Smacking your child - Right or Wrong?

[fatboy]

Fred West had the right idea, bury your own daughter under the patio if she does not eat her vegetables.

If he had hanged himself some years earlier, that too would have been illegal.

 

[GNF on Tour]

Wrong. However there have been times when I have had an exhasperated swipe at their legs when they've been in the back of the pressure cooker (I mean car). It is the wrong lesson, no matter how tempting it is to take the route of immediate impact.




Sentimental liberal claptrap, I expect you could not give your child a slight slap because your wooly jumper knitted by the wife is a size to tight.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

Too baggy - so there was too much wind resistance as it happens, plus I didn't want to spill my yoghurt.

 

[Brovion]

fatbadger - just to try and answer your question: I think people feel that 'reasonable chastisement' is ok whereas hitting adults is not is much the same as why children aren't allowed to smoke, drink or vote but adults are. 'Chastisement' is seen by some as part of the learning process.

 

[Curious Orange]

1) Many have said on here that 'it never did me any harm'. I could give the evidence of thousands of children who have suffered at the hands of their parents who had learnt that the way to bring up children is to control them by physical punishment. The evidence is that it does harm children and is more likely to lead to those children becoming abusing adullts.

What rubbish, I was smacked as a last resort, and that is entirely the way it should be - THE VERY LAST RESORT - Your generalisation that every child who occassionally receives the slightest tap on the buttocks has an increased likelihood of turning into a child abuser is spurious to say the very least. When people on here say it did them no harm they mean it.

 

[fatbadger]

fatbadger - just to try and answer your question: I think people feel that 'reasonable chastisement' is ok whereas hitting adults is not is much the same as why children aren't allowed to smoke, drink or vote but adults are. 'Chastisement' is seen by some as part of the learning process.

Thanks Brovian - at least someone tried to answer!

But - I regularly see or hear adults I would love to give a bit of 'chastisement' to, and I am sure you do, too. But the law protects those people from our 'chastisement', no matter what we think of them or their behaviour and no matter how 'reasonable' we might think our chastisement might be. Why shouldn't kids get the same protection?

 

[Brovion]

Thanks Brovian - at least someone tried to answer!

But - I regularly see or hear adults I would love to give a bit of 'chastisement' to, and I am sure you do, too. But the law protects those people from our 'chastisement', no matter what we think of them or their behaviour and no matter how 'reasonable' we might think our chastisement might be. Why shouldn't kids get the same protection?

True, and as I said earlier I've never hit my children (although I was beaten as a youngster), but maybe I've just been lucky with my kids.

However maybe we could change the law to make it legal to 'chastise' adults we see behaving badly. Just think how good it would feel to wade into a BNP rally, flatten all the Nazis and know that not only have you done your bit for decency and freedom but also stayed within the law!

 

[Easy 10]

Interesting debate, and for my money I think Curious Orange has it spot-on.

I have a 12 year old daughter and an 8 year old son, and although they (constantly) bicker between themselves, they are generally well behaved and have never been in any serious trouble. When they do, nine times out of ten my missus will administer the bollockings, but she never smacks. I deal with the more serious bollockings as and when required, which is once in a blue moon. They know that if I get involved, they are in more serious trouble - the old "wait till your father gets home" adage.

My daughter is 12, and I have never smacked her. There has never been anything to even closely warrant it.

My son is 8, and last year he received the one and only smack he has ever had in his life, on the back of his leg. We live near a railway line, and despite the warnings both me and the missus had given him about staying away from the railway lines, one day he climbed through his friends back garden fence and through to the tracks. Luckily his friends mum saw them from a bedroom window, hauled them indoors and brought my son home.

It was one slap on the leg (and a severe bollocking). I felt awful doing it, and I felt awful afterwards, but I was absolutely horrified at what he had done and I felt he HAD to be shown that he had crossed a line there - that was beyond just been naughty, that was life or death. Since then he has been banned from that particular friends back garden, and he has never gone near those tracks again - in fact for weeks afterwards he would come in from playing in the close and say "I've not been near the railway". He remembers the one time he went too far and was punished for it, and we have not had a repeat.

As Curious Orange says, administering a smack as a very last resort is, I think, an acceptable method of disciplining a child. That doesn't mean a prolongued beating, or repeated slapping. And lashing out in anger every time the child misbehaves is not the way either. But for serious or dangerous misbehaviour, to let the child know that this time they have gone well beyond bad behaviour, a smack is I think justified.

I now await the accusations of child abuse from the Daily Mail readers.

 

[Beach Hut]

Interesting discussion I prefer reasoning and if necessary no pocket money etc.

Sending them to their room is a waste of space - play station, computer etc.

What really worries me is the French attitude - they think nothing of publicly humiliating their children by a sound smacking for all too see, makes me feel very uncomfortable.

 

[Carshalton Seagull]

What rubbish, I was smacked as a last resort, and that is entirely the way it should be - THE VERY LAST RESORT - Your generalisation that every child who occassionally receives the slightest tap on the buttocks has an increased likelihood of turning into a child abuser is spurious to say the very least. When people on here say it did them no harm they mean it.

Sorry Curious Orange but I never said, suggested or hinted that every child that receives the slightest tap is more likely to turn into an abuser and I would not dare to doubt the word of anyone on here who say it did them no harm.

My point was that child abusers are more likely to have been hit as children than those who do not abuse and those who engage in anti-social behaviour and juvenile crime are more likely to have been hit as children than those who do not. The available research supports this argument and suggests to me that the hitting of these people when they were children has certainly had little or no positive effect on them.

 

[magoo]

But Easy10,

Do you think a stopping of privelidges, the stopping of pocket money, perhaps a total grounding for a week or the removal of something he really loves doing would have taught him the same lesson?

Alot of parents threaten to do these sorts of things but never carry it out, so the kid never believes them when they say "right, you're not going to football this weekend!"

 

[Easy 10]

But Easy10,

Do you think a stopping of privelidges, the stopping of pocket money, perhaps a total grounding for a week or the removal of something he really loves doing would have taught him the same lesson?

Done that before as well, for the more "minor" stuff - he had his TV removed for a week once, for shredding his wallpaper in a temper after being sent to his room (what an ogre I am).

Playing on railway tracks upped the stakes considerably from that kind of thing though - and that had to be got across to him. Like I said, they are both well behave kids and are never smacked, there has never been the need to. His behaviour that day was a one-off, and so was his punishment. The "shock value" of getting a smacked leg for the first and only time made him realise just how serious it was, and it has never been repeated.