Should parents be allowed to SMACK their child?........ Debate on ITV ........ THIS MORNING

[RTKangaMummy]

Smacking

When John Saunders' son began playing up during a shopping trip, he told the boy to behave himself. But the little boy who had rammed a trolley into his older sister, took no notice so his father gave him a slap on the legs. But only four days later John answered a knock at his front door and was confronted by two police officers. John, discovered he was under investigation for assault after a fellow shopper reported him. John joins us today, along with Denise Robertson and Carolyne Willow from the Children's Rights Alliance who believes that there should be a total ban on smacking.

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But most people who were bullied badly as children know and acknowledge that they have suffered psychological scars. That's the point.

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I understood your point. Mine was that when someone says "smacking did me no harm" it does have validity even though you may not agree with it. Far fewer people would say "bullying did me no harm"!! I was both smacked and bullied and would personally that both did me a great deal of harm, for different reasons. I don't smack my children and I hate bullying. But I think it wold be unfair to say that all those who feel smacking didn't damage them are either in denial or just wrong.

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And don't forget, just because someone say's it didn't do them any harm doesn't mean it didn't. The individual is usually the last person to ask - ask the people around them first to get a better picture. And people often lie to make themselves look better in peoples eyes. There's can be a vast difference between what people think or say they do and what they actually do.

And if the evidence someone gives about their own experience doesn't fit your agenda, you can also just conclude that they are deluded or lying!!!!

So what I mean is I don't think is has any validity as an excuse or explanation. It can be negated by someone standing next to them and saying, well I was smacked and it bloody well did to me harm. Both offer no real definitive evidence. Only stats can do that, not anecdotes.

Unfortunately stats have serious limitations when it comes to a moral and subjective issue such as this. Peopl's anecdotal and empirical evidence has to count for something on both sides of the debate, messy and complicated though it may be

Only if you want to shore up your own prejudices and not if you want to get at the truth. Thank god for the social sciences, eh?

Unfortunately for most extremists on both sides, "the truth" tends to be whatever preconceived notion they are already devoted to, and any evidence whoch doesn't fit it is thrown out on a technicality. And yes, thank god for the "social sciences", or humanities, or whatever you wnat to call the dedicated stidy of human behaviour. I believe there is a place for it. And I don't think I have very firm prejudices, certainly not on this issue. I don't smack my children but I don't like to see people on either side putting their fingers in their ears and yelling "I'm right!"

my typing gets worse when I am being fervent

Peoples stories do matter, when you're looking at individual cases. But youre not going to identify trends by doing that. Stats are vital in this area, calling attention to things that need attention and so on. Just going on anecode to build social policy would be subject to massive distortion and the consequences for society would be devastating.

Well the extremists can f'off an have their own debate! They don't have a right to contribute if they have nothing to add to the debate surely. Not in our house (I should know )

Very rational in our house, it is (3 weeks out of 4)

Anecdotal evidence is never the only tool used in identifying broader trends... but neither is it irrelevant. All the available evidence should be deployed as accurately as possible; stats, propaganda, campaign material on both sides, anecdotal evidence, everything. And in this case the stats clearly indicate that the vast majority do smack their kids and don't want a ban. Whereas, interestingly, much of the anecdotal evidence suggests that smacking can do considerable harm adn that smacked children tend to go on to smack as parents. Tub-thumping, intolerant bigotry just inflames the debate and confuses people.

Not you personally MT... but there are some genuine bona fide foaming-at-the-mouth extremists knocking about on here!!!

Dear friends, I have read this thread with intrigue and will definitely be showing it to my partner who is of the opinion that because he was smacked and believes himself to be a thoroughly well rounded individual (not saying he's not) that it's okay to use smacking as punishment. I am opposed because I don't think it's productive when temper and high emotion accompany it which I think is nearly always butI wonder what I will do when my daughter (currently 3 months) begins to test my patience??

I think the stats indicate that parents dislike being told what they should do and are afraid of being criminalised, not because they want to go on beating their kids..I think this is largely down to the hysteria about it in the tabloids and the loaded, slanted reports on the news which always start with, "If the government gets its way it may be illegal for parents to..blah blah" - too much editorial, not enough plain news for me.

In a previous post about Canada it was stated that hand/bum smacking was okay but anything harder (I seem to remember something about raising a hand above your head or shoulders) and smacking with an implement was made illegal. I can't imagine why people, if just stopped and thought about it, would think this wasn't perfectly reasonable.

We all need to stop swallowing the tabloid drivel about a 'nanny state' and getting annoyed at being 'told what to do' (we're told what to do every bloody day of our lives, FGS and there are far more things we should be up in arms about that the tabloids choose not us - bamboozelling us with this tosh) and realise this is to send a message out to those who either don't know any better or those who do and still do it anyway.

Stats tally with the fact that children who are smacked grow up to smack (that's why it's generally accepted as a fact)

Bimble, I'd imagine we all wonder and the majority of us try to do our best..But what's to say your partner wouldn't be a great guy if he hadn't been smacked either? It's hardly definitive proof, is what I'm saying. And there are so many other techniques to learn about discipline - maybe smaking is the lazy option?

I agree with quite a lot of what you say MT. But I don't think the law is there to "send a message". A new law, in my view, should only be passed if it is called for by existing convention or by a desire for change from the majority. If the majority don't want smacking banned, then those who do have a lot of work to do changing their minds, the long way round, legitimately. You can't just use the law as a bulldozer, even if you believe you have right on your side.

Bimble, force him to watch Little Angels, Supernanny etc. and to read a couple of positive parenting books.

Then he can decide on the basis of more information than he has already.

One of the major problems with the smacking lobby, is that a lot of people smack not because they have chosen to employ it as one of a range of discipline techniques, but because they are unaware of any others. And often of course (though by no means always) it's not used as a discipline technique at all, it's just an uncontrolled expression of frustration. The latter situation is where I'd be against it, the former I'm neutral on and don't think the government should be involved in.

...what about making up monsters that will 'come and get you' if you don't do as your told. I seem to remember my mother telling me that there was a creature that lived in the u-bend of the toilet that would would suck me into the loo if I left a mess, didn't wash my hands or used to much toilet paper. Cheers ma!!

Oh...I HATE all that sort of thing. It's demented dinosaur claptrap. MIL told my DS1 (3) that the kitchen cupboards would bite his hands off if he tried to open the doors!!! We told him that Grandma is getting a bit old and has some "funny ideas".. and then listened as he went back in to the kitchen to report it to her. Serves her right. It's cat and mouse all the time trying to limit the damage people like that can do to your children without precipitating a family feud!! If MIL or anyone else ever SMACKED my child I would call the police, though. It is different.