in the car with my mother and a friend of hers. When I kicked off, the friend of my mother turned up the radio to a volume loud enough to drown out my screaming and wailing and left it at that until I stopped after some 10 minutes or so. She then pulled over, took me out of the car, knelt down in front of me and told me that screaming wasn't ever going to get me anywhere, and that she knew I was smarter than that.
We then continued on our journey and I cannot remember me ever having a screaming fit again since.
I was about 3 or 4 years at the time.

I dont see why you cant explain after a smack/slap either though?
Nothing to say that you slap a child and then thats it. I would slap, explain, isolate if it continues after the slap/explanation and then explain again after its all over.
The plan being that the child associates the smack with all the rest of it and learns that not doing what they are told escalates to a smack, which in turn escalates to isolation. The hope being that eventually the child starts doing what they are told from the offset.

Smacking randomly and without consistent followup/explanation is just as useless as randomly using the naughty step, sometimes giving in and sometimes shouting/ignoring.
With all these approaches, consistency is the key.

Jiggers77 wrote: »

I think it was the initial post at the start of the thread that has people talking about the apropriateness of belts etc when punishing kids. You might want to revisit my staring thread

Thread title is "smacking" so thats what Im discussing.

Shenshen

GreeBo wrote: »

I dont see why you cant explain after a smack/slap either though?
Nothing to say that you slap a child and then thats it. I would slap, explain, isolate if it continues after the slap/explanation and then explain again after its all over.
The plan being that the child associates the smack with all the rest of it and learns that not doing what they are told escalates to a smack, which in turn escalates to isolation. The hope being that eventually the child starts doing what they are told from the offset.

Smacking randomly and without consistent followup/explanation is just as useless as randomly using the naughty step, sometimes giving in and sometimes shouting/ignoring.
With all these approaches, consistency is the key.

How would smacking calm the child down to the point where it's able to take in the explanation you're giving?

GreeBo

Shenshen wrote: »

How would smacking calm the child down to the point where it's able to take in the explanation you're giving?

The child gets the explanation before the smack
i.e. Stop doing X or I will smack you.

The purpose of the smack is to punish the child for not doing what they are told, its not there to calm the child down.
The smack will get through to a hysterical child (assuming they are throwing a tantrum) where talking to them will not.

If the child continues then, as I said above, I isolate them.


The other option is to isolate first, my issue with that is that then you have to wait for the child to decide to calm down (in your example 10 mins).
Often I dont have (or dont want to wait) 10 minutes.

kunst nugget

GreeBo wrote: »

The child gets the explanation before the smack
i.e. Stop doing X or I will smack you.

The purpose of the smack is to punish the child for not doing what they are told, its not there to calm the child down.
The smack will get through to a hysterical child (assuming they are throwing a tantrum) where talking to them will not.

If the child continues then, as I said above, I isolate them.


The other option is to isolate first, my issue with that is that then you have to wait for the child to decide to calm down (in your example 10 mins).
Often I dont have (or dont want to wait) 10 minutes.

The general rule of thumb is one minute for every year of the child's age - 4 years = 4 minutes - if your 10 year old is having a 10 minute tantrum they've other issues going on.

You're basically saying you're too impatient to wait 3 or 4 minutes to use a timeout system so you resort to smacking the child. But then end up having to use a timeout when the smacking proves ineffective. That seems to be completely counter-intuitive.

GreeBo

kunst nugget wrote: »

The general rule of thumb is one minute for every year of the child's age - 4 years = 4 minutes - if your 10 year old is having a 10 minute tantrum they've other issues going on.

You're basically saying you're too impatient to wait 3 or 4 minutes to use a timeout system so you resort to smacking the child. But then end up having to use a timeout when the smacking proves ineffective. That seems to be completely counter-intuitive.

10 mins was from Shenshen's real life example (which I was replying to)

Debating using emotive words like "impatient" and "resort" demeans your point.
I could just as easily state that you have resorted to ignoring your child to control them.

Im not too impatient, I choose not to let my child control the lives of all around when they decide to throw a tantrum or ignore something they have been told to do.
Thats a choice of mine, you are free to disagree with that choice, but saying "thats wrong you should use a timeout" is not an argument.

Also, I said *if* the child continue with the tantrum.
What do you do *when* the child continues the tantrum after the 3 minutes, would you agree that your timeout was ineffective?

FameHungry

I would get the occasional smack here and there but there were other times where my parents would go too far. It's put me off having children in case I'd do the same to them.

anncoates

Shenshen wrote: »

I remember the day I stopped throwing them - it was the day I was in the car with my mother and a friend of hers. When I kicked off, the friend of my mother turned up the radio to a volume loud enough to drown out my screaming and wailing and left it at that until I stopped after some 10 minutes or so. She then pulled over, took me out of the car, knelt down in front of me and told me that screaming wasn't ever going to get me anywhere, and that she knew I was smarter than that.
We then continued on our journey and I cannot remember me ever having a screaming fit again since.
I was about 3 or 4 years at the time.

Disgraceful use of violent aural assault to impose adult values on an innocent child.

No doubt you ended up working somewhere like a detention center a-la Castlereagh or Guantanamo where high-pitched noise is used as a means of torture and control.





Did I get the tone of hyperbolic hysteria right there? I just want to fit in with the general tone of the thread.