It’s abuse.
People used not to think beating your serfs/servants/wives was abuse, and now they’ve realized that was wrong. Society moves on.
What makes hitting a child any more OK than hitting an adult (other than the fact that they can’t hit back?)
Would you find it acceptable if a schoolteacher hit your child? You’d call that abuse, surely – what difference does it make who administers it?
Well, I’m very near to total agreement with you. I just think that a gentle swat on the butt to get the attention of a child cannot be classified as abuse.
You mean a bit like tapping a grown-up on the shoulder? Fair enough.
Teachers do not love your child and will hit them out of anger, tiredness, frustration or for the purposes of crowd control. Make an example of your kid to shut the others up. A teacher has the best interests of the group at heart, not the best interests of your child. Slightly different situation.
Wow Z, you have a colorful life. The worst I’ve ever had was getting smacked during my shower and sent to reflect on the balcony on my knees. At least you enjoyed the behavior that landed the soap in your mouth. 
Now that I think about it, what landed me on my knees on the balcony were a serie of misbehaviors any one of which could have seriously injured me, and me still doing it having been warned and knowing the fact. I was probably 6 or 7 and knew that glass cups are no-no’s and I:
None of the above was enjoyable. And my grandma was furious when she discovered my coup. The fury was direclty projected onto my bum and I was made to reflect on my actions on my knees on the balcony for a while. For the punishment I should have eaten all the chocolate to get the bang for my buck.
The lesson learned? I now devise far more advanced coup and cover-ups and was never busted since the 7yo incident. :discodance:
Love? I’m sure that even parents who smack love their kids, but you can’t possibly be suggesting that smacking can be an act of love? You mean like “This lesson will be help you down the line”, “You’ll thank me for this one day” as you roll your sleeves up and undo your belt? “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” something like that. What a load of paternalistic old bollocks that would be.
One of the reasons I would never seek to hurt or humiliate my kids (for that is ultimately what corporal punishment is about) is precisely because I love them.
Another reason is that once you allow yourself to cross that line, it’s not such a big leap to actual assault and violence. In anger-type punishment situations, the parent does not really have a proper rein on their emotions, and could (sometimes does) easily cause grave injury or death. These stories that we read about bad tw parents and shake our heads at disapprovingly: all start with relatively gentle smacking, then get out of hand as the child still doesn’t behave in the desired way, perhaps because in pain or upset by the punishment. Ask those [boiling water…] parents if they had thought they could ever seriously hurt their little darling, before the event.
And then even in the cool, calm and humiliating variety of punishment, it’s pretty hard to judge just how much it hurts, surely? I mean my kids will sometimes scream and bawl over little accidents that would barely make me flinch.
[[What’s the deal with hitting, anyway? Why hitting in particular? Why not pull their hair very hard? Cause minor injuries that heal very quickly, like, say, graze their knee on the ground, or prick their finger with a pin. The pinprick probably hurts less than most kinds of hitting, I would think. Could use a sterilized pin. Deliberately cut a fingernail too low, even: I know from unintentional experience that this is a good way to inflict a minor amount of pain on the child. If inflicting pain is what you want to do.]]
But the most important reason is simply that hitting people is wrong. It doesn’t matter if they are male or female, black or white, slaves or free, developmentally normal or abnormal, gay or straight, old or young. Masters must not hit their servants, husbands must not hit their wives, teachers must not hit their students, and parents must not hit their kids. The rights of all to absolute freedom from violence must be protected, and that includes children.
Reasoning with a young child is pointless because they do not have the cognitive development or emotional control to extrapolate the ‘lesson’ to other situations. Reasoning with an older child assumes that you are smarter and wiser than the child and are more aware of and able to control their immediate environment than they are.
Generations of children have been slapped for misbehaviour, with no ill effect, including, I would guess, most forumosans. Not slapping children is a new thing. Are kids nowadays better behaved, more ethical, more self-controlled than in the past?
Ever taken a first aid class? Hitting is very often used to shock hysterical people. And its still prescribed treatment to this day. I’m sure you’d prefer it if you could simply tap them on the shoulder and say “Excuse me, old chap, would you mind stopping that for just a second” but it doesn’t work that way.
You remember that bloke in the UK a year or two back who actually got himself arrested and charged because someone saw him giving his kid a smack on the bottom in a shopping mall? He was facing having his kid taken away and a custodial sentence. The papers were all over that one until he finally appeared in court and the truth came out that the child was becoming hypoxic as a result of a tantrum. He was cleared of all charges. What would you say to that? Was he “wrong” to hit his kid?
So how will they extrapolate the good hiding ‘lesson’ to other situations?
Not slapping kids is a new thing like not slapping wives was, not long ago.
You’re suggesting we should hit our children either more or less, following general behaviour trends in society?
Can’t really comment. I don’t know what you mean by “hysterical”. Is that an actual condition, something that can be treated by first aid? I thought it just mean someone being so upset that they’re shouting and screaming. Wait for them to calm down?
I don’t know what hypoxic means. However, I do know what a tantrum is. I have two broad strategies for dealing with them: (1) picking the child up and cuddling him; (2) removing the child from the situation, by picking him up and going somewhere else where he can calm down, quite likely away from whatever motivated the tantrum. My guess is that this father hadn’t enough experience of dealing with the child by himself, got flustered and panicky and possibly embarrassed because it was a public place. And just hit out.
OK Sandman, I grant you: if there are specific medical conditions that can only be dealt with by hitting, so be it. Doesn’t have to be parents mind: better it were experienced childcare or medical practitioners, I think. But this must be very, very rare. And to be honest, a little implausible.
Nope. They’re fucked-up and totally lacking discipline or respect. Due mostly to bad parenting, probably, although I haven’t done a peer-reviewed study or anything. And most of those bad parents are probably following the broken Britain trend of not properly disciplining their kids.
The idea that loving parents shouldn’t be prepared to administer a short, sharp shock when necessary is part of the bad parenting, IMO, not the other way around.
They don’t, but they do develop a Pavlovian fear of running into the street. Similarly, a child below a certain age is not able to empathise with others. it’s far more effective to stop that child from hurting or bullying others with a quick slap on the back of the legs than explaining a concept he/she is unlikely to grasp.
Slapping your wife and slapping a small child are not analogous.
Quite the opposite.
There are far worse ways to terrorise and bully children than a swift slap to the backside when small. Labyrinthine systems of reward, punishment, removal of approval and attention, material sanctions, guilt, etc, are potentially far more damaging.
isn’t a tap on the head or slap on the wrist instinctive??? how can that be equated to a belt or a cane???
I don’t believe in hitting, hurting or abusing children but I have even seen monkeys slap their offspring on occasion…not aggressively but in love to get them to sit straight etc.
This is a very interesting discussion and I am glad this topic has come up…
Are there any parents (here) who have hit their child when the kid was little??? not constantly but on occasion. not out of anger but deliberately. And now that the kid has grown up, how do they feel about those ‘incidents’??? would they go back and change it? or do they think the kid learnt the lesson??? or do they think, that they did whatthey thought best??
A friend has a 3 year old who has never been disciplined physically. The child has learned to scream back at his parents when they “tell him off”.
Basically, the kid is now in control and can be completely unmanagable - why should he respect his parents when he can outscream them?
One smack would fix the problem.
It’s a difficult position to be in. Because logic and reason don’t really work when they are really young. You can use fear like loud noises and yelling, but then I wonder if psychological torment is any better than physical punishment or is it worse. So if you don’t use punishment, you have to be more skilled at management. You have to get them on your side or you’re lost. It is more difficult, but more rewarding, in my most humble opinion.
Agree absolutely. But do you succeed EVERY time? You categorically rule out any form of physical violence whatsoever? Or mental or psychological, of course – they’re of course far, far more potentially damaging, so if you’re not going to punish physically, you’d be a terrible hypocrite if you simply did it by giving them a psychological slap.
The way I see it is you do the best you can with the best intentions. Sometimes that means a slap, mostly you hope it doesn’t. But I sure as hell won’t rule it out. FWIW, I resented my parents FAR more for being grounded or having my allowance docked than I EVER did from a cuff round the ear-hole. Their goddamn pontificating about it used to piss me off even more.
A swat on the bottom would be the limit for me. I would never hit them in the face. I guess it just depends on the situation and your best judgment at the time. You’ll make mistakes of course. I would rather err on the side of too little violence than too much.
Which of course is a lot different to saying that violence is NEVER the answer. I hope I never have to hit mine.
Yes, and I never said that. I just said I haven’t used it.
Nice one-liner, but it’s wrong.
You don’t have children, do you thelonieste?
Sounds like the kid you described doesn’t respect his parents’ authority. Violence doesn’t earn respect; it only earns fear and grudging compliance, at best. Same for yelling and screaming.
You said that kid has learned to scream back at his parents when they tell him off and said he can outscream them. That’s the problem. According to your description, the parents yell and scream at their child and tell him off. Is that the best way to get respect from the kid?
Not only have I never hit my child, but I don’t even yell or scream at her. Instead, if she misbehaves I sit down and speak calmly with her about why what she did was wrong, and it hurt mommy, and you wouldn’t like it if someone did that to you would you, and so please do not do that again, etc. You may think that’s a bunchy of corny BS, but it’s not. I admit, it’s not easy for many people to deal so calmy with discipline issues. My wife loses it sometimes (verbally), but I do my best to reign her in, because calm, rational discussion DOES work.
If you’ve built up a good solid loving relationship, your child will want to please you and not anger or shame you. But even if/when the child transgresses, one can still calmly explain that there will be certain (reasonable, proportionate) consequences for the action. People keep saying nothing gets attention like a swat on the butt, but that’s wrong. Nothing gets attention like a calm, stern, honest talk, looking the child directly in the eyes and requiring the child to look back and respond to your comments and questions.
Kids clearly learn from their parents.
Parents who hit their kid are teaching that violence is the solution.
Parents who yell and scream at their kid are teaching that yelling and screaming is the solution.
Parents who sit down for calm discussion of an issue are teaching that calm discussion is the solution.
What do you want to teach your kids?