Should You Smack Your Toddler?

To answer the question 'should you smack your toddler?' the simple answer is not yes or no, but you should not need to.

When your toddler is going through the terrible twos, they not deliberately being difficult (I know this may be hard to believe).

When your toddler is going through the terrible twos stage they are learning social boundaries, what is acceptable, what is right and what is wrong.

This article addresses a very contravercial subject and aims to give advice to parents

As much as you would like to believe it, they honestly haven’t been possessed or transformed into some creature even the devil would be scared of.In fact it is quite the opposite. They are starting to become their own person. They are starting to learn what they like and don’t like, what satisfies their needs when they feel a certain way and they are developing their own, unique personality.

How to help your toddler grow

Your toddler will change and develop a lot during the terrible twos stage and it is your job as a parent to help your toddler develop their skills and confidence and to set them up with the best possible start in life you can give them.

As your toddler begins to learn these skills it is important that you give them guidelines and boundaries.

How should I punish my toddler?

A lot of parents believe that telling their child off will result in their child being miserable and their toddler will hate them for it. In fact it is quite the opposite. If you give your toddler reasonable boundaries and structure and routine, they will thrive and will give you a child to be proud of.

It will also help you develop a positive, long lasting relationsip with your toddler that will will not be easily broken.

If you do not help your toddler to learn the ropes when they are young, it will be an up hill struggle trying to teach them later in life and the likelihood is that your toddler will grow up to be the naughty child.

Should I smack my toddler?

There is a lot of debate as to how you should control your toddler’s behaviour, with the most controversial of it all being “should I smack my child?”

My honest answer is that you should not need to smack your toddler. I believe there are many ways of changing and controlling your toddler’s behaviour with out physically hurting your toddler.

As an absolute last resort I have seen a parent tap their toddlers hand and that had the same effect that a hard smack would have had. It did not upset or hurt the toddler anywhere near as much as a smack would have done, it simply shocked the toddler back to reality and reminded them who was in control (the parent, not the toddler).

I think that when you smack your toddler, you will decrease their confidence and I also feel it affects your relationship with your toddler as they will fear being hit by you again. It also makes it harder next time round because when you need to smack them again, in that moment, you might feel the need to hit them a bit harder so they might learn and there wont be a next time.

Put yourself in your toddlers shoes. Think how you would feel if someone much bigger than you hit you. You would be upset because it hurt and scared to make the same mistake again - even though you hadn't meant to be bad in the first place.

What to do instead of smacking your toddler

Instead of smacking your toddler, there are a lot of things you can do to change their behaviour and in doing so, maintain your relationship with your toddler.

For example, rather than allowing your toddlers behaviour to escalate in to a full blown tantrum, stop the behaviour from the word go by learning how to give warnings to your toddler and follow it by the time out technique if you need to.

If bed times are a struggle, develop a good bedtime routine and implement the stay in bed technique.

Or if meal times are hard to swallow, learn how to have successful meal times with your toddler without any fuss or hassle.

There is always a way around your toddler’s behaviour that will result in helping, not hindering your toddler’s behaviour and development, and all it takes from you, as a parent is to keep calm and stay in control.

I honestly believe that you should never need to smack your toddler as there are numerous techniques you can put in place to control your toddlers behaviour and non of these will physically hurt your child.

I perosnally feel that smacking your child is a quick fix used to make you as a parent feel better because you have got yourself wound up and need to vent and release your frustration.

Smacking your child will not solve the problem in the long run where as there are numerous techniques to help you to control your toddlers behaviour in a positive and constructive way.