The author wrote: "The capacity of a child is very different to the capacity of an adult. That's why we have laws protecting children from sexual involvement and exploitation, driving vehicles, voting, drinking alcohol, the ability to enter in to certain contracts, watching violent and sexually explicit movies etc. That's why we need to train and correct children in a way that is different to how we deal with adults."

One big difference in the capacity of a child and an adult is that the adult has more capacity to hit back. If one is going to smack someone it would be wise to choose someone with less capacity to retaliate.

However, if the child grows up and becomes a parent he or she then will have the opportunity to do the same thing.

Interesting article.

A related issue is that proposals to ban smacking are part of a trend to take power away from parents in controlling their children. This has generally had negative consequences.

The issue comes to a head when children grow into teenagers. Out-of-control teenagers know that all they have to do in a dispute with their parents is to claim physical or sexual abuse and social workers will intervene on their behalf. I know of a number of cases where "abused" teenagers were assisted by social workers to leave home and go on youth allowance. The inevitable result was dropping out of school and falling prey to drugs.

Most smacks are just tokens, where the indignity on the child far exceeds any physical pain. The advantage of a smack is a more immediate connection with the transgression than is generally possible with other forms of punishment. Where a child is guilty of a grievous offence (and I emphasise "grievous") there are rare occasions where, I believe that even the traditional "damn good thrashing" (within reason) may be in order.

I support alternatives to smacking, especially as children grow older. Paramount in good parenting, however, is the need to both set boundaries and to ensure a perception that punishments applied are fair in the circumstances.

The worst of all worlds is permissive soft love, where the child is allowed to do as it likes.

the no smacking brigade are largely responsible for creating the violence on the streets. NOrmally they are self indulgent parents who want to be their kids 'best ' friends but really are to gutless to do what needs to be done to create a harmonous society. They are the ones who cry when their kids can't say no to drugs and blame everyone else except themselves. Another massive secular failure along with the destruction of the normal family that denies the adamic nature which if left unattended ends up with the violence we witness daily even against 80 year olds. Just plain dumb.

A voice of sense and reason ...

The use of a number of disciplinary methods available to schools and parents is already vetoed many years now. You would think the banning of 'barbaric' corporal punishment at schools and the message to parents about 'gentle' methods of correction (including such ratbag ideas as never saying 'No' etc) would have resulted by now in 2 generations of young adults and children on much better footings than we crusty old boomers, beaten by parents & teachers alike for our misbehaviours.

But we don't! Instead we see so much greater incidence of youth and child crime, disrespect, lack of manners and also despair and self abuse among our young. WHY?

I'm sure some half-wit will come after me to say it's all the kids who are still being smacked!

My siblings and I got 'hidings'. This involved a doubled strip of redhide around the back of the legs. We didn't like it but I can't remember ever not deserving it. Therefore it was effective discipline up to a certain age, when other punishment had more impact. Our parents were loving, caring, insisted on good manners, honesty and so on. We kids knew right from wrong as a result and had respect for authority. Most of the ppl I knew of my generation had similar experiences. There was real abuse happening at that time also but not on the scale of today.

Continued ...

My children 34,32,29 all received forms of physical punishment in their early years if words were ignored. Not to the extent I did but enough to startle them into line. They seem well adjusted despite this 'abuse' and are doing well in life. More importantly they are honest respectful civic minded people.

Daily we read, hear or observe media reports of youth crime or social dysfunction. Then the comments fly: "Where were the parents?" "Those kids should have been home in bed! What sort of parents are they?" and so on ... Probably at least 60% of these cases the kids do have deadbeat parents who don't really give a toss but in a significant proportion there are caring parents who have lost control and are given absolutely no power or assistance to regain it.

When the mother of a 13 yr old girl attempts to restrain her CHILD from leaving the home to mix with older youths, engage in underage sexual behaviour, drinking and other substance abuse and petty crime and is advised by Police that her actions are UNLAWFUL as was her attempt to physically remove her child from the street at 1am by grabbing her and bundling her in the car - you have to ask yourself, "WHAT SORT OF A SOCIETY HAVE WE ALREADY CREATED WHERE A PARENT'S AUTHORITY & ABILITY TO PROTECT THEIR CHILD IS SO ERODED?"

Yet when said childs behaviour reaches newsworthy status (but not identity because the child must be PROTECTED) people will shake their heads and say "Where were this kids parents?"

Social Engineers have done enough damage in the past 3 decades. Leave loving sensible parents alone to get on with the job of rearing their kids - not perfectly but well enough, and instead identify the ones at risk of neglecting, harming or putting their children at risk and try to alleviate it.

Just think you can train a dog without the need to smack it at any point,a human child has far more reasoning power the a dog.
Never the less some people want to retain their right to smack their childern?

I wonder how of those same poeple are keen on the idea "no rape in marriage"?

Yes, how we do like to justify the way in which the unresolved "sins" of the fathers and mothers are quite literally beaten into the flesh of the children, generation after generation - even justifying it all by appeals to the genocidal sado-masochistic tribalistic "god" and the archaic "holy" book associated with the same "god".
This USA reference describes the cultural and political consequences of this toxic paradigm.
http://zakherys.tripod.com/greven.htm
As does this reference too - in a more comprehensive way
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/JCP98.html

It is of course no accident that this vile sado-masochistic film was very popular with "conservative" and/or right wing Christians.
http://spiritlessons.com/passionofchristpictures.htm

When this subject arises we always get the cry ‘my parents used to give me a damn good hiding and I turned out ok!’ Just who are these people trying to convince – us or themselves? How do you know you are ok? Perhaps you could be a whole lot better than you are now if you had not been given a hiding. Perhaps you are in denial about your ‘ok-ness’ and you are just trying to avoid the reality that you are not ok by trying to present yourself as evidence for the value of smacking. If you were really convinced that smacking was acceptable then you would present arguments that were not dependent on personal testimony. The argument for smacking should stand or fall on its own merits without you needing to tell us how well you have turned out.

People who come to accept they are not ok – and that should be all of us – know that it is generally because of the traumas they suffered as children. Nothing can be more traumatic than to feel that your well being is in danger at the hands of the very people who have the responsibility to care for your well-being. There is no more powerful relationship than the power of a parent over a child. If a parent cannot discipline a child without resorting to physical assault then they should not be a parent. There a hundreds of ways parents can use that power to control the behaviour of their children. This power is most evident when it is abused. There are parents who exercise crippling control every facet of their child’s life without ever laying a finger on them. Smacking is just an excuse for bad parenting.

Thanks for the information on how the NZ 'smack ban' is going and for a 'voice of reason'. I lived in NZ for 6 months and most parents I talked to didn't agree with banning smacking and ignored the law in the interests of responsible parenting.

Sure there is a huge child abuse among some sectors of society in NZ, as in Aus. But banning all smacking is no the way to stop child abuse, which has no relation to the odd disciplinary smack when all other options fail. Banning smacking can have the opposite effect - kids who grow into young adults who act like 'spoilt brats' with exaggerated sense of rights and little responsibility.

Let's see an emphasis on education and peer pressure - making heavy handed aggressive overly dominant parenting 'uncool'. This can be done by TV ads showing where parent help can be obtained, and increasing the availability of parent help groups.

Mothers who feel they are not coping with their kids' behaviors benefit from help provided by these groups as my wife did at a difficult stage in my daughter' infancy. Many parent are so isolated these days with no help from extended family so they to able to access community group help. Incidentally both my girls have turned out to be very well adjusted, loving parents, choosing to absolutely minimize smacking or even physical restraint. I doubt if one daughter has ever smacked her boys but instead goes through long and exhausting verbal sessions which I think are worse for all concerned than a light smack. Usually the threat of 'time out' is enough. Also distracting them works well with a 2-3 year old having a tantrum because they cant get what they want.

How the blind belief in punishment is passed from generation to
generation is dramatically illustrated in Willard Motley's
book, "Knock on Any Door." Upon hearing that his son Nick
was sentenced to death for murder, his father said,
"I can't understand it... I always whipped him when he did
wrong." Nick himself, in his death cell, has no better advice
for the upbringing of his newborn nephew than, "Don't let
what happened to me happen to him. Beat the hell out of him.
See that he does right."

Parents often ask, "Don't children have to be taught
responsibility and respect, if not by persuasion, then by
punishment?"

Ethical concepts such as responsibility, respect, loyalty,
honesty, charity, mercy can't be taught directly. They can
only be learned in concrete life situations from people
one respects. One grows into virtue, one can't be forced
by punishment.

Few parents believe in the efficacy of threats and punishment,
yet they resort to them daily. Out of desperation they blame
and shame, reproach and rebuke, threaten and punish. These
methods not only fail to correct; they provide the
troubled child with justification for past misbehaviour and
with an excuse for future offense.

Misbehaviour and punishment aren't opposites that cancel
each other; on the contrary, they breed and re-inforce each
other. Punishment doesn't deter misconduct. It merely makes
the offender more cautious in commiting his crime, more
adroit in concealing his traces, more skillful in escaping
detection. When a child is punished he resolves to be
more careful, not more honest and responsible.

I remember in high school one teacher gave a long sermon
on integrity to a pupil in our class. We listened and
were somewhat amused. The teacher was teaching us dishonesty
and didn't know it. One of the students was late to school
once because they overslept. The teacher said, "That's not
a good excuse." And she punished the student. We all got
the message. The next time any of us were late, we would
make up a convincing story.

"Just think you can train a dog without the need to smack it at any point,a human child has far more reasoning power the a dog."

Well actually not so Kenny. I've owned and trained dogs all my life - being reared on the land and now back on it - working dogs and pets.

Never seen a pup yet that hasn't needed restraining, a good jerk of the collar, shake, slap with the rolled up newspaper, cuff about the head, flick of a stockwhip at it's rear on occasion to indicate unacceptable behaviour. Adult dogs - trained well, rarely need such censure.

At the same time praise is lavished for compliance which teaches the dog RIGHT from WRONG. Ever seen a bitch discipline her pups Kenny? She will growl then roll them if they persist. Likewise adult dogs with silly juveniles plus more force. Even dogs KNOW what's needed to rear healthy balanced kids who know the boundaries and mind their elders.

Just occurred to me though, difference between a highly trained, highly disciplined working dog and a much more indulged and cosseted house pet. (The type often seen on animal shows with the undesirable behaviours!)

One is talented and very productive. The other, apart from their entertainment and companion value, is pretty useless. It may be worse than useless if raised without discipline and allowed to destroy, bark incessantly, disobey commands ect.

Not sure if you meant it this way Kenny but yeah - a young child and a young dog have a lot in common.

As for those who question those of us who say "We're OK and we've had corporal punishment" with "How do we know we're OK?" I'd say having lived as productive members of society, lived honestly and lawfully, maintained satisfying lifelong relationships with our parents, extended family and close friends, stayed married almost 36 years so far, reared children of whose character we are proud and now enjoy the pleasure of grandchildren ... That's a pretty good start - much of it due to the start we got as kids ...

Because of the danger of false and malicious accusations, among other things, I would want to see hard evidence of a reduction in real child abuse in jurisdictions that have criminalised smacking before bringing in any such ban here.

It is tempting for people to be judgmental when they don't have children or have only had easy children. If children are not easy and don't respond to approved forms of discipline, parents who are deterred from smacking may well turn to other forms of discipline that are even more harmful, such as emotional abuse, that are likely to fly below the radar of nosy third parties.

Other parents may simply give up on attempts to socialise their children and let society wear the costs.

Being a parent is really a profound responsibility, the most profound and challenging thing that human beings can be involved in. A responsibility that requires uncommon maturity.
And yet we blithely/naively presume that any and every fool is capable of being a good parent.
Which is to ask, is the normal dreadfully sane every-person even emotionally mature enough to be a good parent. Or have they assumed full responsibility for their own psycho-physical presence and action(s) in the world? And where do they acquire the necessary comprehensive skills to become a good parent? Skills which necessarily require a comprehensive Wisdom Culture that fully takes into account all of the various stages of psycho-physical growth/development intrinsic to the structures of the human body-mind-complex.
These intrinsic structures or stages of psycho-physical development are touched upon and described by Joseph Chilton-Pierce in his various books - beginning with Magical Child and right through to his latest books (including The Biology of Transcendence). He also describes how or "culture" systematically cripples and/or mutilates the intrinsic intelligence of the bio-physical organism. Pointing out that our entire "culture" in both its secular and so called "religious" forms is essentially a systematic assault on this intrinsic intelligence.

That having been said my favorite "Philosopher" also provided a comprehensive body of work and instructions in which He called Conscious Child Rearing. His work is introduced here:
http://www.adidaupclose.org/Children/index.html

This is a seriously flawed article from an unreliable source. Family First are hardly to be held up as intelligent or reliable commentators on any social issue given their extraordinary beliefs on a range of issues. Australia's unfortunate experience with a Family First Senator should have been a salutary lesson. It is difficult to think of a more anti-intellectual outfit inhabiting the social scene.

One example illustrates the point (although there are many). The author says that child abuse has increased by a third since the anti-smacking law was introduced. There is a major difference between correlation and causality although the author seems blind to that. Click on the link he provides and the figures for "substantiated child abuse" rose between 2008 (financial year) with 16,290 cases, to 19,596 the following year. The number of substantiated cases reached a peak of 22,027 cases in 2011 and actually declined to 21,525 for FY 2012.

For those persons purporting to see a link between a change in one aspect of the law and actual behaviour there is always a problem when the figures relied upon go into reverse. Not surpassingly the author doesn't discuss this.

Child abuse is a serious topic worthy of intelligent and informed discussion. That test doesn't apply to this article.

divine_msn I live on the land and train dogs all the time, I'm the past predident of a dog training club and have trained thousands of people on how to train their dogs.

Don't use slip collars and never smack, it's laziness that keeps the old ways of doing. In the same way you don't have to break horses anymore you don't need to beat your dog into understanding.

Childern need loving a supportive parents willing to spend time with them, not fear, not pain. Smacking is at best laziness

Some of these politicians we have now may not be telling so many lies if there parents had given them a good smack.

I am passionately opposed to physically assaulting children in the name of discipline; neither did I ever hit my own children.

However, I am even more passionately opposed to the creeping nanny state, which is simply getting out of control.

In comparison to the banning of corporal punishment in schools where there are plenty of witnesses, legislating against parents hitting their children in the privacy of their own home leaves the way open to all kinds of abuse of the law. A law of this kind makes it hard to distinguish between a calm, judicious slap intended as teaching the child a lesson that is important to the parent, and sustained beatings done to a child to relieve a parent's anger or tension.

No matter how well meaning these intended laws may seem, there is a point at which we have to start saying NO.

Kenny - who said anything about beating? A jerk, cuff, etc is as much a beating as a smack is a flogging. Chalk/cheese. One a physical 'jolt' causing no injury beyond transient stinging or fright, bringing dog or child to attention, the other sustained prolonged pain.

That's NOT the intent of parents that smack. Anything more severe is already illegal.

So, when training silly young dogs you never even jerk on a collar? Finding this hard to believe. Interested to hear/read about ur techniques. Maybe you can direct me to a website or publication? However you don't dispute the ways bitches and older dogs deal with misbehaving pups ...

In short - a smack can work wonders for youngsters who won't listen, like pups that ignore Mum's growl. It's instant attention grabber, often a circuit breaker and not lazy parenting. It generally doesn't need administering often because the child who knows you mean what you say soon learns to heed the word. Unlike dogs, children are not expendable. Occasionally you get a useless dog. If it gets injured, you don't spend thousands at the vet, it's not a good worker and no-one wants it as a companion dog, you get the rifle out. Not so with a child.

Say your 2yr old runs away from you towards danger, ignoring urgent calls to come back, you really want the lesson to sink in. Are you and others commenting here aware of developmental limits of small children? It's sort of my (old) area ... Reasoning with toddlers is a long term project. Short term the immediacy of the smack is much more likely to bring home the lesson.

I notice no-one has commented on the limits on parental authority already set by the State as per the 13yr old whose 'right' to break numerous laws was upheld by the law?

Yet her right to parental protection and parents right to try limiting childs self-harming behaviour was not? Parent wasn't a 'smacker' BTW

So Kenny, Daffy Duck, Phanto and others preferring parental authority be further neutered, what's your solution?

Divine_msn said:
As for those who question those of us who say "We're OK and we've had corporal punishment" with "How do we know we're OK?" I'd say having lived as productive members of society, lived honestly and lawfully, maintained satisfying lifelong relationships with our parents, extended family and close friends, stayed married almost 36 years so far, reared children of whose character we are proud and now enjoy the pleasure of grandchildren ... That's a pretty good start - much of it due to the start we got as kids ...

None of those things guarantee that you are ok. All those things may well be true but you may also be a serial killer in which case you are not ok.

I would say one sign of not being ok is the need to convince others that you are ok. If someone was ok then they would not need to say so. It makes no sense to say so unless you are really trying to convince yourself. We do not need to know that people are ok we just need to know their arguments in favour of smacking.

Perhaps this insecurity they have about whether or not they truly are ok has been caused by being smacked in childhood.

Anyone against disciplinary smacking an unruly or stroppy or spoilt child needs to be taken out the back & have some sense kicked into them.
runner summed it up pretty well in his first post.

All this article needed was the title. All responses including mine were predictable. I along with others find no excuse for physical punishment of a child. Others do.

My wife and I had two boys followed by a little girl. I would occasionally give the boys a smack. One day my little girl, she was about 2, ran naked into the road, and a car came to a screeching halt not far from her. The driven was shaken, and I carried Rebecca back into the house. I put her across my knee prepared to spank but found I could not lay a hand in anger on that baby bottom. I found that I could no longer lay a hand on the boys either. They are all now middle-aged with children of their own. I think they are all decent individuals and hope they have never swatted, spanked or hit their own children.

Yes, I'm not convinced that giving a child a "belting" has any long term benefit.

I recall my daughter receiving the odd smack when she was young - she never received a belting. She's 31 now and a fine woman. She's never been in trouble and regulated her behaviour, especially trough her teenage years, well.

We have an eleven year-old who doesn't receive beltings or corporal punishment either. He's a polite well-behaved boy for the most part.

How come we didn't have to resort to corporal punishment to raise two respectful individuals?

Maybe there's something else that unruly, undisciplined, disrespectful children need? Maybe hitting them is merely the lazy way of child-rearing.

I completely agree that there are other methods of discipline out there and that smacking shouldn't be the only or first method people use. I do however think that banning smacking is only really going to effect those parents that to try to do their best at raising a child or children. It will not effect those who are "belting" a child into submission. Those people will simply take it behind closed doors. Time and money would be better spent on those who are truly abusing children. Too often children are left in known abusive homes until it is to late.

Phanto...you seem to be one of the people that sees monsters everywhere and will take something and twist and analyse it until all there is a bashed little kid in all of us, I was smacked as a child, I do have issues in my life, but neither I or my philologist believe that it was because I was raised by parents that cared.

Kenny...As an owner of sheep dogs I would love to know more about your methods of training and the results as I quite often train dogs and am yet to find a method rather then rewarding good and punishing bad that works. I am however always open to learning something new.

Bec_young mum of 2
I do not see ‘monsters’ everywhere. You would not need to exaggerate if you had a good argument. I said that all of us, which includes me, are not as ok as we could be since none of us are perfect. Some of that imperfection is possibly caused by smacking. Saying that you are ok even though you were smacked is an illogical argument in favour of smacking since it is quite possible that you could be a lot better had you not been smacked.

divine_msn:
So Kenny, Daffy Duck, Phanto and others preferring parental authority be further neutered, what's your solution?

It is not easy to provide a solution to each and every situation that a parent might encounter. Each one needs to be judged on its merits. One thing that can be said for certain is that smacking is never the solution in any case.

Parents do not smack children in order to discipline them – they smack them in order to hurt them. Smacking is an act of aggression not love. It is how we define violence – physically attacking someone with the intent to harm them. You may be intending to discipline and create boundaries to their behaviour which is legitimate but you also intend to hurt them.

The example is given of the child running onto the road and into danger. The parent feels extreme fear and almost goes into shock. The parent smacks the child not in response to the child’s behaviour but in response to the extremely unpleasant feelings for the parent that have been aroused by the child’s behaviour. The parent wants to hurt the child for what it has done to the parent. The claim that the smacking is done out of love and care for the child’s welfare is a justification for an inappropriate response to the parent’s own feelings. Violence is never the answer to any problem.

Most people who argue in favour of smacking are really trying to justify their own inappropriate response to feelings they have in response to a child’s behaviour

Phanto...I have a child that has on a number of occasions ran out in front of a car, please provide me with a solution that will get the message across without smacking, please take into account I also have another child that requires restraint as he is only 22 mths.
I DO NOT smack my children with the intent to harm or cause pain.

If we are unable to put forward examples of well adjusted adults that were smacked as children what do you propose we use as examples of whether or not smacking works. If I cants use positive examples surely that means you can not use negative ones.

Goodness me phanto, I feel you are not OK.

You ask how I or anyone else knows they're OK, then when evidence is offered you refute it, though not in a logical way.

Whether someone is or isn't pretty 'OK' can usually be gauged by their interaction with their environment over a period of time. Serial killers are not the result of little kids being spanked. Psychopaths are 'hard-wired' that way. Not many become murderers but their condition makes them undesirable companions or colleagues.

Perhaps you can explain how anyone knows they are OK other than contentment with their lives and fewer regrets than happy memories about the past?

What about children who have never had a finger laid on them but been constantly verbally bullied and screamed at? What about the little sociopaths who have never been parented much in any form?

There's no doubt these things do damage but no evidence to suggest that mild physical punishment in the context of a loving balanced family setting does.

Poirot, whose daughter had a few smacks as a child and at 31 is a fine woman and 11 year old son (who probably had same but aged 11 smacking isn't appropriate anyway) whose character he is proud of provides further evidence of this. Although for some strange reason he/she thinks smacking is not corporal punishment? (Sorry Poirot - it is)

Bec_young mum of 2 - spot on! Smacking is last resort when words or other actions have failed or as a dramatic gesture when trying to bring home the gravity of a situation. Part of a toolbox - not the only or main tool. And YES about concentrating on kids who are truly abused. Too many children die or sustain permanent damage at the hands of abusive parents or step-parents, many of whom have been removed and returned -sometimes more than once.
I'm waiting for some helpful info from Kenny on dog training also. Old dogs can learn new tricks

"Another massive secular failure along with the destruction of the normal family that denies the adamic nature which if left unattended ends up with the violence we witness daily even against 80 year olds. Just plain dumb." So you say runner...

Obviously the 'normal family' needs assistance in this day and age.

My suggestion is that if smacking is so beneficial then it should not be restricted to parents.

So if I see any children misbehaving in public I will help the parents by smacking them... the children that is, not the parents. That would be assault.

divine_msn,

I realise smacking is corporal punishment (well der).

My main point was that my children have not been exposed to corporal punishment as a rule. We haven't felt the need to hit our kids to provide an environment where they thrive. A good set of boundaries does wonders.

So my daughters' "smacks" weren't anything much to write home about and that method of discipline was chucked out fairly early on because it didn't appear to achieve anything.

I'm interested in your experience of being given a hiding with a double strip of redhide around the back of the legs.

I'm more interested in the fact that you think you deserved to be assaulted like that.

My dad whipped me on the bare bum once for something or other, with the wooden end of a feather duster.

I didn't think I deserved it then - and nor do I now.

WmTrevor, I have on occasion had people verbally tell my children off for misbehaving they behave themselves for the rest of the day. I think it is good for them to be told by members of the public that their behaviour is unacceptable.
When my children are at somebody's house they must obey by that persons rules, or receive the punishment that I and that person believe is fair.

Bec,

There's a bit of difference between someone ticking your child off - and someone physically smacking them.

I'm sure you'd be mightily inflamed if someone out of the blue sought to discipline your child physically.

Which leads us to the question of the fundamental ethics of physical assault as discipline - for a species which supposedly has the verbal dexterity and creative attributes to offer an alternative.

(Btw - we do seek to inflict "pain" when we smack. That's why we do it. And that pain is supposedly dished out to act as a deterrent to behaviour we see as unacceptable)

Sorry phanto but in your world of phanto-sy you have lost sight of the forest for the trees.

I never smacked my children out of anything bar desire to curb dangerous or bad behaviour. This is probably the case for most parents who smack. Smack, not beat the child with a wire coathanger and throw it across the room. Yes - at the time I was undoubtedly angry/frustrated/stressed by whatever it was that the child did. Just as I was when employing OTHER methods of discipline - such as verbal reprimand, banished to the bedroom, being denied access to a favoured toy or pastime, missing out on a treat etc. Because I'm HUMAN and that's how we feel when our child acts stupidly or badly.

However I tried not to let my feelings boil over (because I am an ADULT and expected to control myself) so as to deliver whatever was appropriate in a calm manner. Undoubtedly there were instances I could have done better, the human factor once more but because our children were well trained and disciplined from the start, occasions where one of us needed to exercise parental wrath were not common. One thing I am fully confident of - as parents we've done 'OK'. That is if 3 adult kids, partners and grandies who are close to us and each other is evidence.

So by all means apply the airy theories to your own household phanto but leave others to follow common sense. If you want a cause to champion - try convincing authorities to remove severely abused or neglected children from their parents permanently and place them in adopted or permanent foster families. Believe me - any 'damage' caused by separation from biological parents is nothing compared to that caused by constant removal and return and ongoing trauma - physical & mental.

Rant over ... Nothing further on this subject

When my first child was very young, I remember discussing this with a friend of mine who is a paediatrician, and his advice was that while smacking should generally be avoided, there were a few circumstances where it could be effective.

Smacking should be reserved to only where toddlers' actions put them in danger. The toddler is not sufficiently mature enough to understand the danger, nor really able to understand the urgency. A smack is immediate punishment, and where infrequent, will impart upon the child that this is different.

However, once past the age of 5 there is no justification. Using this guide I never smacked my kids more than a few times in their lives, and in each case, the desired response was instant and effective.

While I understand the nanny state trying to protect a few children from abusive parents, I would rather advocate punishment for abuse and guidelines for responsible parents.

Ok I will concede that point, but will add that the main reason to smack is not to inflict pain, it is to get the child's attention...knowing that we will inflict pain as we do so. Not a lasting pain, a short burst of minor physical pain. I do not smack my child with the mentality of "You are going to hurt for that" or "You deserve to pain". But rather "Switch your ears on" and "Listen".
And yes a "person from the blue" smacking my child would make me question then, however if I thought they had a good enough reason and did it in a constructive way I would not take offence. However if they saw my child misbehaving and walked up and smacked them I would be angry for not trying to reason or ask the child to behave first.

Divine_msn said:
Goodness me phanto, I feel you are not OK.
And
Sorry phanto but in your world of phanto-sy…

You would not need to patronise me or ridicule me unless you felt threatened by my opinions.

I think one of the reasons why adults try to justify smacking is because it raises questions for them about their relationship with their parents rather than their relationship with their children. They need to convince themselves that physical assault of children can be justified because they were assaulted themselves as children and if it is not reasonable then it opens a can of worms in their relationship with their parents even if those parents are long dead. If they accept that their parents were wrong about that behaviour then what else were they wrong about that they may need to address. What other things have their parents done to them which have had detrimental effects on their adult lives?

It is often much less threatening to maintain a wrong position than it is to face the reality of the bad parenting that they received. Maintaining that wrong position often causes them to become aggressive as they seek to defend the denial they have about their own parents.

The problem is that there are victims of maintaining such denial and they are the young children for whom they are bound to care.