Smacking

[Potter]

Hi, My youngest boy aged 8 was recently sick on the carpet so i smacked, not hard but enough to know what he was doing was wrong, the problem was he enjoyed the smack and is now being naughty on purpose, what should i do?

[zgma]

Cardboard, the way I would deal with that situation (and I have, many times, as toddlers on airplanes love to kick the seat) is to say - Look, when you kick that seat, the man up there feels it in his back. Do you think that's comfortable? My son usually stops. Granted, he stops temporarily, because he is 2 and has a short attention span. So I repeat it. It's a little annoying to do that, but the man in front of him doesn't get kicked, and my son learns that there are real reasons not to kick the seat. "Because I'll get smacked by Mama" isn't a real reason... it's coercion, and the only thing he learns from it is how to annoy me when he wants to. And, because I have treated him with a lack of respect by smacking him, he'll want to annoy me. With my system (reasoning with him) he doesn't want to annoy me.

[zgma]

Fakeplastic, I'm talking about smacking as an intentional form of discipline, not as a lost-my-temper-and-at-the-end-of-my-rope sort of thing. I think most of us would never intentionally hit a child, but sometimes you get pushed to the limit and things happen. Whe I was a teenager working at a summer camp, I once slapped a kid's hand in anger - and felt terrible about it. But I think that Cardboard is really talking about having considered all the discipline options and come to the conclusion that smacking is a valid discipline tool, and that is what I am reacting against.

[cardboard]

zgma, you're right. I was talking about it as a valid discipline tool. The one thing I do agree with you is that smacking when emotionally or physically tired is wrong. Dont get me wrong, Im not having a go, or saying you're bad people or anything, I know everyone has bad days. The only time I believe it is valid to smack is when other options have been tried and exhausted. But I personally do not believe every child in the world will respond positivly to verbal discipline alone, and home punishments such as removal of toys etc arent always available

[zgma]

I really hope the paragraph breaks are back, or else this may be a little unwieldy - try to suffer through, if it's all one paragraph!....... I don't think you're having a go; I think this is a very interesting discussion. I DO think that every child can be disciplined without violence. Let me just say that my intention behind disciplining is not always to immediately stop bad behavior. That is something that I obviously want to happen, but what I really want to accomplish is to teach my child to be a well-adjusted, valuable member of society. One of the best qualities of a valuable member of society is empathy. One of the least valuable qualities is learning to act out of fear (of a bad consequence) or greed (for a good consequence). So when I decide how I want to teach my child, it's based on the fact that I don't want him to not do something bad because he's afraid of the consequences - I want him to not do the bad thing because he understands that it's bad, and doesn't want to do harm. I want him to understand the consequences of his actions. I think that hitting a child doesn't teach her/him this underlying message. Instead it teaches a lot of other messages that are harmful in the long run: that they can do bad things if someone bigger isn't going to find out; that if you have more power than someone else, you're allowed to hit them; that the only reason not to do bad things is to avoid getting punished, etc.

[zgma]

And to respond specifically to what you said, cardboard..... I think children really act according to how you treat them, and they immediately recognize when someone respects them. If you treat someone with respect, chances are they will respond well. I think that's true of 99.99% of people, children included, so yes - I do think that most if not all children will respond well to proper verbal discipline. As for my own child - I will grant you that sometimes the explanation method doesn't do a thing. When he doesn't listen, I know that he's tired, or hungry, or bored, or doesn't feel well, and I change my tack accordingly. Sometimes nothing works, but that's really rare. For the reasons in my post above, I would never think of hitting him when nothing is working. In some situations, you just have to remove the child from whatever is going on.

[the biker]

 get a carpet cleaner in

[annette11555]

I find it hard to believe this is a genuine question also who on earth would smack a child for being ill i have brought up 7 children and would never resort to violence a child needs love and reasurence especially when they are ill

[happyapple]

I doubt very much he ENJOYED the smack you fool.

Maybe somebody should smack you next time you are sick and you see if you enjoy it??

[.v.natco.v.]

I dont think you needed to smack him for being sick on the carpit-it was an accident.

Maby he is playing up on perpose because that is the only way he can get your attention?

How about ignoring him when he is being naughty, and whn he is being good, give him your attention. My brother tried this and it worked he has no reason to smack all the time now.