The Slapping Debate.

Zulu

I have to say the same. Whatever about a child acting up: I feel sorry for the parent. But once I see a parent raising a hand, I think what a.... (I'll hold back)

nesf

we'llallhavetea wrote: »

i think 'you ****ing idiot of a parent, if you cant deal with a child throwing a wobbler in any other way, shame on you' humph.

Quit baiting the other side of the debate. Whatever you might think about it please refrain from calling the other side ****ing idiots on this forum.

we'llallhavetea_old

nesf wrote: »

Quit baiting the other side of the debate. Whatever you might think about it please refrain from calling the other side ****ing idiots on this forum.

i'm sorry, i'm not directing it at any individual poster. Its just how i feel about seeing this sort of thing. I spoke before i thought about what i was actually saying, so i apologise to anyone who takes offence to my post. Not all 'slappers' are ****ing idiots obviously!

SeekUp

Deliverance wrote: »

To me it seems like the people who have actually experienced this anger and violence seem to be the most informed and are most able to speak out against it with v.good informed opinions from said experience as survivors.

In a way to me I feel that some folks still feel that beating / hitting a child is right. I obviously do not agree with this at all because as a qualified survivor I can say otherwise by my succesful actions with my own kids who are well behaved, confident and happy and have never recieved anything more than a reasoned out talking to.

Fair enough, and experience obviously speaks volumes. But then we also have to accept the other side, that people who are not survivors of child abuse, but who have gotten spanked every now and again - and who might do the same to their children - are also well behaved, confident and happy (and their children might be as well).

Ludo

joes girls wrote: »

I think its so funny that if a child is actin up when out,which you find embarrassing, the answer is to give them a slap, which will make the child cry and bring even more attention to you and your child!

I don't think anyone is saying that the answer is always to give a slap to a child who is acting up. You are completely exaggerating to try and score a cheap point.

This really is a never ending discussion as some people regard a single rare slap as abuse/violent behaviour from the looks of the posts whereas most people (going by the poll) regard it as acceptable as a form of discipline when it is used VERY sparingly.

Neither side is going to change their minds based on anything posted here so it is all kinda pointless people getting so hot and bothered about it all.

kizzyr

[QUOTE=Anna88;61217850]Yep I beleive children should be smacked....its the only way they learn!! Well Im speaking from personal experience here!

Embarressing for the child to be smacked? What about the embarresment for the parent when their child acts up in public?? If kids know their gonna get a smack when they mis behave...they wont be embarresed when their out, will they??

And adults know....well SHOULD know better then to act up like a child. Its called being grown up!![/QUOTE]

My parents never ever hit me or any of my siblings and yet we managed to learn. Were we an aberration?

Ludo

Ya know what....I find it very hard to believe that a parent exists that has NEVER so much as slapped his/her child on the hand. And I don't mean a hard belt now or anything like that...I mean a very light tap on the hand or bum accompanied by a lecture about not doing something or being careful.

Cue loads of indignant posters saying they have never done it...but THINK real hard now....have you REALLY never so much as tapped a child on the bum or hand?

My wife is totally anti-slapping...but guess what...I saw her do it twice in two years. A small tap on the back of the hand. She doesn't even realise she did it as I just asked her about it while reading this. Do I consider her abusive...of course not. Will it scar our kids for life...I really really really doubt it.

joes girls

my mam or dad never slapped me, and i have never slapped any of my 3 kids........im not sayin im a perfect mother, but i just dont do the slappin thing, i just dont see the point in it!
oh and im not posting just to score a cheap point, im just saying how i feel!!!

SerialComplaint

Ludo wrote: »

Totally irrelevant to the discussion. Children ARE different to adults.
It is ok for me as a parent to force my children to go to their room and ground them. If I do this to an adult, it is considered kidnapping/illegal detention.

If my children start acting up when out, then I can pick them up and carry them off to calm them down. If I tried this with an adult I could be charged with assault...your comparison is fatally flawed.

I'm not a legal expert, but I'd bet a fiver that there is no legal exclusion to usual assault/kidnapping/detention laws for parents. The only thing stopping the parent of a grounded child from being arrested is
a) kids don't usuall complain to Gardai about being grounded
b) most Gardai would laugh any such complaint out of the station

There is an exclusion to assault laws for use of 'reasonable force', so you are entitled to use 'reasonable force' to remove someone from your premises, for example. The exclusion applies to anyone, not just parents.

Anyway, the legal issues are another red herring, just like the labelling of slapping as abuse. What really matters is whether slapping is the right thing to do?

Anna88 wrote: »

Yep I beleive children should be smacked....its the only way they learn!!

The only way they learn - interesting. I presume you are OK for teachers, sports coaches, scout leaders etc all to hit your children as an aid to learning - right?

~me~

if anyones interested this issue is being discussed on phoneshow extra on fm104 now..

Treora

The big issue in Ireland is that generationally we have supplanted the previous generation's discipline system with a void. This is fine if there is no misbehaving, but moving from a situation where children can pretty much get away with anything, conceited in their online knowledge of childrens rights, to being fully legally liable on their 18th birthday. This is an extreme switch over with little or no normalisation.

If a person hits a work colleague then the cops cart him off to the joy where bubba has some fun with the pastie newbie, if that happens in primary or secondary school then the perp's parents claim fowl and maybe some restorative justice, where the victim has to cower to the bully, is instituted (shows how pychologically torturous well meaners really are).

Plain and simple - there is too much "don't tell me how to raise my children" mentality in this country. There are tonnes of bad parents and children latch onto bad habits quickly. Mandatory 30 hour parenting courses, at least as frequently as an NCT, would help many a lost parent.

tallaght01

nesf wrote: »

You're assuming it's a gene and that it's acting directly. If multiple genes or epigenetic factors were involved then the above wouldn't necessarily hold. I think it's a mistake to rule out genetic factors simply because there isn't obvious tell tale signs. If anything, genetic research from the past decade has shown that it's far murkier than that.

Edit: To be clear, I don't think that at a population level genetic effects would dominate, there's just too much "monkey see, monkey do" in the human learning process for that to be the case. I just intuitively object to slapping=violence hypotheses as blanket statements. Human behaviour is rarely so simple.

Sorry, I meant to get back to this point, but haven't had time. I think once you get into the realms of multiple genetic loci having to be inherited, or epigenetic factors, then you lower the chance of the result being in the majority. So you wouldn't expect to see a negative effect with slapping.

In the case of looking at a single factor (eg slapping), whether it only works on kids with a specific genotypes is unlikely, but not impossible. But i that situation you'd have to do genetic testing on kids with behavioral problems, which is not feasible. But i don't think anything about slapping and it's ineffectiveness points to a real genetic issue (and remember, genes really just produce amino acids). There are undoubtedly complex socio-economic factors at play in all families. But I think the uselessness of slapping transcends all walks of life.

Jo King

SerialComplaint wrote: »

I'm not a legal expert, but I'd bet a fiver that there is no legal exclusion to usual assault/kidnapping/detention laws for parents. The only thing stopping the parent of a grounded child from being arrested is
a) kids don't usuall complain to Gardai about being grounded
b) most Gardai would laugh any such complaint out of the station

There is an exclusion to assault laws for use of 'reasonable force', so you are entitled to use 'reasonable force' to remove someone from your premises, for example. The exclusion applies to anyone, not just parents.

This is absolute nonsense. A child is spoken of legally as being in the custody of its parents. The parents have a duty to take proper care of the child and so have implied authority to tell the child where to go or not go as the case may be. If a child is being detained at home excessively it might become an issue of bad parenting which might justify the intervention of the social services but parents have a lare margin of appreciation in this area.

simplistic2

Hi here is a series of videos that document the sever effects of physically punishing your child. There are some excellent interviews with top professionals in the field of child physcology.

Nevyn

I think you will find that the majority of parents who post here are against beating children.

Klingon Hamlet

Thaedydal wrote: »

I think you will find that the majority of parents who post here are against beating children.

Indeed but some dullards would be of the opinion, Ah it didn't do me any harm when I was their age. When it clearly did. So let's hope a dullard stumbled across this post and wakes up to the real world of parenting

di11on

Thaedydal wrote: »

I think you will find that the majority of parents who post here are against beating children.

While I vehemently agree that physically punishing your children is counterproductive at best, "physically punishing" and "beating" are not necessarily the same thing (but can be, I'm sure).

Klingon Hamlet

di11on wrote: »

While I vehemently agree that physically punishing your children is counterproductive at best, "physically punishing" and "beating" are not necessarily the same thing (but can be, I'm sure).

IMHO any form of physical punishment is unacceptable.

di11on

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

IMHO any form of physical punishment is unacceptable.

I didn't say, or imply that either was acceptable. But use of words like acceptable and unacceptable imply a moral judgement on someone else. I prefer to discuss the issue in terms of the effects and impacts that it has.

Klingon Hamlet

di11on wrote: »

I didn't say, or imply that either was acceptable. But use of words like acceptable and unacceptable imply a moral judgement on someone else. I prefer to discuss the issue in terms of the effects and impacts that it has.

Well I'm of the opinion that if it hurts, it's wrong. Maybe I'm the minority here.

silverharp

It seemed like the vid was more about child abuse or beatings with sticks or straps. Thats a different ball park to ocassionally slapping a child, I wouldnt use the word "wrong" in such a situation.

Deliverance

An interesting video. But it is full of statistics. No real opionions or solutions. It does have some points which are obvious to any 'good' parent.

On that point as a watch it has no real value as a watch for any experienced parent. I just spent 20mins on it and watched it all the way through.

Personally I have got and given more info as a parent on this forum by reading real experiences. I really think I wasted 20mins of my life watching this video. Sorry to say it but it is true.

the vid just acedemmically proposes what we 'parents' already know without any actual proof. I could have spent my time in a more productive way by telling folks to just not watch this vid and get on with the forum with 2mins of typing.

di11on

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Well I'm of the opinion that if it hurts, it's wrong. Maybe I'm the minority here.

That's a little simplistic in my opinion and simply classifying anything that hurts a child as "wrong" is really unhelpful. Why is it wrong?

I've heard of parents that say things like "go to sleep or the man will get you". In my opinion, that's far more damaging than a slap. So just saying something is right or wrong isn't helpful. Rather, why is it a bad idea and what are the consequences?

I think it's far better to argue the issue on its merits. For example, if you use physical punishment on your child, your child is more likely to exhibit violent and anti-social behavior. In my opinion, that's a lot more heplful than just calling it "wrong".

kelle

I find such discussions upsetting.

It makes villains out of my beloved parents. We got the occasional slap, I'm sure if Supernanny had been around then my parents would have used her methods. But she wasn't. They didn't know any other way to enforce discipline. The same applies to almost every other parent of their time. Yet they were very kind parents, they did everything they could for us. I could never think of them as being violent or evil, as is usually depicted in these discussions.

And my siblings, my schoolfriends and I have all grown up devoid of anti-social and violent traits. We don't slap our children, we now have Supernanny and Dr David Coleman to guide us.

di11on

kelle wrote: »

I find such discussions upsetting.

It makes villains out of my beloved parents. We got the occasional slap, I'm sure if Supernanny had been around then my parents would have used her methods. But she wasn't. They didn't know any other way to enforce discipline. The same applies to almost every other parent of their time. Yet they were very kind parents, they did everything they could for us. I could never think of them as being violent or evil, as is usually depicted in these discussions.

And my siblings, my schoolfriends and I have all grown up devoid of anti-social and violent traits. We don't slap our children, we now have Supernanny and Dr David Coleman to guide us.

Hi Kelle,

This is exacly why I don't like the use of moristic judgements in these discussions. It's far too simplistic to just say that any "physical punishment" or discipline is wrong. Not all "physical punishment" or discipline is equivalent to beating or abuse.

I'd rather a parent that gives the occassional slap because, all things considered, they believe it's the best thing for their child, rather than the parent that is aghast at any physical discipline but fails to provide any sort of boundaries for their child.

cynder

Its not just focused on hitting kids, there are 8 other different areas that the ace study covers.

stovelid

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Indeed but some dullards would be of the opinion, Ah it didn't do me any harm when I was their age. When it clearly did. So let's hope a dullard stumbled across this post and wakes up to the real world of parenting

Even if you don't smack yourself, every parent has the right to do so. Within reason, of course.

If I did physically chastise my child, I would take offence to being labeled a dullard.

simplistic2

stovelid wrote: »

Even if you don't smack yourself, every parent has the right to do so. Within reason, of course.

If I did physically chastise my child, I would take offence to being labeled a dullard.

Then let me give you a better label a " COWARD".

How would you feel about seeing somebody hitting a disabled person?

At least the disabled person is able to escape the child is in a involuntary situation and stuck there.

To think that somebody who brings a child into an involuntary situation and then believes they have a "right" to abuse than child is sickening.

simplistic2

Deliverance wrote: »

An interesting video. But it is full of statistics. No real opionions or solutions. It does have some points which are obvious to any 'good' parent.

On that point as a watch it has no real value as a watch for any experienced parent. I just spent 20mins on it and watched it all the way through.

Personally I have got and given more info as a parent on this forum by reading real experiences. I really think I wasted 20mins of my life watching this video. Sorry to say it but it is true.

the vid just acedemmically proposes what we 'parents' already know without any actual proof. I could have spent my time in a more productive way by telling folks to just not watch this vid and get on with the forum with 2mins of typing.

Hi it links to five other parts and the fifth has the solutions in it.

simplistic2

Klingon Hamlet wrote: »

Indeed but some dullards would be of the opinion, Ah it didn't do me any harm when I was their age. When it clearly did. So let's hope a dullard stumbled across this post and wakes up to the real world of parenting

I think it can be very painful for people to accept this because it turns their perception of their own parents into a negative one.