I definitely do not agree with smacking (How to Discipline Children)

Member Name: smileyface1978

Product:	How to Discipline Children
Date:	05/11/08 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More communication within families is there's no smacking

Disadvantages: Smacking encourages the wrong attitude to dealing with problems

Well, in our home we have four children; 11, 7, 5 and 3 years of age. Both my husband and I believe that when disciplining any of our children if they've done wrong, any physical punishment such as smacking them is by far the wrong way to go about it. In our opinion, if you hit a child for doing wrong, then in their eyes it's then ok for them to hit out if they see another person doing wrong of if there's something they don't like. I was brought up to believe that violence is never the way to sort out any kind of problem no matter how big or small it is. This is how I now see it with my own children.

All four of our children do disagree, fall out and push each other about if they don't get their own way but there is only so much they can do before we step in and do something about it. This happens especially to the younger two of them. However, our older two children often is the one's that try and calm the situation down by telling them to stop as it's not nice. If something happens like they fallout over playing with a toy or game and one child doesn't like it and pushes another child away. It's often that either my husband or I are around, see what's happening and by this time an argument is on the verge of starting amongst the other children. We take that child away from that situation and tell them to have time out on the "naughty step". Once that child is seated there we then explain why they have been brought there. We then leave them there to calm down and think about what they have done. Each child has a different amount of time on the step. This depends on their age for example; 11 years = 11 minutes, 5 years = 5 minutes. It's only my husband and I who are allowed to go back to the child and get them. We then explain that an appology has to be made for what they have done. Nine times out ouf ten this is a perfect solution for all situations that arise when our children have to be disciplined but there has been the odd occasion when one of our children has got themselves in such a state that it's taken them a bit longer to calm down.

Another aspect our family concentrates on is praise. We always praise our children if they've done some good such as sharing toys, books and playing nicely. It makes more of a positive environment around them especially if they know they get noticed more for doing "good" things rather than the bad.
Young children especially can never be praised enough.
Most of the time our household is a happy one and we do all love spending time with each other as a family but if sibling problems do occurr we always sort them out without the need of physical intervention such as smacking.

Summary: Physical discipline is totally the wrong way to go.