Grey is the new black! (How to Discipline Children)

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	How to Discipline Children
Date:	20/06/01 (417 review reads)
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I'm not someone who thinks in black and white. Usually my ideas float around in a nebulous grey area - I'm capable of understanding opposite points of view, taking them on board, and coming to a happy compromise in my head. This makes me dreadfully annoying in all sorts of debates, as I agree with each person's point of view in turn, and internally mix them all up to personally come to a nice fence-sitting compromise.

This issue was unusual, for before I had a baby, I was very black and white about it. I was against any sort of smacking whatsoever. Full stop. End of story. And, in a way, I hold to all I said then. I'm still totally against physical punishment, but now I've another facet to this argument. I've a child, so I have to put all these nebulous thoughts into practice. It's a lifestyle thing as well as a discussion, now. I want to justify my own choice, but also try to understand other peoples (often different) feelings on the issue. I don't want to be dogmatic. One thing I've learnt, through having children is that in the majority of cases, there are no real 'rights' and 'wrongs' about bringing them up; you just muddle through as best you can.

But, despite all that wishy-washy grey stuff, I don't smack my child, and I don't intend to, ever. I'll nail my colours to the mast to start with, and then try to explain my reasons for that decision, which are a bit more complicated than that blank statement makes them seem.

Most of the things I've read on the subject tend to agree that 'smacking' a naughty toddler is fine so long as it's done immediately, not often, without malice, and not strongly enough to actually hurt the child in any way. The worst sort of 'smacking' is to make a child wait (until "Daddy comes home" for example). Children have short attention spans, so if you need to tell them off, you have to do it quickly, or they don&
#39;t know what you're telling them off for. I think most people would agree that real hitting, or that sort of punishment, is abuse, not discipline. The grey area only starts when a child is being particularly wilful, and deliberately naughty. I can see why parents can gently tap a child in certain situations, and I'm not holding my views up to be a pattern card for everyone. Violence, towards children, is wrong, that I strongly believe, but not all parents who smack (in the non-beating sense of the word) are violent, evil people.

Take my Mother-in-Law. She's a lovely woman, who raised three strapping boys, and is one of the most loving mothers I've ever met. I know, however, that her own 'discliplinary method' was based firmly around a (now fabled) wooden spoon. She used to chase them around the garden, wielding said spoon in the manner of a Viking warrior when her boys refused to come in for their bath, or what have you. These stories are told to me with glee, not malice or fear. That's the real point here. She may have tapped the backs of their knees with the spoon, but none of those boys were ever really scared of her. I think, maybe, she backs up my 'not smacking' theory quite well, since the net effect of the wooden spoons seems to be a chase around the garden, followed by a wallop, followed by laughter and cuddles all round (and presumably a bath).

My Mother, by contrast, never, ever smacked me. I do, however, remember quailing at a certain tone of voice. It used to stop me in my little tracks much more effectively than that spoon ever did my husband. My Mother remembers fondly my says listening to reason from an early age. I know better. I didn't want her to be cross with me, that was all. I still quail if I think about it. Both myself, and my husband, had very happy childhoods with loving parents, despite those parents having diametrically opposed ways of discliplining us. I do think that I was more
scared of my Mother's tactic than ever my husband was of that wooden spoon, though.

I keep thinking, too: who am I to tell my Mother-in-Law that she was wrong. She brought up her sons 30 years ago, with less resources available to her than I have now for my one little girl.

This is something I think can sometimes be overlooked in the discliplinary debate. In the late 1960's and early 1970's most Mums simply had less time to sort out alternative ways of telling off their children. If you were lucky you had a twin tub, and you certainly had nappies to wash every day. Convenience food didn't really exist, interactive toys weren't there, and if little Timmy was repeatedly trying to pull the tail off the cat, then you probably didn't always have the time to sit down and reason with him. If it was a choice between a swift tap on the bottom, and having clean nappies, then I'd have probably gone for the clean nappies, too.

It's a time thing now, too, in some cases, I think. I'm darn lucky. I've one little girl, lively and strong willed, but a poppet. I also have the physical resources to be able to use other tactics when she's doing something I'd rather her not do. I don't say "being naughty" because she's only 15 months old. When she moves all the clean washing out of the basket and spreads it carefully over my flowerbeds, she's only, I think, copying the sort of thing I do. If I think of the world from her perspective then adults must spend most of their day carefully moving objects from one place to another, quite at random. She's just 'helping me', even if she isn't.

Back to the time thing. If poppet insists on sitting down and wailing in the middle of the supermarket (that Parent/Child wrestling ring called Tesco) because I'm not going to let her carry around a raw chicken, then I've the time to distract her, or, in the worst case scenario
(crescendo's of wailings followed by wild lunges towards the poultry section) simply abandon the shopping and do something else. I push my trolley towards a hapless shop assistant and return a bit later, after she's had a bit of a run around and forgotten all about it.

I can do that only because I've the time to. When she's big enough to understand I'll happily go without nice things for tea, as hopefully it'll teach her something practical about cause and effect. If I haven't been able to buy yoghurt because of her chicken fixation, then there shall be no yoghurt bought until tomorrow. She's way too young for that sort of stuff now, and my point here, despite digressing like fury, is that many Mums don't have that time luxury. If you've four kids, and one is playing up something chronic, and you've got to catch that last bus home, then maybe more drastic tactics are necessary, or all the kids might suffer. I don't know, but I'd hate to pre-judge every frazzled mother I saw smack a child in a supermarket.

That's the other thing. Pre-judging. I've done this, like everyone, but I've also been victim to it, in a small way. When Twinkle was about 6 months old I took her on a nice long walk. She was all tucked up and cosy, and happy until about half a mile from home, whereupon she became hungry, probably due to all the nice fresh air. Nothing would console her, so in the end I placed my bright red wailing bundle back into the pram, and headed home as fast as possible, reasoning that although she was miserable, the best thing in the circumstances was to get her fed, changed and happy as quickly as possible, and that meant leaving her in the pram and imitating a speed walker.

Our noisy journey back coincided, alas, with the end of nursery school, so we both, pink faced, one wailing, one with gritted teeth, strode at a great speed through a crowd of waiting parents, to the accompanim
ent of audible 'tuts' and ' poor lambs'. I couldn't wait to explain, as I just wanted to get her home, and I've never wished for an explanatory sandwich board more.

I don't want to do this to other people, either. Okay, so Mum may look as if she's just smacked the back of her toddler's hand, but was he holding a drawing pin in it, and about to eat it? Was she just dashing this interesting morsel from his waiting lips? Either way, the toddler will yell, and I so don't want to presume why he/she may be wailing. Of course, sometimes I see parents behaving in a way I can't face, and it's one of those difficult things. At least in debate you can counter views you don't agree with. But when you hear things said, or done, in the street that you feel are violently wrong, what can you do? If it's something like public racism or homophobia then I'll stick my oar in, and, despite my polite upbringing, try to put my own views forward. If it's parents smacking children, then what do I do....well, sadly, I probably join the ranks of polite, pre-judging 'tutters'. It isn't just words, here, it's a lifestyle thing. Of course, if you ever see a child being beaten, then there are things that you can do, but then is smacking ever so black and white in public?

Like I said, I don't intend to ever smack. I'll never say 'never' either, though. If it's a choice between me smacking my daughter, and her placing herself in physical danger, then I'd choose the smack, any day. I can think of situations where this might arise, even though they tend to be of the 'disaster movie' type that I occasionally brood about at 3am, often if I've eaten too much cheese for supper. And in terms of 'behaviour', don't tell me, I know only too well that the worst is yet to come, with baby daughter! I don't actually want her to be as scared of me as I was of my Mum
, and hopefully I'll muddle through and find a nice grey compromise, even if that means my shopping techniques become a little haphazard.

The long and the short of it (sorry about the mostly long, by the way) is that I want to do nice things with my child. I take her out to cafe's and to galleries, and we sit together and eat in restaurants sometimes. It's lovely when she's happy, and not trying to scream blue murder because she has to sit still. Like everyone, she has good moods, and bad ones; the only difference is that she lets all her moods show. I'd never let her have a hissy fit in these environments, simply because I wouldn't want to spoil anyone elses meal/appreciation of paintings/whatever. I won't smack her, though. I'd like to think that, as an adult, I've got the imagination, wit, empathy and good humour to find alternative ways of making sure that she 'behaves' and we all have a good time. Black and white with a little bit of grey in the middle, maybe?

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