Today I put my 5yo ds over my knee & smacked his bare bum - I'm mortified with myself

Mics_chick

I was at the end of my tether with both him and his sister so I sent them to bed early coz they wouldn't behave.
But my son was still messing about in his bedroom so that's when I smacked him and told him to go to sleep or I would do it again...
I'm mortified with myself coz I feel that I've resorted to how my parents disciplined us and I never wanted to do that.
But my son is a little devil and sometimes nothing that we do seems to make any difference.
If we make him sit still on a naughty chair then he's clambering all over it or standing on his head???
If we tell him off or give him a tap he's laughing at us?
It sounds funny now but I want to discipline him effectively without having to feel like this again.
His older sister by 1.5 years doesn't need the same level of discipline - I have occasionally tapped her hand but that's about it...
Help

BitterAndTwisted

I firmly believe that when we lose our tempers and/or lose control we actually turn into our parents somehow. A dreadful thought, really.

You lost your temper and now you feel guilty, that's understandable. All of us are human and none of us are perfect.

It seems to me that perhaps a new tactic or method is in order as the current ones don't seem to be working. How do you normally try to instill discipline? Shouting, threats? It might be time to be absolutely clear about what behaviour you don't like and won't tolerate and find out which sanctions work. If you make a threat, follow up on it every single time. It could be that withdrawing privileges might bear more weight than the threat of a spanking, although I suspect that your son might be extremely chastened if not frightened by the spanking he got. In the morning it might be an idea to apologise for losing your temper and that you're sorry for that but his behaviour didn't help, so if he tries to help you by not being naughty you'll try to help by not losing your temper and spanking ever again.

Mics_chick

Thanks B&T for your sensitive and sensible reply :A

I will sit down with him on my own first thing in the morning and apologise but then say that his behaviour will have to change too and see how he reacts to that

Intastella

Don't beat yourself up over it...i bet he'll be very wary of winding you up again for a while! there's a world of difference between giving your kid a crack to show them you mean business and that the behaviour that preceded it is your absolute limit, and child beating/abuse. As long as it doesn't turn into a regular occurence it's not going to damage him mentally in the long run. I've found that screaming and shouting at kids does that more than the (very) occasional physical punishment. Not personally i hasten to add! I used to have friends who verbally abused their kids...past tense! :mad:

Make sure when you have your chat with him that he knows that you have a limit that you'll put up with tho...don't be overly apologetic for the spanking or he'll guilt trip you...kids do without realising that they're doing it sometimes. (Sorry, that sounded like i'm assuming that i know what your son's like, i'm just generalising).

Tomorrow's chat might open up a new way of you and your lad being able to communicate with each other without him resorting to brattishness or you to physical punishment...i hope it does for the pair of you. Good luck! x

dmg24

Mics_chick wrote: »

I will sit down with him on my own first thing in the morning and apologise but then say that his behaviour will have to change too and see how he reacts to that

Two wrongs do not make a right! Address the issues separately, if you don't you are in danger of sending out the message that it is ok to use violence if provoked.

I would go along the lines of 'I am sorry for what I did last night. I was upset but should not have reacted in that way'. Then both take some time out, in this time you could work out ways to punish his behaviour more constructively - removing treats or certain toys for instance. When you talk to him again you can discuss his behaviour, and then state that if he does it again, the consequence will be (whatever you decided earlier).

bestpud

If you regularly 'tap' him and he just laughs then you are right to say you need an alternate way of disciplining him as it seems to me he has become immune to it.

Also, when you use smacking as a discipline method, you will always run the risk of increasing the force when under stress.

I'm not sure I'd worry about him standing on his head in 'time out' so long as he was staying there. It sounds as though you are having to monitor him which defeats the object.

Same when sent to his room - he went but he knew he had you over a barrel and you'd come and give him some attention if he kept on...

Quite simply, he is in control at the moment.

Do you and your OH agree when it comes to discipline? Maybe it's time you sat down and worked a strategy together, to support each other and show your son you mean business?

Pick your battles too - start with the behaviour that is most troublesome and work on that together. You need to build your confidence in the new method (whatever it is) before you roll it out to all behaviour.

Good luck with it!

Intastella

^^^ Very good post.

anewman

If you smacked him hard enough (if he cried more than a few minutes you did), just the threat of a smack should be enough to change his behaviour in the near future (not that I would recommend this).

Rewarding good behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour is considered to be more effective though (watch super nanny for examples of how to implement this, and common mistakes to avoid). The difficulty with methods like those is they're not very intuitive and take a great deal of effort, planning, and persistence when using them. Whereas raising your hand, shouting, and smacking are quite intuitive, easy to do, and have immediate observable effects.

Sadly smacking may also result in problematic behaviour as it may teach that to get what you want you smack people.

jopsey

your not alone on this one ,I have done it myself and think I cried more than my DS did,don't know who was more shocked me or him ?

Have your little chat with him ,but if anything like my DS it wasn't a big issue to him ,It was a one off ,something you are deeply upset about ,you sound like a lovely caring Mum x

Intastella

anewman wrote: »

If you smacked him hard enough (if he cried more than a few minutes you did), just the threat of a smack should be enough to change his behaviour in the near future (not that I would recommend this).

Rewarding good behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour is considered to be more effective though (watch super nanny for examples of how to implement this, and common mistakes to avoid). The difficulty with methods like those is they're not very intuitive and take a great deal of effort, planning, and persistence when using them. Whereas raising your hand, shouting, and smacking are quite intuitive, easy to do, and have immediate observable effects.

Sadly smacking may also result in problematic behaviour as it may teach that to get what you want you smack people.

I'd say that that happens more with pre/teens, but the roots of it can be based in treatment of younger kids if it becomes a regular way of dealing with bad behaviour whilst young, which going off the op's feelings of guilt now isn't going to happen.

Much better to get this out of the way now i think, than never raising a hand and trying to reason with a child that is incapable due to his/her age, than let them get away with allsorts (well, not get away with exactly, but you know what i mean) and then when they go wild as teenagers, flip at them. And that part is based on personal experience, unfortunatley.

neneromanova

I am all for smacking. I was smacked as a Child, not a lot, only when needed, but it did me the world of good.

You love you Son yes? Then what is the problem? I'm sure you don't knock him about all the time so it's not like it was child abuse. You obviously saw this is what he needed and follwed through with it. Did it work in the end is what you have to ask yourself. If he starts to behave the same tonight then you know it didn't work so to try something else. But if it did work, then well done.