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.