What's with "tapping" as a form of discipline?

Sapphire - posted on 08/28/2009

I suppose 'tapping' is open to interpretation. I might tap my son on the shoulder or head if I am trying to get his attention for something. That's not a discipline. But if I need discipline my child, I might have to resort to spanking or slapping a hand. I have no problems doing so either. Honestly, I haven't had to spank in quite some time because his behavior is improving. But this morning he was giving my husband a hard time getting ready for school, and refused to get dressed. They were running late, so yeah-a quick spank to the bottom got my son's attention that we mean business. I certainly don't beat my child or pummel a 4 year old to the ground! Sometimes a spank to the bottom is effective for us.

?? - posted on 08/27/2009

LOL we have 2 dogs in this house 1 chihuahua is mine and Memphis is an english sheep dog and then 2 dogs are my parents that are both big dogs (husky malamutes) and they all use the snapping & whistling commands :) We've learned not to whistle or snap in ear shot of Memphis cause that big lug of a dog will come barrelling down 3 stories to end up taking your ass out at the bottom of the stairs LOL it hurts :(



I know you weren't implying that *I* hit and I would hope by now people know that I am NOT one who says "tap" to lighten the mood of hitting because... tap & hit ARE two different things to me -- spanking & hitting ARE two different things to me as well and I agree with what Kate said;

I think people who say they "tap" their kids are just trying to make themselves feel better about spanking. I don't have a problem with spanking, but I think if you're going to use any form of discipline you should at least be confident in it.

Amie - posted on 08/27/2009

Jo ~ That wasn't what I meant at all. LOL! I hope others didn't read it that way either. I know you're not one who would go around smacking their child. Especially at his age. I know what you meant! I replied because of the difference in our households. But then we always have had bigger dogs, not those little KMD. =D

Mel - posted on 08/27/2009

Quoting Kylie:

I've never heard of tapping..i thought people who smack or hit their kids use the word tap to make it sound less harsh. I keep my hands to myself..its not OK for me to "tap" my hubby or friends and its not OK for my my daughter to tap her brother so i don't want to model behavior that I would not accept from her. I clap my hands to get my kids attention if they are not listening. I say no firmly and redirect my 9 month old if hes into something he shouldn't be. Its a powerful word to a baby. My hubby said no firmly to our son and my LO burst into tears and was so upset, For a week after every time his daddy went to talk to him he would shy away and cuddle into me, it made my husband feel so bad.

brianna does that when we yell at her, not for a whole week, but yeah she gets quite upset when she knows shes done wrong. i havent had to give her any sort of physical punishment for ages cause usually i say no brianna and she will try me a bit make sure we're watching and go back to it, then i grab her arm and pull her away with it firm enough to upset her so she knows its not acceptable. wierd how something that doesnt hurt her can upset her so much but i find that a really good way. i dont want to use smacking too much cause i know it can scar for some people anyway and if its used too much it can lead to depression and other issues later in life. Id much rather keep my girl happy. i used it too much when she was younger but now that shes a bit older shes pretty good

Kylie - posted on 08/27/2009

I've never heard of tapping..i thought people who smack or hit their kids use the word tap to make it sound less harsh. I keep my hands to myself..its not OK for me to "tap" my hubby or friends and its not OK for my my daughter to tap her brother so i don't want to model behavior that I would not accept from her. I clap my hands to get my kids attention if they are not listening. I say no firmly and redirect my 9 month old if hes into something he shouldn't be. Its a powerful word to a baby. My hubby said no firmly to our son and my LO burst into tears and was so upset, For a week after every time his daddy went to talk to him he would shy away and cuddle into me, it made my husband feel so bad.

Mel - posted on 08/27/2009

im a tapper , but by tap i mean on the leg and hard enough to hurt a little but not do damage. ive found if you tap too lightly it does not faze the child and therefore doesnt work as an effective punishment

Charlie - posted on 08/27/2009

oh yeah almighty power tapping straight from the 80's lol !

Dana - posted on 08/27/2009

Interesting. I've never heard of tapping, except it's a technique when playing guitar. I use a stern No or I drag out the dreaded full name. Mostly it's for my benefit, because he doesn't really understand. I could see where the repetitiveness of tapping with redirection could work. Just the physical touch of tapping is a distraction.

?? - posted on 08/27/2009

LOL you make it seem like I am slapping his hand... I just tap his hand so his attention is directed to his hand and that that is what I am telling him no for... removing his attention from the thing that he is doing or going to or touching that he shouldn't be....and it has been working for him.



I don't AUTOMATICALLY tap his hand either, I move him, I tell him no, I move him again, I tell him no again and I move him again and tell him no again, I add a toy to the mix, I try distracting him with different toys, I'll give him a rice cracker whatever... then if he doesn't get the idea that what he is doing is wrong... and other toys aren't distracting him - I will tap his hand and he does associate that with "ok thats a no no" and he doesn't do it anymore........ for a couple hours anyways lol............ and there are also some days where I just have to keep moving him LOL over and over and over and over and over



And snapping and whistling would be confusing for the dogs if we started doing those things when trying to distract Gabe the dogs would take it as a cue to come and sit... and same with whistling - I don't need the dog tromping down the stairs and taking us out cause we whistle at Gabe and that's his cue (he's not a small dog) to COME and SIT - NOW. So those things won't work for our family lol



I'm not hitting him, doing anything painful to him, me tapping his hand is about as attention grabbing as if I were to tap you on the shoulder, the only reason I actually tap his HAND is because that is usually what he is using to touch something he shouldn't be touching, I could tap him on the shoulder - but then he might whip around, lose his balance and topple over.



So I go over to him, I hold his hand, I tap it and say no and move him. Not doing anything different than anyone else, just my own way of setting a base for the enxt couple years when he is going to grab something - I am hoping I won't have to yell at him, or snap, clap, make some screeching noise - I can just go to him, tap his hand, say no, and he will know that means no 'do not touch'. Some people snap, whistle, clap, hit, yell, whatever - I just tap his hand and redirect him.



Gabe is only 9.5 months, obviously I'm not expecting him to be genius baby who knows YES NO RIGHT WRONG and why... but there's absolutely no reason why I shouldn't be starting to impliment actions into our daily life that all children need to learn, there's no better time to get a base set in place when he is starting to learn every thing else. Even if he doesn't ALWAYS know that tapping his hand means NO, it does put in place a certain action/word/sequence of actions that if I am consistent with them, I will have a base set in place for when he does start learning yes no and why.



I hope that makes sense - it seems like I'm talking in circles in that last paragraph but my head is up down and around the past couple days soooo if it doesn't make sense I can try and explain a different way :P



OBVIOUSLY any kid is gonna test the boundaries and I'm sure I will yell, I NEVER EVER think I will hit my son and it would take A LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOT to make me get to the point of hitting him, even tapping him with force and even then I doubt he could do anything THAT bad to make me want to hit him. All I know is that tapping his hand, has been working for us in the firm no, redirect & distract learning process.

Kate CP - posted on 08/27/2009

Quoting Krista:

Maybe they're taking their cues from Cesar Milan and inducing the "touch" method. I don't see what a tap would do. It's basically just calling their attention to you for a slight moment. I have, on occasion, spanked my child....well, not SPANKED, but slapped his hand. I reserve that ONLY when he's doing something that could really hurt him, like touching the electrical wires and what not that are behind the TV.

I HATE THAT MAN WITH A FRIGGIN' PASSION!!!!!!!! People watch his God awful show and think "Hey, it's on TV so I can do that, too!" then they go and "tap" their dog or "psst" them and get all pissed off when the dog either STILL doesn't listen to them or bites them. I *loathe* Cesar Milan. Anyway. Back to the original question about "tapping":

I think people who say they "tap" their kids are just trying to make themselves feel better about spanking. I don't have a problem with spanking, but I think if you're going to use any form of discipline you should at least be confident in it.

Charlie - posted on 08/27/2009

i give Cooper a firm NO or redirect .
He is also 9 months .

Amie - posted on 08/27/2009

Any dog we've ever had has always been commanded through words or hand signals. So snapping was never confusing for them. LOL! Jo your such a boob. I can't whistle either so never tried using that. Even though Ryan can it'd be a pain in the arse to try and get the dog to listen to me when Ryan's not around if I can't whistle.

I do treat training my dogs as I do with training my children right from wrong. Their both innocent little babies (we always get from a pup) that need to learn. Dogs just pick up things faster than kids do. LOL!!

As for Gabe he is only a babe still. He'll pick up on sharp sounds sooner or later. It could just be that mine startled easy too. It's always worked for them though.

*Disclaimer ~ I do not treat my kids like dogs.. I just use a few of the same principles in training them.

?? - posted on 08/27/2009

I can't snap :( I dunno why, I have NEVER been able to snap. Snapping and whistling are things we do with the dogs so I won't use it as a distraction for Gabriel because then it sends mixed signals to the dogs and I don't think it's appropriate for the dogs to get 'confused' with their discipline and calls lol with Memphis - people snap and he comes and sits on their right, when they whistle and point Memphis comes and sits where they point.



And Gabe ignores me when I talk to him for the most part unless I'm laughin or being silly with him then he will pay attention to me and laugh at me back. Snapping, whistling and saying Gabe NO ... none of those distractions and words would work, they'd be pointless on him and counter productive with our pets lol



snapping I can't even do, and saying his name he just ignores me, I have also tried clapping my hands, but he ignored that as well, and smackin the table with something hard to grab his attention away from goin there, none of have worked - but, tapping his hand as worked :)

Amie - posted on 08/27/2009

I don't believe in spanking. I don't understand why you would tap your child either to get their attention and let them know it's not safe!

I snap my fingers and that's good enough for my kids. When their small they need to learn what that means but it's worked. It gets their attention and they stop.

On occasion I have to yell too but with 4 kids in the house that's not surprising in the least. A sharp Caitlin, Jonathan, Nicole, whichever child's attention I need to get works good too.

During the process of mine learning what my fingers being snapped means too we use lots of words and redirection. By the time they were 2 though they all understood fully. Though sometimes they'd choose to ignore me and then they'd get a time out.

?? - posted on 08/27/2009

I think it's kinda like the baby gate lol if it's there it means nop not allowd, if he gets a tap on the hand it means nop not allowd. 98% of the time redirecting and distracting him works just fine and I would never put any ANY force behind any tap - other than the normal gravitational pull that goes with moving your hand down and touching lol



He's too busy exploring the toy tornado alley that is our living area to care about the things that he COULD get into yet so I will just continue to redirect and distract and his lil fingies will get tapped along the way just as a gesture that is a lil more attention grabbing than say... pointing / shaking your finger at them or in their face or towards whatever they aren't supposed to be touching.



I'd rather tap his hand and then hold it than point or shake my finger in his face and point out the thing he shouldn't be touching - to me that seems to be making the object or place more of a focus than trying to get him to avoid it lol (I hope that makes sense)

Krista - posted on 08/27/2009

Jo, I actually never thought about it like that...about how they're making the connection between the tap and what they're not allowed to do. I suppose it's kind of the same as saying no.

?? - posted on 08/27/2009

Our sons are about the same age Krista, Gabe is 9.5 months and when he goes to something he's not supposed to touch I redirect him and distract him. Sometimes he gets into whatever I give him and he leaves whatever it was alone... sometimes he doesn't.



When he doesn't I will move him 3-4 times and try different things to distract him and then if he goes back at it. I will tap him on the hand and say no and he looks at me, sometimes he smiles and sometimes he just glares at me lol after I do that, literally take 2 fingers and tap his hand like I would tap someone on the shoulder to get their attention, he doesn't go back to it........... for a couple hours anyways lol



I don't think there's any point to it at such a young age but I know he's starting to take notice that when I tap his hand... it means I don't want him to do that. And other days he couldn't care less what I do, I could full on slap him and he'd turn around and go right back to whatever he was doing - I WOULD NEVER SLAP HIM, just making a point that some days it just doesn't matter one bit what I do, if he wants to get into that spot, he will die trying lol I love his determination - it makes me smile at how determined he is!

Krista - posted on 08/27/2009

My son is 9 months old, so he's just getting to the age where he wants to touch everything, and pull everything off the shelves in every room of the house! I've been using a firm no, which he ignores, and I've been picking him up and moving him so I can distract him with something else. Sometimes it works, sometimes he just crawls right back to where he was. The other day he refused to leave the book shelf alone, so when I pulled his hand away and said no, I gave him a tap on the hand. I don't think it even registered with him...he didn't pause or look at me or crawl away...so I thought, 'well that was useless...' My plan is to stick with saying no and distraction, until he's old enough to catch on.

Sara - posted on 08/27/2009

I'm not into tapping, smacking or spanking. I redirect, remove her from the situation, a firm "No, not for babies". I have to agree with Krista, maybe it's a way to get their attention by "tapping". I guess the same principles of training your dog can be applied to training your small child...but I'm not a fan.

Krista - posted on 08/27/2009

Maybe they're taking their cues from Cesar Milan and inducing the "touch" method. I don't see what a tap would do. It's basically just calling their attention to you for a slight moment. I have, on occasion, spanked my child....well, not SPANKED, but slapped his hand. I reserve that ONLY when he's doing something that could really hurt him, like touching the electrical wires and what not that are behind the TV.