Ruth Langsford has revealed the guilt she feels over the decision to smack son Jack when he was younger, saying that it's something she'll 'always' feel bad about.
Ruth, 57, opened up about the moments in the past when she'd 'lost control' during a discussion on ITV's This Morning, which came in light of the revelation that officials in Scotland are making the practice illegal.
'I will be honest I have smacked Jack on a few occasions, I will admit to have smacked Jack,' she admitted to guest Shona Sibary, who appeared on the daytime TV show to argue against the ban.
'But every time it's because I've lost control.'
Ruth and Eamonn welcomed son Jack in 2002
Shona, who is a mum of four, recalled a time when she'd slapped her teenage daughter around the face, to which Ruth responded: 'When you look back to when you slapped your daughter in the face, do you think afterwards "I shouldn't have done that"?'
'For me with Jack I was tired or a bit overwrought and I've always felt bad afterwards.'
Shona then agreed that it may not have been the most appropriate response to the situation.
Another guest on the show, Anna May Morgan, was fiercely against smacking, declaring that it was a form of 'bullying', and went as far to to call the act 'violence of a certain kind, because it comes from a mother'.
However, Shona argued that: '[Anna's comment] is a load of rubbish to call it violence. It's no more violence than putting a child in a bedroom is imprisonment.'
'There are other things that are far more damaging to a child,' she said.
Jack, 15, is Ruth's only son with husband Eamonn Holmes, whom she tied the knot with in 2010. Eamonn, however, has three children, Declan, Rebecca and Niall, from his first marriage.
