I am in two minds about smacking.
While I very rarely smacked my daughter (twice, once after she tried to run on the road, and then when she ran away from me at a shopping centre), myself and my 3 siblings were smacked a bit more often as kids.

Like Severin's relatives, they all turned out reasonably well balanced, exuberant people too.
So, being smacked, occasionally and only when an extreme situation occurs, does not preclude most people from turning into reasonable members of society.

Where the smacking debate comes undone is when some people take smacking too far and it tips over into abuse.
Many victims of this kind of child abuse do suffer greatly and don't always turn out so well balanced later in life.

So I think that if we can legislate against smacking anyone- child or adult, we can perhaps save even a few people from a life of mental health issues.

. suzeonline said; So I think that if we can legislate against smacking anyone- child or adult, we can perhaps save even a few people from a life of mental health issues.

I agree with the principal and follow that logic in my decision to oppose capital punishment (if only one innocent dies in a billion, it's too much to pay) But in regard to smacking and the psychological ramifications, I address it with the same logic that makes me believe that children need exposure to dirt and dust and the outside world to build up their immune responses. The irregular little smack is placated by love and close family ties and is beneficial in setting a boundary to the child’s action, especially in the first five years. Past this point if corporal punishment and reason has not set the boundary then it is time to stop, and employ reason and reward, and then hope for the best.

What works with one child may not work for another. Smacking as a form of discipline should be the exception rather than the rule, used only when absolutely necessary. There are usually better options but not always. I was smacked but very rarely as a child but the threat was always there if you overstepped so we never did as a rule.

I do remember a teacher smacking my palm with a ruler when I got a maths question wrong, and the feeling of injustice and humiliation has never left me, especially as I was a good student and well behaved. When my parents smacked me on the rare occasion, it was usually for a good reason and I accepted this was the consequence of my own behaviour.

Children are instinctive about intent and can easily distinguish between abuse and discipline. But I agree with SM on this, that we cannot assume a one size fits all approach.

Posted by pelican, Saturday, 8 May 2010 2:31:52 PM
I do remember a teacher smacking my palm with a ruler when I got a maths question wrong, and the feeling of injustice and humiliation has never left me.

My all boys’ school caned convincingly, and I never gave it a second thought after the pain abated. What I am qualifying is that your persona would carry any other trivial event as emotional baggage due to your perception and reaction to adversity. The neighbour yelling at you, a slap from a school friend, etc are all a shattering experience for your persona. You cannot control that, that is who you are. My persona needed threats and retribution to help me make good value judgments by giving me boundaries. I needed a smack, you did not.

runner wrote: "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Actually it is not an injunction justifying brutality. It clearly means that children generated by artificial insemination may not turn out as well as those conceived in the time-honored way.

Posted by pelican, Saturday, 8 May 2010 2:31:52 PM
I do remember a teacher smacking my palm with a ruler when I got a maths question wrong, and the feeling of injustice and humiliation has never left me.

Pelican in my previous reply to your above comment I trivialized your
smacking event, it sounded patronizing, but clear differential was more my intent. I did not read your words with clarity, as I themed my comment around the physical event and not the memory of the injustice and humiliation.
Anyhow what brought about this clarity was the second reading of your words, and a personal memory of injustice and humiliation was retrieved from my vault. When I was ten a shopkeeper accused a mate and I of theft. My father by a million to one chance walked into the shop at that moment. Immediately grasping the situation he started smacking me on the behind as I ran around and around trying to break away from his grasp. Immediately after the whacking the shopkeeper found what he said we had stole. This event was unjust and humiliating, but for me not for the physical aspects, but because I was innocent. It seems I carry trivial emotional baggage that I did not know I owned.