h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I do smack my child, but only very rarely and definitely not when I am angry. He's only 6, but when I do smack I always offer a choice of bottom or hand, because then he has to think about it, he's not only trying to avoid it. I normally only smack him when everything else has failed, which is why I don't do it often. He's more likely to be picked up and put out of the room, but to me that's the same as smacking. "I'm bigger and stronger then you." But sometimes he's better off out of my way.
I never tell him I don't love him, in fact I tell him I do love him even when he does naughty things, I just don't like the naughty things he does. I can't believe there are parents out there who would rip into their child's emotions like that. Children are so fragile and precious.

I'm not quiet what to say in reply to that, to be honest i'm not even sure whether you were agreeing or disagreeing but...I'm only 15 and i don't know how i'm going to discipline my children when i get to that stage this was actually a school report which we used to voice our opinions in the matter and sure if its a choice between a wee smack or sent to there rooms...i personally would choose the room and my argument is that being a child myself when i was smaked my mum and me both got very upset but it didn't hammer home the discipline part (excuse the pun!) where as being sent to my room for an hour or so made me think of what i did and what i should have done.

I think the thing i hate the most is these people who use the "old fashioned" bit as an excuse...it's not right! I also hate the smaking in public...it just doesn't seem right to hit a child for being slow or upset...you wouldn't do that to an adult so why to a child...i've always felt like that...it just seems cruel! I also hate and i mean HATE with a firey passion children being disciplined by being told their parents don't love them...because there are points in your life when you get told off or sent to your room where you feel like your parents don't love you anyway but to be told this...it must screw a child up something rotten!

I think you sound like a very good well balanced mother and your son is obviously lucky as was I! The odd smake ever now and agin is probably very likely... i doubt any parent sets out to smake a child but it often ends up like that.

I suppose I wasn't really agreeing or disagreeing. Just putting my point of view across. I don't usually send my son to his room, because when I got sent to my room as a kid I just started playing with toys or reading, so much preferred that to a smack!
But thank you!

I must admit to playing with toys and listening to the radio but it did work for me!

I was smacked when I was a child, it taught me a lesson that I will never forget, the lesson being never to smack a child. You can call it smacking to make it sound better so the conscience is clear, but think of the other more realistic terms you could use for 'smacking'. Hitting, assaulting, abusing, etc, etc..... See it from the childs point of view, imagine if someone twice the size of you were to 'smack' you because you did not yet understand the rules. If you were stopped by a police officer for speeding without realising that you had done so, I don't think you would be too happy if the officer then 'smacked' you. What happens when we stop talking and using physical oppression to make someone understand our point of view?

the problem is, whatever we say, it's probably easy just to lash out without realising