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

mikk I don't much like corporal punishment but the langauage you use is deliberately loaded - a smack is not a bashing etc, parents who use a smack when necessary are not violent child abusers etc.

Children are not adults, the same constraints and consequences which apply to most adults don't work with children. Adults who behave the way children do at times would be likely to face a jail term. If they respond to the police the way children sometimes respond to the adults with responsibility for them they could well find themselves on the end of a Taser/capsican spray etc to stop the dangerous behaviour.

Often there is a better way of dealing with the situation, sometimes because of the situation that better solution is not something that the parent can find in a timely manner.

There are parents who bash children, that's not what the topic is about. There are also parents who harm children with words, there are parents who do great harm by refusing to give their children understandable boundaries or consequences. They are the abusers, not those who occasionally use a smack to stop a dangerous situation when they can't find a better solution at the time.

R0bert

the problem with these sorts of laws are as follows

1 they intrude into the balance of family relationships and Laws are supposed to respect (stay away from) the different dynamics of relationships in families and concern themselves with the interaction between individuals outside of the family context.

2 they undermine the authority of the parent in the family context.

3 as Robert pointed out, there is a difference between smacking (even with a wooden spoon) and a bashing.

4 these rules will be ignored by the people they are intended to curb anyway.

My ex-wife used to use a wooden spoon... I only ever used my hand, figuring - if it felt to hard for me to bear it was probably too hard a smack.

For all that there are times when a childs behaviour warrants a smack and for remote strangers to pretend they know better than parents in those instances is to surrender to the extreme hubris of who are no more than appointed civil servants and government flunkies.

Dear Graham,

I've only ever used a smack on the bottom to
influence my children in a better direction.

I want to make it clear that I think there's a
"right" kind of spanking and a "wrong" kind.
By the wrong kind I mean a cruel and sadistic
beating.

This fills a child with hatred, and
a deep desire for revenge. This is the kind that's
administrated with a strap or stick or some other
type of parental "weapon." Or it could also
mean a humiliating slap in the face.

I remember reading about a father whaling
the tar out of his little boy, saying as he
whales him,

"That'll teach you to hit people!"
(He's right - it will!)

The right kind of spanking needs no special
paraphernalia. Just the hand of the parent
administrated on the kid's bottom. The right
kind of spanking is a positive thing. It clears
the air, and is vastly to be preferred to
moralistic and guilt-inducing parental lectures.

Both parent and child get a chance to begin again.

I admit that quite a few times my first immediate
reaction was frustration and guilt after giving
my child a smack. It bothered me that I'd blown
my cool.

There have been times when I've told my kids,
"Look, Mommy goofed. I lost my temper, and I'm
sorry I did!"

If we were 100 percent perfect parents, we would all be
so mature we would never need to spank our kids except
in unusual or extreme situations (such as when a child
runs out into the street). The point is, we're not
such 100 percent perfect parents. We're not able to
administer discipline calmly and serenely all the time.
It would be nice if we could. But life doesn't seem to
work out that way. We get fed up when our kids
misbehave and we lose our cool and swat them.

But that's nothing to feel guilty about. We feel better
and they feel better, the air is cleared. Both parent
and child get a chance to begin again.

rehctub wrote:

"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!"

Dear rehctub,

One of the problems that I see in Australia is too much respect for authority. Our government can put us into war solely on the action of the prime minister. I was circulating a petition requiring that there be open debate and discussion in Parliament with opportunity for public input before Australia goes to war if there had not been an attack upon Australia. Even those who agreed would not sign it. Some of those who objected said that the prime minister was elected to decide things like that.

I hope the lack of respect for elders is accompanied by questioning. It can be a sign that Australian democracy is becoming healthier.

Respect should only be given when respect is earned. It is not earned merely by being old. I am in my eighties, but no one owes me any respect for choosing my ancestors wisely.

Graham,

IMO the one thing that many responders miss is that their PERSONAL experience, egos etc have little to do with the purpose of the law.

The reason for the law is one of a catch-all geared to the lowest denominator.

The most constructive thing I can offer is that the Anti Nanny State Posters should spend some time in the front line at the coalface at the wrong end of society before being so adamant.
The problem that many overlook is that not everyone is as measured reasoned as they claim to be. So long as the "the right" (?) to physically discipline children remains, the ANSP would be surprised how many apparently limited parents are out there when it comes to committed, measured and rational parenting.

Given that the police get to deal with the worst of it, I'm not surprised by the odd seeming overly officious police officer in this topic.

Fortunately this 'nanny state' law is slowly changing the the attitudes. Compared to 25-60 years ago child battering as a percentage of the population has decreased and the number permanently harmed is anybodies guess.
Clearly then it is pointless on a whole community context to cite "well it never did me any harm".

Community attitudes tend to change by a top down process, there are always egotistical/recalcitrant individuals along the way that refuse to put effort into change A METHOD of correcting a child.

I'm sorry davidf. I have to absolutely disagree with you about people having too much respect for authority.

I think your example is more relevant to Howard making a decision that was within his powers, but against the populous opinion.

Students stand over, threaten, swear at, insult and disobey their teachers and there are very few tools are available to teachers to address this. In my day (and I'm only 31) if you did any of this to a teacher, your parents would back the teacher up and you would cop a punishment at school and at home. No threat of violence, just a consistent application of punishment for disrespecting people in authority.

Police are disobeyed, disrespected, assaulted, spat at, sworn at, and not just by so called "criminals". By mums pulled over for talking on their telephone, young males pulled up for inspections on their hotted up cars, the business man who is running late and gets pulled over for speeding.
I've given the odd alcohol fueled mouthful to bouncers in the past, but on the one occasion a policeman was wandering past and suggested I move on, I shut my mouth and moved on. You'd be lucky to see this attitude very often any more.

On the issue of smacking I agree with you GrahamY. To be used as a circuit breaker when there isn't time to use a gentler form of discipline. About to put a fork in a power point, about to stab their sister etc.

GrahamY,

Yep you are biased by your background and no your sister wouldn't be smarter. Because the researcher is Strauss I'm particularly confident that something will show up to explain the results. He gets so carried away with his anti-smacking zeal that he doesn't go to a lot of trouble to make studies look convincing. Do you want me to find the study and make directly responsive comments? My guess as to the confounding variable he relied upon for this one (without yet having looked at the actual study) is that more intelligent parents smack less (smacking and socioeconomic status have been correlated not actual intellect) and (I believe although it is controversial) that IQ of parents correlates with IQ of child. Less sophisticated/intelligent parents, lacking other resources, would need to rely upon smacking more heavily as a trend. Further, there is some evidence of a general trend for children with lower IQs in families having more behavioural problems. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119237089/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 Obviously more problem = more need for intervention. Knowing Strauss he would have done a conclusion that took for granted that the link was causal and press released his study. The bottom line is don't assume everything you read is gospel.

Your sister is just an outlier. Clever kids vary in how naughty they are too. Looking at her as an individual the overall pattern wouldn't be so visible.

Mikk,

You don't own your children but you are responsible for molding them into ethical and responsible people who can live in society. That is a part of caring for them. As others have pointed out noone is talking about bashing. I'm sorry to hear about your own experiences.

Foxy,

Great post. My kids are quite young and I haven't yet had the experience of hitting them inappropriately but it sounds very human and I'm sure most parents share the experience. What I found interesting was that you apologise to them at those times. It is great to demonstrate such honesty to your kids.

MJPB, I was being a little tongue in cheek. But I am interested in anything you can dig-up on the study. The United Nations forbids smacking via a convention, so one assumes that there is some other evidence suggesting it harms children apart from this study. But then, given some of the UN's positions, maybe not.

I wasn't taking Strauss too seriously, just something to throw into the conversation and see where it led.

However, at the level of personal anecdote, my sister does self-report problems from the discipline and only in recent years has she more or less reconciled with my mother. Hope mum or sis aren't reading this. It may perversely have contributed to her fierce intelligence by making her more rebellious, or perhaps it was that tendency got her into trouble in the first place.

I liken physical punishment to the pistols that police carry. They don't get used very often, but people know that when police want to give us a fine for something, there is no way of getting out of it. The more that we carry on, the worse it will get for us.

Similarly, every child will at some stage ask 'what will happen if I break this rule?' Some chidren find that they can take their parents on and win. These children's parents need smacking to create a limit, even if other parents can cope without it.

I just can not get over the fact some link a smack on the bottom with a bashing.
Look is anyone here saying its ok to bash children?
No we are not, remember that so very famous American who told our parents and grand parents how to bring us up?
Time has proven much of those ideas wrong.
Todays kids, the ones with good parents, are getting much more love and care.
The children we see screaming out in public may be the victims of bad parenting.
But some times good parents in my view must smack the bottom.
It is in my view a sign of love to care enough to do so.

Thanks Graham. It is always a lively topic of conversation.

I agree with oneundergod when he summed up my argument perfectly <"...if govt says ok hitting,
one in one hundred may thus take it too far"

We don't know how much force was used on the child in question with the wooden spoon. You could certainly do a fair bit of damage with a wooden spoon if you were angry enough. Some parents do take it too far and tip it over into child physical abuse situations.

I don't believe there should be specific laws on smacking. There should be ad campaigns explaining better ways to discipline your children, so that people will think before really doing any damage to their kids.

However, I think if we were all honest we would agree that a little tap on the backside by a flat hand for a serious breach of the rules for a child, will not leave any real lasting damage.

Graham

You write

'Yet there is also research that says that smacking a child lowers its IQ'

My daughter has just finished 4 years at one of Australia's best uni with high distinctions all the way through her courses. My son has a TEE which allows him to do medicine if he so chooses. I am sure glad they both got smacks when they needed to. The non smacking brigade really are the child abusers. In fact they are pathetic and often gutless allowing spoiled brats to dominate their lives. It is no wonder that violence has dramatically increased on our streets with the hopelessly flawed secular discipline techniques. Reason has no impact on the secularist who deny the adamic nature. They are to dumb to distinguish between discipline and child abuse not realising that they are abusing children by not applying appropriate discipline.

These nanny state laws are too dangerous to be allowed to stand.

Once you have these laws, you WILL get some jumped up egotistical public servants, using them. Those with front line experience, at the coalface, who think they know it all, using them to enforce their idea of how society should work.

You know the type. Their vast experience means they are the only ones who could possible know what was right.

It is these people, who deal with the most incompetent in our society who have lost the plot. Their huge egos lead them to believe that the world can't do with out them. In fact, they cause more trouble than they ever solve. Their experience is limited to the bottom 2% or so, thank god. Any time thay get out of this area they stuff up totally.

You know the types, want to get into everyone's business, not just those who may need help.

I have spent quite a bit of time in places where they have never even heard of social workers, let alone seen one, & get along just fine.

So thank you Examinator for showing us the danger of having these laws available for people like you to use.

Runner, you never cease to amaze me! You always manage to bring religion and all the sinful secularists into every topic on these pages.

As far as I am concerned, the punishment of children in the name of religion is nothing to crow about anyway.

Some of those nuns and brothers from the Catholic orders were some of the most vicious disciplinarians I have ever seen in schools back in the 'good old days'. It was far preferable to be dealt with by parents.

I should know, I was there!

suzeonline you write

'Some of those nuns and brothers from the Catholic orders were some of the most vicious disciplinarians I have ever seen in schools back in the 'good old days'. It was far preferable to be dealt with by parents.'

I just happen to agree with you on this one Suzi. Discipline is far more likely to turn into abuse if administered by non natural parents or others. The Catholic church and others certainly abused this at times. On the whole I doubt very much that they caused more harm than some of the non smacking brigade has produced today. Bashing old people has often been carried out by people who have never suffered any consequences for their appalling behaviour throughout childhood. Secularism constantly tells people they are the victims and excuse the most appalling actions on that basis.

You are wrong to accuse me of singly out sinful secularist. The point is that secular humanism denies the adamic nature of all humans. Punishment should never be done in the name of religion. Corrective punishment should be done to teach right from wrong something that does not happen nearly enough today

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

I for one am happy that our children have a little less respect for their elders than in that by gone era.

It might be a little harder to adults to retain absolute control over behaviour but I would be willing to wager less kids are prepared to put up with abuse, both sexual and physical, than they did back then.

We are still hearing stories about the power wielded by religious figures that forced even knowing parents to turn a blind eye when clergy were abusing their children twenty, thirty, or forty years ago.

I'm sure I cop a little more cheek from my children than my parents would have put up with me, but I'm equally as sure they would be far more willing to expose someone who might be trying to coerce them.

My 15 year old confronted a taxi driver the other day who had driven her and some other kids home at dangerous speeds and used the mobile phone. She doesn't swear (at least not in front of me) but told the driver in no uncertain terms that he had put his passengers in danger and he needed to be far more responsible with young peoples lives.

In another time she would have been berated for showing a lack of respect, or of talking back, or of being precocious, now I'm just damn proud of her because I know at that age I would have just walked away.

I'm not interested in seeing our children caned back into those times.

Thankyou Runner, this was the first time we ever agreed on anything!
You are right in saying <" Punishment should never be done in the name of religion."

I still have nightmares about being beaten by the huge ruler, locked in a broom cupboard, or whacked in the head by a duster as a young girl.

The reason for this punishment by the loving nuns?
Because I was looking out the window or maybe 'not listening'!

All this served to do for me was to be terrified of anyone dressed in religious clothing. And religion as a whole, really.
Punishment should fit the crime.

The problem a lot of parents face is that they have no-one easily available to take over when they are exhausted, frustrated or have simply run out of ideas and patience. Corporal punishment by parents is rarely 'needed' where there is someone else there to step in and take over for a time.

As many fortunate parents would attest, a spouse or other family member is a most welcome sight when one's back is to the wall. It is a very great pity that the loss of the extended family that has been accelerated by short-sighted government policy.

What is forgotten in debates about (individual) discipline problems at school is that there are youth organisations that enthuse youth, get co-operation and are successful in fostering self discipline without resorting to corporal punishment. Still, there will always be some who do not fit in for whatever reason and that is why alternative public schools are sorely needed.

Nonetheless it is ridiculous to suggest that a parent should face a court for smacking a child.

While looking at a house for sale we heard the neighbour scolding her seven or eight year old boy for being a 'mean and violent boy' for doing what siblings often do, pushing his younger sibling over on the grass. She said it over and over like a broken record - it was her way of causing the child pain. The cause of the dispute was that the elder child didn't want to share his favourite toy. A smack, though probably unfair (what kid wants to share a favourite toy on demand?), would have been preferable.

Suzieonline,

"However, I think if we were all honest we would agree that a little tap on the backside by a flat hand for a serious breach of the rules for a child, will not leave any real lasting damage."

The same can't be said for some alternatives used by some anti-smacking parents who even refrain from smacking in the two classic smacking situations ie. safety and violence. Most parents smack a young child determined to put themselves in harms way and most parents smack a child if they hurt their siblings. But not all parents do it and some of those who don't use some pretty scary disciplining techniques.

I was at a park with my kids recently and a boy misbehaved. I think he hit his brother. His father talked to him then had him sit in isolation (in public) thus damaging the bond between parent and child by excluding the child from their company. For children to model good behaviour they need a safe and strong bond with their parents. If the parent does things like that to orient the child in a different direction it invites behavioural problems. (In fact previous parental conduct like that might have contributed to the misbehaviour. The boy must have been at least 6 or 7. My 3 yo knows that hitting a sibling is unacceptable and learned long ago that such behaviour was immediately unrewarding. The 7yo probably knows that his parents consider it inappropriate but probably enjoys hitting his brother and wasn't oriented toward the parent sufficiently to care what his father thought. He may even be immature for his age due to poor parenting and focus on the here and now without regard to adverse consequences even minutes in the future.) The father then set about to verbally torment the boy (again publically). Even if this had happened privately I can't guarantee there would be no lasting damage. Doing it in a public setting would add to the psychological impact on the child due to the humiliation. Kids suffer just as much as adults from public humiliation.

When I was a child I would beg to be spanked. When I performed an act my mother disapproved of she would yammer at me. The first sentence of the yammer was almost always, "That's the worst thing you can do!" Being a child with an extensive vocabulary I would retort, "How can I attain new depths of depravity with every act?" The yammering would continue ad nauseam. I would beg her, "Please spank me and have done with it!" NO! The yammering would continue. Occasionally my depravity plumbed such depths that my father was enlisted to provide corporal punishment when he got home. He would take me into the bedroom and shut the door. Knowing that my mother was an unreasonable alcoholic, I was a generally good kid, he was not about to challenge her and he was a kind soul he would say, "Get ready to yell!" He would take off his belt, give the bedpost a good whack and I would yell. After the bedpost had been sufficiently admonished we would come out of the bedroom with me sniffling. Since I was bothered with various allergies I was almost always sniffling anyway. Later my father would say, "I'm too easy on you. I was afraid of my father." I would say, "You're a much nicer father than he was." And so it went.

A good slap or 2 on bum, legs or hands is useful and effective discipline when applied at the discretion of decent parents without interference from State or misguided 'do-gooders'.

Having reared 3 children to responsible law-abiding productive adulthood using a variety of discipline techniques (depending on the situation, age and personality of individual child) I can attest there is but one rule MUST be followed: BE CONSISTENT.

If your children are given appropriate boundaries enforced through encouragement, discouragement and example from INFANCY, chances are you won't need to exercise hand, wooden spoon or other forms of punishment too often. If your child KNOWS there will be unpleasant consequences arising from bad behaviour EVERY TIME, that is usually effective.

Discipline will be largely waste of time and energy if the parent makes threats then fails to follow through or rewards pestering, tantrum throwing etc through capitulation. Likewise punishing junior for behavior imitating that of parent.

I didn't smack my children beyond age of about 7. Works best on younger children whose attention span and ability to engage in philosophical discussion is limited. Should be administered then and there at the crime scene when words have failed. No use telling the under 4 set "Wait til I get you home", they have moved on. Older kids respond better to more sophisticated 'psychological torture' as I refer to, tongue in cheek, in discussion with my offspring - who by the way are in close contact and seem pretty fond of their 'brutal' parents.

Myself - got proper 'hidings' up to about age 12 - usually with doubled piece of leather that left good welts. Not too often as the likelihood was effective deterrent. No hard feelings then or now as I was never punished undeservedly. Rather, my childhood was one of love, caring and very happy.

These days so many parents too stupid, afraid or brainwashed (by half-wits who come up with the most absurd ideas) to effectively control their offspring. Who suffers? Everyone - especially when rude obnoxious unfettered child grows into a like adult.