Victoria Police today warned a woman who had smacked her child with a wooden spoon http://tinyurl.com/yfvl9cf.

What makes this really interesting is that it comes in the wake of a plebiscite in New Zealand where New Zealanders agreed http://tinyurl.com/yfwyyly 87% to 12% that it was OK to smack a child. Informal polls in the newspapers suggest a similar majority would hold here. But the New Zealand pollies (of all stripes) have refused to change the laws to conform with the poll.

In Queensland a few years ago the Chief Judge in the District Court Patsy Wolfe didn't convict a woman who had used a tree branch to hit her child. Wolfe, a mother of 5, got a lot of public support.

Yet there is also research that says that smacking a child lowers its IQ http://tinyurl.com/yhqw9kv.

In my career as a child I was only smacked or caned once. My slightly younger and ever so smart sister attracted the stick all the time. I dread to think how much smarter than me she could have been.

I've smacked some of my children, but only about once in a lifetime that I can remember. So I don't have an in principle problem with it. But I do tend to think there are generally better ways of dealing with discipline problems. When I've smacked it's generally been to get a child to pay attention when there wasn't time to use gentler forms of persuasion - it's a circuit breaker. Stinging rather than hurting.

But by and large I think if you have to rely on smacking, then you've lost. Am I just reflecting my goodie two shoes childhood, or am I right. And if right, why is the public mood so heavily in favour of corporal punishment? I think I would find a wooden spoon more appropriate for mixing the cake than battering the child.

I was a bit of a goody goody too. However when I was in high school, we used to jam potatoes up the exhaust of the school busses all the time. It only worked, if the thing was running at the time, as the poor old things would not start, with the exhaust blocked.

WE thought it was great fun. The bus owners less so, as it did not do much for the life of the exhaust systems.

Then, on an interschool trip, to a town 60 miles away, four of the older kids put sugar in the petrol tanks of 2 of the 3 busses. The old things then died on the way home, after the debate, & social, so about 11.00 PM.

No mobile phones back then, so much hassle. I think I got home about 4.00 AM.

I believe it all proved quite expensive for the parents of the kids, but I do know it was painful for the kids. They each got 6 of the best, ON EACH HAND. WOW.

In the next 3 years, while I was there, no one ever again jammed a spud up the exhaust of a school bus.

I think corporal punishment punishment, even of someone else, is one hell of a deterrent, particularly for those who have not yet, but were going to be, bad

I am afraid my thoughts will not be shared by many who are much younger than me.
I think parents should have the right to smack kids.
Not as the first or only resort but yes some smacking is a must for some kids.
Younger folk will put it down to age but it never hurt me.
But not smacking kids in my care very much did.
I ran in to the Granny loves kids too much syndrome, my mum.
Long story harm done more to the kids than anyone, but shouting or threatening is wrong.
Talking and teaching boundary's is not.
I watched a man sit down with his 14 year old step son, their had been together for 8 years.
Loved one another.
He had never hit him.
The kid had hit school teachers, bashed his mum, swore at police, never been hit by anyone.
His dad?
Left the home forever , sat in tens of meetings just looking for an answer ,to help that boy.
Mum? to afraid her son would hit her never went to one meeting.
A great deal is wrong with the way some bring up children, smacking may not have fixed this.
But has it hurt anyone? not the outstanding floggings that once happened but this wooden spoon?
Hardly torture.
We must confront out siders making unfair rules for us and our real treasures our kids.

why is the public mood so heavily in favour of corporal punishment?

I think there is a definite link between the removal of the cane from schools and the current lack of respect shown by the majority of our youth and young adults.

'Respect your elders' is a phrase from a by gone era I am afraid!

I smacked my children, however it was my wife who did most of the discipling as most incidents occurred while I was at work and I saw little benefit in smaking a child well after the event.

In any case both my children, now 20 and 18 have turned out to be fine young adults. They have respect for their elders and their employers.

I say, bring back the cane to schools and you will see a reverse however it will take quite some time as the majority of young parents today have been born into a 'cane free' environment.

My final years at school coincided with the final years of corporal punishment in schools. A number of my friends had a competition to see how many times they could get caned. The record was 30 in one day. (from 3 different teachers and the headmaster). It sort of became inevitable that they would reassess their use of the cane after that. Either they had to escalate the violence to a level that actually deterred us or they had to give up. Since it would have been difficult to up the pain (electric shocks maybe, give teachers tasers LOL, a good kicking, the cat o nine tails?) they decided to find other ways to deal with disruptive and disobedient children.

I was hit as a child and I can tell you it did me no good, driving a wedge between me and people I thought were supposed to love me. I was far from perfect but the violence just made me resentful, uncaring and secretive. The thing was I was just a kid, my parents were adults and supposed to know better.

If you hit anyone you are guilty of assault and rightly so. Doubly so if you hit someone weaker and defenseless. You dont "own" your children. They are not your servants or slaves to be moulded and shaped anyway you wish. They are tiny human beings dependent on you to care for and protect them. How could you even contemplate bashing them? Do you want your kids to fear you? It is no wonder other countries see us as backward yokels 50 years behind the rest of the world.

Hands off the kiddies you violent child abusers.

i think its a slippery slope

if govt says ok hitting
one in one hundred may thus take it too far

that being said you dont own your kids...legally when we register a thing...we get use of the thing...but dont own it...we dont have any alternate choice but registration...

and by virtue of the act of registration...to wit signing info true...swearing it true..under the act...we and the child become subject to...UNDER the act

most of us speed with no affect...but the law is to protect...from that one percent...who take licence too far

any case involving assult...can result in injury

chastisment of kids gets emotionally..complicated..as most /..is done in anger...more for the ego of the hitter...that for the good of the one hit/assulted by those claiming to hit for love...it sets up possability of future disfunction

ie...im fine...i was hit...and thus can hit others and they too will be fine...what of one punch can kill...

what dammage is done by that one in 100...demeans the 99 who do the same thing...but with more skill...ss--s-kill