is smacking illegal?

[fairycakes]

dont want to start a debate about pros and cons of smacking etc, its just that someone asked me today how i feel about smacking children. my dd is no where near the age where she would be smacked but as i never read news etc i started thinking im sure smacking is illegal? or is it just that they are trying to make it illegal?
and didnt someone get arrested for smacking his child in a shopping centre not so long ago?
i am confused can anyone clear up for me!! thanks

nope its not illegal as long as you realise the difference between a smack and beating the sh*t out of a kid - which is where someone in the shopping centre got mixed up

i think you can smack a child but not hard enough to mark them, unless they have changed it again!

thanks! thats cleared things up for me! xx

Smaking is illegal in Scotland. I think we still have "reasonable" chastisement but that may have been changed to marking them (or that may be how it's interpreted). There was a recent debate about it in Parliament.