Smack or not?

[Khamelion]

The European court of human rights wants the UK Government to ban smacking a child in the home, making it illegal.

Smacking did me no harm as a kid, I wasn't unruly or a particularly naughty child, but on occasion my mam did give my leg a smack as the occasion required.

I find it laughable when I see parents telling their child to behave, yeah that really works, stop being naughty or I'll tell you to stop being naughty again and again. A gentle smack gives a sharp reminder to the child that they are misbehaving, they soon learn the consequences should they misbehave and subsequent ventures of misbehaviour can be dealt with the threat of being smacked.

Okay so the goody two shoes, will say that the threat of violence hovering over the head of a child is no way to bring them up, but we are not talking about continual physical abuse, we are talking about teaching a child that actions have consequences, good actions get rewards, bad actions do not, it's about having some common sense.

Just off now to find a Kevlar suit and helmet, as this one could well be quite contentious.

 

[Hacker Khan]

The threat of violence hovering over a child's head is no way to bring a child up

You can teach a child that actions have consequences without resorting to hitting them/physical violence. And if a parent has been reduced to those actions to gain respect from the child then I'd suggest it's the parents who need looking at, not the child. If all a parent does is issue hollow threats then very quickly the child will learn to ignore them. Then as a last desperate measure the parent then resorts to the threat of hitting them (and you can call it a smack if people think that sounds more palatable, but at the end of the day you are still hitting them), sometimes carrying it through. I'd possibly suggest a better approach would be to carry through on your threats to take away the tablet, TV, etc etc and funnily enough the vast majority of children soon learn you are serious.

But hey, I can pretty much guarantee what the majority of people will say, so bring on the 'it never did me any harm, kids today are out of control, they have no respect, spend all day on their PS4s blah blah blah' anecdotes by the bucket load.

 

[jp5]

You can't go around hitting anyone you like, I don't see why it should be any different for kids.

 

[Alex1975]

Never smack! Smacking is you failing to parent effectively. My child is extremely good and has never been and will never be smacked.

If I threaten you with violence on this forum I will get a ban.... the reasons for that are obvious.... why is that different with a child.

You said that you were smacked and it did you no harm.... what it did do though was make you want to smack your child... and round we go.

Stop and have a little think about it rather than just doing what your mother and father did to you... Its the human program to be better than the last generation. Its ok to have your own ideas.

 

[Slab]

Alex you saved me some typing


Being smacked is one of the life experiences I was determined not to pass on to the next generation of slab's

Didn't teach me anything only served as a punishment

 

[DCB]

Just nipping out for some popcorn, telly looks crap tonight so this looks like a promising start to the weekend

 

[Hacker Khan]

Just nipping out for some popcorn, telly looks crap tonight so this looks like a promising start to the weekend

Do mods enjoy these contentious threads where you can pretty much guarantee what will be said, and who will say it.

 

[Snelly]

I got smacked as a kid and as most people would say, it never did me any harm and was a good mechanism for our very skint, single mum to keep the three of us in order.

That said, times have changed and I have two children who are 9 and 11 and they don't get smacked, nor have they ever been apart from a single incident 8 years ago when I smacked my son's backside for something that deserved it in my view. I have no regrets about this at all.

They are growing up nicely and I would like to think that at their ages, they are beyond the limit of when a slap on the legs would be an efficient way of changing their behaviour anyway. All that said, I cannot say that I would not smack them if the need arose. It just never really has with the one exception mentioned.

In a wider sense though, I am not in favour of the state outlawing smacking although I would like to see enforced parenting skills classes for plenty of mums and dads in the UK, with some guidance on the appropriateness of physical chastisement included in the syllabus.

 

[Khamelion]

You said that you were smacked and it did you no harm.... what it did do though was make you want to smack your child... and round we go.

Stop and have a little think about it rather than just doing what your mother and father did to you... Its the human program to be better than the last generation. Its ok to have your own ideas.

You make it sound like smacking is a daily ritual, it's not, far from it, if that was the case then that is continual abuse and a different thread altogether. Myself being smacked as child did not want nor make me smack my daughter. On the occasion she was smacked it was deemed appropriate and as I wrote above I can count on one hand the number of times that smacking was the last resort.

Didn't teach me anything only served as a punishment

Smacking is a punishment.

 

[Khamelion]

In a wider sense though, I am not in favour of the state outlawing smacking although I would like to see enforced parenting skills classes for plenty of mums and dads in the UK, with some guidance on the appropriateness of physical chastisement included in the syllabus.

This is the other side of the argument, in the main the majority of replies have been about the act of smacking a child, but the other side of this is that the European Court of Human Rights wants the act of smacking a child made illegal. Now whether you think this is right or not, you cannot have these courts dictating how a family brings up their kids.

 

[Hacker Khan]

This is the other side of the argument, in the main the majority of replies have been about the act of smacking a child, but the other side of this is that the European Court of Human Rights wants the act of smacking a child made illegal. Now whether you think this is right or not, you cannot have these courts dictating how a family brings up their kids.

I suppose it depends on if you class hitting a child as a way of bringing up that child. As the courts (European, English, British, Scottish of even Jedi if you want) can decide if hitting someone is lawful or not.

 

[Rooter]

I think its going to be very hard, how do you define a smack? How much force is used? I give my lad a tap (could this be perceived as a smack?!) if he is about to bite me for example, (he is 1) The older ones are past where i would ever consider smacking and would damage them mentally more than physically. I dont want my kids to be scared of me, i want them to respect me and more importantly themselves.

 

[DCB]

Okay then, a question,

Little boy drags a chair across the kitchen and goes to climb up on it. he hauls himself up using whatever means possible.

Does the mum say a) Don't do that b) please now, don't do that or c) give him a smack on his leg when he doesn't respond to the first two or c) put whatever comes next down to experiential learning ?

 

[Hacker Khan]

Okay then, a question,

Little boy drags a chair across the kitchen and goes to climb up on it. he hauls himself up using whatever means possible.

Does the mum say a) Don't do that b) please now, don't do that or c) give him a smack on his leg when he doesn't respond to the first two or c) put whatever comes next down to experiential learning ?

a?? As assuming the parent has fostered a culture of respect and authority between them and the child, then the child will respond to that.

Is there a prize for this?

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

He who says that a smack from a parent never affected him - how does he know? Can he look across at his 'non-smacked' self to see if they are identical. No - he can't.

I was smacked as a child. And I had fear in me if I knew I was going to get it off my dad when he got home from work. As a result I think that fear affected my feelings for him as I grew up and that would have affected our relationship. I also think- though how would I know for sure - that it affected my self-confidence; maybe I felt ashamed that I was being smacked - and that my father smacked me. After all as far as I was concerned none of my pals got smacked - it's not exactly something you talked about.

i did well at school and never got into any trouble with authority, but I was shy and low in self-confidence (manifestation of the fear I felt?) - and I still am. How much of that I can put down to being smacked as a child and having a father who did the smacking - I don't know for sure. But certainly it affected how I felt about my father, and I suspect it has affected my life and who I am today.

 

[G.U.R]

I've been just as shocked by some of the verbal abuse parents give their children as I would have been had they just smacked them. It must also equally harm them as much as a smack, which my wife sees first hand as a TA at a local Primary School. She comes home and say's she dreads to think what sort of home life these kids have. I have 3 daughters all pretty much grown up now and have never had to resort to smacking, lucky? maybe but routine and setting boundaries early seemed to work...although they still don't tidy their bloody bedrooms!

 

[Rooter]

I've been just as shocked by some of the verbal abuse parents give their children as I would have been had they just smacked them. It must also equally harm them as much as a smack, which my wife sees first hand as a TA at a local Primary School. She comes home and say's she dreads to think what sort of home life these kids have. I have 3 daughters all pretty much grown up now and have never had to resort to smacking, lucky? maybe but routine and setting boundaries early seemed to work...although they still don't tidy their bloody bedrooms!

oh some of the verbals i see are unbelievable, I am not going to sterotype the parent...

Which school GUR?

 

[DCB]

a?? As assuming the parent has fostered a culture of respect and authority between them and the child, then the child will respond to that.

Is there a prize for this?

But , when the child sees something he is after on the worktop and keeps going to try and get it, what happens ?

 

[guest100718]

I think its going to be very hard, how do you define a smack? How much force is used? I give my lad a tap (could this be perceived as a smack?!) if he is about to bite me for example, (he is 1) The older ones are past where i would ever consider smacking and would damage them mentally more than physically. I dont want my kids to be scared of me, i want them to respect me and more importantly themselves.

If i play fight with my teenage son, the dog piles in to defend him.!

 

[guest100718]

But , when the child sees something he is after on the worktop and keeps going to try and get it, what happens ?

pick him up and move him somewhere else.