I was rather taken aback when I heard my 3 year old begging for me to smack him!  After all this isn’t the type of request you expect to hear from a small child, and especially from one who hasn’t been disciplined by being smacked.

He hadn’t been naughty, he wasn’t pretending to be a pony, he was simply getting changed for bed.  The question was – what to do (apart from laugh that is).  As far as I could see I had the choice of three options:

  1. I could give his little bottom a tap and fulfil his wishes? but then this would surely make him think that it was ok for me (or any other adult) to smack him.
  2. I could take it seriously and explain that no, I wasn’t going to smack him as physical abuse simply isn’t acceptable in any format.
  3. I could just ignore it and hope he didn’t repeat the request.

So – what did I do?  I pretended not to hear and walked out of the room (whilst stifling a giggle or two) to put his socks in the wash basket.  Joshua repeated his request and before I could explain that no I wasn’t going to, Tilly ran into his room and landed a rather flat little hand on his bottom.

I haven’t heard Joshua call out for me to smack his bottom since.

My Big No Shouting challenge is continuing.  I think I can report that so far I have managed to avoid the full on shouting sessions (so gold star on that front) but I haven’t quite avoided the raising-of-the-voice-on-the-verge-of-shouting-but-not-quite sessions.  I am checking myself all the time and if I can make it through Lent with no full blown shouting sessions I shall consider it a success.  I have to be realistic after all!