Its a hot topic and the sides are clearly divided. I have to admit I sit somewhere in the middle.

Yes I have smacked my children at different stages of their lives, but it is not a regular form of punishment for me – rather the extreme last resort.

I prefer to teach my children rather than punish them physically and I prefer my punishments to have an impact somewhere other than their bottoms.

I prefer to sit my kids down and tell them what I expect from them and why, I prefer to teach them how to do it right rather than just lashing out with a punishment but I  do smack as a last resort and when my kids were toddlers I did use a smack on the hand as a deterrent (and before you abuse me for it – have YOU ever tried to reason with a rabid 2 year old who wants to touch the fire?)

I also confiscate prized belongings, ban electronic entertainment, remove phone privileges and hand out “lines” as punishments (great for improving hand writing lol) and these usually have a huge impact now my kids are getting older as does doubling chores (every one in my house has jobs to do – we all live here and have an obligation to maintain it – having breasts does not make it my domain alone !) I do not think I have had to resort to a smack for well over twelve months now and hope not to have to again.

Well now a new scientific study is telling us that repeated “spanking: of children leads to lower IQ’s. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more frequently a child was spanked, the lower his or her IQ compared with others.

according to the report I found here
If spanking does send IQ scores down, Straus and others offer some explanations for what might be going on.

“Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience,” Straus said. “We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely.” Also, the trauma could cause kids to have more stressful responses in difficult situations, and so may not perform as well cognitively.

By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. “With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child’s attention and to get them to behave in a certain way,” said Elizabeth Gershoff, who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. “It’s not fostering children’s independent thinking.”

Well I do agree with the thought that parents miss out on teaching opportunities by spanking – but I do feel in certain situations that it can be necessary .I think there are a lot of other factors contributing to this outcome. In fact I believe quite strongly that so many of societies problems are caused by weak parenting

- I am not claiming that it will all be solved with a smack  or that smacking is good for kids – I just feel when the lesson has been taught over and over and the child has not stopped the unacceptable behavior then an open hand smack  is an option as a last resort consequence.

What do YOU think – do you smack your kids – why/why not?