To smack or not to smack
February 24, 2008 by Megan Bayliss · 6 Comments
Seventy percent of Australian parents believe that smacking children is acceptable. Along with former chief justice of the Family Court, Alastair Nicholson, I am a minority: Smacking ‘could help create bullies, bashers’
What do you think? Is smacking a child an acceptable form of child discipline?
Here’s some other brief reading to help you make an informed decision:
Research suggests smacking is ineffective as a parental discipline strategy
Shopping, kids and smacking. Have you seen it?
The five rules for fighting fair.
Alternatives to Smacking.
To smack or not to smack – what is the answer?
About Megan Bayliss
It is never OK to smack in this house. The girls do not hit myself or each other and I do not hit them. I will not use the threat of physical violence or hurt to scare them into behaving a certain way. There is very little that we can’t talk our way through, and if we do get to the point of a full blown tantrum smacking is not going to achieve anything positive, anyway.
How on earth are children supposed to learn to use their words if the people around them don’t.
At the start of Louise Porter’s excellent book Children are People Too she retells a story where she asked the question in a training session for early childhood practitioners, about what should carers do who when someone they are feeding deliberately spits food back at them. Like the majority you mentioned above, there were people in that session who believed it was OK to smack the child. However, what if it was not a child it was and it was an 80 year old with Alzheimer’s disease? Every one agreed that it was not OK to smack in this instance. Louise tries to challenge adults to see the hypocrisy in this – children are people too and there should be no age barrier to human rights.
I like you and Louise Porter, beleive that there is no circumstance where it is OK to smack a child. Great post by the way – more adults need to understand that it is not a successful discipline tool.
Never.
i believe it is not ok to smack a child, for a range of reasons. here’s just one:
imagine i see my child hit another child, or perhaps me out of anger or frustration. i want to teach my child that it’s not ok to hurt someone else so i give the child a smack…what?
did i just say that?
did i say that it’s ok for a big person to hit a little person?
just because i happen to be their parent?
the person they are supposed to trust more than anyone else in the world?
would i let another grown up smack my child? NO INDEED!
so why is it ok for me to do so?
i think it’s really important to be really clear on the messages we give our children, both those we intend to give, and those we may actually give.
It is comforting to me to know that this site is attracting non smackers…I was a little concerned that I really was a very small minority.
I am a reformed smacker. I smacked my first two children because I didn’t know what else to do. I was in effect throwing a Mummy tantrum because Mummy was frustrated. By the time baby 3 and 4 came along I was much more mature, emotionally intelligent and prepared to think through the broader issues.
So many parents seem to be at a loss for alternatives to smacking – there’s still too many barriers to parents wanting to change their parenting. I am thankful that the internet has removed some of those barriers and made it easier for parents to find different ideas on parenting and child protection.
We are definitely a no smack household because I just can’t see how children learn anything valuable by being hit. All we are teaching them is 1) it’s OK to hit people and 2) the biggest/strongest always wins. How can we expect our kids to grow up to be reasoned and caring adults if we teach them that violence is acceptable punishment? I don’t even think that smacking is particularly effective.
There have been time when I have felt like smacking, but thankfully I have managed to resist. When I look back at the times I felt like that, I realise that the driving force behind the desire to smack was MY anger and it actually had very little to do with the kid’s behaviour. Smacking when you’re angry has got to be the worst possibly way of disciplining children – you are bound to overreact. I’m glad there are sites like these to talk about other ways to deal with tense situations, bad behaviour, whatever for parents. I agree, Megan, that a lot of parents seem to smack with little thought for what else might work, which is very sad.