The Herald is running a week-long series on the smacking debate. On Saturday we looked at changing smacking habits, today we cover parents' stories. To tell us your stories, go to the Your Views discussion. Or you can follow the debate on our facebook page.
A New Plymouth couple have stopped smacking their preschool children after they found that it quickly escalated into "bullying".
Stephen and Leanne Hodge said their 4-year-old son's aggression disappeared in two days after they heeded the advice of a pamphlet on other ways to manage preschoolers.
Mr Hodge wrote on the Herald's online forum on smacking this week that he and his wife were starting to feel sick about their family life until they stopped smacking a few months ago.
"Once I started smacking, I noticed it would escalate - the children started hitting each other and would also react violently to discipline. So I would have to maintain the strong-arm tactics, and they also escalated until I had become a bully," he wrote.
He said yesterday that the couple's 4-year-old son used to "come out fighting straight away" when he anticipated a smack, and that his 2-year-old sister copied him.
"It developed an era of nastiness," he said. "He would be very belligerent. We had to be belligerent back. Because we had bought into the physical nature of discipline, he knew that was going to be the result of it so he would start fighting before it even started.
"It just developed into an era of conflict in everything. From our gentle and careful parenting, it was becoming aggressive parenting."
Things changed when Mr Hodge took his son to a swimming pool one day and picked up a pamphlet from the Government programme SKIP (Strategies for Kids/Information for Parents).
"It was just a few bullet-points. I took it home and talked to my wife and we decided to try it.
"Everybody sat down and we said, 'Right, from now on we are not going to have hitting in our house. We're sorry we've smacked you. From now on we all treat each other the same, we stay happy and we don't have hitting in our house'."
Now the parents try to be firm but calm. Mr Hodge quoted a recent incident when his son refused to put his shoes on to go out.
"I leaned right into him, kept a calm voice, even slowed it down more, and said, 'Stop what you are doing right now and let's go'," he said.
"As soon as you lose your temper or force the issue on to him, he fights back, so it's important not to lose your temper, and explain carefully. He does cotton on that this is serious and you have to do it straight away."
The family also uses a "naughty chair" where "he can be seen to be quiet and do the right thing".
"It's a phrase we use a lot with him - 'do the right thing'," Mr Hodge said. "He kind of snaps out of his temper tantrum. All of a sudden he gets clarity in his eyes and starts listening."
Mr Hodge, a property developer who moved from Auckland to New Plymouth in 2003, said children were calmer in New Plymouth.
He believed that was because house prices were lower there and mothers could afford to stay home with their children, giving them individual attention.
* Some tips from Skip
Say lots more positive than negative things.
Behave in the same way you want your children to.
Consistency is the key.
Tell your child when they're doing well.
Be clear about what you would like your child to do and what you don't want them to do. Set limits and boundaries.
Talk to your child about consequences. For instance, tell them that if they hit the cat it might scratch them, or if they throw a toy it might break.
Try not to say "No" and "Don't" all the time. Instead of saying "Don't run in the house," say, "Walk in the house, you might hurt yourself if you run".
Source: www.familyservices.govt.nz/info-for-families/skip
