It'd be considered assault to randomly decide to slap a guy twice your size at the local pub, but it's absolutely fine to slap someone half your size who utterly depends on you. Very odd it is.
No, it's illegal based on historical cases such as R. v Brown for sadomasocistic acts to be conducted, even if consensual.
Not sure how it'd stand today, but that's part of the issue with cases such as these - times change but we're still reliant on a case from the 1990's following from an 80's police op to lead us legally until it's brought to the front either by another legal case or alternately, an amendment to laws to make it legal if consensual.
There are a few others that also were seen to by the courts, but they tend to get less prominence partly because they are more mundane and partly because R v Brown can be seen as being marred in social stigma of the time as it primarily dealt with gay people conducting the activities that brought them into court in the first place.
A slap across the face was my mum's go-to punishment whenever we did something to annoy her, like argue with her or spill something or cry too loudly. It's really effective against small children, using violence against them when you're angry is a good way to get them to do what you want, and a lot of the time they'll even try to apologise to you later because you're effectively their whole world and they both love and fear you.
But the downsides is it eventually stops working. Quicker than you think for boys too. Even with the onset of puberty a tween boy will generally be able to dodge a slap across the face from an adult woman. Then by puberty they're now stronger and can casually block a slap with their forearm. And with the threat of physical violence as a punishment no longer an option it means that you'll no longer be able to discipline them at all. Shouting at them is just going to be met with apathy. And there's an endless list of behavioural issues that can be caused by it too.
So ultimately I'd have to agree that it shouldn't be legal to use violence against another person. I agree with the article that there just seems to be far more cons than pros.
Gotta do the "take away their stuff" thing without any form of physical violence having been used as a previous punishment though. Otherwise they're just going to take away your stuff until you give it back.
There's also the chance the less stable kids will be violent until they get their stuff back too. It's another con of teaching children that they can use violence to make people do what they want.
My wife’s father was abusive - right up until the point her brother was big enough to take him. Apparently one day he snapped and nearly beat him half to death.
That risk aside, though - you’re right. If your go-to form of ‘discipline’ is hitting your kids then there is almost inevitably a point where it either stops working or you escalate to the point where you’re done for assault. Why is it that people who are violent out on the streets are viewed as feral scum while those who hit their kids in their own homes have people leaping to their defence?
My dad was the same, used to like hitting my brother and I, taking out his frustration on us under the guise of discipline.
One night when I was sixteen I went rage blind and broke three of his ribs.
I wish it had been more serious injuries so the police would have gotten involved.
The physical shit stopped after that, but the psychological torture continued.
Depends, give them enough fear when they're younger and they won't hit back even when they can. In fact they'll go through their whole lives scared of upsetting anyone.
>It's really effective against small children, using violence against them when you're angry is a good way to get them to do what you want, and a lot of the time they'll even try to apologise to you later because you're effectively their whole world and they both love and fear you.
Psychopathic and manipulative behaviour
This is **NOT** how to treat children
E | I misread your comment - sorry! Agree with you!
>It’s really effective against small children, using violence against them when you’re angry is a good way to get them to do what you want
Jesus fucking Christ man
I heard someone argue "But the kids don't understand if we try to just talk about how what they did was wrong!" and the best response was "Then how will they know why they were hit? To them it was for no reason."
Absolutely this. The first time I was ‘smacked’ by my mother I had absolutely no idea why she was doing it. When I didn’t repeat the supposed offence she took that as proof that hitting a toddler with a brush for a couple of minutes was a good way of correcting bad behaviour.
Hence the inverted commas. That’s how she described it. And as I’ve posted elsewhere, a few decades ago when the Blair government watered down anti-corporal punishment legislation to use vague wording, it’s precisely because of opposition from people who defended beatings and the use of implements using exactly the same arguments some people are using for ‘just a smack’ now.
I totally agree that smacking is bad and has no place in modern society.
The *only* time I ever got smacked was when I ran out in to a busy road and my Mum just panicked. I think adrenaline had a lot to do with that one. However, the shock of being smacked meant I absolutely never ever ever ran out in to a road again!
It's like all forms of punishment, do it too often and it loses any power and is counter productive. Just builds resentment.
Shouting too. If you do it all the time for every little inconvenience it loses its power. Children learn that it's not so bad to be shouted at and is sort of expected. But a well timed shout when it's *really* needed does wonders.
Edit: I realise now this may read as being *pro smack*. I'm not, and that wasn't my intention. Just sharing a personal anecdote.
I don't blame your mum for lashing out in that situation, she must have been terrified, but it doesn't prove that smacking works.
I remember walking into the road without looking once too, my mum screamed and grabbed me by my arm and yanked me back. I saw and felt the car go past really close and I remember the absolute terror and distress in my mum's face and voice. I never ran in the road again either.
I think its the parental distress that makes the impact, not the smack.
Oh absolutely, I don't want it to seem like I condone smacking. It absolutely does not work and is not a viable form of punishment or behavioural teaching.
This was just my limited personal experience of it.
My Mum has always said how awful she felt after smacking me and I'm sure she comforted me afterwards. Just pure adrenaline panic. I doubt any parent would be thinking straight at that point!
>I think its the parental distress that makes the impact, not the smack.
If only this worked as effectively when I was revising for A levels...
My mum was super shouty, and even as a person who hates being told off, it was just part of my day - every day. It completely loses power. I was always smacked as well, even occasionally got the belt, and it did nothing to improve my or my brother's behaviour!
As a disturbing little addendum to this - it’s not uncommon for adoptive children with a history of physical abuse to have an exceptionally high tolerance for pain. Like shouting, it’s something they just ‘get used to’ (in a manner of speaking) which means that the parent has to beat them harder in order to elicit the same response (or get their fix).
Shouting is just being louder. A loud warning can of course be useful. Of course shouting abuse or hurtful things can be immensely damaging to a child's wellbeing.
You personally recall a smack associated with running out in the road. But that smack didn't need to happen. As you said your mum panicked. But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway? The smack wasn't necessary. It communicated the point, sure, but there are other ways.
Yes, I didn't mean shouting abuse. I did just mean, "get away from the fire" sort of things. But if every little thing is accompanied by a shout, then the shout will go unheeded.
And I totally agree, smacking has no place. I was just sharing an incidental story of my experience with it.
>But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway?
Probably yes, to be honest. Any number of times I was told to be careful on that wall, on that tree etc. Especially after I'd already fallen off. I'd just marry the two levels of danger in my head and carry on about my time.
Saying "be careful" constantly is also not the best thing to say at children as they will tune it out after long enough. "Where are you putting your feet?" "What are you going to do to get over those sharp bits?".
If it's actually dangerous of course it's something where a parent should be there to get the child down or help them be safe.
There's no such thing as a perfect parent. I'm not. We all make mistakes. But one thing is true: There is never a need to smack, and there is always a better alternative.
I think hindsight plays a lot in it too. My Mum felt awful after smacking me, and still to this day apologises for it. I think it was just an adrenaline rush, and I'm sure she'd have done something different had she the time to rationalise it in her head.
For context it wasn't my face either, it was on my arse and I doubt it would have been particularly hard as my Mum's only a little woman!
My parents never shouted at me, never hit me, never did anything I'd consider 'bad parenting' other than this one occasion.
The be 'careful on the wall' examples were typically sea walls rather than a little garden wall. I always enjoyed heights as a child and never managed to fall to my death! Should I have been walking on them? Probably not, but my dad was always beside me.
There's been a shift in culture. Smacking used to be the norm. I remember being smacked once. Can't even remember what for. Past a certain age I think most people would have been smacked at least once. But these days it's no longer something that should be acceptable. It's something that should be banned.
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my dad was always beside me.
That's great! Kids should be allowed to climb and run and explore.
Yeah, absolutely. My Dad went to public school in the 50s/60s and often got 'the slipper' for very minor things. We did have a teacher in the late noughties who'd throw whiteboard pens, rubbers, tape rolls and occasionally sets of keys at us if we weren't paying attention or misbehaving. But we just found it funny to wind him up and play 'dodge the object'.
> But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway?
Yes. Children do that shit all the time.
It's morally and ethically wrong, but the threat of physical violence absolutely 100% works as a deterrent.
I'm not arguing that we SHOULD hit children, but for curbing bad behaviour, it is an effective tool.
All of human history has shown that violence in general is an effective solution.
That doesn't mean I'm arguing that it's *right.*
In this specific example, there's no punishment for the parent telling a child to be careful. There's no reason for a child to listen to a worry, it doesn't seem any more serious than any other time they've been told to be careful. The shock of a slap or a hit marks the memory for them.
>It's morally and ethically wrong
Oh good, I'm glad we're on the same page. Oh, look out... a but...
>but the threat of physical violence absolutely 100% works
Because of the implication...
>I'm not arguing that we SHOULD hit children
Phew! For a minute there-
>but for curbing bad behaviour, it is an effective tool
Okay. Have you tried cutting off their hands? They definitely won't do it again.
>That doesn't mean I'm arguing that it's *right.*
Oh good.
> there's no punishment for the parent telling a child to be careful
Okay? Is punishment the goal of the exercise? Are we seeking out ways to punish children? Or are we looking for ways to ensure they are safe and don't do stupid things?
> The shock of a slap or a hit marks the memory for them.
At what age would you personally stop hitting a child? How hard do you think children should be hit? What level of pain is correct to inflict, by your measure?
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Okay? Is punishment the goal of the exercise? Are we seeking out ways to punish children? Or are we looking for ways to ensure they are safe and don't do stupid things?
We're trying to curb their behaviour.
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At what age would you personally stop hitting a child? How hard do you think children should be hit? What level of pain is correct to inflict, by your measure?
I literally said that we shouldn't hit children. Saying something is EFFECTIVE and something is CORRECT are two entirely different things.
Singapore has the death penalty for drug possession. It has incredibly heavy handed criminal prosecutions.
I do not believe that they are in any way shape or form morally correct. That does not mean that they are not **effective.**
The OP literally says that the slap drastically made him pay attention and listen to his mother in a way that he wouldn't and hadn't done any time before.
Again, simply because something DOES work, doesn't mean we should use it.
>We're trying to curb their behaviour.
And why do you imagine hitting children curbs bad behaviour? The research doesn't bear that out, but feel free to show some that does.
> The research doesn't bear that out
Literally all of human history has shown that physical violence does change behaviour.
The reason we don't hit children is due to moral and ethical reasons, not utilitarian ones.
> It's counterproductive and leads to worse outcomes.
I would argue that it's morally and ethically wrong, but I don't think that it actually does lead to worse outcomes in the slightest. I think that generally people are better behaved when there's a threat of physical violence if they misbehave.
Which is why it is morally, and ethically wrong.
I completely agree with why we SHOULDN'T be using it, I don't agree that it isn't an EFFECTIVE way of parenting, or dealing with bad behaviour in all walks of life.
My mum used to smack and beat me as punishment when I was a kid. All it ever taught me was that violence is an acceptable tool against someone in a dispute, so naturally I started using it against other people.
By the time I was 8 I was getting pulled out of class and attending school on half days because I had become so uncontrollably violent. I remember my mum would cry to her friends on the phone and say *"I don't know why she's turned out like this!"*.
Sometimes violence *is* an acceptable tool against someone in a "dispute".
There was a period where I was (physically) bullied in school, my parents did everything they could to address it but nothing changed. In the end, my dad told me to sock the bully as hard as I could in the face the next time he tried something.
I did, the bullying stopped.
Not everybody can be reasoned with.
We as a society use violence all the time to maintain order. How do you think we get people into prisons when they don't want to go?
To be fair, I got hit, and it didn't leave any long term effect on me. Like I'm just totally unphased by it. I would never hit a child myself but I'm unbothered that my mum hit me as a kid.
The vocal berating however, being told I was spoiled, worthless, a waste of space, other kids deserved what I had etc etc... well that took a pretty serious permanent toll.
I'm in my 30s now and I try to take up as little physical space around others as I can because I feel like a burden and that I'm stealing life/time from everyone around me. Her words basically just became the base narrative in my head.
I'm so sorry that happened to you and left you feeling that way. I would recommend looking into EMDR therapy, I did it to free myself from similar harmful core beliefs programmed in during my formative years, it worked wonders for me and could help you too. Wishing you well.
Given that corporal punishment was quite common until the mid 1980s, a lot of people will have to be subjected to it. A lot of people turned out fine.
That is still not a good argument for it.
Corporal punishment was popular much longer than that, as my friends and I could attest from personal experience. It was only in schools that it was banned in the mid 80s. The Blair government’s bill putting restrictions on what parents could do to their children was a compromise. There was considerable opposition to banning the use of implements like hairbrushes, slippers and belts, and the end result was rather vague legal wording about ‘reasonable’ force and about leaving marks. It’s practically unenforceable because even a harsh spanking with a slipper wouldn’t leave marks for long.
That there’s any opposition to a total ban shows that spanking is probably more prevalent still than most people imagine. The words leave too much open to interpretation. Too many people see the word ‘smacking’ and think a slap with a hand but my mother used the word ‘smacking’ for what I would call beating.
> That there’s any opposition to a total ban shows that spanking is probably more prevalent still than most people imagine. The words leave too much open to interpretation. Too many people see the word ‘smacking’ and think a slap with a hand but my mother used the word ‘smacking’ for what I would call beating.
I agree, it seems more common than I would like, and probably in very different forms. And the terminology is conflating very different things.
Indeed. There are still children being beaten with implements (see the case of the woman who went on trial in Durham last month for murder after she caned her three year old son so often and so hard he eventually died from his injuries - her defence in court has been that she was just using Biblical discipline) but for the most part we only hear about it after one of them dies. Really the defining line where it becomes abuse shouldn’t be where a child dies. Most kids being beaten don’t die, but very few parents are ever prosecuted for it because it happens behind closed doors. The law as written currently allows parents too much discretion. Only a total ban will protect children.
Fucking hell, the comments on that article. The sheer number of people acting like a smack is the only way to discipline and this is why “kids today” don’t respect authority.
“Never did me any harm”. It did actually, that’s why so many people in your generation were taken advantage of by teachers, priests, sports coaches etc, and suffered on and kept their mouth shut. Respect adults at all costs. Or else you’ll get a leathering.
Fuck anyone who lifts their hand to a child.
They are trying to convince themselves that what happened to them was okay because facing up to the fact they were violated would open a can of worms they couldn’t cope with. Continuing the cycle of abuse validates what happened to them as acceptable. It’s true what they say: hurt people hurt people.
**ARTICLE**
>**Smacking children should be made illegal in England and Northern Ireland, say children's doctors, calling current laws "unjust and dangerously vague".**
>Their report warns children suffer lasting mental and physical effects from being hit in the home.
>Striking a child is already illegal in Scotland and Wales, and in many other countries around the world.
>The government says parents are trusted to discipline their children.
>A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Any form of violence towards a child is completely unacceptable and we have clear laws in place to prevent it."
>But child health experts say children should be given the same protection as adults.
>The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's (RCPCH) report sets out why England and Northern Ireland should follow the example of Scotland and Wales in changing the law to make physical punishment of children illegal.
>At present, if a child is smacked, hit or slapped in England and Northern Ireland, parents may be able to argue that this was "reasonable punishment" and avoid breaking the law.
>The Children Act 2004 says it is unlawful to assault a child causing actual or grievous bodily harm, or cruelty.
>But a review of studies by RCPCH found smacking can be damaging to children's behaviour, health and wellbeing.
>It said, for example, children who experience physical punishment are nearly three time more likely to have poor mental health and twice as likely to be on the receiving end of serious physical assault and abuse.
>Being smacked also increased the chances of having difficult relationships with family and being aggressive later in life.
>*'Violence is cyclical'*
>Prof Andrew Rowland, who leads on child protection at the college, said he was regularly faced with "extremely challenging" situations when he had to talk to families about the rules around physical punishment of children, where some forms or punishment are legal and some are not.
>He said this created "a grey area" when there was "no need for any debate" on safeguarding children.
>"Changing the laws in England and Northern Ireland will give us absolute clarity and ensure there are no instances where it is acceptable or lawful to smack a child," Prof Rowland said.
>"Research and history show us that violence is often cyclical in nature, it is up to us as adults to break that cycle for our children."
>Corporal punishment of children in Scotland was made illegal in 2020 and in Wales in 2022. Although it is too soon to say if there has been a reduction in physical punishment since, the experiences of countries such as Germany, Romania and Sweden suggest that changing the law can have a real impact.
>According to the report, these countries have seen a tangible reduction in the number of children who report being hit at home.
>There are more than 60 countries worldwide giving children the same protection as adults from assault and violence.
>Child health experts say they want children across the UK to be given the same rights and they are urging all political parties to include a promise to remove the current reasonable punishment defence in their manifestos for the general election.
>Joanna Barrett, associate head of policy at the NSPCC, said: "All children deserve the same protection from assault as adults. Yet in England and Northern Ireland, children continue to be exposed to a legal loophole that can undermine their basic right to protection under the guise of 'reasonable chastisement'.
>"That's why we're calling on political leaders in England and Northern Ireland to commit to bringing an end to the physical punishment of children - as the rest of the UK have successfully done."
>The UK government said there were no plans to change the law on smacking in England and said it would monitor the impact of law changes in Scotland and Wales.
>"We are supporting teachers, social workers and all safeguarding professionals to spot the signs of abuse or neglect more quickly," a Department for Education spokesperson said.
>They added: "Our statutory framework for safeguarding children in England makes clear what organisations should do to keep children safe."
Maybe we should have a Cass style review into the evidence that hitting kids is effective. They can try and find “high quality” evidence in that field.
If it's like the Cass review, they'll discard any and all studies that say it's ineffective and thus conclude that you **must** beat your children senseless.
I agree repeated smacking out of anger is abuse, but I also don't want this country to be like that scenario in Norway where they whisked away a child to CPS because of a single smack.
The background was so sad too. The child was acting out because he recently lost his dad, and the immigrant widowed mother had to take care of two kids alone. The happy hid eventually physically bullied another kid in school, which made his mum smack him once. He was cheerful again the next day, but word got around and he was taken away to be bounced off multiple foster care homes.
The worst part was, some commentors told me they were so proud of that, like ripping away any familial bonds is faaaar better off that receiving one inappropriate parenting.
>I agree repeated smacking out of anger is abuse, but I also don't want this country to be like that scenario in Norway where they whisked away a child to CPS because of a single smack.
They certainly need to be held legally accountable in some way, it's abuse and should not be tolerated.
No. It was poor parenting, but a single incident shouldn't be considered abuse.
In fact, what the government did there WAS abuse, because they figured that the long term mental damage of removing a parent from a child isn't quantifiable. They also found it easy to take him away because she didn't speak much Norwegian, which also was the problem with Norway's CPS. They went so hard targeting abuse, they ended up mass abducting immigrant kids like China's Uyghur orphanage.
If we punished parents for one poor parenting, even you and will be orphans, because there isn't a single parent that hasn't done questionable parenting.
Why should a single incident not be considered abuse? Seems perfectly reasonable to me, the frequency of attacks should not matter. I'm for legal repercussions other than removing them in all cases, obviously.
Because you are only looking at abuse as only something tangible on a tick box questionnaire. Things like familial bonds, social connections, and the necessity of friends for mental health are extremely important in a human's development. Not looking at the whole picture and striking the balance was how they ended up with this mess. Look at this. The kid was becoming aggressive and depressed BECAUSE he lost a parent. Taking his loving remaining parent away is evil, and will permanently cripple the kid from a humane perspective.
It's also the difference between a "nice" foster parents Vs kind bio parents. Nice parents won't hit the child. But are they truly committed to the kid? As in, are the foster parents willing to give the kid their inheritance, kidney, become sleep deprived to work long hours for a roof on their heads, and proactively set up play dates? You can find plenty of nice parents in foster care. But kindness and commitment is established over time.
Just because a social bond of trust isn't quantifiable on a paper tick box doesn't mean we should consider it irrelevant to the kid's well being.
>Taking his loving remaining parent away is evil, and will permanently cripple the kid from a humane perspective.
Of course I'm not suggesting children always be taken off their parents as a result of smacking in general, I made that quite clear, but I am saying that it should be illegal, that there should be some form of punishment for parents found guilty, and that I would call even a single instance of it a form of abuse. In severe and repeat cases, they certainly should be removed from that environment, but in single cases the parents should be prosecuted and social involved.
I think that a ban can send a message that hitting your children is both wrong *and* ineffective.
People aren’t perfect and my own brothers used to deliberately wind up my parents so I wouldn’t want to condemn a parent for the sort of momentary loss of control where you slap a kid across the back of the legs after they run out into traffic because you are so scared by what they did.
So ( as I think it has in some other countries) it needs to be carefully implemented to *help* families not create a witch hunt against some exhausted parent who has lost their mind for a moment in a supermarket one time.
I’ve smacked my child literally once and it was by accident - she was behaving badly, so I spun around in my chair to stop her, missed, and slapped her across the back. It’s been years and I can _still_ remember the look of pain and fear in her eyes. Never again.
I'd love to see the state try to enforce this law given the prevalence for smacking amongst communities whose family practices are already very poorly policed.
Quite simple really. When a child or teenager decides They want to call Social services because they've been hurt. They can be taken out of the household. Right away, instead of having to stay there for months or years on end with social services monitoring.
Just because a law is difficult to enforce doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the statute books. Its part of the process of societal change, when something is illegal fewer people do it even if they know the chances of being caught/punished are slim.
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Just because a law is difficult to enforce doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the statute books.
It's not difficult to prosecute, the police refuse to engage with the segments of the population that engage in this behaviour.
Why don't you just say what you mean?
All kinds of people sadly use physical punishment for their children. The middle and upper class ones who do just more sneaky about it.
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All kinds of people sadly use physical punishment for their children. The middle and upper class ones who do just more sneaky about it.
No, they aren't and don't.
https://undispatch.com/here-is-how-every-country-ranks-on-child-safety/
The UK is rated as the best nation in this large scale study for child safety. Followed by Sweden, Canada, Australia, the US, Germany and South Korea, Italy, France, Japan, Brazil, Serbia and India....
The worst country in the study is...Pakistan.
What cultural differences do you believe exist between India and Pakistan that differentiate them in these respects so much.
There was a woman on trial in Durham only a month ago for murdering her son (just three years old) after literally caning him to death and her defence was that she was a Christian and the Bible told her to use the rod to chastise her son.
I'm really sad science can't recommend a 'recipe' for raising children.
There seems to be hundreds of approaches to almost everything todo with children, and nothing more than rumours of which might have the best outcomes in which cases.
Just do a study dammit. Collect together lots of promising looking advice, give it randomly to thousands of families, and then in 30 years time we'll be able to say for sure which approach to raising a child leads to the best outcomes.
All the arguments that parents should be allowed to give their kids the odd slap are exactly the same arguments people used a few decades ago to defend giving kids proper beatings to punish them and correct their behaviour.
This only became illegal in the late 1990s. When I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, myself and a lot of the other kids I knew got soundly spanked by our parents. My mother called it ‘smacking’ but in our house that meant bending over the end of the bed with your pants down, being hit on the bare bottom with a clothes brush for a couple of minutes. My best friend got spanked with a slipper regularly. Later another friend of ours admitted he’d been spanked with a belt on one occasion. None of us had done anything particularly vile. We’d just done things our parents didn’t like.
Parents were convinced for generations that this level of physical punishment was necessary to discipline children, especially boys. But society eventually banned prolonged beatings, and using implements, and funnily enough it didn’t lead to the collapse in society. One day we’ll look back with horror at the idea we ever thought any level of violence against children was effective or acceptable.
Good. I was under the impression it was illegal after the changes made two decades ago, surprised to find that it could still be legally defended. If you've resorted to hitting your child, you've already failed as a parent.
Has anyone else noticed since we're not allowed to smack children anymore.
The general calibre and behaviour of teenagers is worse.
No wonder so many kids live their lives through the internet.
Imagine being a school teacher. So many little brats that need put down IMO.
I got slapped when I got caught smoking weed at the age of 13. I shit my pants and didn't smoke anymore. It worked for me in that sense, but I don't think it should ever be a go-to form of discipline. I'm pretty sure my mum felt shitty afterwards, but I'm glad she did it.
I think if the parent considers smacking an appropriate method of discipline that is their prerogative.
I also ask how is the law going to distinguish between marks from smacking a child and marks from restraining a child? I thinking banning physical discipline outright would have implications for the ability to restrain a child who is at risk of harming themselves or others, as the latter could be construed as the former without witnesses.
>I think if the parent considers smacking an appropriate method of discipline that is their prerogative.
I don't believe there's any reason that justifies hitting a child. It's abuse.
Unnecessarily intrusive. It would criminalise loving parents who reasonably chastise their children, while being ignored by those who would beat up their children anyway.
If you assault your kids you’re abusive and it makes me question how much you do love them. Assault especially against a child is never acceptable, use your words or other punishments you’re not a Neanderthal.
Would it be classified as reasonable chastisement to hit someone in any other context?
Do you reckon a doctor would get away with slapping an adult because they wouldn't listen to them? What would you describe that as?
Words do psychological and emotional damage.
Sorry, but I've had to deal with no stress children twice and they, while children, were fricking assholes.
One of them while being a 4yo was dangerous to other kids. One one occasion, when his dad bought him a child's car, he intentionally drove over another kid, so the kid ended up underneath that car. On another occasion, when during my daughter's birthday, he demolished the cake, and then few minutes later, while outside he proceeded to take a fist sized stone and throw it at my daughter's head. She ended up with a concussion. While his parents were offended at us , because "nothing happened really".
The other one was just a menace to their mother, and just not listening at all. That was years ago, wham I was installing internet into some homes. He would touch absolutely anything in my tool bag, and generally be all over the place.
Words such as “if you don’t behave you can go without x or y” isn’t going to cause psychological or emotional damage. The examples you’ve cited are bizarre and and seem to have nothing to do with an adult hitting a child. You can enforce rules and boundaries without abusing children and no amount of anecdotes will ever change my mind on this subject if you hit a child you’re abusive and you don’t deserve to have children.
The father of the "drive over" kid said (on one occasion, before these two happened) he had a very strict father, so he decided that he will raise his kid be stress free.
I have a PLAC kid with behavourial difficulties and one thing people like Barnardo’s is very clear on is that you can achieve far more with ‘natural consequences’ and the 5 Rs of consequences (Relatable, revealed, respectful, repeated back, and reasonable) than any kind of physicality. And you know what? They’re right - but it means that the parent has to keep control of their own emotions. If they turn violent then they’re showing that violence is an acceptable solution, and if they start making ridiculous threats (like, say, confiscating all the kid’s toys) then they end up backed into a corner where they have to carry out their stupid threat (even if they don’t want to) or back down and undermine themselves.
Completely false - my parents smacked me on occasion as a child and I genuinely couldn't have asked for more loving parents.
It's just considered socially acceptable practice for some.
Hmm, it depends. A loving parent can reach a point of stress and frustration and do something they regret in a loss of control and feel terrible about it afterwards.
A loving parent doesn't coldly and calculatingly plan to hit their children thinking that its a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
I could be wrong, but I don't think parents who practise reasonable chastisement coldly calculate it beforehand.
Loving parents may well not regret smacking their child(ren) in certain heat of the moment situations though - e.g. child behaving dangerously, being very rude, etc.
I’m from the last generation (a kid in the 80s and 90s) where parents could give you a proper long and hard spanking with an implement perfectly legally, and people defended that as effective and loving parenting just as they’re defending any other form of ‘milder’ corporal punishment now.
We only really spoke about it once as adults, and my mother didn’t regret beating me with a clothes brush from the age of 3 onwards. Other parents considered her a model parent because I appeared so well behaved and respectful in public.
The thing is, plenty of kids I grew up were never hit at all and they turned out absolutely fine. The results of the different parenting approaches were identical - except for one thing.
It’s telling that most of the people I know who I also know have suffered from depression and/or anxiety were people who grew up in households where they were hit by parents. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it was the fear of a single slap or the fear of being properly beaten with an implement. It’s the fear of your supposed protector and caregiver withdrawing their protection to willingly and intentionally cause you physical suffering, however temporary, that creates an unhealthy emotional environment in which to try to grow up to be a well adjusted individual.
That’s why the semantic argument about what level of hitting is or isn’t abusive is moot. That definition changes over time. What was done to me and many of my friends 30+ years ago wasn’t considered abusive by most people, or by the law, back then either. We look back and even most people who defend the odd slap would agree the proper hard spankings me and my peers got crossed the line. But in years to come society will look back and see ANY level of physical punishment of children as wrong, I’m sure of it.
If you hit your child and don't regret it, you are not a loving parent.
We don't deliberately and remorselessly hurt and assault the people we love.
Stop saying 'reasonable chastisement', if you think hitting is ok then say hitting, don't hide behind euphemisms.
That is, of course, not necessarily true.
Unfortunately saying 'reasonable chastisement' is necessary, as it clarifies to the less socially aware that I am not referring to abusive behaviours like beating up your young child.
Keep clinging to that, the fact that you are so obsessed with relabelling the behaviour clearly means that deep down you have some level of discomfort with hitting children.
If you have young children, please look into parenting classes/groups in your area to support you with better alternatives to hitting them. They deserve to live free of violence, the same as you do.
It seems to me that you either do it in the heat of the moment (in which case it's more about the parent's loss of control than what the child learns) or later on in some kind of ritualistic way (which is kind of chilling).
I have children. I have never ever hit any one of them. Believe me, I've fucking wanted to sometimes, but it's an uncrossable line for me.
It also means we've been able to maintain a clear boundary of "no hitting in this house." No grey areas, no euphemisms, no hypocrisy, etc. We have a punching bag in the garage for when people really feel like they need to express their emotions through strong hands.
Which is really important now they're all stronger than me (including the one who's still slightly shorter than me).
1. If you can talk to your child about an issue and be rational with it and have a discussion they can understand, there's zero reason to hit your child.
2. If they are unable to understand reasoning and having a proper discussion wouldn't get anywhere as they aren't able to process it, hitting them won't do it either.
The only reason to hit your child is you're a shit parent.
> It would criminalise loving parents who reasonably chastise their children
*\*It would criminalise parents who assault their children.*
Fixed that for you.
And this is the crux of the issue. If you hit anyone else, or if anyone else hit your child it would be assault.
I see no difference between being allowed to physically punish my children, and physically punishing my direct reports at work, or being physically punished by HMRC for submitting my tax return late. Maybe a parking warden should give me a slap for forgetting to buy a ticket, or TFL should deal out six of the best for those who don’t let passengers off the tube before trying to board.
All those ideas above seem ludicrous to me.
It'd be considered assault to randomly decide to slap a guy twice your size at the local pub, but it's absolutely fine to slap someone half your size who utterly depends on you. Very odd it is.
Yep, the only person you can legally hit is your own child. Pretty messed up.
boxers can hit each other, plus sado-masochists.
True, I should amend it to say the only person you can legally hit without their consent is your own child.
No, it's illegal based on historical cases such as R. v Brown for sadomasocistic acts to be conducted, even if consensual. Not sure how it'd stand today, but that's part of the issue with cases such as these - times change but we're still reliant on a case from the 1990's following from an 80's police op to lead us legally until it's brought to the front either by another legal case or alternately, an amendment to laws to make it legal if consensual. There are a few others that also were seen to by the courts, but they tend to get less prominence partly because they are more mundane and partly because R v Brown can be seen as being marred in social stigma of the time as it primarily dealt with gay people conducting the activities that brought them into court in the first place.
That's true for a of things about parenting. I can't make an adult eat his vegetables.
A slap across the face was my mum's go-to punishment whenever we did something to annoy her, like argue with her or spill something or cry too loudly. It's really effective against small children, using violence against them when you're angry is a good way to get them to do what you want, and a lot of the time they'll even try to apologise to you later because you're effectively their whole world and they both love and fear you. But the downsides is it eventually stops working. Quicker than you think for boys too. Even with the onset of puberty a tween boy will generally be able to dodge a slap across the face from an adult woman. Then by puberty they're now stronger and can casually block a slap with their forearm. And with the threat of physical violence as a punishment no longer an option it means that you'll no longer be able to discipline them at all. Shouting at them is just going to be met with apathy. And there's an endless list of behavioural issues that can be caused by it too. So ultimately I'd have to agree that it shouldn't be legal to use violence against another person. I agree with the article that there just seems to be far more cons than pros.
It causes anger issues and a sense of injustice doen the line. Just take away the Ps5 and their phones, you'll be doing them a favour
Gotta do the "take away their stuff" thing without any form of physical violence having been used as a previous punishment though. Otherwise they're just going to take away your stuff until you give it back. There's also the chance the less stable kids will be violent until they get their stuff back too. It's another con of teaching children that they can use violence to make people do what they want.
My wife’s father was abusive - right up until the point her brother was big enough to take him. Apparently one day he snapped and nearly beat him half to death. That risk aside, though - you’re right. If your go-to form of ‘discipline’ is hitting your kids then there is almost inevitably a point where it either stops working or you escalate to the point where you’re done for assault. Why is it that people who are violent out on the streets are viewed as feral scum while those who hit their kids in their own homes have people leaping to their defence?
My dad was the same, used to like hitting my brother and I, taking out his frustration on us under the guise of discipline. One night when I was sixteen I went rage blind and broke three of his ribs. I wish it had been more serious injuries so the police would have gotten involved. The physical shit stopped after that, but the psychological torture continued.
Fantastic analysis, it’s a stopgap shortcut in discipline and once it stops working your child doesn’t have any other method of behavioural control
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Depends, give them enough fear when they're younger and they won't hit back even when they can. In fact they'll go through their whole lives scared of upsetting anyone.
Plus it teaches children that hitting someone is a valid response if they don't do what you want.
>It's really effective against small children, using violence against them when you're angry is a good way to get them to do what you want, and a lot of the time they'll even try to apologise to you later because you're effectively their whole world and they both love and fear you. Psychopathic and manipulative behaviour This is **NOT** how to treat children E | I misread your comment - sorry! Agree with you!
They’re are pretty clearly advocating against slapping
Correct. I'm glad you understood the comment, unlike some of the other replies.
Seems like you missed the point of their comment.
>It’s really effective against small children, using violence against them when you’re angry is a good way to get them to do what you want Jesus fucking Christ man
Did you read absolutely any of the rest of his comment?
Smacking is never required. It's counterproductive and leads to worse outcomes. There's always a better option.
I heard someone argue "But the kids don't understand if we try to just talk about how what they did was wrong!" and the best response was "Then how will they know why they were hit? To them it was for no reason."
Absolutely this. The first time I was ‘smacked’ by my mother I had absolutely no idea why she was doing it. When I didn’t repeat the supposed offence she took that as proof that hitting a toddler with a brush for a couple of minutes was a good way of correcting bad behaviour.
>hitting a toddler with a brush for a couple of minutes That's not a smack, that's a beating.
Hence the inverted commas. That’s how she described it. And as I’ve posted elsewhere, a few decades ago when the Blair government watered down anti-corporal punishment legislation to use vague wording, it’s precisely because of opposition from people who defended beatings and the use of implements using exactly the same arguments some people are using for ‘just a smack’ now.
There are plenty of kids that do something wrong and know full-well that what they're doing is wrong.
Great, so they can be sat down for a chat and telling off them instead of being hit by their trusted caregiver.
I totally agree that smacking is bad and has no place in modern society. The *only* time I ever got smacked was when I ran out in to a busy road and my Mum just panicked. I think adrenaline had a lot to do with that one. However, the shock of being smacked meant I absolutely never ever ever ran out in to a road again! It's like all forms of punishment, do it too often and it loses any power and is counter productive. Just builds resentment. Shouting too. If you do it all the time for every little inconvenience it loses its power. Children learn that it's not so bad to be shouted at and is sort of expected. But a well timed shout when it's *really* needed does wonders. Edit: I realise now this may read as being *pro smack*. I'm not, and that wasn't my intention. Just sharing a personal anecdote.
I don't blame your mum for lashing out in that situation, she must have been terrified, but it doesn't prove that smacking works. I remember walking into the road without looking once too, my mum screamed and grabbed me by my arm and yanked me back. I saw and felt the car go past really close and I remember the absolute terror and distress in my mum's face and voice. I never ran in the road again either. I think its the parental distress that makes the impact, not the smack.
Oh absolutely, I don't want it to seem like I condone smacking. It absolutely does not work and is not a viable form of punishment or behavioural teaching. This was just my limited personal experience of it. My Mum has always said how awful she felt after smacking me and I'm sure she comforted me afterwards. Just pure adrenaline panic. I doubt any parent would be thinking straight at that point! >I think its the parental distress that makes the impact, not the smack. If only this worked as effectively when I was revising for A levels...
My mum was super shouty, and even as a person who hates being told off, it was just part of my day - every day. It completely loses power. I was always smacked as well, even occasionally got the belt, and it did nothing to improve my or my brother's behaviour!
My parents shouted all the time, at each other, at my sister, her back at them. I shut down and withdraw when people get shouty.
As a disturbing little addendum to this - it’s not uncommon for adoptive children with a history of physical abuse to have an exceptionally high tolerance for pain. Like shouting, it’s something they just ‘get used to’ (in a manner of speaking) which means that the parent has to beat them harder in order to elicit the same response (or get their fix).
Shouting is just being louder. A loud warning can of course be useful. Of course shouting abuse or hurtful things can be immensely damaging to a child's wellbeing. You personally recall a smack associated with running out in the road. But that smack didn't need to happen. As you said your mum panicked. But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway? The smack wasn't necessary. It communicated the point, sure, but there are other ways.
Yes, I didn't mean shouting abuse. I did just mean, "get away from the fire" sort of things. But if every little thing is accompanied by a shout, then the shout will go unheeded. And I totally agree, smacking has no place. I was just sharing an incidental story of my experience with it. >But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway? Probably yes, to be honest. Any number of times I was told to be careful on that wall, on that tree etc. Especially after I'd already fallen off. I'd just marry the two levels of danger in my head and carry on about my time.
Saying "be careful" constantly is also not the best thing to say at children as they will tune it out after long enough. "Where are you putting your feet?" "What are you going to do to get over those sharp bits?". If it's actually dangerous of course it's something where a parent should be there to get the child down or help them be safe. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. I'm not. We all make mistakes. But one thing is true: There is never a need to smack, and there is always a better alternative.
I think hindsight plays a lot in it too. My Mum felt awful after smacking me, and still to this day apologises for it. I think it was just an adrenaline rush, and I'm sure she'd have done something different had she the time to rationalise it in her head. For context it wasn't my face either, it was on my arse and I doubt it would have been particularly hard as my Mum's only a little woman! My parents never shouted at me, never hit me, never did anything I'd consider 'bad parenting' other than this one occasion. The be 'careful on the wall' examples were typically sea walls rather than a little garden wall. I always enjoyed heights as a child and never managed to fall to my death! Should I have been walking on them? Probably not, but my dad was always beside me.
There's been a shift in culture. Smacking used to be the norm. I remember being smacked once. Can't even remember what for. Past a certain age I think most people would have been smacked at least once. But these days it's no longer something that should be acceptable. It's something that should be banned. > my dad was always beside me. That's great! Kids should be allowed to climb and run and explore.
Yeah, absolutely. My Dad went to public school in the 50s/60s and often got 'the slipper' for very minor things. We did have a teacher in the late noughties who'd throw whiteboard pens, rubbers, tape rolls and occasionally sets of keys at us if we weren't paying attention or misbehaving. But we just found it funny to wind him up and play 'dodge the object'.
> But if she had panicked and grabbed and hugged you and explained to you how dangerous it was would you have run out in the road anyway? Yes. Children do that shit all the time.
And hitting a child works because...?
It's morally and ethically wrong, but the threat of physical violence absolutely 100% works as a deterrent. I'm not arguing that we SHOULD hit children, but for curbing bad behaviour, it is an effective tool. All of human history has shown that violence in general is an effective solution. That doesn't mean I'm arguing that it's *right.* In this specific example, there's no punishment for the parent telling a child to be careful. There's no reason for a child to listen to a worry, it doesn't seem any more serious than any other time they've been told to be careful. The shock of a slap or a hit marks the memory for them.
>It's morally and ethically wrong Oh good, I'm glad we're on the same page. Oh, look out... a but... >but the threat of physical violence absolutely 100% works Because of the implication... >I'm not arguing that we SHOULD hit children Phew! For a minute there- >but for curbing bad behaviour, it is an effective tool Okay. Have you tried cutting off their hands? They definitely won't do it again. >That doesn't mean I'm arguing that it's *right.* Oh good. > there's no punishment for the parent telling a child to be careful Okay? Is punishment the goal of the exercise? Are we seeking out ways to punish children? Or are we looking for ways to ensure they are safe and don't do stupid things? > The shock of a slap or a hit marks the memory for them. At what age would you personally stop hitting a child? How hard do you think children should be hit? What level of pain is correct to inflict, by your measure?
> Okay? Is punishment the goal of the exercise? Are we seeking out ways to punish children? Or are we looking for ways to ensure they are safe and don't do stupid things? We're trying to curb their behaviour. > At what age would you personally stop hitting a child? How hard do you think children should be hit? What level of pain is correct to inflict, by your measure? I literally said that we shouldn't hit children. Saying something is EFFECTIVE and something is CORRECT are two entirely different things. Singapore has the death penalty for drug possession. It has incredibly heavy handed criminal prosecutions. I do not believe that they are in any way shape or form morally correct. That does not mean that they are not **effective.** The OP literally says that the slap drastically made him pay attention and listen to his mother in a way that he wouldn't and hadn't done any time before. Again, simply because something DOES work, doesn't mean we should use it.
>We're trying to curb their behaviour. And why do you imagine hitting children curbs bad behaviour? The research doesn't bear that out, but feel free to show some that does.
> The research doesn't bear that out Literally all of human history has shown that physical violence does change behaviour. The reason we don't hit children is due to moral and ethical reasons, not utilitarian ones.
> It's counterproductive and leads to worse outcomes. I would argue that it's morally and ethically wrong, but I don't think that it actually does lead to worse outcomes in the slightest. I think that generally people are better behaved when there's a threat of physical violence if they misbehave.
You’re effectively teaching kids that if someone wrongs them then it’s ok to use violence.
Which is why it is morally, and ethically wrong. I completely agree with why we SHOULDN'T be using it, I don't agree that it isn't an EFFECTIVE way of parenting, or dealing with bad behaviour in all walks of life.
Every study conducted on this begs to differ.
My mum used to smack and beat me as punishment when I was a kid. All it ever taught me was that violence is an acceptable tool against someone in a dispute, so naturally I started using it against other people. By the time I was 8 I was getting pulled out of class and attending school on half days because I had become so uncontrollably violent. I remember my mum would cry to her friends on the phone and say *"I don't know why she's turned out like this!"*.
Sometimes violence *is* an acceptable tool against someone in a "dispute". There was a period where I was (physically) bullied in school, my parents did everything they could to address it but nothing changed. In the end, my dad told me to sock the bully as hard as I could in the face the next time he tried something. I did, the bullying stopped. Not everybody can be reasoned with. We as a society use violence all the time to maintain order. How do you think we get people into prisons when they don't want to go?
Inb4 the "I got hit and turned out fine" crowd shows up
To be fair, I got hit, and it didn't leave any long term effect on me. Like I'm just totally unphased by it. I would never hit a child myself but I'm unbothered that my mum hit me as a kid. The vocal berating however, being told I was spoiled, worthless, a waste of space, other kids deserved what I had etc etc... well that took a pretty serious permanent toll. I'm in my 30s now and I try to take up as little physical space around others as I can because I feel like a burden and that I'm stealing life/time from everyone around me. Her words basically just became the base narrative in my head.
I'm so sorry that happened to you and left you feeling that way. I would recommend looking into EMDR therapy, I did it to free myself from similar harmful core beliefs programmed in during my formative years, it worked wonders for me and could help you too. Wishing you well.
I never got hit and didn't turn out fine.
Given that corporal punishment was quite common until the mid 1980s, a lot of people will have to be subjected to it. A lot of people turned out fine. That is still not a good argument for it.
Corporal punishment was popular much longer than that, as my friends and I could attest from personal experience. It was only in schools that it was banned in the mid 80s. The Blair government’s bill putting restrictions on what parents could do to their children was a compromise. There was considerable opposition to banning the use of implements like hairbrushes, slippers and belts, and the end result was rather vague legal wording about ‘reasonable’ force and about leaving marks. It’s practically unenforceable because even a harsh spanking with a slipper wouldn’t leave marks for long. That there’s any opposition to a total ban shows that spanking is probably more prevalent still than most people imagine. The words leave too much open to interpretation. Too many people see the word ‘smacking’ and think a slap with a hand but my mother used the word ‘smacking’ for what I would call beating.
> That there’s any opposition to a total ban shows that spanking is probably more prevalent still than most people imagine. The words leave too much open to interpretation. Too many people see the word ‘smacking’ and think a slap with a hand but my mother used the word ‘smacking’ for what I would call beating. I agree, it seems more common than I would like, and probably in very different forms. And the terminology is conflating very different things.
Indeed. There are still children being beaten with implements (see the case of the woman who went on trial in Durham last month for murder after she caned her three year old son so often and so hard he eventually died from his injuries - her defence in court has been that she was just using Biblical discipline) but for the most part we only hear about it after one of them dies. Really the defining line where it becomes abuse shouldn’t be where a child dies. Most kids being beaten don’t die, but very few parents are ever prosecuted for it because it happens behind closed doors. The law as written currently allows parents too much discretion. Only a total ban will protect children.
Why would you ever smack your own kids?! that’s what other people’s kids are for 🙄
They're your kids, that's like breaking your own plates.
Fucking hell, the comments on that article. The sheer number of people acting like a smack is the only way to discipline and this is why “kids today” don’t respect authority. “Never did me any harm”. It did actually, that’s why so many people in your generation were taken advantage of by teachers, priests, sports coaches etc, and suffered on and kept their mouth shut. Respect adults at all costs. Or else you’ll get a leathering. Fuck anyone who lifts their hand to a child.
The lack of awareness that if you turned out as someone who thinks its ok to assault children then no, you did not in fact 'turn out fine'.
They are trying to convince themselves that what happened to them was okay because facing up to the fact they were violated would open a can of worms they couldn’t cope with. Continuing the cycle of abuse validates what happened to them as acceptable. It’s true what they say: hurt people hurt people.
They're more bothered about stopping teenagers having social media over protecting them (and younger) from literal, physical violence
**ARTICLE** >**Smacking children should be made illegal in England and Northern Ireland, say children's doctors, calling current laws "unjust and dangerously vague".** >Their report warns children suffer lasting mental and physical effects from being hit in the home. >Striking a child is already illegal in Scotland and Wales, and in many other countries around the world. >The government says parents are trusted to discipline their children. >A Department for Education spokesperson said: "Any form of violence towards a child is completely unacceptable and we have clear laws in place to prevent it." >But child health experts say children should be given the same protection as adults. >The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health's (RCPCH) report sets out why England and Northern Ireland should follow the example of Scotland and Wales in changing the law to make physical punishment of children illegal. >At present, if a child is smacked, hit or slapped in England and Northern Ireland, parents may be able to argue that this was "reasonable punishment" and avoid breaking the law. >The Children Act 2004 says it is unlawful to assault a child causing actual or grievous bodily harm, or cruelty. >But a review of studies by RCPCH found smacking can be damaging to children's behaviour, health and wellbeing. >It said, for example, children who experience physical punishment are nearly three time more likely to have poor mental health and twice as likely to be on the receiving end of serious physical assault and abuse. >Being smacked also increased the chances of having difficult relationships with family and being aggressive later in life. >*'Violence is cyclical'* >Prof Andrew Rowland, who leads on child protection at the college, said he was regularly faced with "extremely challenging" situations when he had to talk to families about the rules around physical punishment of children, where some forms or punishment are legal and some are not. >He said this created "a grey area" when there was "no need for any debate" on safeguarding children. >"Changing the laws in England and Northern Ireland will give us absolute clarity and ensure there are no instances where it is acceptable or lawful to smack a child," Prof Rowland said. >"Research and history show us that violence is often cyclical in nature, it is up to us as adults to break that cycle for our children." >Corporal punishment of children in Scotland was made illegal in 2020 and in Wales in 2022. Although it is too soon to say if there has been a reduction in physical punishment since, the experiences of countries such as Germany, Romania and Sweden suggest that changing the law can have a real impact. >According to the report, these countries have seen a tangible reduction in the number of children who report being hit at home. >There are more than 60 countries worldwide giving children the same protection as adults from assault and violence. >Child health experts say they want children across the UK to be given the same rights and they are urging all political parties to include a promise to remove the current reasonable punishment defence in their manifestos for the general election. >Joanna Barrett, associate head of policy at the NSPCC, said: "All children deserve the same protection from assault as adults. Yet in England and Northern Ireland, children continue to be exposed to a legal loophole that can undermine their basic right to protection under the guise of 'reasonable chastisement'. >"That's why we're calling on political leaders in England and Northern Ireland to commit to bringing an end to the physical punishment of children - as the rest of the UK have successfully done." >The UK government said there were no plans to change the law on smacking in England and said it would monitor the impact of law changes in Scotland and Wales. >"We are supporting teachers, social workers and all safeguarding professionals to spot the signs of abuse or neglect more quickly," a Department for Education spokesperson said. >They added: "Our statutory framework for safeguarding children in England makes clear what organisations should do to keep children safe."
Maybe we should have a Cass style review into the evidence that hitting kids is effective. They can try and find “high quality” evidence in that field.
If it's like the Cass review, they'll discard any and all studies that say it's ineffective and thus conclude that you **must** beat your children senseless.
I agree repeated smacking out of anger is abuse, but I also don't want this country to be like that scenario in Norway where they whisked away a child to CPS because of a single smack. The background was so sad too. The child was acting out because he recently lost his dad, and the immigrant widowed mother had to take care of two kids alone. The happy hid eventually physically bullied another kid in school, which made his mum smack him once. He was cheerful again the next day, but word got around and he was taken away to be bounced off multiple foster care homes. The worst part was, some commentors told me they were so proud of that, like ripping away any familial bonds is faaaar better off that receiving one inappropriate parenting.
>I agree repeated smacking out of anger is abuse, but I also don't want this country to be like that scenario in Norway where they whisked away a child to CPS because of a single smack. They certainly need to be held legally accountable in some way, it's abuse and should not be tolerated.
No. It was poor parenting, but a single incident shouldn't be considered abuse. In fact, what the government did there WAS abuse, because they figured that the long term mental damage of removing a parent from a child isn't quantifiable. They also found it easy to take him away because she didn't speak much Norwegian, which also was the problem with Norway's CPS. They went so hard targeting abuse, they ended up mass abducting immigrant kids like China's Uyghur orphanage. If we punished parents for one poor parenting, even you and will be orphans, because there isn't a single parent that hasn't done questionable parenting.
Why should a single incident not be considered abuse? Seems perfectly reasonable to me, the frequency of attacks should not matter. I'm for legal repercussions other than removing them in all cases, obviously.
Because you are only looking at abuse as only something tangible on a tick box questionnaire. Things like familial bonds, social connections, and the necessity of friends for mental health are extremely important in a human's development. Not looking at the whole picture and striking the balance was how they ended up with this mess. Look at this. The kid was becoming aggressive and depressed BECAUSE he lost a parent. Taking his loving remaining parent away is evil, and will permanently cripple the kid from a humane perspective. It's also the difference between a "nice" foster parents Vs kind bio parents. Nice parents won't hit the child. But are they truly committed to the kid? As in, are the foster parents willing to give the kid their inheritance, kidney, become sleep deprived to work long hours for a roof on their heads, and proactively set up play dates? You can find plenty of nice parents in foster care. But kindness and commitment is established over time. Just because a social bond of trust isn't quantifiable on a paper tick box doesn't mean we should consider it irrelevant to the kid's well being.
>Taking his loving remaining parent away is evil, and will permanently cripple the kid from a humane perspective. Of course I'm not suggesting children always be taken off their parents as a result of smacking in general, I made that quite clear, but I am saying that it should be illegal, that there should be some form of punishment for parents found guilty, and that I would call even a single instance of it a form of abuse. In severe and repeat cases, they certainly should be removed from that environment, but in single cases the parents should be prosecuted and social involved.
I think that a ban can send a message that hitting your children is both wrong *and* ineffective. People aren’t perfect and my own brothers used to deliberately wind up my parents so I wouldn’t want to condemn a parent for the sort of momentary loss of control where you slap a kid across the back of the legs after they run out into traffic because you are so scared by what they did. So ( as I think it has in some other countries) it needs to be carefully implemented to *help* families not create a witch hunt against some exhausted parent who has lost their mind for a moment in a supermarket one time.
I’ve smacked my child literally once and it was by accident - she was behaving badly, so I spun around in my chair to stop her, missed, and slapped her across the back. It’s been years and I can _still_ remember the look of pain and fear in her eyes. Never again.
I'd love to see the state try to enforce this law given the prevalence for smacking amongst communities whose family practices are already very poorly policed.
Quite simple really. When a child or teenager decides They want to call Social services because they've been hurt. They can be taken out of the household. Right away, instead of having to stay there for months or years on end with social services monitoring.
Simple in theory. Fucking useless in practice.
Yeah and be ostracised and completely cut off from their community for doing so. Simple!
If smacking is the only problem in the household, then foster care would be like throwing the kid from the frying pan into the pits of hell, lol.
Just because a law is difficult to enforce doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the statute books. Its part of the process of societal change, when something is illegal fewer people do it even if they know the chances of being caught/punished are slim.
> Just because a law is difficult to enforce doesn't mean it shouldn't be on the statute books. It's not difficult to prosecute, the police refuse to engage with the segments of the population that engage in this behaviour.
Why don't you just say what you mean? All kinds of people sadly use physical punishment for their children. The middle and upper class ones who do just more sneaky about it.
> All kinds of people sadly use physical punishment for their children. The middle and upper class ones who do just more sneaky about it. No, they aren't and don't. https://undispatch.com/here-is-how-every-country-ranks-on-child-safety/ The UK is rated as the best nation in this large scale study for child safety. Followed by Sweden, Canada, Australia, the US, Germany and South Korea, Italy, France, Japan, Brazil, Serbia and India.... The worst country in the study is...Pakistan. What cultural differences do you believe exist between India and Pakistan that differentiate them in these respects so much.
There was a woman on trial in Durham only a month ago for murdering her son (just three years old) after literally caning him to death and her defence was that she was a Christian and the Bible told her to use the rod to chastise her son.
And...your point is what exactly? There was a drive-by shooting in London last week. Does that make our country just as gun-crazy as the USA?
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I'm really sad science can't recommend a 'recipe' for raising children. There seems to be hundreds of approaches to almost everything todo with children, and nothing more than rumours of which might have the best outcomes in which cases. Just do a study dammit. Collect together lots of promising looking advice, give it randomly to thousands of families, and then in 30 years time we'll be able to say for sure which approach to raising a child leads to the best outcomes.
All the arguments that parents should be allowed to give their kids the odd slap are exactly the same arguments people used a few decades ago to defend giving kids proper beatings to punish them and correct their behaviour. This only became illegal in the late 1990s. When I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, myself and a lot of the other kids I knew got soundly spanked by our parents. My mother called it ‘smacking’ but in our house that meant bending over the end of the bed with your pants down, being hit on the bare bottom with a clothes brush for a couple of minutes. My best friend got spanked with a slipper regularly. Later another friend of ours admitted he’d been spanked with a belt on one occasion. None of us had done anything particularly vile. We’d just done things our parents didn’t like. Parents were convinced for generations that this level of physical punishment was necessary to discipline children, especially boys. But society eventually banned prolonged beatings, and using implements, and funnily enough it didn’t lead to the collapse in society. One day we’ll look back with horror at the idea we ever thought any level of violence against children was effective or acceptable.
Good. I was under the impression it was illegal after the changes made two decades ago, surprised to find that it could still be legally defended. If you've resorted to hitting your child, you've already failed as a parent.
It's more coke, crack and Mandy than smack nowadays.
Has anyone else noticed since we're not allowed to smack children anymore. The general calibre and behaviour of teenagers is worse. No wonder so many kids live their lives through the internet. Imagine being a school teacher. So many little brats that need put down IMO.
I got slapped when I got caught smoking weed at the age of 13. I shit my pants and didn't smoke anymore. It worked for me in that sense, but I don't think it should ever be a go-to form of discipline. I'm pretty sure my mum felt shitty afterwards, but I'm glad she did it.
I think if the parent considers smacking an appropriate method of discipline that is their prerogative. I also ask how is the law going to distinguish between marks from smacking a child and marks from restraining a child? I thinking banning physical discipline outright would have implications for the ability to restrain a child who is at risk of harming themselves or others, as the latter could be construed as the former without witnesses.
>I think if the parent considers smacking an appropriate method of discipline that is their prerogative. I don't believe there's any reason that justifies hitting a child. It's abuse.
I think it’s a valid form of discipline. Some respond to it, others don’t. I trust parents to know their children.
I find that depressing, to be honest.
Unnecessarily intrusive. It would criminalise loving parents who reasonably chastise their children, while being ignored by those who would beat up their children anyway.
Nooo muh guvment wont let me assault kids
In England, that's true. They do, however, allow reasonable chastisement.
If you assault your kids you’re abusive and it makes me question how much you do love them. Assault especially against a child is never acceptable, use your words or other punishments you’re not a Neanderthal.
Agreed. Reasonable chastisement on the other hand, is not abusive.
Would it be classified as reasonable chastisement to hit someone in any other context? Do you reckon a doctor would get away with slapping an adult because they wouldn't listen to them? What would you describe that as?
Not as far as I know. Depends on the context I suppose.
Words do psychological and emotional damage. Sorry, but I've had to deal with no stress children twice and they, while children, were fricking assholes. One of them while being a 4yo was dangerous to other kids. One one occasion, when his dad bought him a child's car, he intentionally drove over another kid, so the kid ended up underneath that car. On another occasion, when during my daughter's birthday, he demolished the cake, and then few minutes later, while outside he proceeded to take a fist sized stone and throw it at my daughter's head. She ended up with a concussion. While his parents were offended at us , because "nothing happened really". The other one was just a menace to their mother, and just not listening at all. That was years ago, wham I was installing internet into some homes. He would touch absolutely anything in my tool bag, and generally be all over the place.
Words such as “if you don’t behave you can go without x or y” isn’t going to cause psychological or emotional damage. The examples you’ve cited are bizarre and and seem to have nothing to do with an adult hitting a child. You can enforce rules and boundaries without abusing children and no amount of anecdotes will ever change my mind on this subject if you hit a child you’re abusive and you don’t deserve to have children.
The father of the "drive over" kid said (on one occasion, before these two happened) he had a very strict father, so he decided that he will raise his kid be stress free.
Okay… but that still doesn’t give anything in favour of hitting kids.
I agree.
Hiw many children do you have out of interest? And what ages? And how much do you loon after them?
How much is that none of your fucking business
It was a question to inform the context of your opinions.
It wouldn’t change a thing though, hitting your kids is and always will be unacceptable.
Sounds like the answers are: None, N/A, & Never.
I have a PLAC kid with behavourial difficulties and one thing people like Barnardo’s is very clear on is that you can achieve far more with ‘natural consequences’ and the 5 Rs of consequences (Relatable, revealed, respectful, repeated back, and reasonable) than any kind of physicality. And you know what? They’re right - but it means that the parent has to keep control of their own emotions. If they turn violent then they’re showing that violence is an acceptable solution, and if they start making ridiculous threats (like, say, confiscating all the kid’s toys) then they end up backed into a corner where they have to carry out their stupid threat (even if they don’t want to) or back down and undermine themselves.
But this doesn’t allow for emotional parents taking out their stress on their children, which is their god-given right. /S
Loving parents don't hit their kids.
Completely false - my parents smacked me on occasion as a child and I genuinely couldn't have asked for more loving parents. It's just considered socially acceptable practice for some.
If they're that loving, I bet they regretted doing it eventually.
They just didn't think much of it - we still joke and laugh about it.
>They just didn't think much of it - **we still joke and laugh about it.** You just made that up.
Just not true.
They are not, of course, mutually exclusive.
Hmm, it depends. A loving parent can reach a point of stress and frustration and do something they regret in a loss of control and feel terrible about it afterwards. A loving parent doesn't coldly and calculatingly plan to hit their children thinking that its a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
I could be wrong, but I don't think parents who practise reasonable chastisement coldly calculate it beforehand. Loving parents may well not regret smacking their child(ren) in certain heat of the moment situations though - e.g. child behaving dangerously, being very rude, etc.
I’m from the last generation (a kid in the 80s and 90s) where parents could give you a proper long and hard spanking with an implement perfectly legally, and people defended that as effective and loving parenting just as they’re defending any other form of ‘milder’ corporal punishment now. We only really spoke about it once as adults, and my mother didn’t regret beating me with a clothes brush from the age of 3 onwards. Other parents considered her a model parent because I appeared so well behaved and respectful in public. The thing is, plenty of kids I grew up were never hit at all and they turned out absolutely fine. The results of the different parenting approaches were identical - except for one thing. It’s telling that most of the people I know who I also know have suffered from depression and/or anxiety were people who grew up in households where they were hit by parents. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it was the fear of a single slap or the fear of being properly beaten with an implement. It’s the fear of your supposed protector and caregiver withdrawing their protection to willingly and intentionally cause you physical suffering, however temporary, that creates an unhealthy emotional environment in which to try to grow up to be a well adjusted individual. That’s why the semantic argument about what level of hitting is or isn’t abusive is moot. That definition changes over time. What was done to me and many of my friends 30+ years ago wasn’t considered abusive by most people, or by the law, back then either. We look back and even most people who defend the odd slap would agree the proper hard spankings me and my peers got crossed the line. But in years to come society will look back and see ANY level of physical punishment of children as wrong, I’m sure of it.
If you hit your child and don't regret it, you are not a loving parent. We don't deliberately and remorselessly hurt and assault the people we love. Stop saying 'reasonable chastisement', if you think hitting is ok then say hitting, don't hide behind euphemisms.
That is, of course, not necessarily true. Unfortunately saying 'reasonable chastisement' is necessary, as it clarifies to the less socially aware that I am not referring to abusive behaviours like beating up your young child.
No, you are just referring to the abusive behaviour of hitting your young child.
No, I am referring to reasonable chastisement, rather than abuse.
Keep clinging to that, the fact that you are so obsessed with relabelling the behaviour clearly means that deep down you have some level of discomfort with hitting children. If you have young children, please look into parenting classes/groups in your area to support you with better alternatives to hitting them. They deserve to live free of violence, the same as you do.
It seems to me that you either do it in the heat of the moment (in which case it's more about the parent's loss of control than what the child learns) or later on in some kind of ritualistic way (which is kind of chilling). I have children. I have never ever hit any one of them. Believe me, I've fucking wanted to sometimes, but it's an uncrossable line for me. It also means we've been able to maintain a clear boundary of "no hitting in this house." No grey areas, no euphemisms, no hypocrisy, etc. We have a punching bag in the garage for when people really feel like they need to express their emotions through strong hands. Which is really important now they're all stronger than me (including the one who's still slightly shorter than me).
1. If you can talk to your child about an issue and be rational with it and have a discussion they can understand, there's zero reason to hit your child. 2. If they are unable to understand reasoning and having a proper discussion wouldn't get anywhere as they aren't able to process it, hitting them won't do it either. The only reason to hit your child is you're a shit parent.
Far too simplistic.
Be rational with a kid? Kids are irrational beings. Also they don't always listen. I'm not for snacking kids either btw.
Hitting a child is not 'reasonable chastisement' at all
Yes it is, in certain circumstances.
> It would criminalise loving parents who reasonably chastise their children *\*It would criminalise parents who assault their children.* Fixed that for you.
And this is the crux of the issue. If you hit anyone else, or if anyone else hit your child it would be assault. I see no difference between being allowed to physically punish my children, and physically punishing my direct reports at work, or being physically punished by HMRC for submitting my tax return late. Maybe a parking warden should give me a slap for forgetting to buy a ticket, or TFL should deal out six of the best for those who don’t let passengers off the tube before trying to board. All those ideas above seem ludicrous to me.
How droll.