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

[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.