Smacking: What's your opinion?
 |
| Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/freedigitialphotos.net |
I don’t know if I’m the only person to have witnessed something like this in a public place, but it really makes my blood boil. I used to attend a play group in the area where I used to live. Held in a little church hall, the room was quite small but always very full with babies and children of all ages.
In one corner there would be a group of mums with their newborn babies. Sectioned off with some chairs and the rest of the room was free for the older children to run around and play. It was a good play group and one that I enjoyed going to when the girls were babies, but now they are a little older I much prefer the play group that we now go to.
Anyway, going back to original point of this post and I remember one time at play group, a little girl, probably no more than 3 was playing by the door. Her mum was sat on the other side of the room having a cup of tea and chatting to other mums. She looked up briefly to see where her daughter was and in an instant she pelted herself across the room, grabbed her daughter by the arm and threw her quite forceably into a chair. I’m not really sure what the girl did to warrant her mum behaving that way toward her, but surely no bad behaviour could justify the approach that this mum took in disciplining her daughter.
I’m not one to cast judgement, if you agree with smacking that’s your perogative, but I disagree with it and it’s not something that I would feel comfortable with doing. When our girls do something that they shouldn’t, I will say a stern ‘No’, but I won’t shout. I would much rather explain to them why what they did was naughty rather than shout at them. To me, shouting is a sure way to upset your little one and I think you would get a much better reaction if you just spoke to your child calmly.
I was quite surprised by the above incident of the woman behaving this way toward her daughter in public as she didn’t have any qualms in doing so.
That brings me onto another point!
I have lost count of the number of times that I have been at play group or soft play and someone’s child is getting up to all sorts whilst their parents are no-where to be seen. A lot of people use these groups and activities as a child minding service, which is completely wrong. If you aren’t keeping an eye on your child and they behave badly toward another child, how are they going to learn if no one is there to guide them?
What do you think?
