You sent me a message and asked my opinion so I will answer. I don't understand how slapping a child could help her to stop slapping herself. It doesn't make much sense. It sounds like you didn't know what to do to make her stop. Maybe there was another way. I would say it's abuse if your daughter felt that it was. For in my experience, during one SU attempt, my ex slapped me in the face. I was very angry with him, but I understood he was trying to "slap some sense" into me so I wouldn't commit SU. I wouldn't consider that abuse. If it were like this situation, although it could have been handled another way, if you felt that she was going to really hurt herself or lose control, maybe it would have been okay since it was an act of desperation and IF the child understood this, that you were trying to get her to not hurt herself. But it is the actual child's perception of the experience that would determine if it was abuse or not. If she was emotionally scarred by it, I would say it was. Yes slapping does harm, so one couldn't say that they were trying to not harm by slapping, with that understood in your situation it seems you had no idea what to do, you didn't understand what else could make her stop, you were desperate. My mother slapped me on the leg one time when I was rolling around on the floor, crying uncontrollably and couldn't tell her what was wrong. I didn't exactly consider that abuse. Have you talked to your daughter now about this? How does she feel about the situation? Unless it is completely obvious to others, I don't think the law or other's opinions could determine if it was abuse or not. If the person that did the slapping feels terrible and guilty about it, that could determine it was abusive (although some people that have abused think what they did was a good thing), and/or if the person who was slapped was hurt physically and emotionally by it, that could determine it was abusive. People aren't perfect and neither are their laws, it comes down to the actual people that were involved in the slap to determine it's label. I would think that repeated slaps and spankings or any other physical kind of violence is abusive, no matter if they don't leave a physical mark, they leave an emotional mark. But if it was only one or a few feelings of desperation that caused a light smack, that's a slip up, a mistake, or a misunderstanding of what to do. That doesn't neccesarily label someone an abuser.