"bite him back".... - Page 2

[odenata]

Originally Posted by mammal_mama

I think the advice is totally wrong, but I'm kind of shocked that anyone is shocked about people saying this. Maybe there really are some pockets of the world where gentle, child-respectful parenting is mainstream.

I mean, I'm happy for those of you who live in such a gentle place! Here in the Midwest where I live, physical punishment still seems to be pretty much the mainstream. But my city is pretty diverse, so there are some gentle parents, too.

I do live in a crunchy pocket and run in a small circle of mostly LLL and API parents, so I can't imagine a parent I know around here saying this, but it doesn't shock me. DH's aunt told a story about doing this with her DD. She also is always telling my children their crying sounds fake and to ignore them.

[Belia]

My DH did that to DS just a few weeks ago, only it wasn't with biting. It was with this thing where DS grabs our faces and moves our heads around, kind of rough sometimes.

I was like, " What in the ^%#%! do you think you're doing?"

And he looked at me like I was a crazy person and said, dead serious, "That's the only way that he'll learn that what he does hurts."


And my DH is a very gentle person who doesn't spend the time thinking about parenting styles and decisions like I do, but is pretty much on the same page with me about everything. So I never expected it, but he honestly thought / thinks that he was teaching DS a valuable lesson by slapping his face like DS slapped his.

We had the whole talk about why that's such a bad idea, but still.... I think he thinks I overreacted.

Just to say..... this is not an uncommon way of thinking.

[swd12422]

Another vote for not uncommon here... My dad was the same way, and advocated hitting/biting back when my son went through those stages. He was NOT abusive towards us in any way, but felt that if we were going to hit people as hard as we could, he was going to show us what we could expect to get back so we would be prepared. So he'd hit us back, and we'd cry, b/c we didn't think that we could hurt him, but he sure hurt us (not a lot, but it stung). Eventually, we did get the message, but I'm not sure it was the right way. In a way, he's right: If you go out into the world and clobber someone, especially for no apparent reason, you should certainly not be surprised to get hit back, at least in the form of that person's self-defense. You hit me, I hit you back hard enough that you'll think twice about attacking me again. It's a natural defense, although obviously I much prefer DS to seek help from an adult, etc instead of just hauling off and smacking someone back.

DH does this with DS sometimes, and I don't like it. It does seem to get the point across, but still.... I reaffirm being gentle and he's getting that, too, so hopefully that will get through more than the hitting.

[isign]

My DS is very sensory seeking, and bites when he gets excited or things change. He's almost 3 so adding it all up, he bites a good bit. I've had numerous people tell us to bite him, which I think is ridiculous. DH got really tired of his biting one night and when DS went to bite Daddy, he ended up biting himself. DH was trying to get him to connect pain with what he was doing. It hasn't made him stop, but he does now say that biting hurts. He has no concept of hurting others, or why it's not nice.

[peainthepod]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

Another vote for being shocked that *anyone* finds it shocking... its like the threads where people say stuff like "I just wouldn't/couldn't be friends with people who circ/spank/cio/whatever"... I just don't get it Some of you must live in really crunchy enclaves... because unfortuantly most of the world is simply not mdc and simply does not practice ap/gentle discipline.

I'm not friends with people who spank because it's very triggering to me, I consider it abuse, and I don't want my children to witness that sort of violence on a casual basis. As for CIO, as long as the person didn't want to talk about it with me I guess I could pretend I didn't know. But it would bother me immensely and I would certainly look at that person in a very different light.

But spanking? Yeah, I'm not comfortable with that and I'm not going to pretend that I am just for the sake of keeping a friendship. Unacceptable behavior (like hitting a child) sometimes has social consequences. They're free to hit their kids, and I'm free to refuse to associate with people who hit their kids.

[mamadelbosque]

I understand your viewpoint. You just have far more options for friends where you live, obviously, than some of us - if I refused to associate w/ people who spank, well... I don't know that I'd have any friends. Personally, having friends is *FAR* more important to me than not having friends who do XYZ.

[peainthepod]

I hope you're right. We just moved to a new town and I haven't met very many people here so far. But personally, I'd rather be friendless than exposed to casual violence against children. It's just not something I can tolerate.

[cm2]

Biting children is abusive. Not to mention its also unhealthy and can spread bacteria and infections if the skin is broken.