slapping

I would like to know if slapping a child in the face when very frustrated a couple times a year as punishment in response to a child misbehaving (yelling, hitting) is considered "child abuse"? I'm sure it's not the best way to deal with behavior, but is it illegal?

im under the impression it is now in the uk...to slap a child in the face is horrendous..no matter what theyve done.im a mum of four...ive also bought up my three sisters through thier teenage years.if ive learnt anything in all this time it is that children behave by the example thier parents give them.if i slapped my toddler she would slap me back!...if its ok for me to do it then she would think its ok for her to do it back.
im not trying to be miss perfexct when it comes to being a parent...i did used to smack my first child for bad behaviour..but soon found it didnt work.and my 11 year old son has adhd,tourettes and can be such a handle full that ive had to go upstairs and punch a pillow in frustration.

I don't know that it's illegal....but parents really need to be careful when they choose their method of punishment.....in our society especially.....people just over react to so many things. You say nothing at all to your child who is misbehaving or say too little in that sweet voice and people shake their heads at you in disgust because you are raising a brat and so forth. But you raise your voice and get angry...even dare to slap their butt (and I don't mean hard...more like a "potch") and they are running to their nearest phone and screaming "CHILD ABUSE"!

I guess in my opinion....I was raised by two very fair and loving parents. But if I got snotty in how I spoke to them....my mom would not hesitate to slap my face. ALWAYS justified. I can look back on that and know I was NEVER abused by my parents. Also...if I really really messed up....mom would take down my pants and give me 3 firm spanks on my butt. Didn't hurt so much physically as it embarrassed the hell out of me. For me....this punishment worked wonders. I shaped up...I listened and respected my parents and thought twice about acting up. Not saying I was perfect and never acted up after one encounter! To me....there is a big difference between what is a good needed "spank" and abuse. But in today's society....any sort of spank or slap is thought of as child abuse. I think it's crap....but you have to go w/ it and be very careful how you decide to discipline a child. I think if I tell my child enough times and they still continue to do wrong....a good "potch" on the butt is called for. And by that I mean across their DRESSED bottom...and not hard enough to hurt so much as to call attention to things.

BUT.....now having said all that on that side of things. I'll take it a step further to the other side. I have a 7 yr. old daughter who has seen her fair share of spankings. And I've had to give up. I RARELY spank her anymore. Why? After I've said all that above? Why do I say it's not worth it?? Because even though I was raised that way and came out just fine. I can see in my own daughter that it does no better then any other method. I don't get desired results w/ her. Truthfully....she's so scared of me if she thinks she'll get a spanking.....and it's not the effect I am hoping for. And it certainly doesn't improve her behavior. She never stops and thinks boy...better not do or say that or mom might spank.....so why do it? There are more loving ways to work w/ her. And finally.....like one mom here mentioned....now she treats her sister that way. If she doesn't like what her sister is doing...you'll hear a LOUD slap followed by her sister in tears. So all I've taught my oldest to do is that when she's angry and not getting from her sister what she wants.....then it's ok to hit. And I would rather she learn it's NEVER ok to hit!

So I know my post is hard to follow. Basically I was raised one way and do not feel I was abused. It worked w/ me. But in my daughter's case....I simply can't agree w/ it and I can see where it does more harm then good. NOT that I clasify that method as abuse....but why go down that road at all when it's clearly not helping and only making her feel worse about herself? She feels bad enough just getting talked to when she's naughty.

and did I even say? It's one thing to give your child a quick ...what I call potch on the butt. To me a potch is a quick, firm but gentle swat on the butt. You don't hit hard enough to leave marks....or even hard enough that your child would feel a need to rub their bottom. It shouldn't even sting a little! I think I hit my husband's arm a lot in play then I would ever dare hit my child. Abuse to me is when you hit hard and you hit over and over and over again. Or if you slap so hard you leave a mark that doesn't disappear quickly. I think there are clear cut lines between abuse and just discipline. But unfortunatly we have a society that sees things not as black and white and I think, overreact to many things.

Spankings of all kinds are a way to associate pain with an action. You dont want your child to associate every little thing they do with pain. They will no longer remember what the difference between running in the road and spilling thier milk on purpose. This makes the spankings not effective when their safety is at stake. There is no need to spank a child for telling them something over and over. You start with your child at birth and the second they do something that you find undesireable, you tell them no. Terrible twos will come and they will know the word no. My son is almost 18 months and a terror. Ok hes probably pretty normal but terrible two are never fun. For example, he will try to get into the dvd player and I will say "get out thats a no". Two seconds later hes back at it. I tell him this time "Get out thats a no next time you get a timeout." Next time he gets into it, like two seconds after that, I tell him "get out, thats a no timeout." lead him by the hand and tell him to sit in the chair. I tell him to get in it himself. at first he refused over and over but i was CONSISTANT and it wasnt long before he did it on his own right away. The first time it took nearly an hour but each time I lead him back to the chair, I told him again why he was sitting there. But if I had given him that one swat on the butt to make him listen, it would take that swat everytime just to get him in the chair. I strongly feel that spanking should be reserved for when a child has or is in the process of inflicting serious or possible pain on another person, animal or themsleves. Like kicking someone in the head or running into the road.

Consistance is the clue. You dont want your child acting up in public but would normaly spank your child by that point at home, well then they arent going to stop until they get that smack on their butt. Consistantly get after them with the same results everytime, and the second you give your kid the "look" they will shape right up.

The other thing is to look at the situation and ask yourself, why is my child acting this way? They may be hungry tired, or acting out from a situation that happened to them. Are they reacting to something they way you other important adults in their life? If you target the true root of the problem and get rid of it, it should be all it takes.

My older child is almost four and I will tell you a story about her. She is at an age now that I am trying to teach her certain skills and privacy. Such as not running around the house in her undies, shutting the bathroom when she goes, and washing her own hair. Well my nephew is only 4 months younger and my sister wanted her to stay the night with him. No problem right, after all she my sister, right. They let my daughter and nephew take a bath alone and totally unattened while they were relaxing at the other end of the house. Well my daughter decided to "help" my nephew wash his hair by pouring an entire bottle of shampoo on his head. When the shampoo ran into his eyes and he began to cry, my borther in law finally went in to check on them. He was ticked and took my daughter out of the bath tub and spanked her bare rear very hard, over and over. Then he and my sister both took a turn yelling at her until she was hysterical. I heard the shampoo bit and the spanking, but didnt realize the severity of it. I figured one swat on the butt cause anything more than that is abuse. I decided not to make a big deal about the nude rear end part.

My little girl is not a perfect angel, but she is a very very good little girl. She never yells or fights or is mean to her brother, listens well, cleans up after herself without having to be told, ect, ect. For me, she is a huge help (Im pretty pregnant too) and I feel very lucky to have such a sweety. My son would kick her hard multiple times and she would cry and cry but not do anything back but say, "Be nice baby, that hurts me." Not that she doesnt have a bad moment or day, but this is how it is most of the time. Well her entire personallity changed after this. She started swearing and screaming at her brother and beating him. If he was taking a bath, she would flip out on him if he touched the shampoo bottle and would just scream at the top of her lungs if I tried to wash her hair. She was having nightmares and when I would say "You better knock it off." she would reply "Or the angry man will come and spank me." I didnt connect what happened with her attitude change and she would get more and more spanks each day each time that she seriously hurt her brother. I did not realize that each spanking was making her worse. I was at my wits end and bawling one day trying to figure out why she was acting like this. I finally thought that everything she was doing could be connected and I had to find that root problem. I asked her if people were mean to her, mom, dad, brother, ect until I hit the mark on her uncle. It just hit me. I asked her to tell me a story about the time she tried to wash her cousins hair.

When she got to the spanking part, she started to squirm, twist, fuss and hold her bottom in pain remembering. I asked her what happened next, to not put anything in her head but to keep her on track. at the end, I asked her if she wanted to go see her cousin, and her response was a sharp NO, I want him to come here. She was so tramatized I just held her that Mom and Dad would NEVER let anyone hurt her again. Then my husband came home from work and I told her to tell him the story. She said "no mom" I asked her why. She said "that story makes me sad mommy." Thats all that my husband had to hear and he also promised her. We held her and should her gentleness when she was bad the next couple days, reexplaining to why she couldnt hurt her brother, ect. When she had a nightmare, I had her tell me about it. Afterwards, I would tell her that it was like a scary movie. It was over now and it cant get her and I and Dad would never let anyone angry man hurt her. After a week, we had our little girl back. she still has an occasional nightmare but the her nightmare attitude is over. Last time I watched my nephew, my brother in law dropped him off and my daughter peed all over the house the whole day. Finally, I asked her how she was feeling today and gave her a list of feelings. Normally, its happy or angry, but this time it was scared. I asked her why she was scared. She didnt really know, I dont think, but I told her "Sweety, mommy loves you very much and I am here to keep you safe. I will not let uncle ___ hurt her. She was safe and she could use her potty again like a big girl. The whole thing happened over a period of two months before I even figured it out.

I grew up in a very abusive home and remember very well the violation of having my bare rear spanked. Probably cause my mother would do it in front of the people she knew were molesting me and cause she did it till I moved out at age 18, literelly ripping my clothes from my body once when I was 16 and having my period to do it. So I teach my daughter that her butt is a private area and mom and dad are the ONLY ones that can spank her clothed butt. Total, she MIGHT get one spanking a week from her father and myself together and that is a big might. She is very well behaved. My son on the other hand averages one a day between both of us. He gets them for standing in the window screen and pushing on it. He could fall out and get seriously hurt, or even die, so we want him to have fear for that.

Basically, my moral here is pin point the root of the problem and be consistant. Reserve spanking for the really bad things and each action should have a predictable reation. Always explain each disapline action and dont give in, ever. This will get rid of confusion and, eventually, the pushing of your buttons. My husband got a grand total of three spankings his entire life from his mother and got his face slapped once for sassing her in front of his friends in his teens. He has so much respect for her. I try to follow her example.

I also dont think a generally good parent should beat themselves up for making mistakes. They happen and you can learn from them.

yes, it is very illegal to strike a child in any manner for any reason, just as it would be for an adult assaulting another. They can't fight back, and it only sets and example for them to fight, thru the pecking order our society stands by.

Hitting isn't the answer, talk , they do listen!!!!

They want positive attention, but to a child any attention is some attention. I f the child is acting up, why>? Is it lack of parental attention, and reinforcement. Is it rebellion against the abuse (i'm can almost guarantee this is how he views the situation, as he has no other choices in opinions, other than it hurts, I'm bad, my parents hate me, etc.

I hope that this has helped, from one abused child to another, Godbless and Godspeed.
ddee

Does it matter if the action is "legal"? Either way, I will never be convinced that a child needs to be slapped in order to be disciplined. I'm not against spanking, but spanking the bottom and slapping the face are two very different things.

Firstly, if you spank a child you are striking a comparatively less sensitive part of the anatomy. There's lots of padding. It might sting but it's not going to damage anything.

Now, the face. On the face, there are niggly little parts like the ears, nose and mouth. Strike across the ears enough times and you may damage your child's hearing. Strike across the nose and you may cause nosebleeds. Strike across the mouth and you may, at best, split a child's lip or at worst cause their teeth to fly out.

Oh yes, the face is also attached to something called a head. Would you like it if someone kept striking your head?

Then there's the psychological repercussions. When people talk of being humiliated, they use the euphemism, "a slap in the face". There's a reason for that saying. Think about it.

Take on board ddee's suggestions. Use other ways of discipline such as taking away privledges, using a time-out corner, whatever. Talk to your child.

Sounds like there's some anger issues as well. Maybe you'd want to look into that as well.

I believe ANY violent act, including *spanking* which sounds so incident, is wrong.

Children respond to explainations , time outs, and talking.

No adult should hit a child in any fashion. It only shows anger thru the eyes of the child. What good is hitting anyway?? Can't we try rewarding instead, we don't even hit our animals, we praise them and give them rewards, and their minds are of lateral thinking just like a child. They only understand rewards.As you so mildly put it spanking,it only shows them that hitting is the answer. And ignorance breeds ignorance. The buck stops here!!Learn the word "NO"!!!

<<<<<Now, the face. On the face, there are niggly little parts like the ears, nose and mouth. Strike across the ears enough times and you may damage your child's hearing. Strike across the nose and you may cause nosebleeds. Strike across the mouth and you may, at best, split a child's lip or at worst cause their teeth to fly out. ....>>>>>>

Striking the bottom causes irrepairable harm to their self worth , trust factor, not to mention humiliation. How would you like to be spanked? Do we have the right to spank someone smaller than us, what if they hit us back....then what,. war among child and parent. There is no set rules for this kind of discipline, other than don't do it, it is illegal,not trivial, there are reasons for these laws, one could spank a child and knock them down to the floor and break a tooth. plus you can be prosecuted by your child. Not old enough to tell, well that is just harmful to the child in many ways, people people people.



"What can be more soothing, at once to a man’s Pride, and to his Conscience, than the conviction that, in taking vengeance on his enemies for injustice done him, he has simply to do them justice in return?" - Edgar Allan Poe


"How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it." - Marcus Aurelius

Just thought id post this, my parents spanked me all my life, im 19 now, but i have so much hate for them now. they love me still, but they dont realise how much i hate them, and now i have to watch them spank my sister, and everytime i see them do that, i want to kill them, so my advice is, if you dont want your kids to risk turning out like me, dont do it.

Nark.

Exactly Nark!!!!!


I hear you, I was you and hated mine too. All it did was cause me hatred, anger, fear, and rebellion.

And all I wanted was love.

HUgs, ddee

I was spanked as a kid with my pants down at home and also in public. it was very embarrassing but i used to be naughty alot i did deserve it. i learnt.but then id forget and do stuff again. but i h8 my parents now.. i also got slapped across the face a few times while having yelling/screaming sessions at my mom

its not a good thing.