Re: Smacking children

That made me smile. I remember going shopping with the brother and his two year daughter. She began to misbehave - was given a warning which she ignored and went into a tantrum. He said nothing - just picked her up - took her outside - dumped her into a waste bin - and started to walk away. She called for him to come back and was told "If you act like rubbish, I will treat you like rubbish!" She never did it again!

Re: Smacking children

My mother hit me as a child. She had a bamboo bean cane which she kept in the corner of the kitchen She would hit me around the body and legs with it in a calculated and cold blooded way. I grew up to detest my mother and she lost any respect I might have had for her. Hitting a child never works.

Re: Smacking children

We used to get an occasional wallop when we were kids.
Never severe or anything. Dad used to make us hold our hand out and would whack our hands - not with a stick or anything, only his own hand.

Instinct makes you recoil at the last second, and he would go mad because he ended up hitting his own leg because I pulled away quick.
Still loved him though, funny old stick that he was.

Re: Smacking children

Re: Smacking children

Speaking as a victim of severe physical and emotional child abuse, I am outraged at such a horrible post. I dare not say any more , for I would surely be banned from OFF.

Re: Smacking children

I also deleted my own post Bakerman before posting .

Re: Smacking children

You twisted saddest fork.
That IS how I looked every time my father came home cause I was scared to death of him. I never knew when he’d decide to beat the crap at of me. One day he hit me so hard he broke his hand in three places, had a cast to his elbow and when he came back from the hospital blamed me. Disciplining you’re children is one thing. Beating them senseless is a crime punishable by law. Some people don’t deserve children and you’re one of them.

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Bruce - that is disgusting!

Before you say it was a joke and we have all lost our sense of humour - it is not remotely funny!

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No it wasn't a joke, it was a comment about those who think hitting a child for any reason is good discipline. When does a slap or a smack become a beating?

I was beaten as a child probably because I was autistic (though I wasn't diagnosed until much, much later in life) but I survived it, left home as early as I could and got over it.

As for my own kids, a telling off was all that was ever needed, no child should ever have to accept physical violence whether it is a slap, a smack or even rough handling. It is horrendous.

But if you think it was a joke that is fine by me.

Re: Smacking children

Like many on here as a child I was subjected to a 'light smack' on the back of the legs for doing wrong, "it never did me any harm", which is what is usually thought. However, after a close family member went in for a career in child nursery nursing, that is learning everything about children, from birth through their development, looking after children etc., etc. my view on 'smacking' was changed. Talking with her about her career and what she was learning, one thing, a very simple thing, did stand out a mile on the subject of smacking children, something that up until then I always agreed with and was subjected to myself.

Where one child will accept that smack as 'a punishment' for doing wrong, another will see that smack as being shown, by example, that violence works – a person can make another do something they want them to do by using violence. Often what is forgotten, both in children and adults, is that we are not all the same, similar but vastly different in 'how we tick'. It's all down to our genes, how our minds work and many, many other factors. One factor that does have a very great bearing on how we develop from babies to young children, then into adults is that from birth we learn by example, everything we see and hear has a bearing on that. Put quite simply when in some instances the child that is 'smacked' is being taught that act is a punishment, in some others though that can show them violence works, it makes people do what is required so that can become part of their learning experience in upbringing and they can become violent people as adults.

That close family member has never smacked her own children and from her training has been taught that if you have to resort to smacking a child, then it is you, the adult who has failed. What should be done is to teach any child from a very young age, to recognise they have done something wrong just by using a strict, disapproving tone of voice and facial expression.

Also another very important part when it comes to even 'light smacking' is that we as adults are obviously so very much bigger than children. While for most a 'light smack' is exactly that there are those adults who do not realise their own strength or become so exasperated by the child's unacceptable behaviour, that the 'light smack' then becomes a violent blow to what is a small child.

I do know that learning the psychology of 'how we tick', as I had to at one time so as to help me understand about someone's mental health problems with depression, and then listening to how training in child care from birth into young children is undertaken, my view of 'smacking' children as being acceptable changed totally. It can and does do harm psychologically to some youngsters and while that risk is always there, as we don't know how that individual child's mind works, it's better and safer to use an alternative, readily available way of showing adult disapproval of a child's bad behaviour.