Partner Smacked Children

my daughter

Only a person with parental responsibility has the capacity to smack a child as a form of 'reasonable chastisement' anyone else is capable of being charged with assault.

In reality the chances of that happening are perhaps less certain due to decision making processes and local approaches to this with your police force. Although if you were to insist they may have no choice.

It would be best to put the issue in writing and alert the childrens mother to your concerns and your willingness to take action if it happens again.

I wonder though if the partner could be seen as an adult acting in loco parentis. Meaning that in all purposes he was a parent? Not unlike a grandparent.

My take on this would be that he isn't a parent or step parent and should therefore be guided as to parents wishes/code of conduct.Do you or your wife use smacking as a form of discipline? Would your wife and children regard smacking as normal behaviour? If the answer is no I would definitely regard his behaviour as unacceptable and if the answer is yes I would still be looking for answers from both your wife and him.If possible I think all the adults involved should sit down and discuss what has happened and what should happen in the future regarding discipline.

Smacking is a very controversial issue in itself without the added contention of a new partner involved.

There are several aspects to take into consideration

1) Was smacking part of your joint parenting when you were together.
2) If so, how would that have been dealt, i.e. a smack to the hand, bottom etc
3) Circumstances surrounding the incident, for example did the child break something on purpose or was it an accident (both result in a breakage but need to be dealt with differently).
4) Agreed parenting styles between you and your ex.

I, for one, did use smacking when I was a very young parent (18 – 24), as I got older I became wiser and more experienced and refrained from smacking finding alternative methods of punishment that worked just as well if not better.

I feel your issue is that you don’t know why your child was smacked and your ex is not being helpful in alleviating any of your concerns and it is difficult getting the exact sequence of events from a young child.

In my opinion, no other person apart from mum and dad should be dishing out physical punishment. This needs to be relayed and enforced, if necessary, to your ex that you will not tolerate anyone else chastising your children in that way. A call to SS may be required if you cannot resolve the situation satisfactorily.

We did smack, however both my X and I were of the opinion that it should be last resort and in-fact ended up making me feel worse then the child! So now I hate smacking.

I did email the mum and politely ask that we come to a co-parenting agreement that we didn't let/encourage (not sure what the best word is) current or future partners smack our children. Though she denied that the partner did smack (although my daughter said different and the mum was VERY protective of her partner in this) She went on the say that they will parent how they see fit and will not play good cop bad cop with the children.

I will be very 'nice' in my email, but will response in a pleasant but firm way and say that in under no circumstances I will tolerate a non parent physically harming/smacking my child and if i hear that it happens again I will take it further.

I do find it incredible that I have to somehow discuss if my child can be hit by another man...what a weird world!