Hitting children ever acceptable?

Hitting a child is never acceptable. I am disgusted by parents who hit their parents, fully acknowledging how harsh this sounds.

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Precisely, violence is violence, by lowering the standards so low you don't do people who actually suffer any justice, you do realise this? A tap should not be confused with serious assault.

I'm not trying to be difficult. Just curious.

Hypothetical situation:

Your child is autistic, social cues aren't something he's able to read very well, if at all. He's disturbed because another child has done something to disrupt his playing with toys; he pushes the child, the child cries, he's now holding the child's mouth closed. Aren't you going to separate him from the holding the other child?
I concede you don't "hit" him but he'll possibly still feel hurt as if "hit" because of the aggression but anyway point is he's now confused by:

A. Disruption & B. Second disruption whilst he was stopping disruption A.

I've read/heard about something almost like this. *It was online somewhere*

The parent separated the child, slapped (not hard) the child's hand and this was enough to get him to give the parent full attention and say he was doing something wrong. The child apologised and cried. That father clearly had cleverly and probably painstakingly developed a way of using discipline to point out when his child's in the wrong.

Is this really disgusting? To me it seemed like this parent knew what worked for them and he was entirely within reason making use of that, for both himself, the child and those around this child.

Firstly, separating is definitely different from hitting. You can't really compare the two.

This case is too specific and I have no experience with autism to reply suitably. If a degree of force is required, then a slap on the wrist is okay. But pay attention: I'm referring to something subtle. Not something that actually aims to hurt the child.

A parent hitting his autistic child for the purpose of hurting it (regardless of whether s/he wanted to teach it a lesson) is equally, if not more, disgusting.

Firstly, separating is definitely different from hitting. You can't really compare the two.

This case is too specific and I have no experience with autism to reply suitably. If a degree of force is required, then a slap on the wrist is okay. But pay attention: I'm referring to something subtle. Not something that actually aims to hurt the child.

A parent hitting his autistic child for the purpose of hurting it (regardless of whether s/he wanted to teach it a lesson) is equally, if not more, disgusting.

As a form of discipline I think it's perfectly acceptable. But there is a fine line that must not be crossed with that.

Violence will always be used in the world, no matter how much we say we don't want to it will always be used. I don't condone violence nor do I think it's acceptable. In terms of discipline and self defense are the only 2 times I believe acceptable, but only when they have really stepped out of line. IE I've been disciplined in that sense less than 5 times in the last 19-20 years and can remember each of them and looking back I did deserve it.

My father was brought up that way, and I'm sure his father was too. It's made me respect my elders and act like a much nicer person in my honest opinion.

People will definitely disagree with me and that's fine everybody is entitled to an opinion and can bring up their own child in their own way. But what I don't think some people can see is the difference between discipline and abuse. It's important the parent knows the line and never crosses it.

This is all extremely subjective and should be handled with extreme care.

If physical violence towards a fully grown partner of a similar age to you is abuse, then so is physical violence abuse towards a small child. Whatever the intentions of the parent, I don't think it is ever an acceptable method of 'disciplining' your child.

Which is your opinion and that's fine. I've been brought up this way and wouldn't have changed it, I come from a loving and very supportive family that have given me everything I could have asked for.

You can't differentiate between discipline and abuse. It's a fine line, but a smack on the arm isn't violent. It becomes abusive once it become violent. As I said before a smack on the arm/slap on the wrist is not violent!

Just to prevent confusion when I mentioned 'violence will always exist' in my previous post I didn't mean in terms of discipline I just meant in general, IE wars, assault etc.

I query your understanding of what 'violence' is:

'using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.'

It's violence and it's abuse. Hitting a child has no place in any healthy parenting approach. It isn't necessary and it isn't acceptable. The fact that nations will be engaging in wars with one another for a while to come yet has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.

I brought the fact violence will exist for years to come was in regards to people bringing up 'violence' it wasn't in relation to OP or acts of discipline.

And that's correct with discipline you don't intend to hurt, damage or kill something, that's when it becomes abuse. You do so with the intent of making them know they've done something very bad which they shouldn't do again.

A slap on the wrist, back of the legs, arm etc nothing major but just so they know they've done something wrong. It's not several punches, kicks and being thrown around the room.

Like I've said we both have different opinions and that's fine, I respect your opinion on the matter and respect you voicing it, we just have different point of views and have probably been brought up in different ways.

The intention is irrelevant. 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

What you're describing is physical violence, realise it not. This isn't really debatable. The fact that we're not talking about 'several punches, kicks and being thrown around the room' does nothing to detract from this. You are describing physical attacks intended to cause pain to physically alert the child to the fact that their behaviour is unacceptable.



I was brought up with quite a load of physical 'discipline' and I can tell you that it left me shaken and nervous as a human being and still affects me years later. Physical violence, which is what you're describing, whether you realise it or not, has no place in a healthy upbringing at any degree. It isn't necessary, either. Only incompetent parents resort to physical violence as a method of parenting. There are plenty of other humane methods which don't pose any risk of harming the child in the short-term or damaging the child psychologically in the long-term.

I don't think physical violence is ever an acceptable or necessary method of parenting a child. In fact I think it has the potential to do enormous damage, especially to sensitive children and those in vulnerable circumstances.

My mum's Asian, born in Africa and married to my white, English dad.

My mum would beat the living daylights out of me when I got into my teens, shoes in hand and everything. It didn't hurt too much as I got older and older, but when I was younger (5-10), she would still smack me if I really wound her up. Enough to leave a red mark if on bare skin, little else.

My dad would just scream at me, much more scary imo.

It's entirely ridiculous to think that this has negatively impacted me. They're supportive parents who've provided me with everything they could work for and I live a decent life because of that. Teaching discipline, courtesy and manners to a child is literally the most important thing a parent can do. If you do these three things, you end up with a kid who's gonna be confident and well-rounded because to do those three things, you need to nurture them quite a bit.

If you smack kids so hard that you're cutting them or bruising them, you're not teaching discipline and it shouldn't be called 'discipline'. That's pure violence and it's unacceptable, clearly. People really need to learn how to differentiate.