Children's Society survey on smacking

[CatherineHMumsnet]

Seems to be a lot of media interest today in the story about a survey by the Children's Society which asked people to rate a variety of scenarios in terms of risk to children. Those they surveyed felt that leaving a child out to play on a summer's evening without knowing where they were was more high risk than smacking them.

Obviously every newspaper has their own spin on this, but you can read the full report here. Would be interested to know what Mumsnetters think.

Thanks for posting that - it's interesting, isn't it? but of course it's really important to remember that it's about perception of risk, no the actual risk.

Also, something to bear in mind that this report is produced by a multi-million pound company who make their money from this issue (£25+ million pounds a year in fact). I'm not saying they're lying but we should naturally be very careful not to be too surprised that their research seems to support their need for a lot of money right now.

Just had a look and they are talking about children aged 6 - 15. Before I saw the age I was going to say I would agree with being left out being more risky than smacking. Not that I think children should be smacked but thiking about my almost 3 yr old ds who has no sense of danger and would happily dance about in front of cars on the road if you let him.

Think it depends with my older ds (just about to turn 6). I do let him play out when I don't know exactly where is is but i do know roughly where he is and its not far away. we live on a quiet estate with a private shared driveway and the children play together on the driveway and go in and out of our back garden and the gardens of one or 2 other children. He knows not to wander off from the local area and I can find him very quickly if I want to. If it means not knowing at all where they are (as in not knowing in which area roughly they are playing) then I would still agree that this is more risky than smaking. Again not that I agree with smacking but if I had to choose (I do hate these things where you have to choose between unrelated issues because I would say, no to smacking AND no to letting my 6 yr old wander off without me knowing, but if I had to choose...) I would be more worried about the damage that could be done when he gets distraced by a football going accross the main road than I would worry about a smack.

I think their conclusion (p8) is very sensible and makes a lot of sense.

As in, if people broadly think that letting a secondary age child play outside in the evening, without knowing exactly where they are is more damaging to the child than smacking them, something in our perception of risk is very skewed. More likely the respondents were thinking at least in part of their own feelings about having teenagers out on the streets after 9pm.

Then again I suppose it would depend on what form the smacking would take too. So if I was to compare playing near the main road with a very occasional/one off smack then I would say leaving the child to play out is more risky. If I was to compare playing out in our estate with regular smacking/hard beating smacking/humiliation smaking (as in the phrase I used to hear when young "I'll pull your pants down and smack your bum in front of everyone" then i would opt for the smacking being more of a risk.

Things would also surely vary a bit in relation to the age of the child as I am talking about what would worry me more in relation to a 6 yr old. If you were talking about a 15 yr old then I would assume that crossing a busy road on their own is less of an issue but there may be other factors to consider at that age which are different to those relating to a 6 yr old.

Too many variables, where are they playing, how old exactly? What is meant by smack? a tap on the fingers or a beating with a belt?