Smacking children

Phil_aka_Pip

EricTheWeary said:

Phil_aka_Pip;515031" said:

Snap said:

Violence - emotive word, but using physical force, on someone else, with pain involved, is violence.










Not a sufficient definition for violence. Otherwise your dentist couldn't extract a tooth.

I think you could add something like ' without their consent.'

Probably. I didn't like it when I was told to bend over (for a smack, not anything worse!), but I guess I "consented" by doing as I was told. I really don't know what would have happened if I'd told my old man to get lost. I didn't do that because I respected him and his judgement that I'd done something bad enough to deserve that kind of punishment. It was reserved for things that were really bad, and as I approached the age where reason becomes more applicable, the list of things that it was reserved for became smaller and smaller.

However, a few policemen bundling a belligerent drunk into a cell could also by your definition be called 'violence'. I think a different definition is required, tbh.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/violence?s=t provides several definitions, all of which do not apply in toto to using a smack to correct errant behaviour in children

Snap

perhaps violence is too strong a word, but I think you know what I'm getting at.  Maybe just call it hitting. Smacking somehow, for me, sanitises the actual hitting of a child, legitmises it perhaps.

Inflicting pain - that's a better way of putting it. A smack is inflicting pain to address a situation. Inflicting pain on someone who is physically less powerful than you. Nice eh.

and as a parent, having smacked your child, and you feel bad about doing it, then that really sums it all up. If you felt that it was justified then you'd not feel bad, you'd feel vindicated. I know I am being black and white, but its something I disagree with, and maybe it is actually a simple principle that we over complicate to defend what we do.

ICBM

No, I think you can still feel bad about it but think it was justified as the least bad of several not good options.

I don't argue with your right to disagree with it, and not do it yourself. I do take issue with your labelling of the motivation of any parent who does it, without knowledge of their reasons, emotions or the situation.

I also do feel sorry for you - or anyone - who has had to grow up with a violent parent, the sort of thing you and one or two of the others have described is physical abuse plain and simple, and never acceptable. I'm absolutely certain that my children don't think of me that way.