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-> Parenting our children
amother
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 Fri, Jan 03 2025, 10:33 am
He'd never ever. If they run in the street, that's the rare type of situation in which he'll yell. Not hit. We'd also grab the kid and bring them back, which could be they get a little squished, but it's not meant to punish, it's just to get them quickly back to safety.
Using "tap" instead of "hit" sounds just like rationalizing. Tapping someone is how you get their attention. Literally tapping a kid's hand, arm, mouth, whatever, would not be traumatizing, but it would also teach them nothing, so I have trouble believe that people who use that word are actually tapping. (And then extra rationalizing by saying "lightly tap." That's barely noticeable!) If it's harder than you'd tap someone who did nothing wrong, then it's hitting. It may not be a slap, but it's hitting.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:06 am
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Hitting is one of the most important tools a parent can have in their toolbox. They should use their other tools much more.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:37 am
| amother Moccasin wrote: | If a child lashes out because you punished them, please don’t punish them again, for being upset by the punishment!
And yes parents are the best ignorers in the world. If my child says I’m a **** I don’t have to react or even acknowledge. Not everything needs a reaction. |
It’s not about the parents feelings! It’s about teaching a child that we can never cross a certain boundary to a parent and it’s the father protecting the mother and for the child to see that. Obviously no one is really upset at the child or angry.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:40 am
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Mine does sometimes and really really bothers me
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:41 am
I’m curious how do you discipline? Child is very chutzpah, does something dangerous.. how do you handle ?
I’m talking about younger kids..
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:44 am
| Chayalle wrote: | You stay calm and don't take it personally. The most wonderful kids will tell their parents something chutzpadik sometimes when they are young and frustrated, I can attest to that personally. They learn respectful speech by being treated respectfully.
I remember when one of my kids told me she was going to chop me up into a million pieces and throw me in the lake (I don't remember what I did, but I think maybe said no to candy before supper). I asked her who was going to make supper and do the laundry and things like that. She reconsidered and told me "maybe tomorrow". Oh well, I got another day's reprieve. I consider it one of my finest moments as a parent, actually, that I stayed calm and had a respectful (and somewhat amusing) dialogue at the time.
As an adult, she's a respectful and wonderful daughter. And even as a child, she was delightful - she just had her moments - you know, BH, she was NORMAL. Not a puppet or a robot.
Chinuch is about preparing your child for the future (thank you to my high school principal for drilling that into us). It's not about the moment. Slapping your kid is just shocking them in the moment. It isn't teaching them how to be respectful in the future, because the slap is disrespectful to them.
I don't agree with you about the state of society, either. Previous generations hit. How many people left yiddishkeit in those generations altogether, the maksilim, all the "isms" (socialism, budism, zionism, etc....) They were no more holding on to a proper way of life due to the potch, than today. It honestly bothers me when people glorify previous generations and conveniently forget about the fallout they were dealing with back then, because it's easier to point at previous generations and the issues they dealt with, than think about whether it was actually all so wonderful and worked so well.
I'm happy to tell you about Gedolim who were against hitting, too. R' Yaakov Kaminetsky. R' Mattisyahu Salamon (I heard him say so myself, with my own ears, he was all about parenting positively.) And yes, strong authority does not equal hitting. Yes, be a parent, parent your kids, set boundaries and discipline. IMVHO potching is a copout. It's a lack of learning better skills. |
Again this has nothing to Do with being insulted. It has to do with chinuch. Teaching a child we Do not cross a certain line. This helps prevent the brain from forming automatic go tos when upset- when I’m this angry when I’m an adult I may also call my spouse names if I got away with that as a child. This is about parenting and doing your job as a parent not about revenge. Secondly, Rav Matisyahu Solomon does not write to never ever hit in his book. No one is saying hitting is good, but for chinuch reasons occasionally it is needed and better done by a father than an emotional mother. Rav yakov kaminetsky was certainly not against potching. His son even referred to this once in a Chinuch Roundtable discussion. There is no contradiction to being an amazing authoritative parent and having to give your kids 2-3 potches as they grow up. My hsuband is very warm and my kids adore him but they do have a fear of him that they don’t of me of going over a certain boundary because he has given a potch or two in their young lives. 
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amother
Blushpink
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:45 am
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Patching is a huge form of abuse. If he can patch his precious child than what’s causing him to not patch his precious wife ?! Patching is pure physical abuse. This is coming from someone who has been slapped so hard as a child from a parent many times.
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Chayalle
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:47 am
| amother OP wrote: | | It’s not about the parents feelings! It’s about teaching a child that we can never cross a certain boundary to a parent and it’s the father protecting the mother and for the child to see that. Obviously no one is really upset at the child or angry. |
I don't know how old your kids are, OP, but I want to tell you something. Kids will sometimes cross boundaries. They may do so just to find out what happens, or because they are in the mood, or as the Gemarah says "nichnas bo ruach sh'tus". You can't really teach them never to cross a certain boundary. You can just teach them that they are a tzelem elokim, important, and capable of making good choices, and leading a good life. And that if they make a mistake, they can get up and start over and do better next time.
I wouldn't want my kids to see DH protecting me over them. Yuck. I'm capable, thank you very much. We are part of the same family, and we are all equally important and precious as a unit. They see him backing me up, giving the same message of proper behavior and respectful communication, but they don't have to be knocked down in the process.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:52 am
| Chayalle wrote: | I don't know how old your kids are, OP, but I want to tell you something. Kids will sometimes cross boundaries. They may do so just to find out what happens, or because they are in the mood, or as the Gemarah says "nichnas bo ruach sh'tus". You can't really teach them never to cross a certain boundary. You can just teach them that they are a tzelem elokim, important, and capable of making good choices, and leading a good life. And that if they make a mistake, they can get up and start over and do better next time.
I wouldn't want my kids to see DH protecting me over them. Yuck. I'm capable, thank you very much. We are part of the same family, and we are all equally important and precious as a unit. They see him backing me up, giving the same message of proper behavior and respectful communication, but they don't have to be knocked down in the process. |
Consequences for extremely unacceptable behavior are not knocking down a child l. A punishment should hurt figuratively or literally or it is not effective. It’s not about your pride again. I feel like you missed the point. Cursing a parent is a very serious aveirah, this is just an example and has never happened in my own house, a father should give a swift consequence to immediately stop that from taking root in a child.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:53 am
| amother Moccasin wrote: | | When a child calls a parent names, it means he’s angry and doesn’t know how to express it. Do you think giving them a smack will teach them to handle their anger???? You think suppressed anger is the goal???? |
It will teach them we can’t go there even when we are very very angry. I wouldn’t say the father should not talk things through after and give effective ways of dealing with negative feelings. Both can be done.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:56 am
| amother OP wrote: | | It will teach them we can’t go there even when we are very very angry. I wouldn’t say the father should not talk things through after and give effective ways of dealing with negative feelings. Both can be done. |
No. It will create emotionally unwell people.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:59 am
For those discussing patching for chutzpah or calling parents names I learned so much from chinuch classes about active listening. First Understanding why they are saying it. Then teaching them why it is wrong and how to teach them how to handle the situation in the future.
It’s real chinuch. While a potch just teaches them either to bottle it up or say it to someone else. This teaches them skills for life.
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Chayalle
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 11:59 am
| amother OP wrote: | | Again this has nothing to Do with being insulted. It has to do with chinuch. Teaching a child we Do not cross a certain line. This helps prevent the brain from forming automatic go tos when upset- when I’m this angry when I’m an adult I may also call my spouse names if I got away with that as a child. This is about parenting and doing your job as a parent not about revenge. Secondly, Rav Matisyahu Solomon does not write to never ever hit in his book. No one is saying hitting is good, but for chinuch reasons occasionally it is needed and better done by a father than an emotional mother. Rav yakov kaminetsky was certainly not against potching. His son even referred to this once in a Chinuch Roundtable discussion. There is no contradiction to being an amazing authoritative parent and having to give your kids 2-3 potches as they grow up. My hsuband is very warm and my kids adore him but they do have a fear of him that they don’t of me of going over a certain boundary because he has given a potch or two in their young lives. |
I remember hearing R' Mattisyahu myself, and he said that when you potch a child, even a young toddler, they are not getting a message of regret and repentance. They are thinking, if I was bigger and capable I would hit you back. For this reason he said that potching is not effective.
My parents were close to R' Yaakov - he was my father's RY - and I grew up knowing him personally, until he passed away when I was still a young child (but old enough to remember him very well..). I remember his warmth and his way, very personally. And yes, R' Yaakov was against potching - he was one of the first to discourage Rabbeim from hitting in yeshivos (perhaps rooted in his own experience when he was unfairly potched by a Rebbe - very famous story). And I know from personal connection and from what I heard from him, that he did not consider potching to be a go-to chinuch tool. (I have no idea what his son holds and have not read the Chinuch roundtable).
I'm not saying that an occasional once in a while potch will damage a child for life, and I also actually think that kids who are not parented effectively and are raised without appropriate boundaries at all, are worse off than kids who are potched. At the same time, my personal observation is that a) most parents who use potching in chinuch end up over-using it and b) even for that occasional potch, there are better and more effective skills and tools that can be used.
I also have no need to be protected by DH - this little chivalrous angle just doesn't resonate with me. BH I'm capable of parenting without the need for this kind of backup. But yes, DH and I do verbally back each other up in these areas, and we don't find more than that to be necessary. I guess because potching isn't in our chinuch box, so we don't need a "potch backup".
It's interesting that you bring up a brain's automatic go-to. I can tell you that as a parent, once my go-to excluded potching, I found that I worked at better communication and parenting skills, because potching wasn't an option. Which showed me what I believe to begin with - that when used, it is usually overused.
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Chayalle
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:00 pm
| amother Babyblue wrote: | For those discussing patching for chutzpah or calling parents names I learned so much from chinuch classes about active listening. First Understanding why they are saying it. Then teaching them why it is wrong and how to teach them how to handle the situation in the future.
It’s real chinuch. While a potch just teaches them either to bottle it up or say it to someone else. This teaches them skills for life. |
This exactly.
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Chayalle
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:01 pm
| amother OP wrote: | | It will teach them we can’t go there even when we are very very angry. I wouldn’t say the father should not talk things through after and give effective ways of dealing with negative feelings. Both can be done. |
But potching your child can teach you something negative that you may end up doing when you are very very angry.....
I think the first step in chinuch is, we must be mechanech ourselves.....
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amother
Amaryllis
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:01 pm
He used to, back when I did. But once I stopped, he realized after a while that he doesn’t want to be the “bad parent”. He’ll still occasionally tell me to give a child a potch when they cross a line but I can’t remember the last time he actually did. If anything I still very occasionally reflexively do it when I get super overwhelmed in the moment but bh it doesn’t happen very often.
Logically I don’t think any kid “needs” a potch for any reason.
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amother
Hydrangea
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:03 pm
| amother OP wrote: | | Consequences for extremely unacceptable behavior are not knocking down a child l. A punishment should hurt figuratively or literally or it is not effective. It’s not about your pride again. I feel like you missed the point. Cursing a parent is a very serious aveirah, this is just an example and has never happened in my own house, a father should give a swift consequence to immediately stop that from taking root in a child. |
I totally and completely understand your point. I may not agree with all examples but I do understand that a potch is necessary when teaching a value.
As per With Hearts Full of Love. He gave the example of lying. For him it was a strong enough boundary that when breached he felt it warranted a potch. Now he's not talking about a full on smack across the face but rather a small petchele on the hand to teach the child 'this is a red line, you may not cross'
No your child will not be harmed by this happening once or twice or even three times throughout their childhood. He does stress to give it sparingly and ONLY when you believe in your value system and understand why you're doing it. Not from an emotional place.
This generation has gone so far to the other end of the spectrum that this is considered abuse when it is not!
Abuse is defined as 'use something for bad effect or for a bad purpose'.
This does not fall into this category. This teaches your child a value system. Now you cannot potch your child for lying or hitting when you do the same that is the opposite of chinuch and teaching values. If you have something that you are passionate about and do correctly, for example never lying then you are teaching your child by example that this is a hard line you won't cross.
Now I understand the culture of this site and already know that my words will be twisted, mashed, and repurposed to mean something I didn't. Have fun with that.
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amother
DarkGreen
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:04 pm
| amother NeonPink wrote: | | Ok here comes the tomatoes…yes he does. More often than me. I only do it for extremely dangerous things like running in the street. He does it for chutzpah like outright doing the opposite of what he just said. |
Me too. I wish wish wish he wouldn’t. (Not a hard potch, it’s a tap) I used to yell at him for doing it. Now I realized that that’s far more damaging than the tap.
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amother
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Fri, Jan 03 2025, 12:07 pm
So for the past history of mankind until the late 1990s when some psychologists labeled it terrible and abusive everyone was emotionally damaged? Sorry but I Do not buy that.
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