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