Scotland and the Smacking Ban

[Pumperthepumper]

Absolutely delighted to see the news yesterday. Couldn’t see a thread about it but sorry if I’ve missed one. Will the rest of the UK follow, do you think?

Tweefutom worse than hitting them? Yes, I'd say so actually. But that's a passing phase and goes quickly. People don't just hit their kids to prevent them running into the road, as we all know.

The point of criminalising it is to give children the same rights not to be assaulted as everybody else in the country has.

Sorry I mean preferable to hitting them obviously!

Dd4 ran out in the road this week to get in the road side of the car just as another car was doing a hefty speed up the road towards where she was headed. Admittedly my first instinct was to grab her arm firmly and pull her towards me and it did shock her enough to cry a lot and we cuddled on the kerb and talked about road safety. Can safely say hitting her didn't enter my mind at all!!

I think it should be illegal- an excellent idea.

There are plenty of excellent reasons not to hit your kids; however, I never understand the people who argue: "you wouldn't hit your colleague or someone in the street...".
I mean, you wouldn't make those people brush their teeth, or wear their wellies when it is raining, either, or count to 3 if they are being grumpy.

The point of criminalising it is to give children the same rights not to be assaulted as everybody else in the country has.

But your DC isn’t anyone else. Comparing your behaviour to your DC and your behaviour to an adult/colleague is ridiculous. You aren’t responsible for bring up your colleague/another adult; teaching them right from wrong. You wouldn’t remove sweets or personal possessions from a colleague, but it is often advocated as a discipline technique on here. Nor would you send them to time out.

Where will this end? Will they legislate that you have to treat your DC like you are in a professional context at all times?!

I never understand the people who argue: "you wouldn't hit your colleague or someone in the street...".
I mean, you wouldn't make those people brush their teeth, or wear their wellies when it is raining, either, or count to 3 if they are being grumpy.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

The comparison is not available. Your own child can not be compared with, or treated like, your work colleagues although I do have a few in mind for the naughty step

A PP has it right - the change is not actually to criminalise smacking i.e. it won't be written anywhere "you must not smack your child". The change is to remove a defence in law that says under certain circumstances a parent being accused of assault can use a defence of "reasonable chastisement".

So this change removes a special defence in criminal law that is specific to parents assaulting their children.

The change has the effect that children and adults have equal protection in law from assault.

That anyone can argue against that beggars belief. Children deserve LESS protection than adults. Really?! I understand the equivelant defence in England is justifiable assault. Cos we all agree sometimes an assault in justifiable, eh?

But your DC isn’t anyone else. Comparing your behaviour to your DC and your behaviour to an adult/colleague is ridiculous. You aren’t responsible for bring up your colleague/another adult; teaching them right from wrong. You wouldn’t remove sweets or personal possessions from a colleague, but it is often advocated as a discipline technique on here. Nor would you send them to time out.

But you'll still be able to do those other things. You just won't be able to hit them.

But your DC isn’t anyone else. Comparing your behaviour to your DC and your behaviour to an adult/colleague is ridiculous. You aren’t responsible for bring up your colleague/another adult; teaching them right from wrong.
But this isn't comparing behaviour, this is specifically talking about assault. And anyone who uses assault to teach right from wrong is a hypocrite imo.

Tweefutom I agree with you.

Disciplining your child is just part of parenting. The majority of us were raised on a clip round the ear/smack to the back of the legs, there's nothing wrong with this.

Emotional abuse is an awful alternative.

Disciplining your child is just part of parenting. The majority of us were raised on a clip round the ear/smack to the back of the legs, there's nothing wrong with this.

Yes there is

Emotional abuse is an awful alternative.

It's not an alternative. How about do neither.

Exactly @Cinammoncake, it is possible to discipline without using abuse.

What is it with these comparisons with adults. Both deserve respect and protection but that doesn't mean both should be treated the same way. That would be absurd.

Excellent news.

Parental discipline should be relational not fear based.

If you say your child is not fearful of you and you smack them surely you're kidding yourself and if they're not fearful of being smacked then it's not a deterrent is it?

I know many people who have successfully raised children without laying a finger on them. If you do too you've got to admit smacking isn't necessary and you do it for your own benefit (release of anger etc)

Disciplining your child is just part of parenting. The majority of us were raised on a clip round the ear/smack to the back of the legs, there's nothing wrong with this.

This is what I was referring to earlier. If you think it's ok to hit a child to discipline them, there definitely was something wrong with it.

The point about not hitting your colleagues was in response to a pp suggesting parents hit their children when they are under pressure - which isn’t applicable under any other circumstance. You don’t hit your colleagues when under pressure from work. You don’t hit your partner when you’re under financial pressure and they spend money. The under pressure argument only applies to hitting your small children, as if they’re the only people who deserve it.

And another weird argument is that if you’re not hitting them you must be emotionally abusing them. Why does there have to be any form of abuse?

I was parented without hitting OR emotional abuse. I parent my children without hitting or emotional abuse. It's not like you are obliged to mistreat your kids in order to get them to do your bidding.

It's not been the done thing to smack in Scotland for years, this just makes it official. I can count on one hand the amount of parents I know who smack, that's in 15 years of parenting in an average working/middle class area. I'm always surprised people oppose it. It seems so old fashioned to me to smack.

This is the same Scotland that fought tooth and nail to retain beating with the tawse in schools when the Govt. in London wanted to ban it (& did ban the cane in England & Wales)?

Who says leopards can't change their spots!

Well Cinnomoncake you could always drag them around all day on reins. Hold their little hands so tight you cut off the circulation. Shriek at the toddler for running away. But are those solutions any better/ kinder than a smack, for a toddler with whom you can’t reason?

I just don’t understand this argument. If a child doesn’t have the cognitive ability to understand they shouldn’t run across a road then how do you think they have the cognitive ability to understand you hitting them is linked to running across the road and is meant to deter them from doing it again, and not that you’re just hurting them.

The parents I know that have smacked their kids are the ones who seem to have difficulty in talking and explaining to their children why we do or don’t do something. They seem to expect small children to be mind readers and know how to behave and get angry when the child does something wrong.

I’m shocked that adults genuinely believe it’s ok to hit children. I doubt most would hit a cat or dog, or adult with limited capacity. There’s no need to hit anyone.

Disciplining your child is just part of parenting. The majority of us were raised on a clip round the ear/smack to the back of the legs, there's nothing wrong with this.

When I was younger I was allowed to ride in the boot of the car, so was my partner, on this basis the majority of us were raised thinking it was ok to ride in the boot of a car, I am not seeing anything wrong with this, bollocks to seat belts

I draw a distinction between beating or hitting a child very hard (eg to leave a mark), which is already illegal, and a light slap on the arm for example (which I consider very poor parenting, but I believe warrants supportive intervention rather than prosecution).

Trevor Noah has a nice little story about how his black grandmother couldn't cope with him because he bruised and his cousins didn't.

I bruise incredibly easily, I often have bruises I don't know how I cameby, or some I can work out later eg using a lap top at my dad's left bruises where I'd balanced the laptop.

It doesn'tmean I hurt any more or less thanother people.

All of those saying well you're not allowed to beat your wife, colleagues etc, I dare say the courts would be more lenient if your wife or boss was furiously kicking you with their shoes on, pulling your hair or biting you when you lashed out.

My son had a period of heading straight to violence when thwarted in any way. Kicking, biting, hair pulling etc. I was often in enough pain to cry. I never responded by kicking him or biting him back but I did give him enough of a physical demonstration of what it feels like to be hit so that he could realise how it feels.

He learned. We moved on. I had an actual scar at one point, no colleague has ever lunged at me and left a mark on my face.

This is what they were handing out outside the Scottish Parliament.