Further to the smacking debate...

[Annie Goolahey]

What do you do when one of you agrees with it and the other doesn't?

I'm anti-smacking as a rule. I have done it on rare occassions and generally when he has run out in front of a car or the like. I always apologise after and explain why I reacted the way I did and why I was wrong.

DH has a different attitude and will threaten smacking relatively easily, and will carry it out as well. He doesn't apologise either - seeing it as a legitimate form of discipline.

Needless to say we clash on this alot. I cna't sit back and watch him smack Joseph without reacting when I find it so wrong - even though i know as Joseph's parent he has a right to exert his own form of discipline.

so what would you do?

[Tazdevil]

this has been a 'hot topic' in our house of late. I was always in the camp that a smack for the above reasoning (danger awareness etc) was an acceptable form of smacking. Hubbie has always been more in your own husband's camp in that smacking was an acceptable form of chastisement for wilful disobedience growing up.

I am totally against smacknig as a 'loss of control' on the parents part of which I was recently guilty on our disastrous holiday I haven't 'got over it' actually and i live with upset i was over it 'daily'........it truly affected me. I know i was dog tired, i know i was overwrought and stressed at the time..........but still it was unacceptable to me.

This has now changed my 'stance' on smacking in the household considerably. I also think this is 'for the better' i don't ever want to 'lost control' again and I also want smacking to be an utter 'last resort' when all else has utterly failed or for something like 'danger elements' as you describe........

So this is causing us a bit of bother as like you say, hubbie sees it as ok when she has been warned and is being wilfully disobedient (and i still understand his viewpoint and respect it)........i just am not there myself anymore..............

it's a hard one. I don't want Kaede to be scared of me, i want her to respect boundaries as laid out and be disciplined where necessary. I want to show her this without resorting to smacking. I also want hubbie on board with me and i think he's gradually coming around to my way of thinking as it's been utterly distressing me lately.

i think you have to try and reach a compromise if you can. Maybe agree it can only be threatened/used for specific types of behaviour if all else fails. Agree that the child knows what these boundaries are.........and promise to have a trial period when you put this in place.

FWIW...............i would always think that your husbands approach was STILL better than my 'loss of control smack' - to me, this is the worst thing I could ever do in terms of smacking. It will never sit right with me.

good luck. It's an emotive subject. I've really come a long long way in my thinking over the years........but that doesn't mean we can all be 'on board' with the idea at the same time.

[Dink]

DH and I clash a lot on this. I've been wondering the solution myself. DH will yell at dd for things like not eating her dinner- wtf?

[Oppro]

Our rule is simple. What I say goes. Basically. No one knows DD better than me, no one else looks after her, no one else understands her like I do & no one else knows how she ticks like I do. I make the decisions, others follow me. DH does not over-rule me, he does not try to make up his own rules & he does not argue with my methods. Till he knows her like I do & does as much to look after her, he follows my lead. It's more a lack of confidence issue on his side, but he literally waits & looks at me to tell him to let her do something or not, tell her off, praise her, etc. It's gone a little too far as tonight he had said off his own back that she could have one more song then bath time, I wasn't in the room & when I came back the song finished & I said "Ooh which one next?" & it wasn't till after that he had said that was the last one. Things like that mean I've just totally undermined him & teaches her to play us off against each other so he must speak up in cases like that but he hasn't the confidence.

[PoppyHoney]

I'm the same as Oppro, what I say goes when she's with me, and as long as her dad discipines her appropriately when she's with him that's his business. He doesn't believe in smacking, so I know he won't do that, and because she sees him much less that me she doesn't push things with him so much, so doesn't need telling off so much.

I wil smack her if she does something dangerous, like the time she silently undid her seatbelt and tried to climb over to the front seat of the car to sit on my lap - I smacked her and told her to sit down, and she's never done it again. Her dad doesn't mind this (as far as I know), because he knows I don't do it as a matter of course.