Smacking children

Honestly, I think that hitting a child, even if it's just a spanking doesn't really teach them anything. All they learn is that sometimes hitting is appropriate. I think that is the opposite of what we want them to know. Timeout and taking away certain privelages has deemed to be the most productive for me in the time I've babysat my neice and other small relatives. But then again, I'm going to have my first child this month so hey..what do I know?

I believe that there is a time and a place for smacking. For me I used it when my children were too young to understand the word 'danger' and it was pretty much a stern pat on the back of the hand when they tried to touch electrical cords. I never have smacked them to hurt them only to tell them that what they were doing needed to stop instantly. To me the smack is much more emotionally hurtful to the child than physically, it really gets their attention that they are doing something dangerous. Now they are all old enough to understand the words that I tell them and I can't remember the last time I had to give out a 'hand tap' - we call smacking this in my household and my warning goes something like this '...if you touch that electrical cord one more time I will have to give you a hand tap, would you like that?', the child usually responds with a no or a headshake. So in this instance, smacking has worked for me. With my eldest child, he got a few smacks, open hand on the bottom over the earlier years. They were mostly when he ran towards the road which scared me so badly I actually grabbed him a gave him a smack before I knew what I was doing! I think it was more out of shock and that on some level I needed to show him that this was a very seriously dangerous thing to do. He got out of this stage quickly thank goodness! I do not believe in smacking to hurt a child to teach them a lesson or as a punishment - like in the old days when parents hit you with a leather belt that left welts so that you would remember for a week what bad thing that you had done and so you would remember to never do it again. I think to change a behaviour that you don't like in your child you have to reach them on an emotional level, smacking to excess shuts down emotion and will not give you the results that you need. Smacking to excess gives you an angry, guilty, frustrated parent and a resentful, feeling unloved child.

Well I dont think its my place to agree or disagree with how one parent or another chooses to discapline their child. I dont like the word smack a bit like hit it sounds painful and I dont think inflicting pain on a child is the way to discapline them a tap on the hand wont hurt anyone but may shock them into not doing what ever it was they did wrong, again. Personally I prefer time out and I ignore most bad behaviour unless they are putting themselves in danger and then I find myself shouting through fright and thats normally enough anyway