Teaching Good Sportsmanship Like a Jerk

One of my biggest fears in life is that my daughter is not going to be a nice person when she's all grown up. I shudder at the thought of my sweet caring little girl being an absolute jerk to someone and not giving it a second thought. Of course there is nothing I have seen yet to indicate that this is going to be the case, and I take every opportunity to teach Miss K about being considerate and thoughtful, but human nature means we're all jerks sometimes. And I was a jerk this week.

A lot of Miss K's time these days is spent preparing for school next year. Kindergarten is teaching her the education side of things, and the social side of things, but it's still my job to teach her basically everything else. I assumed that teaching children to be good sports would be included in her learning at kindergarten, but either the opportunity has never come up before, or Miss K has never shown that she needs the lesson there. She's never really shown me before this week that she needed it either, but I found out this week that she is quite happy to gloat when she beats someone, and I wasn't ok with it.

Part of this problem will have come from me. I have always encouraged a healthy interest in competition in Miss K, as I feel it is necessary to get ahead in life. But because she is only five, I let her win a lot when we compete against each other. (Except when it comes to running, she beats me fair and square when we race, I'm just too chubby and lazy to really run.) So Miss K has a confidence that she can win with ease thanks to me. Now I know that confidence is key, but too much confidence leads to arrogance, and I don't want my child to be a fat head. So I've slowly started winning more and more, just to teach her that winning isn't always guaranteed, but that just makes the wins she does get bigger in her mind. And with her new victories came gloating.

Miss K and I were bored the other night so we decided to play a few board games for an hour before bedtime. We started with Kerplunk, which I've had in our games cupboard for years now, but we've never played so I was excited to introduce her to a game I loved as a child. (We even had a Star Trek version because my big sister is a giant nerd.) I won each game, but the longer we played, the harder I had to work for my victories, as Miss K got a feel for the strategy that is Kerplunk. This is where her sense of competition was good. She was happy to lose, but she learned from her losses and used that lesson to bridge the gap between us in each new round. Eventually we got bored with having to reset the game each time so we swapped to Hungry, Hungry Dinos (Yeah, yeah I know that's not the real game, but board games are expensive OK?) Now Miss K was in her element. She loves quick fire games and beat me hands down every single round. I wasn't letting her win either, these were real losses for me. I was impressed by her performance until she started calling my dinosaurs losers.

I was shocked by her attitude, I've never gloated around her as I find that behaviour really off putting.  I tried the Mike Brady method of lecturing her on the dinosaur's feelings. (Yet another in a long list of bizarre conversations I've had to have with my daughter.) I let her know that it isn't nice to point out that someone is a loser if they don't win a game, and using words like that can hurt someone's feelings. She agreed with me and I thought the matter was settled, but she went back to calling the dinosaurs losers straight away. So Mike Brady lost round one. I decided it was time to lead by example, and this is where I became a jerk.

It's like the old lesson we used to teach our children when they learn how to bite, if they bite us, we bite back. (Of course I don't condone biting your children, please don't bite the kids.) But if you want a kid to know how something feels, you let them experience it. So I swapped the game to one where the odds were stacked in my favour; We had thumb war. (Another throwback to my own childhood and the many thumb wars I had with my big sister where she usually beat me easily.) I won the round of course, and then I proceeded to do a victory dance (which may or may not have included a song calling Miss K a loser).

Yeah, yeah, I know, I was a huge meanie. I can only imagine how many of you are burning up with rage right now, but Miss K got the point straight away. She now knew how it felt to be called a loser, and she knew how horrible it felt. Now you may think I overreacted, she was insulting a plastic moulded toy that is unable to feel emotions or even hear her words, but that wasn't the point. One day she is going to play sports with other children who do have ears and feelings that can be easily hurt, and I don't want her to be the jerk gloating over winning a stupid game when it actually matters. I reiterated how words can hurt feelings, and we talked about the correct way to behave whether you win or lose, and we finished our match by telling each other "Good game".

So while I don't officially condone calling your kids losers, or gloating around them, or deliberately beating them at games, sometimes you have to be a jerk to prove a point. Hopefully my daughter now has a better sense of humility, and will be more gracious with her wins and her losses. Or one day I'll get a huge bill from a therapist for all the damage I'm doing as I stumble through being a parent. Only time will tell.

I would love to hear about any other parents out there who have had similar ethical dilemmas that they solved by being less than perfect. Hit me up in the comments down below and let me know how much you now pay for therapy per month. I get the feeling I'm going to need to start a savings account very soon.

What Parenting Means

So the other week while working at a craft stall with a good friend of mine, we had a heavily pregnant woman come and sit down at our table to make a card. Some gentle probing later we discovered she was about a week away from popping. We decided this was a perfect time to terrorise the poor woman by telling her exactly what being a parent meant, right when it's too late for her to back out. Of course it was all in good fun, and we didn't reveal any of the real horrible truths (we like to leave some mystery for new mums). But it has been on my mind a bit since that weekend. The word parent is universal, and while customs and traditions can vary from person to person, there are some things that stay the same no matter whether you live in an igloo in Antarctica (do people really do this?) or a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. So as a handy guide for anyone who is thinking of being a parent, or for those of you who are already parents, and just want a reminder of why you're not going back for a second (or third) I present the following.

Source

1. Putting yourself last. Forever, and ever, and ever.
2. Never getting to blow out the candles on another birthday cake. And forget about unwrapping your own presents. That job now belongs to your children.
3. Being woken up by a tennis racket to the face (seriously)
4. Acting like you know exactly what you're doing, despite the fact that inside your head you're screaming as loud as the baby is right now.
5. Boring all of your friends with all of the super adorable things your little one did in the few hours since you last spoke to them.
6. Using your clothes as a tissue or napkin for someone else.
7. Catching vomit in your hands.
8. Eating baby foods to find out exactly why your darling one is spitting it out. (Hint, it's because it tastes like butt. You'll find this out the hard way.)
9. Having someone new to blame any time you break wind in company. (This one only works until they learn to speak.)
10. Having your heart explode with pride and love every time they do something new. It never gets old.
11. Having a deep seated hatred for toys that need batteries to work.
12. Watching the same movie twice in one day because it's their absolute favourite and they'll scream the house down if you don't let them watch it again.
13. Ice cold feet pressed into your back when they sneak in to sleep with you at 3 in the morning. 
14. Waking up to a little person sitting on your head, because they're hungry and you're being boring by sleeping right now.
15. Discovering that toy makers hate you, I mean really hate you, by making you build every darn thing you ever buy for your child. It seriously took me over an hour to put Miss K's bouncer together when she was a baby. I'm not a stupid person, but that thing needed an engineering degree just to assemble four parts. And don't even get me started on her bike.
16. Spending the day convinced that you have given birth to the spawn of Satan, only to forget every horrible thing they did that day the minute you see them sleeping like an angel.
17. Feeling like the worst person in the world every time you have to discipline them. 
18. Spending the first four years of their life complaining that they are so needy, only to realise that was only temporary, then spending the next few years panicking that one day your kids aren't going to need you any more. 
19. Feeling like your heart is going to break in half every time you see them growing up right before your eyes.
20. Being someone's super hero, simply because you were able to fix a slightly broken toy.
21. Hating yourself the minute they realise you aren't a super hero, and are in fact (gasp) human.
22. Being a policeman, chef, maid, clown, magician, chauffeur, referee, cheerleader, hostage negotiator, and anything else you need to be just to keep your house running.
23. Looking at every other parent you ever see and wondering how they can possibly have it all together like that. (Little hint, they don't, they're just as confused as you are.)
24. Hour upon hour spent worrying about things that once upon a time you never though worth your time. 
25. Lying awake at night convinced that today was the day you screwed up your child. 
26. Finding yourself singing the theme song to your child's latest favourite TV show, while in public.
27. Apologizing to a million strangers because your child walks like a drunk old man, and keeps crashing into everyone they find.
28. Feeling mortified the first time your child swears. Bonus horror if it happens in public. 
29. Months spent carrying your sleeping child to the toilet because if you have to wash one more pee soaked sheet you are going to lose your mind.
30. Discovering exactly how fierce you can truly be the first time someone hurts your precious little one. You're normally a placid person, but right now you could cut a b***h.
31. Feeling a mixture of pride and revulsion the first time you realise babies are capable of farting like full grown men after a meal of baked beans.
32. Endless games of "What is that mysterious smudge on my new shirt?"
33. Dancing like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest all around your living room because it makes your child squeal with laughter.
34. Feeling like you've lost a part of yourself the first time they spend a night away from home.
35. Rediscovering the joy of jumping out at someone as they come around a corner. This one never gets old with kids around.
36. The joy of hearing your kid tell you that you're the best mum/dad in the world. 
37. Bony elbows, knees, backsides, all in your internal organs. You wouldn't believe something that chubby and squishable is really able to inflict immense pain with one well placed limb.
38. Being able to heal all boo-boos with a kiss.
39. Having to wait until your child has been kissed, cuddled and questioned before any adult will speak to you ever again. 

And finally...

  40.  Loving someone, and being loved more fiercely than you ever thought possible.

Product Review - Magnetricks

Hello again my lovely readers, I am back again to share more joy with the people. This post is actually a long time in the making, mainly because I tried really, really hard to get professional looking pictures, but given that I am *not* a photographer, and my biggest skill is basic editing in Photoshop, it took me forever to get anything even remotely good enough to do this post justice.

Now today I am going to do a very rare product review. As you guys know, I don't do a lot of these, because I don't want this blog to become a giant billboard. But every now and again an offer comes along that I cannot pass up, because I really feel it is a great product that needs to be shared. This is one such product. I was recently contacted by an amazing woman who has started her own business despite being a single mum to TWO kids under the age of five. I'm not sure if she's a genius or slightly mad, either way the products she sells are amazing, and I am honoured to have been asked to share them with you.

So today I am reviewing a product called Magnetricks. Michelle started making magnetic routine charts and reward charts for her children as a way to help maintain a proper routine etc, and was soon encouraged by friends and family to start marketing them for other mums and teachers trying to find a less wasteful way to manage the day to day routines.

So we were given two sets of magnets to check out and review, one was a reward chart in the shape of a race track (because thanks to Mario Kart Miss K is racing car crazy right now), and the other was a set of magnetic shapes, designed to teach children about shapes and geometry, as well as being heaps of fun.

I decided to use the reward chart in an attempt to get Miss K to start listening more. We're having a real struggle with her ignoring direct requests, or even using sass towards adults telling her to do her chores. I wanted to squash any feelings of entitlement she was developing, as we don't work that way in this house, all good things are earned, and one way to earn in this house is by being respectful. So the day the magnets arrived, Miss K and I sat down and I explained that every day that she showed that she could listen to all of the adults who care for her during the week, she'd get a new race car for her track. By the end of the 8 days she had managed to gain all of her 8 cars, and as a reward I took her for her first trip to the library. She was so excited to get to go and see all the books, and we even borrowed her very first book.

So the reward chart was a total success. I've tried reward charts in the past with minimal success, so I wasn't sure if we'd have much luck this time around, but she really responded to the magnetic cars, and the fact that I'd let her race each new car around the track when she earned it was always a treat. The colours are lovely and vibrant, so very pleasing to the eye, and they were a good size for little hands. I was also able to put the yet to be earned magnets higher on the fridge so she could still see them, and see how close she was to earning all of her cars, so that was a good incentive too. The beautiful thing about using magnets is that the reward chart is completely reusable. If I wanted to I could go back and do another week of concentrated listening, or I can use any of the other 8 options that come with the reward chart. It even includes two blank magnets so you can come up with your own behaviour you want to practice. The only issue I can see with that is that the pictures on the magnets are printed on glossy paper, so the blank is a one time use only, as any markers you draw on it with will not come off, and trying to clean the magnets will destroy the printed image. However I think you could make it reusable by covering it with clear contact, or another type of plastic/acetate adhered to the top of it, so that's always a good option.  The Magnetricks website even includes a post which helps you to get the most out of your reward charts, with handy tips and tricks you can use to get the most out of any effort to teach a new behaviour, or correct an old bad habit.

Just some of the behaviors you may wish to modify as a stressed parent.

The other magnetic product we had to play with was the shapes. This set came with 43 magnets in 7 different shapes and various sizes to play with. Miss K and I both had a lot of fun playing with these magnets and trying to come up with different pictures we could build using the shapes.

These are great for encouraging imaginative play, and I was amazed at the different pictures Miss K was able to come up with on her own once she got started. She made shooting stars and people and a tree, and together we built a robot and a train. The magnets have gotten plenty of use over the past few weeks, and I love that she's got something to occupy herself while I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner or cleaning up, (on the odd occasions when that actually happens,) so it keeps her out of my hair right when I need it. The other thing I liked about these was that the magnets stacked on top of each other well, and were easy to separate when you wanted to build a new picture, making the possible combinations endless.

A train, complete with gigantic smoke stack.

The images are printed on thin magnets, which I thought would make them less likely to stick onto metal, but the magnet is surprisingly strong for something so slim, so you don't need to worry about them ending up all over the floor like other magnets for kids I've seen in the past. The other good thing about them being so thin is they ship flat, so postage is cheaper, and apparently they are less likely to cause harm if swallowed by small children. Of course given the risk, you do need to supervise small children when they are playing with these magnets just to make sure that doesn't happen.

I *think* this one is a robot. 

All in all I am super impressed with these magnets. They are so bright and cheerful, fun to play with and very easy to use. They were shipped to me very quickly, (which is always a good thing) and the available range is pretty big. Aside from the reward charts and shapes there are routine magnets, vocabulary magnets, communication aide magnets, and some just for fun sets (including Minecraft characters for any of you Minecraft nuts out there.)

So if you or anyone you know is in the market for a fun, educational toy for your kids, or something designed to make your life run a little bit smoother, then head on over to the Magnetricks website now and check out their awesome range. 

Disclosure:
Now because I live in Australia, I don't actually have to disclose when I receive goods in return for a blog post, usually because it is implied, however in the interests of transparency, I will say that I received these magnets in return for reviewing them on my blog. The opinions I have given are all my own. The fact that these magnets are freakin' awesome just made my job even easier.

Why I am growing grey hair

So I don't think I really have any grey hair just yet, and I'm too lazy to start looking for them, but if I was growing grey hairs, this would be why...

Yes that is a cupboard door covered in pencil markings. I have spent the last few months trying to encourage Miss K to enjoy making art, while discouraging her from making art on our furniture. Unfortunately I must have been sleeping on the job today because when I went to do the dishes this morning, I found this piece of work on my kitchen cupboard. I could not believe that she had done this, because she does know that I don't want her drawing on anything that isn't paper, but apparently she isn't scared of me because it didn't stop her.

I dragged her into the kitchen when I found it, and I made her look at it, and her reaction was absolutely priceless. She put her hands up to her mouth and pretended to look horrified when she saw it, but it wasn't enough to stop me telling her how naughty she was for drawing on my furniture. Of course by the time I found it she had long forgotten even doing it so my scolding was pretty pointless, but I felt better afterwards.

Luckily it was only pencil and not permanent marker so it should be easy enough to remove and I'll just need to be more vigilant in the future to make sure this doesn't become a regular thing.

Like nailing jelly to a wall

This is Miss K's bedroom when it is clean

It's so pretty

And this is Miss K's bedroom ten minutes after I clean it.

AAAARGH!!!!!!

I let her trash her room like this because it gives me ten minutes of peace and quiet to enjoy a cup of coffee, or just have an entire conversation without having to use the word no once. There are times when I don't even know why I bother cleaning it up at the end of the day, as Miss K certainly never seems to appreciate the effort, and it appears that she prefers it dirty anyway. This is just one of the futile fights that Miss K and I have on a regular basis at the moment. We fight a lot at the moment. She questions the absoluteness of my authority over her, and I question her need to push my buttons all the time. 

I know this is just the precursor to the terrible twos, but it begs the question, how terrible will the terrible twos get given that we have world war three in our house on a daily basis already. Miss K seems to take the word no as a challenge, and loves it when my back is turned for five seconds, because that is a big enough window to get into a lot of things that she knows she's not meant to. She's not stupid either, she knows she's not allowed to hit the television, or eat pencils, but she does it anyway. And then when I hit the roof and start yelling I'm the monster for not letting her run riot. 

I'm becoming an expert on ignoring temper tantrums, but instead of having the desired effect of making her stop screaming, right now it makes her scream even louder, I'm not sure if she thinks I can't hear her properly the first time, but she's determined to let me know she's not happy and I'm meant to be doing something about it. I have on several occasions tried changing tactics and crying with her, but that doesn't work either, and I end up looking just as immature as the baby, but without the adorable chubby face to balance things out. 

Luckily for me the tantrums never last long and Miss K is always quick to forgive and forget if given the proper distractions, and then life goes back to normal. It also has the added bonus of making me appreciate the good times even more. 

Bad parent makes bad decision

So for any of my regular readers who have come here looking for a light and happy post today, I'm very sorry to disappoint you, but today's post is anything but light and cheerful. What I have decided to speak about is a topic that makes me so furious, and is anything but pleasant to think about.

For any of you who live outside of Australia, or who do not read the Melbourne newspapers, you may be unfamiliar with the story of a woman called Melissa Ngati. She has made the news for the worst reasons ever. In November last year, she beat her own daughter so violently, the child will spend the rest of her life with permanent brain damage. Now I would never accept any kind of excuse for this behaviour, especially one as weak as Melissa's. Apparently her child vomited in her bed, and this was the event that warranted hurting her own child. For anyone who wants to see the full details, the article can be found here

Before I gave birth to Miss K, I hated hearing any stories of children who are abused, and found it very hard not to cry whenever I read another story, or saw pictures of victims of child abuse. Now that I am a mum with a beautiful child of my own, it is even harder to hear stories like this, as I could never imagine what kind of person could intentionally cause any harm to an innocent baby, especially one of your own. It is very hard not to get all vigilante when I see another news article detailing violence against children, and anyone within earshot of me usually cops an earful of language that would make a sailor blush.

Ricky Gervais landed himself in very hot water a few years ago when he suggested that bad parents should be sterilized to prevent them from endangering the lives of more children, but I'm not entirely sure his suggestion was a stupid one. Melissa was already a mother to three children when she beat up her daughter, and was pregnant with a fourth one at the time. Who knows how many of those kids had found themselves at the receiving end of her anger, and how could anyone guarantee that she would never do it again? No article anywhere on her details what happened to the rest of her kids, especially since she had a partner, but he is also facing charges as he didn't make her take her child to the hospital until THREE DAYS after the attack. Hopefully she has lost all four of her kids, and will spend the rest of her natural life in jail to prevent her from being given the chance to reproduce again.

I cannot stress enough how angry these stories make me, but given that I cannot go around personally removing the reproductive organs of everyone who hurts their children, this is one subject that leaves me feeling rather powerless. About the only thing I can do, and really everyone can do is not take our anger out on our children. Sure, kids know how to push your buttons better than anyone else can, but nothing in the world makes injuring a kid alright.

Mother knows best

For any of my readers who have children, or spend a lot of time around children, you will know how much time and energy a child takes out of you on a daily basis. You know exactly how much attention you need to give to a child to make sure they stay safe and don't eat everything they can get their hands on. You would also know that sometimes that is more attention than one human being can give. Unless the only thing that person had to do all day is sit and stare at the child. If you're anything like me, you will rely on the kindness of friends and family to help be your eyes and ears whenever you need to take your eyes and ears away for a second. Unfortunately, I still have people around who despite the fact that they don't spend as much time around Miss K as I do, nor do they know her as well as I do, who think they know better about how to raise her than I do. (And just in case mum reads this, no I'm not talking about you mum.)

I get so tired of having to explain myself to people who do not deserve an explanation. If anyone wants to offer an opinion or advice to me about my daughter, then they are most welcome to do so. I always accept all advice given to me, but whether or not I choose to take your advice, or listen to your opinion is my right, and at the end of the day, it really is my decision how to raise my child, so if you don't like how I'm doing it, you're more than welcome to walk away. I can't promise that I'm doing the right thing absolutely every single time. As a parent, I'm going to make mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but we all do that. Just this evening I almost walked Miss K straight into a door while trying to take her to bed. If that was the first time I'd almost lost my balance while carrying my child I would have been scared, but it wasn't, so I was able to correct our course and shake it off before we'd even reached her cot.

Now when a mistake is mine, I'm more than happy to admit to it and deal with it. But when I get the blame for something that wasn't my fault, that's when I get mad. Today I got told off because I had taken my eyes of Miss K for two whole minutes, and while my back was turned, she managed to get into a box of chocolate chip cookies and polish one off. Firstly, I couldn't see what the big deal was. Somebody very stupidly left the box of cookies right where she could see them, so what did they expect her to do when she got her hands on them? Put them out of her own reach so she couldn't be tempted by their chocolatey goodness? What one year old has that amount of self control?? I'm 28 and I don't even have that much self control. I think I then made things worse because I refused to yell at my daughter for going after what she wanted. I was so impressed that she had managed to get through two layers of packaging just to get to the biscuits, I figured she'd earned one.

Now it sounds like I'm raising an absolute spoiled brat by this point in the story, and if I am, I don't have to explain myself to anyone. But I'd like to point out that if I had known that the biscuits were on the table they would have been removed before she'd even gotten a chance to get her chubby little fingers on them, but that was done also while my back was turned so my logic is there is no point crying over spilled milk. Let the baby have her cookie, and next time put them away before you enter her lounge room. I can't stop my daughter being tempted by food, which is why if I have any naughty foods I don't want her to have, they are hidden away before she gets a chance to see them, and then there are no problems.

Well that's my rant over for another night, I'm off to the land of nod. I'll be back next time something or someone grinds my gears.

A question for all parents...

Do any of the parents who read my blogs ever feel like shaking the absolute snot out of their children? I don't think there will be anyone I ask with children who will honestly be able to say no. But the thing is, there is no shame in admitting that your kids posses the unnatural ability to be able to press all of your buttons at the same time. There is also no shame in admitting that sometimes it is nigh on impossible to control your temper when this happens. The shame lies in when you refuse to control your temper and do something you will ultimately regret for the rest of your life.

Today was not a good day for Miss K and I. We almost came to blows several times, and I ended up leaving her with my mum and walking out of the room for several minutes to have a bit of a teary in the privacy of my own bedroom until I felt ready to be able to take care of her again. It probably doesn't help that both Miss K and I are the victims of raging hormones at the moment, (that is something that really shocked me when I discovered it, my 1 year old daughter gets PMS. Go figure.) unfortunately given that I am the adult in this relationship, it is up to me to control my moods in spite of what my body decides to pump through my system. Which explains the walking out of the room. Had I stayed in the same room as Miss K, she would have gotten a smack, and something I have always been taught is never smack your child when you are angry, because you will always take it too far.

I'm pretty happy so far with how I deal with both of our moods, even if it means Miss K sometimes has to have a time out in her cot until we've both cooled down. But it doesn't mean that I am perfect. I can't say that I've never had to resist the urge to smack Miss K when I'm furious with her and the world in general, but the important thing is not that the temptation hasn't been there, but how you deal with the temptation when it arises, and I've never given in to my anger only to regret it later, and I feel that is more important than being a perfect mum. Of course even though I didn't take my anger out on Miss K today, she was still affected by it. It took me a solid twenty minutes to calm both myself and her down and get on with our day, which sometimes can he a harder thing to do than to properly deal with what made you angry in the first place.

But we made it through the day anyway, and we were best friends again not long after our fight. That is one of the things I love about Miss K is her infinite ability to forgive and forget. An hour after everything exploded she was sitting in her cousins lap eating a muffin and dancing along to something on the telly, and everything in the world was right. I don't think anyone could ask for any more than that.

To smack or not to smack...

Today has been a seemingly endless and frustrating day. It's one of those days where I seem to spend the entire day saying no to Miss K. I hate days like this because you can only say no so many times before you start feeling like an ogre.

I know that it's part of my job to discipline Miss K, to make sure she stays safe, and also to make sure she doesn't grow up to be one of these uncontrolled little brats that are everywhere these days. And I know that she understands me when I say no, because quite often she throws a decent temper tantrum, or demands to be picked up and cuddled. But five minutes later, what I have just said is long forgotten, and she's back into everything she's not meant to be playing with. It's enough to make me want to pull my hair out.

I've read on forums about disciplining children, but a lot of the tips given deal with toddlers, once they hit the terrible twos and the you-know-what hits the fan. But I don't want to wait until she's two and then start bringing the pain, and a lot of the tips for older kids will just go way over her head because she's too young to understand them. How do you keep a 10 month old sitting in a naughty corner, and how do you make her notice that you've taken her toys away, when the minute something is out of her eye sight, it's completely forgotten?? One thing children of this age understand is the good old smack, but these days, a slap on the hand is enough to have you hauled in front of children's services for abuse.

The debate on whether to smack children is one that can be a tricky mine field as everyone has an opinion on this, and few will change their mind once it is made up. The people who aren't opposed to smacking their children use the age old excuse "well I was smacked as a child and it never did me any harm", but the scientists are even working to disprove this theory. How they will do that I'm not sure, because short of going back in time and banning parents from smacking their children twenty, thirty or forty years ago, and then coming back and seeing what society is like now, there is no way to prove that the smacking had any negative effect on people now. Sure it can lead to fear of confrontation, resistance to authority and a spate of other problems, but so can a lot of things. How can we say that it was the smacking and only the smacking that turns a person into what they become as adults? (I have to stop now and tell you this is actually a very hard post to write without swearing.)

I am one of the people who was smacked as a child, and I can remember a lot of them. I can't say whether their influence on me was positive or negative, as it's probably a combination of both. I learned very quickly not to lose our family dog, not to try to set the house on fire with the kettle, and not to smack my sister in the head with a rolling pin. And to this day, I have not done any of these things again. I did however hit Ady in the head with a frying pan one day, but in my defence, he gave me his permission before I did it.

I'm not going to use this post to try and condone smacking your children, because number 1, I don't feel like receiving any hate mail, and number 2, I feel that sometimes it isn't the answer. A lot of people take smacking to extremes, and anyone who has a Facebook account has probably seen the chain letter posts with photos of the results. So I'll leave the final decision up to you. If you feel that smacking is the only way to get through to your child, remember to take a deep breath first, and make sure you're not smacking your child just because you are angry right now, as that can make you do things that you will regret very quickly. And if you feel that smacking is completely wrong and just sends the wrong message to your children, then good for you, and good luck with disciplining your child in whatever fashion you feel is proper.

As for me, I hear Miss K singing my song now so I'm going back for another round of no, no, I SAID NO!!!!!!!!!