Smacking is physical punishment used to teach children discipline.
Smacking looks like it is an easy way to teach children a lesson and also seems to work because children stop what they’re doing when they get a smack. Nevertheless, smacking isn’t a healthy choice for discipline. That’s because it doesn’t encourage children to learn about self-control or appropriate performance.
In some cases, Parents who impose corporal punishment were on the receiving end of it themselves. In other words, the cause of this form of “not harmful” violence is often hidden in the repressed history of the parents. When adults do not understand the links between their previous experiences of injury and those they actively repeat in the present, they perpetuate a destructive cycle and apply their own suffering to their children. The next generation proceeds to carry the damage that has been stocked up in the mind and body of their ancestor. Contrary, parents can also work to become consciously informed of their own childhood pain and recognize how they forward historical violence to their children by hitting.
As a method of punishment, smacking has three other significant drawbacks.
First, there’s a tremendous risk that smacking might hurt your child, both emotionally and mentally.
Second, it conveys children the message that smacking or hitting other people is an OK-way to deal with strong feelings such as anger, rage, or frustration.
Third, physical punishment like smacking can commence to longer-term difficulties in children’s health and development. Children who get smacked can be more aggressive than children who aren’t. They are more expected to have a challenging behavior, anxiety, or depression. Alternatively, they become very submissive.
There are better ways than smacking to guide your children towards good behavior.
Here’s a little live incident of Mr. and Mrs. Sharma:
Mr. and Mrs. Sharma admit that their 5-year-old son, Rishabh, is strong-willed and difficult to discipline. “When he’s mad at something and acts up, it sometimes takes every ounce of self-control we have not to smack him,” says the parents. Soon they realize how bad it will affect their child. And it was clearly seen by his behavior at school. One thing is pretty clear to them, “You can’t tell your child not to hit others and then raise your own hand to them.”
Smacking has probably crossed your mind at some point. There comes a point where your child is ignoring the rules or talking back. Time-outs aren’t working, and neither is any distinct consequences you’ve tried.
Smacking usually evolves into abuse, which jeopardizes a child’s safety and can cause psychological damage, may lead to aggressive behavior, substance problems, and acts of delinquency while adolescence. It is recommended that one must adopt alternative tactics, such as verbal reprimands (though not yelling), taking away some privileges, and giving time-outs to deal with the misbehavior. Though, a lot of parents aren’t getting the message correctly or have decided what method is best for them and their kids.
One of the most reliable ways for parents to avoid situations where they might feel like smacking is to create some possibilities for children to behave well.
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Having some clear family rules is the first step. Rules will let your child know what behavior you expect and also help you avoid challenging behavior from your child.
You can also plan ahead for situations where your child tends to behave in some different ways. For example, you might want to wait until after your child has had a good nap or a snack before you take them to grocery shopping. This will make it easier for your child to sit quietly and calmly in the trolley.
If your child is behaving in a way you don’t like, it’s a nice idea to look at what’s going on in your child’s surroundings. By changing your child’s environment, you might be able to change their behavior too. This can be as simple as moving fragile things out of their reach.
And sometimes just distracting your child in a challenging situation is enough to reduce bad behavior.
If you’re still not happy with the results, this is when Peaceful Parenting comes into the picture. And shifting your parenting approach is a big transition. You can assume some bumps as you and your whole family is learning new patterns of relating. Those bumps don’t mean that you’re doing anything inaccurate, even if your child sometimes “acts worse” than they ever would have ever before. In fact, what’s happening when your child acts out is that they’re showing you feelings from the past, from those times when you yelled or punished them, and due to this they felt quite abandoned and misunderstood. It takes extra compassion from you, but your empathic response will heal those hurts so you can all move on.
Start with yourself.
The “peace” in peaceful parenting comes within you. Specifically, from your confinement to regulate your own emotions. This means when you feel upset, you should stop, drop your agenda or whatever work you’re doing (temporarily), and BREATHE.
You’ll notice and feel the sensations in your body, which helps you to be in the present, so you don’t get hijacked by your anger anymore. You resist acting on that required “fight or flight” feeling that makes your child look like the enemy. Whenever possible, just delay taking action until you feel calmer.
Focus on Connecting.
Peaceful parenting doesn’t work if there’s no connection. So, before you start to change anything with your child, start working out on your bond. Otherwise, you’ll drop your punishments, though, your child still won’t feel motivated to “do right” and you’ll just have to see more testing behavior. To make this right, start spending at least 15 minutes connecting one-on-one with each other daily, just following their lead and pouring your love into them. You’ll be amazed at the contrast in the way they acknowledge your requests.
Expect sentiments.
When children are punished, they discover those big emotions that drive them to misbehave and get them into trouble, so they try to hide or gulp those “bad or sad” feelings down. We all know that it doesn’t work, of course. The jealousy, frustration, and need are still there in your child’s emotional backpack, waiting for popping out at the scantiest provocation. The only reason your child keeps them under wraps and trying to hide from everyone is that they’re afraid. So, once you quit punishing, those emotions are bound to bubble up to get healed. They’ll feel safer and gradually start sharing things with you.
Although some time smacking can seem like a quick fix, now it is pretty clear that it has long-lasting consequences. As the latest research exhibits, a discipline involving the violence can be damaging to a child – both physically and emotionally. It is clear then that the beating children must end, thereby putting the child in exactly the same position as any other person.
Ultimately, it would also let parents know clearly what is and isn’t acceptable when it comes to disciplining a child. But beyond all this, it would also help children to grow up happier and healthier – and let’s be honest, what can possibly be more prominent than that?