I keep spanking my defiant 6-year-old. I’m scared of myself.

Q: My eldest daughter is 6, strong-willed, explosive and defiant. When she doesn’t get her way (we say no or there’s a natural consequence) she gets violent or destructive. We try a lot of approaches and she is seeing a psychologist.

Pushed to my limit, I have reacted a couple of times with a spank on her bottom before I even realized what I was doing. I feel awful about it. I apologized and acknowledged that it was wrong of me and that our family rule is to keep our hands/feet to ourselves. But now I am scared of myself because it seemed like an autonomous reaction and out of my control. How can I have a better understanding of when I’m about to get to that point and step back?

A: It’s clear you have tremendous guilt; you know that spanking not only doesn’t teach a child anything, but it also makes most behaviors worse. (For anyone who isn’t sure about this, the data is out there and clear.)

You wrote, “I am scared of myself because it seemed like an autonomous reaction and out of my control.” This is worth digging into. Are you dissociating? Do you feel like you are watching yourself rather than feeling like you’re in your body? You could be having a trauma response to your child’s explosion. This is not uncommon; We have conscious and unconscious memories and, without realizing it, our bodies can feel unsafe and cope in automatic or instinctive ways, like attacking or checking out. I strongly recommend talking to your doctor about your symptoms and seeking professional help from someone who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder and/or complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

As you work on getting help, we need to help your brain-body connection. Parent coach and trauma specialist Sandi Lerman coined the term LIFT to help caregivers clarify issues in front of them. I find it is helpful in almost every challenging situation. L stands for the length of time that a struggle or, in your case, the feeling of being out of control lasts. When you spank your daughter, how do you feel for the rest of the day? Checked out? Wracked with guilt?

I stands for intensity. On the days you snapped, what was the intensity of your emotions even before your daughter’s explosion? If you zoom out, were you already feeling upset or stressed? For instance, I received some bad news this week and was very upset. One of my children had a big reaction to a mistake I made and, in turn, I had an even bigger reaction. Yes, she had an explosion, but…[…]

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