The great smacking debate… still!

Let me tell you a little story about smacking.

My then 3 year old used to love taking the gas knobs off the stove top.  They would take them off and hide them and think it was funny when I had to go searching for them.  After a while they began turning the gas on before removing the knobs.  I dare say this was accidental on their part at first.  They had no idea about gas and what was releasing it into the house.  Though once my child realised it bothered me (aka got my attention) they did it all the more - as 3 year olds do.

I talked with child about leaving the knobs alone, not touching the knobs, the danger of touching the knobs (which they couldn’t comprehend).  I then started punishing my child for touching and removing the gas knobs with time out and banishing toys.  I removed the gas knobs myself so they couldn’t be turned on or removed.  My child still managed to turn the gas on via the metal stubs that stuck out.  This gas knob thing went on for ages with my child winning each round.  The more they knew about how annoying I found it the more they seemed to enjoy my panic and concern.  Or rather the ‘attention’ they got from doing it.

One day I’m doing the dishes with a small bench space between the sink and the oven/stove top and I see out of my peripheral vision this little 3 year old hand reaching up towards the gas knobs.  Little people don’t know about peripheral vision so my child assumed since I was not looking at them I couldn’t see what they were about to do.  It just so happened I was in the middle of washing a wooden spoon, which I removed from the water and snapped him across the knuckles with.  The spoon was wet and made a great slapping sound though the tap was barely enough to even hurt.

Still, it scared the daisies out of my child!  Firstly, “How did mum see me when she wasn’t looking?”  Secondly, “Where did that wooden spoon come from?”  They was so surprised.  I never said a thing, just wafted that spoon across the knuckles, leaving bubbles behind and went on with the dishes.

My child NEVER touched the gas knobs again!

That 3 year old is now 20-something and he is FINE with a capital F.  They were rarely smacked (like once a year if that), never smacked more than one tap at a time (tap being the operative word), and never after the age of 6 because they knew by then what was acceptable behavior and what was not.

Am I an advocate of smacking?  Truthfully it is not my 'go to' technique (and it shouldn't be yours) - I prefer to outsmart my children (which is essentially what the above story is about rather than the smack itself), and if anyone else smacked my children I'd have a fit.  Yet I strongly believe that there is a big difference between a smack and abuse. 

When I was growing up I was smacked all the time for the littlest things - spilling mum's cup of tea... whack, mumble under my breath... whack. I never knew when the smacking would come only that it would come because it was my parents 'go to' method. When I did something considerably more worse I got a belting; lots of smacks on my bottom in one go. I'm not going to tell you I was smacked and I turned out fine (although I did turn out ok). I didn't like getting smacked, it made me angry and resentful of my parents. I felt powerless and fearful.

That said, if I read one more article on how abusive smacking is and how parents should be punished if they smack their children, with articles describing it as: "College students showed more psychological disturbances if they grew up in a home with less praise, more scolding, more corporal punishment, and more verbal abuse."  I’m going to scream.  Of course you grow up more disturbed if that is your upbringing.  Duh! Because that is a far cry from a simple smack. That is an abusive upbringing.

Here's the thing.  My son was praised a lot, rarely scolded, seldom verbally abused (though yes I lost my temper on occasion and yelled).  And any smacking (what others seem to be calling corporal punishment) was at a bare minimum.  We need to get real about what real abuse looks like IMO instead of telling parents they can't smack.  And, of course, we need to teach parents other methods of discipline via blogs like this, because I tell you now my parents smacked because they didn't know how to outwit their children and quite frankly couldn't be bothered doing anything else. 

Tell me your views. Is a simple paddy whack on the bottom bad? What other methods could parents use aside from smacking?