I smacked my daughter. Hard. :(

amother

Hotpink ↓

Yesterday at 12:23 pm

amother Teal wrote:

Pick up the child & remove them from the situation. And once everyone has calmed down, talk to the child about what they did & how wrong it was.
And have food ready when kids get home to avoid hangry out of control behavior.

Pick up a 7 year old and remove them from the situation?

I have a similar 8 year old and this would just escalate it even more.

amother

↑ Hotpink

Yesterday at 12:27 pm

OP, if at all possible, it might be best if you're able to give her that 5-10 minutes of undivided attention when she walks in from school. Seems like she wants your attention as soon as she comes in, and this might help her regulate better after a long day at school.

I find this difficult to do also, so not criticizing at all. It's something I need to work on also.

amother

DarkMagenta ↓

Yesterday at 2:25 pm

I didn't read the whole thread, but am I the only one who doesn't think what you did was sooo bad? I am never, ever physical with my children, but you were feeling violated. You were defending yourself. Just because you're the adult, doesn't mean you need to let yourself get assaulted. I would not apologize. But in the future, you should react differently.

amother

↑ Teal ↓

Yesterday at 2:27 pm

amother DarkMagenta wrote:

An adult strongly smacking a child across the face, is not self defense.
It is never an acceptable thing to do. Ever. Don't justify or excuse it.

amother

↑ DarkMagenta ↓

Yesterday at 2:38 pm

amother Teal wrote:

An adult strongly smacking a child across the face, is not self defense.
It is never an acceptable thing to do. Ever. Don't justify or excuse it.

You're right that smacking across the face is way too harsh, but of course she was defending herself! I agree that it was wrong, but if she doesn't do it again, her child isn't going to be scarred for life. If anything she'll learn to respect her mother's dignity. A 7-year-old pulling up her mother's skirt? What if she decides to do it next time in the supermarket? I teach my kids to scratch, kick, bite, poke in the eyes, whatever they need to do to get away from someone doing something like that and then to run find someone you trust.

amother

Brown ↓

Yesterday at 2:50 pm

amother Lily wrote:

Is everyone ignoring the first sentence? Dd came home from school exhausted and needed her mothers attention. You didn't necessarily do anything so wrong OP, however to me it sounds like your daughter needed to be regulated when she came home and when she didn't get that she spiraled.

I was about to post that. Some children need a parent's full attention when they come home from a long day of school, exhausted physically and emotionally, drained and unregulated.

amother

↑ DarkMagenta ↓

Yesterday at 2:54 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

A husband comes home after a hard day at work and is starving.

He asks his wife for food and she says
" In a minute"

Husband hits his wife for not dropping everything and serving him.

You would all say ABUSE! get a Divorce.

But this husband was taught to behave like this by his woke Mommy.

The way a child treats their parents is how they will treat their spouse.

This is my brother unfortunately, awfully abusive to his wife, although not physically 😔 He was the baby in the family and my mother let him get away with EVERYTHING. He would berate, embarrass, yell, pull my mother's snood off. We would always beg my mother to put a stop to it saying that she's creating a monster. Well, what can I say, poor, poor sil. She has our full sympathy and support.

amother

↑ Brown ↓

Yesterday at 2:56 pm

piz1 wrote:

So you can all say I am from the old generation but being that I raised B"H a large family maybe my 2 cents is worth something. Apologising to a child for giving a smack has no origin in Yiddishkeit, contrary to the beliefs of our so called enlightened younger generation! Also giving the actual smack is NOT a crime as so many of you seem to believe. When this generation are raising teenagers who have endless entitlement and mental health issues maybe its time to rethink what is the cause. Maybe a bit of tough chinuch when they are younger instead of teaching them that its all about them might do the trick. A child who recieves a smack might rethink such behaviour, apologising gives them permision to go a step further next time.

Without going into the many other reasons of not hitting, do you know what the Torah says about someone who hits their child out of anger?
It's NOT pretty.
This was not a calculated potch from a calm and calculated place.

(Don't misquote me, I am not saying this to OP who already feels guilty and regrets what she did. I am saying this in response to this quoted post)

amother

↑ DarkMagenta ↓

Yesterday at 2:57 pm

amother Brown wrote:

I was about to post that. Some children need a parent's full attention when they come home from a long day of school, exhausted physically and emotionally, drained and unregulated.

True. I have story time as soon as the kids get home, along with a prepared snack. Then when they're calm and happy I quickly put together a simple supper.

amother

Aubergine ↓

Yesterday at 4:50 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

DD deserved the smack.

You don't attack someone because you are hungry.

A child over 12/13 who hits a parent is Chaya Misa.

Parents ARE allowed to smack children.

Op, you were triggered. I feel for you. It’s not an easy situation, the mistake was the initial encounter. When dd was dysregulated and after a long day of school, helping her with the snack right away and talking to her would have avoided the whole episode.

Regardless, good mothers have been in your shoes and the key word is repair the rupture to your relationship.

Make yourself vulnerable and apologize and repair with your daughter.

Im honestly horrified from these posts saying that you could and should slap your children.
I have a lot of respect for the older generation but I also feel sorry for them that many seem to think that the only way to raise good kids is to resort to abusive and outdated techniques.
I have such good and respectful kids and teens and I don’t need to do anything of the sort.

There are so many better ways to parent that are attuned to a child’s inner world and smacking and potching is so far removed from any sort of parenting that I would want to emulate.

For all those justifying it’s the Torah way, they are wrong. And if they are right they should use common sense to know not to hurt a younger child.

It causes terrible and devastating emotional harm to a child and its abuse.

amother

↑ Aubergine ↓

Yesterday at 4:55 pm

amother Teal wrote:

Yeah, in frum communities LOL

Bh my (and most) kids are not criminals despite not being slapped in the face.
Being proactive & knowing what our children's behavior stems from, may save alot of aggravation on both ends.
We should also keep in mind that our school environments nowadays are really not the healthiest for children & this may contribute to aggressive or out of control behavior at home.
Parents need to be there for their children, not against them. Slapping our children is basically the lazy way out of proper chinuch & parenting. It doesn't make the child's issues dissappear, it just shuts it up for a little while & it ends up exploding later on.

This.

amother

↑ Teal ↓

Yesterday at 5:11 pm

amother DarkMagenta wrote:

OTOH, a child that was physically abused, will grow up to be a physically abusive adult.
Chinuch doesn't mean slapping our children. Of course we shouldn't allow our children to get away with everything, and we need to instill proper middos. But slapping our kids isn't the way to do it.

amother

Papayawhip

Yesterday at 5:14 pm

Even though hitting is wrong. You did teach your daughter about boundaries. You don't pick up someone else's skirt no matter what!
That being said I want to point out to you that you said you were kept calm and didn't say anything in reality you were bottling everything up inside you next time say something!
We don't hit a mother we don't talk like that...

amother

↑ Teal ↓

Yesterday at 5:19 pm

My father "parented" my brothers with yelling and hitting. Only the boys, not the girls.
My brothers all hit their children & yell at their children. Because this is the parenting they know of. Their kids are anxious & high strung. OTOH, us girls are raising good children without yelling and slapping.

↑ mommy3b2c ↓

Yesterday at 5:21 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

Do you think a parent and child are equals?
How woke

Parents have the right and duty to punish.

Is a judge who puts a criminal in jail a kidnapper?

Is fining a speeder stealing?

Some people, like parents and government, have the authority to punish.

And children understand that.

It really doesn’t matter if parents have authority . Our job is to raise emotionally healthy children, not smack them into submission . I was smacked and yelled at as a child . It didn’t help me in any way . It only hurt me . I think op is a good parent who got pushed to the edge . In order to help her child grow from this experience she needs to apologize for smacking her while also helping her child understand how her bad behavior came into play in this situation . And how she can do better next time .

amother

Buttercup

Yesterday at 5:36 pm

#BestBubby wrote:

The only frum man I've known who acted this way to his wife, was seriously mentally ill. I doubt it had anything to do with how he was raised, which probably was during the 1950s and 60s.

I grew up at a time where lots of us, both boys and girls in the frum community, were slapped across the face (it was acceptable 30+ years ago in most frum families), and none of us grew up to be abusive to their spouses. However, this was also the generation where the teen otd phenomena started, and I don't think that's unconnected. And, for many of us, when we first started raising kids, our first instinctive reaction be to get physical with misbehaving kids. Because that was how we were conditioned by our upbringing, and it was pretty horrifying to realize this about ourselves and realize we can and should do better. I see a difference with kids who have been raised with and without smacking. I know personally it took years for me to feel comfortable being around my parents and not cringe or get a stomachache when they were stressed out because I was conditioned to expect a physical reaction, even after they had stopped. (No they weren't abusive, but for a sensitive child, smacking or slapping can leave long lasting effects, especially when done in anger. I want better for my own children and for myself.

amother

↑ Teal ↓

Yesterday at 6:08 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

OP apologized, yet posters say that we shouldn't apologize to our kids.....
Mind boggling.