Spanking, and smacking can seem to be an emotive and knee jerk reaction to a child’s “bad” behaviour. Lets look at how we might feel when we smack our child.

• The child has done something wrong, and defied me as the parent, I must punish her.
• The child has hurt me, I need to teach them empathy
• The child hasn’t listened I need to gain her attention somehow.

Notice the above statements, are all in the parent’s emotive terms – it’s about you – not them? Therefore, smacking your child for something you feel, is illogical; let’s examine why:

• Smacking teaches that violence is ok, we’re asking our child to model our behaviour when he or she is being “good” and by extension, when we smack them, we’re asking them to model that behaviour.
• Smacking devalues the child.
• Spanking teachest them that it’s not ok to explore.
• Smacking is an extension of our ego – not the  child’s behaviour.

AskDrSears.com has a great list of reasons why smacking isn’t the best approach here

So if smacking isn’t the key, what can be done to model better behaviour?

• Consider your feelings and look to YOU first. Why are you really getting angry?
• Provide situations where you know your child will be safe, and behave acceptably – reward and make a big fuss over the positives!
• Remove the attention from the child, if he or she is hitting another child, make a fuss over them – apologise to them and acknowledge their ills.
• Walk away (provided your child is safe) take a few deep breaths, and approach the situation without ego and emotion. Take some rescue remedy, and calm down.
• Remember, behaviour usually has a root cause, it might be they’re tired, it might be they’re frustrated – approach the situation with empathy.
• If all else fails – ASK FOR HELP!

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