Smacking Laws

[ailbhe]

So, the should you be allowed to smack your child law thing has come up again.

I think that this would be a good law. I think that outlawing smacking would make it much easier to police abuse.

I wrote here that:

One reason that the state is imposing so many Good Behaviour laws - like the drinking in the street laws that have recently come into effect all over Reading - is because the population is generally irresponsible and unwilling to become responsible. Most of the adult population I have encountered in this country need a nanny. afpers and their ilk are a minority. Many adults think that TV and PC are a new spelling for Babysitter and Education. People will sue because it rained on their wedding day and the Met Office got the long-term forecast wrong ("It was supposed to be mostly dry in August!").

How should the govt, whose only authority stems from the ability to arrest and detain, make the "adult" population more willing to accept responsibility? It's the only way I can see to avoid the necessity for nanny laws.

I do believe that a no-smacking law would reduce the severity of abuse many children have to experience before it becomes possible to do something about it through the official channels. I also believe that most instances of smacking are not abusive. I think that making it necessary for parents to find a different way of last-resort disciplining their children is less damaging than allowing ordinary abuse (parents who hit their children too much or too hard) and/or the other problem I have seen - parents who believe that ordinary smacking is enough to discipline a child, because look, when I hit her, she stops doing it! (I have seen parents who do this consistently and don't actually succeed in teaching their children anything at all except "stop when they hit you").

It would be lovely if Free NHS Parenting Classes were offered to everyone who got pregnant, along with regular support group meetings until your last child has left home (so about age 26 nowadays), but I can't see people agreeing to pay for this. People already complain about the high costs in this country. I suppose they do that everywhere; certainly they do it in Ireland now, and they used to even five years ago, when living in rural Ireland was cheaper than living in London.

I should use another rant for "you have an NHS! Have you any idea what it's like to live in a country that has no NHS?!" so I'll stop now.

Comments

[aegidian]

Who would police the no-smacking law?
What standard of evidence would be required?
What would be the penalty for smacking a child?

It's a swine to police, I'm in favour of the concept, but the law would be hell for almost everyone involved. I'd rather the effort involved was put into making the system that's supposed to protect children from abuse work more effectively - it's chronically under-resourced and in a state of perpetual near-collapse as it is.

Free NHS parenting classes, at least in the form of ante-natal classes are offered, and there are vountary organisatins that offer these as well. But few of the paents that could most benefit from them will take them up voluntarily.

What would help most would be the Government recognising that parenting is a valuable full-time occupation (indeed for those that choose to pursue it, it's a vocation), and to treat it as such; offering support and education rather than cajoling parents into 'returning to work' and penalising them if they instead choose to stay and bring up their child properly instead.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

It's not just the Gubmint trying to encourage parents into work, either. There's an attitude of "but you're educated, why aren't you working?" that comes out among all sorts of people when I mention spending at least the next five years at home looking after smallclanger. Pointing out that we don't need two incomes, and that I'd sooner care for and start to educate my own child rather than go back to a crappy ill-paid job doesn't go down well. I have a degree therefore I should be working. Hmmm.

And yes, ante-natal classes and parenting classes are most often taken up by those who are capable of reading around the subject by themselves and reaching educated conclusions, whereas some of the people who really need the support/education don't go near them, either out of cockiness or fear (who can say which?).

Personally I'd sooner outlaw calling a child "you f**king little bastard" than smacking, mainly because I see far too much of the former and it winds me up something chronic. The smack that (often) follows it is probably less damaging in the long run than the cumulative effect of all that mental abuse. (I live in a pretty crappy area - the only good argument I can see for going back to work is that we might be able to afford to live somewhere where parents don't seem to resent their children quite so much.)

[ailbhe]

"You're too intelligent to stay at home" - yes, I'm going to have to fight this myself soon, with any luck.

I don't believe that smacking is necessarily abusive; I just think that doing away with the grey area of "reasonable discipline" or whatever it's called would make it much easier to police the whole area of physical abuse.

It is already a crime to use obscene language in a public place; it's just that no-one would dream of convicting on that alone these days. I think that might be because law is set by precedent, or something, but I could be talking nonsense.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I suppose if the changed attitude on smacking results in fewer of the swearing/smacking incidents, I would be happier, but I can't see that happening. It is just not "the British way" to intervene, even when you see a law being broken or a child being abused, and although it should be, it's going to be very hard to effect any kind of change in that attitude. (Also, some of these parents I'm talking about would have no problem with turning around and beating the hell out of anyone who intervened, or the police who turned up to try to enforce the law, or Social Services' staff...)

I think I'm probably pro mild smacking (the slapped hand to enforce a "no" or "danger" message), but I'm not sure that legislation is the way to stop more serious abuse happening (it's illegal to beat your children to death but how often does that still happen?), and it may open the way for some very daft court cases that waste everyone's time and money for no good reason, while doing little about more seriously endangered children out there.

[ailbhe]

I think that a law as clear-cut as that would allow for a greater amount of good old-fashioned community policing. And I don't think it would encourage any more spiteful reporting-the-innocent than already goes on, honestly. The standard of evidence required would presumably be similar to what is now required. It's just the level of behaviour that is tolerated that would change, I think.

I don't know what the penalties would be, but I think that we should look long and hard at Sweden.

Actually, the UK could learn a lot from Sweden in lots of ways, starting with "how to treat a public toilet" and moving on to "how to maintain a tidy street".

[nitoda]

On the whole I am in sympathy, but I have to admit I will never forget when my kids were little and we used to holiday in Sweden ... the number of times I saw parents using *subtle* infliction of pain on a child where a common or garden British style smack would have been less abusive! Gripping and pinching the child's ear seemed to be very popular ... of course, that may also be illegal in Sweden, but it was certainly going on at the time. I think the whole attitude of people towards younger people is what needs to change. When parents stop treating children like their personal possessions we might have some chance of having every child a loved and respected child. Parental abuse is rife in our society, from the gross physical form to the most subtle mental forms such as pressure to conform to familial norms etc. I found it difficult, though not impossible, to raise my kids as autonomous, thinking, choosing individuals from the very beginning. My mother in law (who lived with us and witnessed it daily) thought I was quite mad.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I see this as a human rights issue, which for me means that this is an area where the law needs to be brought into line with principle, even if policing is going to be difficult or impossible. Laws against marital rape, laws against sexual abuse of children, laws against unequal pay for women, laws against torture, laws against war crimes - they're all difficult to police, but I think they're all worth having.

[artela.livejournal.com]

being not too unlikely hyothetical situation

very small child
plug + metal pointy thing [or] very hot object
intention to experiment/explore

Do you
a) yell at small child who possibly won't understand what is wrong or
b) smack hand to prevent harm occuring

Under the new proposed legislation b would be illegal

[ailbhe]

When it has happened in my presence, I've (c) lifted child up and carried it away from electrical appliance. I have also (d) pushed / knocked child out of the way of extraordinarily sharp oncoming blade.

The major advantage of the law would be the elimination of the grey area, IMO.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

hmmm...

(c) this has no effect other than to remove the child from the immediate area, and does not stop the desire of the child from doing it again with the next plug - when you're not looking - BTDT "The plug _bit_ me"

d) ah, shoving the child, knocking it down/over/away, or using physical force of some description to stop the child from harming itself. You realise that if you push the child and it falls and hurts itself, that's also classed as abuse under the current legislation, except that with the "reasonable use" stuff that you don't like, you would have an acceptable defence to the charges.

The world is NOT black and white, it is all shades of grey and no amount of PC legislation will make the world black and white.

I'm sure that all who know me well have heard/read my rants on this subject before, so I won't subject you all to them again.

[ailbhe]

I'm not sure that physical prevention which may or may not lead to injury can be classed as the same as discipline, honestly. I'd need to look into the existing laws to find out; ISTR from reading about First Aid that they are covered by seperate laws. But yes, I regret having struck that child. However, I also blame its parents for allowing it to run free in a restaurant kitchen in high tourist season at lunchtime.

I understand that it seems like an oversimplification - by removing the grey area in legislation, the grey area in practice should get bigger. The bit I don't understand is that it seems to work. Swedish children are generally well behaved in public places, at least (and they don't get strapped into pushchairs and fed crisps the way they do hereabouts, which infuriates me), and have a lower child injury and death rate than British children. It's all there on the WHO site.

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

You have to be careful quoting statistics like this out of context. I suspect there is no evidence whatsoever that the lower child injury rate is directly due to a ban on smacking, or any other law - it's probably just as closely correlated with the number of TVs or cars per family.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

C) Use plug guards in all plugs that aren't currently in use, even ones that are high enough that the child can't reach them even when standing on a chair. Use a stove guard to prevent children pulling pots off the stove top and make it harder for them to reach elements. If necessary use a gate to keep children out of the kitchen while parents are cooking.

Prevention counts for an awful lot here. I know some kids are going to get into stuff no matter what, but there's no need for it to be easy for them to do so.

[liadnan]

But it wouldn't eliminate the grey area. It would move the grey area from the current situation where the grey area is recognised and broadly defined in law to one where the grey area depended entirely on the discretion of the CPS officer in charge. And frankly I'm not keen on that, though there are plenty of areas where this is true anyway (in most areas the CPS have a discretion whether or not to prosecute, and of course the tribunal generally have a discretion on sentence). Life is full of grey areas, I think it's right that the law should recognise that explicitly, rather than pretend the grey areas aren't there formally but informally, out of public view, acknowledge that they are.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I successfully taught all of my children not to touch hot things or stick their fingers in plugs by using the word "no", which they all understood before they could crawl, combined with physically removing them from the object in question. If they have developed enough to learn to associate a slap with an object, they have developed enough to learn to associate the combination of "no" and removal.

I have smacked them for other reasons, most recently about three years ago, and I am ashamed of it and will never do it again. I don't think any adult misbehaviour justifies non-consensual corporal punishment, and I don't see why children's rights should be any less.

I will add, incidentally, that in my experience of occasions when I did smack my children, it was less effective than a calm verbal intervention, because it was more distressing and the distress got in the way of the lesson.

smacking as "discipline"

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't have children, but i have basically reared my two younger siblings for years because my mother was out of it, i've taken care of a friend's toddler and infant for a year and a half, and i've trained lots of animals, including stray and abused ones.

i have yet to have smacked any of them. training can be done without punishment altogether, if one is smart enough to learn how. humans are damn well smart enough.

there are three main things i do: prevention, danger training, and praise. prevention means to make really deadly dangerous things around the house inaccessible to the really young and not-yet-very smart ones -- put things out of the way, lock them up, use guards, and when out and about in dangerous places, use leashes, harnesses, enclosures. i have no problem with young kids on leashes; i think it's a bigger issue for dogs, but dogs grow up much faster. :)

danger training basically means to introduce a word or sound that means "do not do this or you will hurt yourself". "no" is a fine word for it; short and sharp and attention-getting. i use it right from the start, especially immediately before i see the child/animal is about to hurt zirself a little on something. that associates the word in no time flat, really. and of course it can be extended to cover other situations, where danger is less the issue, but destruction of something is, or other things that are undesirable (i try to keep that category small though; i am not bigtime into forbidding things just because i wouldn't do them, and i give creatures on leashes a lot of leeway as to where they want to walk, instead of just dragging them along with me).

i also like age-appropriate analogous demonstrations for kids -- seeing what a car does even when it drives only very slowly over a previously beautiful orange makes an impression.

along with that goes loads of praise for everything they do right.

and by the time kids are smarter than animals they can be reasoned with. the best animal trainers i know, the ones who get really superb results and sometimes astounding performances from animals, tend to be those who don't punish. that ought to tell parents something about their young children.

*whew*, this got long. what can i say; as a formerly abused human i have a very clear opinion on the subject.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

As someone who's done a fair amount of child abuse research, I think it's an interesting suggestion. The vast majority of spanking is not abusive, of course, but most abuse arises from attempts to discipline that spiral out of control - the parent starts out with something not grossly inappropriate, but then things escalate.

So setting a "stop point" at the initiation of physical punishment might help prevent escalation from innocuous smacks to more serious ones. Currently, in most jurisdictions in the U.S., the "stop point" at which discipline becomes abuse involves tissue damage (bruises, etc.) or serious risk of damage (you can't push your child down the stairs, even if by some lucky accident they're not hurt). I think that's a much harder line for an angry, stressed-out parent to gauge.

Of course, there's never been any indication from parenting research that spanking is more effective than other kinds of discipline - and there's been some research to show that it's less effective. But 85% of young American adults have been spanked anyway. Do you think the percentage is similar in the UK?

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I spoke to my GP (in .au) about my fears of hurting children (shortly after my first was born) due to my temper and remembering the violence I was exposed to when a child. The very good advice was "smack _before_ you lose your temper, and as soon as you feel your temper slipping, send the child to another room." I still follow that advice.

Nobody is going to do any serious research, let alone publish it, that shows that reasonable use of physical discipline (smacking) is more effective than other kinds of discipline. Bceause to do so would immediately label the researcher)s) as advocating child abuse.

Re:

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Nobody is going to do any serious research, let alone publish it, that shows that reasonable use of physical discipline (smacking) is more effective than other kinds of discipline. Bceause to do so would immediately label the researcher)s) as advocating child abuse.

I think you must not be very familiar with the research literature on child abuse.