Smacking Ban – Protecting Kids or Criminalizing Parents? What Do You Think?

[Scoobychick]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to start a discussion about the smacking ban and whether it’s truly helping children—or just making parenting even harder.

I completely support protecting children from harm, but I believe this law is misguided and potentially damaging to families. Instead of tackling real abuse and neglect, the government has criminalized responsible parents who use occasional smacking as discipline.

🔹 Are we focusing on the wrong problem?
🔹 Should the government be prioritizing real child protection failures instead?
🔹 Does this law take away too much parental authority?

Many parents already struggle to set boundaries, especially with the growing influence of social media and peer pressure. Now, with this law, some fear that even light discipline could lead to social services intervention. Meanwhile, children in truly abusive situations continue to fall through the cracks because agencies are overwhelmed or ineffective.

💬 What do you think? Share your thoughts below!
📊 Vote in the poll too! 👇

I have an extremely willful, extremely strong, autistic pre schooler who frequently engages in dangerous behaviours. I cannot reason with him due to his global development delay. Nor do I "plead" with him. And yet I am able to manage these situations and keep him safe without resorting to hitting him. If you think smacking is OK then have the courage of your convictions and don't pretend it's something you have to do. It's a choice you're making and you have plenty of other options available to you. It's lazy parenting.

And please do provide a source for this data that supports smacking in young children. I'm going to go out on a limb and call that out as obvious bullshit, since it would be entirely unethical to conduct a study on hitting children and the outcome of that. And ethics aside, how would such an outcome be measured? You'd have to look at behaviours of those children into adulthood and as they become parents themselves. You're talking pure nonsense.

@Fargo79 It's somewhere on pubmed. It was a randomised study. I can't be arsed to find it again. DH is a physician and we did look at the literature together but it was a long time ago when DS1 was little.

Of course it wouldn't be acceptable to smack an autistic child who has no idea what's happening or why.

We did in very specific circumstances. I don't think it was remotely abusive. I hear LOTS of emotional abusive and manipulation of small kids now but that seems to be fine with most people. Pleading and asking them why they won't just behave. Or bribing endlessly and then shaming them isn't something I'd have done.

When DS2 was a toddler he wouldn't stop kicking the back of a woman's seat on a flight. DH tried distracting him. He held onto his legs but ultimately he simply wanted to kick the seat and restraining him was more likely to injure him. He would have thrashed around for ages and it wouldn't have been miserable for everyone. DH told him if he didn't stop he'd smack his bottom and lo and behold he stopped. Should we have tortured a plane of people instead? It only ever happened a handful of times and never as a first option.

Of course it wouldn't be acceptable to smack an autistic child who has no idea what's happening or why.
You are making some big assumptions about children here, whether they are autistic or not.
Hitting is wrong.
Emotional abuse is also wrong.

Oh, and if you wang on about there being studies that support the idea that hitting children is beneficial, I do think it's worth having a little look for them.

I could have written this post myself, down to being in my 50s and it still affecting me. 100% agree.

Oh I read something, somewhere. Definitely believable.

I think it should be the same law for adults and children.

Which means that there are circumstances where it would be legal - generally around protection of someone / self defence / proportionate force

So if an adult smacked/hurt a child dragging them off another child that could be ok

It should be extremely rare

Wouldn't a threat to, say, take away a favourite toy or cancel a promised treat have been equally effective? We usually found that to be the case with our three at this age.

Of course it should be banned. It’s assault, which when used against an adult is criminal.

You think that punishing kids for watching Andrew Tate by hitting them will be productive?

Behaviour modification through pain is what it is.

If a parent chooses that then that's up to them (in england, at the moment) but they should at least have the balls to face it.

You get the result you want by either hitting your child or using the threat of hitting which they remember from previous times the parent hit them.

Stopping the behaviour because they don't want to be hurt again is what it is. If a parent who chooses slapping as discipline has to pretend that they aren't causing their child momentary pain in order to get the result they want then they must feel on some level its wrong.

At least have the guts to be honest.

Yes, slapping my child's legs or hand or other body part of choice results in them feeling a stinging pain for a while. I then use the threat of further pain to control them in future and enforce that with further slapping as required.

The kid isn't being lightly tickled by a feather ffs. They are getting slapped. It stings. Is it agony? No. Is it as bad as getting 6 lashes of the belt like my dad did? Of course not. It's nowhere close. But it does hurt.

It works because it hurts. No kid has ever though oh gosh, daddy said if I don't behave he's going to gently stroke across my leg in a completely painless fashion that I won't remember or anything. Best do as he says.

If a parent chooses to use hitting as discipline they shouldnt bullshit about it to make themselves feel better. They're choosing it. They have decided it's best. They should face the truth of it. Pain=obedience.

"can't be arsed to find it". Well colour me shocked 🙄

My child isn't a potato. Autistic children don't have "no idea what's happening". All the things that make smacking wrong for autistic children apply to every child. I promise, you have all the same tools in your arsenal as I do and likely many, many more. You just choose not to use them in favour of the lazy option of inflicting pain to modify behaviour. If you think that's OK and a legitimate parenting choice then own it. Don't make excuses for yourself.

Kicking the back of someone's seat on a plane is very standard toddler behaviour and the vast majority of parents are able to deal with it without resorting to threats of violence. Again, you are overlooking a whole world of parenting skills and just considering two options: A. Smack/threaten to smack or B. Do nothing.

Hyperbole- no it won’t.

wales and Scotland have already banned smacking and there was no flood of cases.

england you will cope.