The Slapping Debate.

6th

Yes but look at why the restraining is being done. I've no problem picking up my daughter and putting her where she needs to be. I'm not suggesting that people let their kids walk all over them. I just dont think 'hitting' is needed - infact i know its not.

nesf

6th wrote:

Yes but look at why the restraining is being done. I've no problem picking up my daughter and putting her where she needs to be. I'm not suggesting that people let their kids walk all over them. I just dont think 'hitting' is needed - infact i know its not.

Possibly, but you can accidentally hurt a young child if you grab an arm and they struggle hard against it. I'm not equating the two necessarily, I'm just trying to show that this isn't the black and white issue some people choose to paint it as. No one is arguing that we should beat our children with sticks or leather belts, but some seem to equate a smack with this or lump it into the same category which is simply not logical or reasonable.

6th

nesf wrote:

Possibly, but you can accidentally hurt a young child if you grab an arm and they struggle hard against it. I'm not equating the two necessarily, I'm just trying to show that this isn't the black and white issue some people choose to paint it as. No one is arguing that we should beat our children with sticks or leather belts, but some seem to equate a smack with this or lump it into the same category which is simply not logical or reasonable.

An accident is one thing, purposely hitting is different. Even if you dont leave a mark. Its not about scaring a child or making them bleed.

Seriously do you think smacking is the best way to do it? I'll admit it could very well work and it would be quicker/simpler but its giving the wrong message.

luckat

http://www.childadvocate.org/1a_arguments.htm is a series of the arguments commonly used by people to justify smacking their children, with rebuttals of those arguments.

Here's one sample:

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Argument #9: "What if they run out in the street or try to touch a hot stove? They need to be hit to learn that it is a dangerous situation!"
Answer: If you believe that hitting your child for running out into the street or reaching for a hot stove is effective, would you leave them alone near the street or stove once you’ve hit them? Being hit is in no way teaches anything about the dangers of the street or the stove, nor will it prevent them from exploring dangerous situations in the future. Instead, hitting children teaches them that YOU are dangerous and can inflict pain upon them. Children should not be hurt or punished for their lack of experience about the world, and for their developmental immaturity. It is the caretaker’s responsibility to remove opportunities for a child to encounter dangerous situations in their environment through proper monitoring and "child-proofing" efforts. Children can be taught gradually to exercise caution around dangerous situations, through your example, and constant reminders. Until they comprehend the dangers, they must be supervised, not hit.

---

I'm really glad that more people are saying "I want to find a better way than smacking", by the way.

Pherekydes

6th wrote:

I've no problem picking up my daughter and putting her where she needs to be.

You wouldn't pick up an adult and put them where they need to be, now would you?

Consistency, please.

luckat

Rather than repeating the endless arguments over whether it's right, effective or a good parenting method to slap children - on which we're never all likely to agree! - would it be helpful if we swapped some useful methods for dealing with situations where a slap is a likely response?

nesf

6th wrote:

Seriously do you think smacking is the best way to do it?

Not necessarily the best, but potentially (if a rare and unusual method of discipline in the child's life) an effective one. It, like the vast majority of methods, if overused ceases to be effective or meaningful.

6th wrote:

I'll admit it could very well work and it would be quicker/simpler but its giving the wrong message.

My view is that it is quick, and effective. However, it should be the "final" escalation if you know what I mean. If used rarely (i.e. once or twice a year) and only for unusually bad acts, then it is reasonable enough. There will always be compromises in parenting, versus efficiency and ethics. It would be efficient to beat a child black and blue for something severe enough and literally make it hard to walk afterwards, but few people's ethics could permit this to happen, never mind actually do it themselves. However, there is a lot of grey in this and I firmly believe that, excluding things as extreme as my example above where I'm sure the vast vast majority of parents would agree, things like smacking a child are a question of compromise between the two and as such should be left for the parents to decide and not the law.

Legislate against parents beating, bruising and making children bleed sure, but beyond that discipline should really be no one else's business. Are we going to legislate against parent's raising their voices to children next?

6th

Slow coach wrote:

You wouldn't pick up an adult and put them where they need to be, now would you?

Consistency, please.

I have done, ask any of the Boardsies I've taken away on trips over the past couple of years.

Nesf, I understand what you are saying but I cant think of a situation where it is nessecery? I'm not beating down on parents that smack - I was smacked myself and I'm fine.

nesf

6th wrote:

Nesf, I understand what you are saying but I cant think of a situation where it is nessecery? I'm not beating down on parents that smack - I was smacked myself and I'm fine.

Well, you know as a parent or anyone who has worked with kids that you can't "plan out your discipline strategy", you can only react accordingly to what happens and to the history of the situation etc. It might be that it's when every other form of discipline has failed, or for a particularly bad incident, like when hurting another child badly. I'm just arguing that where you draw the line might be slightly different to where I'd draw it or Slow Coach would draw it but that doesn't invalidate each other's opinions on the matter.

6th

Its still looks like its a case of it happening out of frustration or getting p'd off, it cant be right to hit an kid no matter what they do if you lose your patients?

My old boss would be black and blue if that was the case.

nesf

6th wrote:

it cant be right to hit an kid no matter what they do if you lose your patients?

I agree, losing your patience is a very poor excuse for any kind of reaction.

DeVore

Im not a parent but I am an active uncle to 4 (3 girls and 1 boy). The boy is now 5 and a great lad but a little spoiled and attention seeking. I love him dearly as do all of my family and I wouldnt smack him. My parents (his grandparents) threaten the slipper but I dont think they have used it.

I wouldnt use smacking but I do draw a distinction between smacking and physical intervention. I'll explain; my sister will negotiate and cajole and reason with him not to do something while I'll go over and pick him up and put him somewhere he cant do it or take it away from him and THEN explain why he shouldnt do it.
Children have rights but they dont have the logic centres developed in the brain to be reasoned with as they have difficulty projecting the future (normally you are saying something like: "dont eat those sweets you'll ruin your appetite" they simply dont really get that idea of current deprivation for future benefit.)
I wish more parents were less "reasoning" with their offspring and more assertive of "there is no other way but this way" until their kids can be reasoned with.

DeV.

luckat

nesf wrote:

Well, you know as a parent or anyone who has worked with kids that you can't "plan out your discipline strategy", you can only react accordingly to what happens and to the history of the situation etc.

Surely planning out a discipline strategy is what works, though, Nesf?

If you don't plan, quarrels happen and escalate, and the most powerful person ends up slapping.

If you plan ahead, you can 'catch children being good' and use reinforcements to change the atmosphere of your family and the attitude of your kids. You can circumvent tired tantrums, set up routines for homework and bedtime that work pleasantly and happily - you can set up your children for advantage.

I know so many people whose reactive (rather than proactive) parents have set them up for a working life where they behave like children, pushing their bosses' boundaries, resenting their employers, etc. Planning so that your family life is pleasant and co-operative is the least you can do for kids, maybe?

loismustdie

Beruthiel wrote:

As for it doing no harm. All it teaches you is not to get caught.
I lived in fear of my mother and would quite happily have danced on her grave right up into my late teens.
You don't need to do that to any child, they can be punished without ever having a hand laid on them. In the long term, it's much more effective. Your child ends up respecting you instead of wishing you were never born.

can't that be said for any form of punishment?

crosstownk wrote:

Smacking to me is not the right way to handle things. It simply means that the child will not do as he/she is told not to out of fear of being smacked. Better to teach them the reasoning between right and wrong rather than posing the threat of being smacked. I appreciate that this may be easier said than done, but smacking can lead to resentment which can result in a downward spiral.

reasoning may well work with older kids but what about toddlers

luckat wrote:

http://www.childadvocate.org/1a_arguments.htm is a series of the arguments commonly used by people to justify smacking their children, with rebuttals of those arguments.

Here's one sample:

---

Argument #9: "What if they run out in the street or try to touch a hot stove? They need to be hit to learn that it is a dangerous situation!"
Answer: If you believe that hitting your child for running out into the street or reaching for a hot stove is effective, would you leave them alone near the street or stove once you’ve hit them? Being hit is in no way teaches anything about the dangers of the street or the stove, nor will it prevent them from exploring dangerous situations in the future. Instead, hitting children teaches them that YOU are dangerous and can inflict pain upon them. Children should not be hurt or punished for their lack of experience about the world, and for their developmental immaturity. It is the caretaker’s responsibility to remove opportunities for a child to encounter dangerous situations in their environment through proper monitoring and "child-proofing" efforts. Children can be taught gradually to exercise caution around dangerous situations, through your example, and constant reminders. Until they comprehend the dangers, they must be supervised, not hit.

---

I'm really glad that more people are saying "I want to find a better way than smacking", by the way.

i'm definietely trying to find better ways than slapping but despite all you're saying i can't agree. studies are fine, but just because words are written on paper doesn't make them real, it is experience and tried and tested and that's where slapping seems to sustain.

i took on the point about murders, rapists etc but you must remember, there was no communication back then, no tv and no money so you can't relate the two really

6th

Ok well if words on paper arent enough I dont use slapping and my toddler (2 and a half) is well behaved. Dont get me wrong she's not perfect but if she is bold she goes to the corner - she's even put me in it for being bold, and the cat and some of her toys!

Now if she is acting up cos she's tired she gets put up on my knee and I explain that I know she's tired - usually she'll calm right down.

Pherekydes

6th wrote:

Ok well if words on paper arent enough I dont use slapping and my toddler (2 and a half) is well behaved. Dont get me wrong she's not perfect but if she is bold she goes to the corner - she's even put me in it for being bold, and the cat and some of her toys!

Now if she is acting up cos she's tired she gets put up on my knee and I explain that I know she's tired - usually she'll calm right down.

Well my kids have been slapped and are well behaved, so what does that tell us? If your sample of one is proof that not slapping works, then my sample size of 6 shows that it does. And who would slap their child because he or she is tired? :rolleyes:

nesf

luckat wrote:

Surely planning out a discipline strategy is what works, though, Nesf?

If you don't plan, quarrels happen and escalate, and the most powerful person ends up slapping.

If you plan ahead, you can 'catch children being good' and use reinforcements to change the atmosphere of your family and the attitude of your kids. You can circumvent tired tantrums, set up routines for homework and bedtime that work pleasantly and happily - you can set up your children for advantage.

I know so many people whose reactive (rather than proactive) parents have set them up for a working life where they behave like children, pushing their bosses' boundaries, resenting their employers, etc. Planning so that your family life is pleasant and co-operative is the least you can do for kids, maybe?

I meant it in terms of planning out exact reactions to precise incidents and being able to do this for all potential incidents. Versus the realistic situation having most things worked out in advanced but still being put in the situation every so often of something completely unexpected happening and you having to react to it "on the spot".

You can't plan for everything, no matter how careful you are. The same as you can't protect your child against everything just the majority of things.

Crea

luckat wrote:

Rather than repeating the endless arguments over whether it's right, effective or a good parenting method to slap children - on which we're never all likely to agree! - would it be helpful if we swapped some useful methods for dealing with situations where a slap is a likely response?

Good idea Luckat.
I have 2 children. Boy aged 3, girl aged 1yr 9mths.
I use the bold chair (live in a bungalow) for bad behaviour at home. It took some time and alot of patience to get it going but now the threat of the bold chair is enought to stop most bad behaviour. Sometimes i'll put my son into his room if he is being very physical, swing arms, hitting etc while i'm trying to use the bold chair. This is more because I feel like killing him and I need to get away from the situation.
My daughter tries to injure herself at least 20 times a day. Usually by climbing on the kitchen table and jumping. I just try to make sure all the chairs are pushed in and i've started locking the kitchen door whenever I leave it so she can't get in on her own. She is put into the hall if she acts up and the door closed. This usually snaps her out of her bad behaviour.
My son was kept in a buggy until he got road sense. Even now i'd be slow to take him into town unless I could concentrate on only him and I bring the double buggy.
I have slapped my son and felt terrible afterwards because I know there was a better way of dealing with the situation. I know that I feel like slapping him when I'm under pressure trying to get out of the house or trying to get the dinner on etc. So now i've had to let go of some of my ideals (no tv, no sweets, have a tidy house) in order to fulfil others (don't beat the children).

Concorde

6th wrote:

I'm not beating down on parents that smack - I was smacked myself and I'm fine.

Okay, if smacking was banned when you were young, do you think you'd be fine now if your parents had been imprisoned and you placed in foster care?

Beruthiel wrote:

Smacking equals lazy parenting

Lazy parenting is done by parents who are feckless and don't enforce any form of discipline whatsoever in their children. At least a parent who uses smacking as a last resort is trying to mentor and discipline the child to the extent that (hopefully) the child remains alive and uninjured, and becomes a model citizen of society.

6th wrote:

When people say it never did them any harm and that when smacking was common things were bettter maybe we should ignore those emails about how great and free it was growing up and look at the the numbers of abusers we have now days and the number of victims or sexual and phsyical abuse we have coming out of the woodwork from the good old days. [QUOTE/]
Okay, let's lock up ALL parents in the hope that one or two will have turned out to be the perpetrators of sexul or physical abuse

Ickle Magoo

Rather than letting my kids (just turned 2 & 10months) get into the situations that would warrant a smack, I try & make sure I remove as many opportunities to do something I don't want them to as possible - ie, gates in the doorways, safety plugs in all sockets, fire guard, everything is up high & all crayons/pens/paint, etc are only used under supervision & cleared away to a safe place, we keep all our important documents, glasseware, etc, locked away. I have a play-pen set up in the hall & any other misdemeanors result in a minute or two in the play-pen while everyone else is in another room...then I bring the child in to the company & they have to appologise.

I also try to remember that if my son draws on the wall it was my fault for leaving the pen where he could get to it rather than his fault for doing what comes naturally to a small child, or if he tries to touch the oven then I should have closed the gate in the kitchen doorway to stop him getting anywhere near it rather than shouting at him for being naturally curious. If they are doing something that could endanger them then it's really me that put them in that situation & so I do everything I can to avoid those types of situations or at least do everything I can to minimise the dangers for them until they are old enough to understand why it is dangerous or wrong - rather than not doing something because they fear a smack from me & then doing it when I'm not there & end up hurting themselves.

kleefarr

In our case, my wife and I use a three stage process.

First we explain why the action that either our four year old son or three year old son has taken is wrong. We tell them that it's not acceptable for such and such reasons. Depending on the resulting reaction, it's either left there or taken to the next stage, which would be a more forceful explanation, with a change in tone of voice. This normally does the job, but sometimes, very rarely it has to go to the final stage.

Taking a case in point, that only happened yesterday.

Our 4 year old was outside with a couple of his slightly older friends. It started raining. My wife went outside to ask him to come in. He was standing in the porch of his friends house out of the rain. My wife said it's getting late anyway, come in. He screamed at her to shut up, he was talking to Patrick. My wife then raised her voice and changed her tone and asked him once again to come in. He did so in a mood, with a stick in his hand. Muttering disapproval he approached my wife and threw the stick at her. Well, that was the final straw and stage three was then taken. Once my wife had got him to the door she smacked him on the bottom, while he still had his trousers on, telling him in no uncertain terms was he ever to do that again. He was laughing and being cocky about it, saying that didn't hurt, so once inside down came the trousers and he got a smack on the bum. the tears then started and he went and hid in the kitchen for a while sobbing.

While neither of us like it to get to that stage, in our opinion it was warranted.

It wasn't long though before sorries had been said and everything was back to normal. Played games and everything was ok again.

Like I say, it's not often something like that happens and we hate it when it does, but sometimes it just has to reach stage three.

And I must say, we are both very proud of our two boys and love them with all our hearts, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

P.S.
Slap? No! Smack if absolutely necessary.
Slap and smack are two different things in our minds.

luckat

Smack and slap are different? How, please?

My own take on the question is that we should actually turn our focus away from prevention and punishment and boldness, and turn it towards the desired behaviour.

There's a method you can use, where you give specific 'points' (expressed as tangible rewards if you like, such as tokens, marbles, dinky cars, stars, or whatever you choose) for specific 'good behaviours'.

Then when a tantrum looms, you can say, "You know, you have a lot of marbles/cars/points. If you'd really like to throw your fit, you've got plenty of points to do it. Plus, you're a good boy and you know you can always get more points. So, if you want to spend X number of points on throwing a fit, feel free. I can wait until you're finished. Would you like to do that? Really, I don't mind."

This puts the child back in control of his actions - the terrible thing about having a tantrum is the feeling of loss of control.

The same basic methods can be used in all areas where children are learning self-control (which is, in fact, when slapping is used): bedtimes, rudeness, homework, schedules, getting dressed in time, etc.

Pherekydes

luckat wrote:

The same basic methods can be used in all areas where children are learning self-control (which is, in fact, when slapping is used): bedtimes, rudeness, homework, schedules, getting dressed in time, etc.

Now how could anyone possibly know that?

luckat

I stand corrected, Slow Coach. When is slapping used?

daiixi

luckat wrote:

Smack and slap are different? How, please?

I'd say that a smack is an open palm striking the bum. A slap is an open palm striking any other part of the body.

Nevyn

Slap

v. tr.

1. To strike with a flat object, such as the palm of the hand.
2. To cause to strike sharply and loudly: "He took a clipping from his wallet and slapped it on the bar" (Nathanael West).
3. To put or place quickly or carelessly: slapped butter on a bagel.
4. To criticize or insult sharply.
5. To subject to a legal obligation, such as a fine or court order: slapped him with a speeding ticket; slapped her with a lawsuit.


Smack

v. tr.

1. To press together and open (the lips) quickly and noisily, as in eating or tasting.
2. To kiss noisily.
3. To strike sharply and with a loud noise.

luckat

I've been reading various biographies of super-successful people, and notice that one of the things they have in common is that they're clubbable - they are affable, get-along kind of guys who are really good at negotiating with others and getting what they want by persuasion.

It strikes [slaps, smacks, hits] me that perhaps if you want your child to be a military man you should give him a good belt when you feel it necessary, but if you want your child to be a great success in other fields it's good to teach him by reinforcement, reward and pleasure.

nesf

luckat wrote:

I've been reading various biographies of super-successful people, and notice that one of the things they have in common is that they're clubbable - they are affable, get-along kind of guys who are really good at negotiating with others and getting what they want by persuasion.

It strikes [slaps, smacks, hits] me that perhaps if you want your child to be a military man you should give him a good belt when you feel it necessary, but if you want your child to be a great success in other fields it's good to teach him by reinforcement, reward and pleasure.

You can't train a great sportsman any more than you can train a great people person.

dgosul

no harn in giving them a good slap now & then show em who's the BOSS

oleras

dgosul wrote:

the BOSS

maybe you need a good smack and you might learn who the BOSS is !