Is any one watching the "I smack and I'm proud"

missk_ensington

My son gets smacked, but not like they did on that programme! That woman with the eyebrows was just crazy and that man I thought was just desperate and exhausted and couldn't think of anything else to do!

At the end they showed the parents a clip of them smacking, how come they never showed a clip to that nice Christian family of them smacking? I think it is perefctly acceptable to smack, the bible says 'Spare the rod spoil the child' God advocated corporal punishment to discipline kids, but it should be done in a controlled way, calmly and rarely. It should NOT be done because you the parent have lost your temper which is what eyebrow woman and that man had done.

The whole point of showing that clip was to emphasise the point that the parent had lost control, and for the psychologist to criticise the method and give reasons why it is bad, and ultimately try to convince the audience that smacking is bad.

I think to the Christian family had the right idea, and if they'd have shown it the psychologist wouldn't have had much to say and the public wouldn't have been particularly shocked, maybe even agreed with their method. Especially when their technique appeared to be working (3-4 pleasant polite kids including a 17 year old boy who actually looked well balanced and well behaved!)

I was smacked with the slipper on my backside, not often and would get warnings, time out and naughty room first and if we STILL carried on we'd get a smack but it was only maybe 4-5 times a year and my Mum saying 'Do I need to take my slipper off?!' was more than enough to behave us. Now there is no fear of consequence, hence why we have so many unruly disrespectful kids. I don't resent my Mum for giving me 'the slipper' I think it has made me respectful of people's higher authority and I absolutely never felt 'abused' and if someone said now 'If you could go back knowing what you know now, would you choose to be smacked' Id say Yes. It was short lived pain but because of it I learnt respect for teachers, adults and have done well at school and in my job.

I must emphasise that I mean a short sharp smack on the bottom and nothing else whatsoever.

inkie

All these accounts of seeing people smack their children in tesco's/out in the street.........I was wondering if any one challenges any of the behaviour??

I digress slightly, but I really hate people swearing in public. especially when I have my children with me. When I hear someone swearing, I say in a very loud voice 'Close your ears girls, there are people here who can't finish a sentence without swearing'. People are shocked into silence, and I haev never once been told to F off and mind my own business (as I would expect to have been). Perhaps we need to start and speak up in those situations that would cause us distress, such as youngsters getting smacked - after all, if thats what we see in public, what goes on behind closed doors?

margaretclare

missk_ensington wrote:

I was smacked with the slipper, not often would get warnings, time out and naughty room first and if we STILL carried on we'd get a smack but it was only maybe 4-5 times a year and my Mum saying 'Do I need to take my slipper off' was more than enough to behave us.

I can't comment on what was shown in the programme, I didn't see it. However, hitting with an implement - slipper, ruler, leather belt - is in my book much worse than a slap with an open hand. Not that I approve of that, either.

Now there is no fear of consequence, hence why we have so many unruly disrespectful kids

The reason why we have so many unruly children is that there are no boundaries. Children are not told what is expected of them. On the one hand they're given a lot of consumer goods and on the other hand they are screamed and sworn at. No set bedtimes, and when they do go to bed, they are allowed to watch television or play games in their bedroom. No one appears to monitor what they watch on TV and they see and hear many things which are not suitable for them - not much surprise if they do and say what they've seen on the screen!

Meal-times are another thing - in some (in many?) homes there are no set meal-times as such, and if there are, meals can be eaten on the sofa watching TV. Good manners, in these circumstances, don't exist - 'please pass the salt' etc is a simple example of good manners and consideration for others.

I wrote that we went to see friends who have a very lively little nearly-3 boy. And we sat round their table and had a nice lunch. Little lad sits in his high-chair close to the table, between Mum and Dad. His Dad told me that when he sits in the high-chair and food arrives, no toys are allowed at table. He knows that. It's boundaries! I was reminded of how it used to be when my late husband and I used to have the grandchildren to stay, when they were little. They'd sit at table with us and little faces would follow the conversation, eyes darting from one of us to another.

However, my DH tells about how his step-grandchildren used to come for a visit - this was in his last marriage - and immediately switch on the TV. He would go and switch it off, to be told by his ex and her daughter that he was wrong, they should be allowed to watch TV if they wanted to. And when they had a meal, the children were allowed to get down when they felt like it and run about, take food from the table and eat it while running about. I have never allowed that, nor my late husband, and I would have supported DH if that had happened when I was around. This, I feel, is another important point - that adults must speak with one voice, otherwise children will play one adult off against another. This has been well discussed in another thread on here, about in-laws.

DH and I recently called in to see his ex's daughter and children - she has recently split from husband (and that's another cause of family instability). We went into the sitting-room and eldest daughter, now about 16, was lying on the sofa watching TV. Mum sat in one armchair at one end of sofa, DH sat in another, I perched on a computer chair in a corner, and in between us was this great fat lump of a teenage girl and we had to converse across her and between her and the TV. The only time she moved at all was the finger movement to change channels - 'Home and Away' etc. I'm not really used to trying to converse in those conditions, and when we left DH said he'll never go there again. This appears to be modern life! Yet when we went to see his son and family - 2 girls about 10 and 12 - we were there for 24 hours and the TV never went on. The girls played the piano for us, we were included in the conversation, and it was so different!

Margaret

Rachie_B

i think the christians family children looked awfully sad

margaret clare " great big fat lump " !!!??? niiiiiice

freebie_junkie

i dont think you need to hit kids to make them good. me and my sister have never been smacked and we never got in trouble at school, always helped at home and largely did what we were told (all kids misbehave sometimes!)

missk_ensington

My Mum used a slipper to smack us because she had false bones in her hand and it used to hurt her more than it did us with her hand which kind of isn't the point!

My son has boundaries, meal times, sat at a table, manners, all that you describe but st times he still wants to push the boundaries. He wants to see how much I will let him get away with, I say No, he does it, I say No again... he goes on the naughty step for 2 minutes... He still does it. Then what do you do? How can sitting on a step called 'the naughty step' evoke any fear in someone?

I think smacking becomes inaffective when it is done too often (like that rough looking woman with them girls who got a smack at least once a day) If you smack all the time, every time you become de-sensitised to it and as the psychologist correctly said, where do you progress from that? Hitting with a whip?

I think the key is limiting a smack to very rare occassions when children have been particularly naughty/cheeky/disrespectful. I probably got 'the slipper' 20 times in my entire childhood from 2-16 but I knew if that slipper came out I really had been very naughty! Think I've turned out to be a fairly balanced, rounded individual and don't think I'm scarred for life! If I did feel abused, or psychologically harmed by it there is no way I would use the same methods on my own son.

I also think smacking is most useful for children aged 2-5 as I would like to think after that age I could reason with them and remove treats for punishment. At the moment my 2 year old wouldn't understand removing a toy from him, and certainly wouldn;t understand why I have removed it. He'd just be confused!

I also think if you smack you must make it very clear WHY you ave smacked them, and after they have apologised you should say 'Okay, lets forget about it now and don't do it again' and have a cuddle. You don't want them to think you don't love them as this is what WILL cause psychological problems!

Rachie_B

missk_ensington wrote:

I also think smacking is most useful for children aged 2-5 as I would like to think after that age I could reason with them and remove treats for punishment. At the moment my 2 year old wouldn't understand removing a toy from him, and certainly wouldn;t understand why I have removed it. He'd just be confused!

!

i couldnt disagree more ! @ age 2 they are still babaies really and to smack them will just make them think smacking is ok !!!

they arent mature enough to have the understanding that " mummy is hitting (smacking) you because of xyz that you have done wrong, BUT its not ok for you to him mummy "


if taking a toy off them confuses him then smacking can only confuse them more!

time out,removing them from the situation works far better IMO

ooobedoo

My little boy got a special sticker yesterday for using fantastic manners, this seems to have more effect than anything else. he puts them on the side of his toybox to show Daddy when he comes home on the weekend.

Saying that, my Dad used to shout at me when I was little and I would of prefered being smacked to that. I was scared of him till about 6 yrs ago(when I was 22)

missk_ensington

Rachie_B wrote:

they arent mature enough to have the understanding that " mummy is hitting (smacking) you because of xyz that you have done wrong, BUT its not ok for you to him mummy "

My son understands "naughty" and he understands "you will get a smack if I have to tell you again". Funny though my son is rarely naughty. We watched Supernanny the other night and he said 'Mummy look at them naughty girls. They're naughty aren't they mummy they're running off but I'm not a naughty boy'

I went to a birthday party last week and the kid whose 3rd birthday it was, what a little bawastard! He swiped all the party bags on the floor because he couldn't eat them, he came and snatched my sons Jelly Tots out of his hand and wouldn;t give them back, and then when we retrieved the sweets and the brat got his own he refused to let anyone have one. His mothers response?

"Oh Liam (in a pathetic airy fairy voice) you're being very silly aren't you"

She just could not control him, I never saw him say please/thankyou he had no table manners (chomping with his mouth open!) it was awful. Why should he, if there is no consequence for his actions? I'm all for 'time out' etc if it works, but it doesn;t always work for us.

My son gets an inordinate amount of praise when he shows a thoughtful/kind/well behaved/well mannered act and now he does kind things a lot because he likes the praise and cuddles he gets for it. He'll even give away his last sweetie!

Mrs_Optimist

I remember being in the public library a year or so ago, went to the loo, came back and the childrens library was deathly quiet. My DH informed me that a woman in there with a 3-4 year old and a baby had pulled down the pants of her 3-4 year old, put her across her knee and repeatedly slapped her bare bum because she couldn't hang on to go to the toilet (mum was feeding the baby) AND HAD WET HERSELF. i WOULD HAVE DEFINATELY CONFRONTED HER IF i HaD BEEN THERE, MY TWO CHILDREN WERE VERY UPSET BY IT. sHE HAD LEFT THE LIBRARY WHEN i HAD GOT BACK. i CALLED social services and explained what had happened and they followed it up with the library because as they pointed out, if she did that in public what did she do behind closed doors? Anyway imagine my surprise when DH returned from a plumbing job a couple of moths back, by sheer coincidence he had a job at the womans house, and her husband is a Chief Constable in the Police! DH didn't think that the husband was as hand happy because he seemed to have a lot of patience and the daughter in question was now at pre-school. A few weeks ago I was in a supermarket and a mother hit her 8-9 year old son round the head and he was in tears and a lot of pain, asking "what did you do that for" to which she replied "you KNOW what I did that for" - if he knew why did he ask?

I have smacked my children very rarely, always when I have lost control and have felt awful about it afterwards and apologised. They are both well behaved children, who do test my patience at times, but donet all children? I was smacked as a child and I can't say either way if it did me good, but I do know that I have alwats had the upmost respect for my parents and people in authority, which I think may have something to do with it.