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Was just thinking...Someone mentioned (can't remeber who) other famliy members smacking them as children.
This bring up another issue for me. As a child I was smacked by a lot of different people. Uncles, auties, family friends etc. Makes me wonder if this is the reason for my blazeness when it comes to smacking.
HOWEVER..I would definately not let anyone else smack the girls. And just like most of you, if anyone smacked my girls they would really regret it!
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I wasn't brought up in a violent household, neither was DP.. We were both smacked as kids but only as a last resort, which I think is how we disipline too.. (I don't have any live biological kids, but my partner has a son and I have been on the scene since he was 12 months old and yes I disipline him..) So I wouldn't have an issue with either my mum or DP's parents smacking.. I would trust if they did we would have done the same had we been there.. I don't think they would though anyway.. My mum lives interstate so I am sure her grankids would appear perfect as she would hardly see them and DP's parents are soft as!!
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If my mum smacked either DD it would be for a very good reason, like Nelle said, if they were behaving dangerously or were seriously out of line. I trust my mum with the girls and we have a similar approach to discipline with the same rules. Having said that, she has never smacked DD as DD behaves MUCH better for other people than she does for us *sigh*
MIL would also never smack as she is waaaay too soft and indulgent. The girls could get away with murder and MIL wouldn't bat an eyelid.
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Not if I or DH are there and can deal with it. However - I am not about to leave my kids with my poor mum and tell her she cant touch them and has to let them run rings around her! That would be completely insane - they'd do it too if they didn't think that they would get into real trouble for doing it!! Same with any of my family that watch our kids on the very very VERY rare occassion DH and I let them talk us into it.
Its not that we don't trust them - its that we don't feel right leaving them with 5 kids that are entirely our responsibility! They already do so much and have their own kids too.
That said I am very much like my mother when it comes to raising the kids and smacking is only something done when the child has placed themselves or someone else in immediate risk of harm. Her philosophy - which I agree with - is that it is better to learn it is not something they should do from a smack on the hand/bum, rather than a hospital bed.
Obviously, as my siblings were all raised in the same house they have absolutely no excuse to not know my preferences with raising my kids, and they all respect it. In fact - none of them have a harder stance on discapline. A couple of them are non-smackers.
I guess really it doesnt worry me as much as others possibly because my family - as dysfunctional as it looks to everyone else - is an amazing cohesive unit that is beyond any village. You would need to live as a part of it to understand how despite having "our own families" now - its really all just an extension of the family unit we already had. Kind of hard to explain really.
My MIL wouldn't even try to smack them. She rarely sees them (chooses to ensure her yearly visit is while they are at school) so its irrelevent - but I would probably object to it because she is more Truby where as my mum is Spockian. If you are going to smack a child - at least have empathy with them!
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Well, I'm completely a non-smacker, which informs my take on this. No, I don't allow my in laws to smack my children (my father has nothing to do with my kids and my mum is dead). I am aware of a great many wonderful parents who do use physical chastisement and I have immense respect for them as human beings, I just struggle with the logic and lessons in it.
That said, I don't understand how a punishment that is so potentially hazardous or damaging that it can't be entrusted to the hands of someone I have a reasonable relationship with, can be appropriate for me to use, either. Smacking is either benign, or it isn't. I can't think of any other discipline tool that I would feel comfortable using that I would have to say to someone else, "But you can't do that because I don't trust you enough". If I don't trust the person caring for my child to not mistreat them, what am I doing having them look after my child? So if the smacking itself is not mistreatment... then what's the problem?? And if it is mistreatment, then what am *I* doing using it? Every appropriate discipline measure can be abused - but I'm sure we'd balk at telling grandparents, "You can't use time outs or redirects or take things off them because I don't trust you to use them appropriately". Wouldn't we?
I have trouble with the idea that I'm the only person who loves my child enough to be entrusted with hitting them.
Toomanytoomany .... your last line quote so sums up some of what i feel !!
I too struggle to understand how the smack from a parent feels different to a smack of a grandparent ... Isn't the physical pain the same & the fear of being hit the same ???
Doudou ... i understand your DH being at the other end of a wooden spoon ... my Mum would even throw steel soup ladels, lucky for me my Mum had a terrible sense of aim & if i stood still the spoon would fly right past me
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^ As someone who was smacked by my parents as well as other family members *and* people unrelated to me... yes. Being smacked by someone other than mum and dad is way different. For me personally, being smacked by somebody other than my parents may have hurt physically a lot less than mum/dad's smacks, but it was humiliating to be smacked by someone other than mum or dad. If my parents smacked me, it hurt, but it didn't do any damage to my relationship with them, if that makes any sense - I knew I was getting a smack because I'd done the wrong thing and I knew that they still loved me and would not smack me again if I behaved myself. I was able to take a slap on the bum, have a quick cry, and then ten minutes later it was as if nothing had happened - I'd forget the entire incident and go on unaffected.
But, if somebody else smacked me, I tended to go off into another room or a corner and just sit and cry, feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and hurt because I didn't know where I stood with the person who had smacked me, kwim?? Smacks I got from other family members or family friends would linger in the forefront of my mind for days, if not weeks, and I can't really explain WHY I hated it so much, or why being smacked by other people affected me so much, but it did.
So yeah, in my mind, DH and I really are the only people who I trust with that form of discipline - you may not understand that logic or reasoning as a non-smacker, and I don't know whether you were smacked as a kid or not, but as someone who was smacked as a kid, and who has seen it work well enough with so many children as well as my own to decide that it's a more appropriate form of discipline for my own child than other methods, I do believe that physical discipline is a job for a parent, whom a child trusts most in the world - if a parent is doing their job right, their child will trust that even though they get a smack for misbehaving, they are still loved and cherished.
For the record, in my mind any kind of discipline is up to a parent, if that parent is around. I remember friends' parents doing things like sending me to time-out or whatever it was they did in their house, while my mother was there, and it was just as soul-destroying as being smacked on the backside. Again, it comes down to 'I don't trust you enough to be confident in your discipline, my parents are the ones I trust love me enough to do the right thing as far as that goes'.
Gigi ... i just wanted to point out that to say what you & i have said out loud is very courageous which some may not understand
... So, i thank you for opening up & sharing that with me (& everyone else too)
We ALL as Mother's DO what's OUR BEST for our child/children
Registered User
I got smacked by just about everybody in the family as a kid lol... well, aunties/uncles and my mum's parents (who were a pair of royal grumps, I always hated them), anyway - the first time my dad's mother ever smacked me, I cried for days because she was my 'favourite' and had never raised a hand to me before (and I can still remember what I did to make her lose it with me so badly, so there you go lol).
I was also smacked by family friends and other people when I was in their care - and I HATED it. In my mind, being smacked by someone other than mum or dad was just awful - sure, mum and dad really hurt when they gave me a belt on the backside, but for others to do it, hurt more than just physically, kwim? So I always swore that DH and I would be the only people to ever smack our kids.
But... I don't really have a problem with my mum or dad smacking DD. I suppose because they raised me, I know they never once hurt me enough to make me worry about the effect it would have on DD if they smacked her... my parenting methods and what not are relatively similar to my parents (I suppose that means they did a pretty good job, if I still choose to model myself as a parent on them, even with all the research on different techniques I've done and tried out), so I know they wouldn't overstep any boundaries that I have set for myself, kwim?
But, as you say, if anybody *other than* my mother or father were to smack DD (or discipline her in certain other ways), I'd knock their teeth out.
BellyBelly Member
My MIL has smacked my 18 mth DD, when she was left in her care. So I never saw it happen but MIL casually mentioned it to me. This was one of the reasons we are now not talking!!! I know it wouldnt have been a hard smack, more like a tap on a nappy cushioned bottom, but still that is completely not the point. It makes me angry to know that she took it upon herself to discipline my child in that manner without me even being there - & of course if I was it wouldnt have happened. Grrr!
Registered User
NO... my parents would not smack my children simply because the last time i was smacked as a child, i smacked my mother back. so they know not to touch my children or they will cop it back... yes hipocritical i know..
PILs are not the type that would smack their grandchildren... the have so much patience its incredible... but my dh was belted with many wooden spoons in his childhood.
as for other relies... no way... im big on the kids being told of in a growly voice other then mum works wonders....
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^ Isn't it funny how parents who used to dole out the smacks like they were going out of fashion, suddenly find themselves unable to do anything but get that mushy look on their faces when the grandkids are acting up, and let them get away with murder??
I suppose that's another reason I don't worry at all about the very odd occasions when my mum does smack DD - she can't bring herself to do it very hard and 9 times out of 10 she just shakes her head and does the whole, 'Kids, gah, whaddaya gonna do?' thing... I wish she'd been that mellow when I was a youngin!
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You bring up a good point for me.
When I was about 10 or 11, I learned to fight back.
I could'nt count on 2 hands the number of "punch-ups" I had with my Mother. Right up to when I was about 16 or 17.
Thinking back, I think its shocking that a child has to feel like they have to fight back, with their fists, at their parents discipline. Shocking.
I sometimes see a bit of this "attitude" in Briley and dread the day the we ever have the experiences my mother and I had. I like to think that I have learnt from my lessons and am a better mother than to let that type of behaviour happen. Fingers crossed!
No way!!
i believe discipline is our responsibility. if DD is naughty enough to need a smack when my parents or IL's are around, they would never take it upon themselves to discipline her. and if we weren't there.. believe it or not, she is an angel.. all the time, everytime! the only time she mightbe naughty is when our nephew is around as well (he is 9, and at the moment, loves provoking her, which gets them both in trouble, and makes me so frustrated. its like he is turning my good girl into a naughty girl.. as soon as he leaves.. theres our little angel again!)
so yeah, in our situation, its not really an issue!
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