Ban on corporal punishment towards children

I was a cheeky child and got quite a few clips round the ear from my mother. I was more scared of my father, who would grab me and shake me really hard. I couldn't get away and I never trusted him.
What about banning shaking?

knspol

I actually thought it was already banned in the UK. Agree that children should not be smacked but the people who abuse children aren't going to stop because of a smacking ban and the rest of us would probably never smack anyway.

I thought that too, but evidently not. Certainly it was banned in schools by the end of the last century.

Romola, I’m sorry you were subjected to frightening and abusive behaviour. Your point about shaking is a good one. Shaking an infant can kill the child.
Shaking may not leave marks yet is in the same league as beating imo
Any police/social work investigation would identify it as abuse

Why would it be ok to hit the most vulnerable people around us? Barbaric. It should be illegal. As should other kinds of physical (or mental) assault on a child or anyone else.

I did smack my children. I was at such a loss on how to stop hardly 3 year old twins from sticking whatever they could find into electric sockets. Even taking plugs out and sticking coins or bits of meccano inbetween the prongs then sticking the plug back in the socket. I tried explaining, banning from rooms, toys, but the more I did this seemed to make their activities all the more appealing. Had lost it when I saw smoke going up the wall from a socket one day. The back of their hands were a bit red that day. By the age of seven they would strip down an old washing machine, bike, motor bike and then reassemble all. Both are engineers! The smack on the hand didn't put them off.

This would not have stopped the teacher who did not think that I should write left handed from hitting me several times across my knuckles for doing so! Something that I have never forgotten as my first experience of being taught to write has stuck in my mind ever since! I was 4 years old & now at nearly 80 can still feel it so maybe smacked children will always feel being smacked! Did not consider smacking my son as taking away privileges worked with him!

My mother knew how to use a wooden spoon, and it wasn't for cooking... And she used it right up till I was 16.,
As a previous poster said, it damaged my relationship with her for ever.
I vowed never to smack my own children, and to tell them frequently they were loved. Never heard those words said in my childhood.

The Law in Scotland and Wales does not mention “smacking” but bans any “physical punishment” and parents can be charged with assault if found guilty and will have a criminal record.

Words are important and in my view referring to “smacking” a child trivialises what is actually an assault.

It has been illegal since 1997 to use corporal punishment towards your own children in Denmark. Up til then, parents could do so at their discretion, whilst school-teachers etc. might not. Nice double standard!

When corporal punishment of children was finally banned there were cases of children of ten or thereabouts reporting their parents to the police, and such reports had to be properly investigated.

Few children did so, but enough to make an impact, and the total ban made it much easier for teachers, sports trainers, neighbours etc. to report their suspicions that a child was being beaten at home. After all, all citizens have a duty to report crimes they know or suspect are being committed or planned.

So ban corporal punishment for all the good reasons you have already pointed out. And add this one too.

Religious fanatics who believe they have a God-given right to beat their children, or to beat the devil out of them are harder to stop, but they too can be punished if it is illegal beat children.

A ban will not immediately save lives, but children who have been beaten are all too likely to beat their children - another good reason for banning tthis abuse.

The case of Sara Sharif illustrates the harm caused by so called 'legal punishment'. That poor little girl lived round the corner from me. Smacking should be banned immediately.

I think education is key here. Corporal punishment may have been the way of disciple in upbringing by parents who use physical punishment on their children today. It was used by my parents.
Also people from other cultures living in England may quite naturally believe it is a necessary method.
Deliberate cruelty is another subject altogether.

www.acamh.org/blog/why-its-good-to-ban-smacking/

This is very interesting, it says that banning smacking does lower physical abuse. I think smacking is physical abuse

I was smacked routinely - if I cried I got smacked again "I'll give you something to cry about". I don't think it affected me, I was quite a violent little girl, but I was an absolute tomboy so used to love wrestling & a good fight. I actually felt pampered compared to my peers as many were hit with belts, twin tub sticks etc, whereas my mum only ever used her hand.
With my own kids, different times, different place, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I smacked my 2 boys (combined).It wasn't acceptable & most mums didn't smack. My second was maddening & made me grind my teeth, I got a "Timmy Mallett" inflatable hammer & used to hit him over the head with it (when he was 8, 9 yrs old) it was a laugh for him & we both used to end up giggling, but it did relieve my feelings! & maybe that's because I'd been smacked so much myself. I welcome this, it's been a grey area for years, making it illegal clarifies things for parents - just don't!

Mine all got 2 warnings. Don't do that, if you don't stop you will get a smack and if they did it again they got a smack
All 3 have successful careers, no police record, respect all cultures and are great people.
There's a world of difference between a quick smack and abuse that leaves bruises.
Banning it will not stop child abuse at all.
I'm very glad I told my DC to smack a girl across the face who had been bullying them for months. We tried all the politically correct methods, mentors, speaking to head, head spoke to parents etc. Nothing worked but a slap in the face stopped it instantly. Actually avoiding a suicide attempt by my AC who was considering this option.

As someone who was caned at school for spelling mistakes I can't abide the thought of a child being hurt.

Me too Knittyp. And slapped on the legs by a teacher as a 5 year old, possibly for sums. I was never good at maths! No wonder!

I don’t believe violence is ever the way to teach a child, but I do think some parents need help and support in how to manage children if they’ve had a poor experience in their own childhood.

My mother never smacked any of her children but she didn't hug us either. I used to give my son a quick slap from time to time but also plenty of hugs. He is now a fifty year old father of teenagers and they have never been smacked, but he jokes about my slaps - don't think he was traumatised by them but there is a world of difference between beating a child and a slap on the hand.

Children don't know the difference though?

Sara Sharif was not ‘legally punished’ as her father claims. She was horrifically physically and emotionally abused over a long period. She was deliberately isolated from others, removed from school which was a safe place where her injuries and weight loss might have been noticed.
That’s a world of difference from discussing whether smacking/aka physical chastisement should be illegal. I can’t imagine any reason why it shouldn’t be a criminal offence to hit a defenceless child.

He knew full bloody well that he was not "legally" doing anything.

I agree about corporal punishment. But I also think that the emotional damage done to children when mum and dad break up has a massive and deeper impact- children's lives can be turned inside out and upside down They regress at school, start bedwetting, lose their routines and even their homes ..and grandparents. but honestly nobody really seems too bothered....it's as though the children are just collateral damage in the decisons the parent makes.

Myself and my siblings were smacked for the slightest thing we did wrong, also the same at school in the 50s.Our teachers were not afraid to use ''the strap'', it was given to us from an early age
I must admit to smacking my own two children when they were young but not very often .I mostly did it for bad behaviour from them outside of the house.My DH used angry words at them, but he never smacked them.
Gong back to my childhood, my father was was a heavy drinking, short tempered man and we grew up terrified of him as when drunk he could be very violent.
I don't think any of my grandchildren have been smacked, just punished by their parents in other ways, like being not allowed to play with their friends or denied treats for the next day.My great grandchildren are being treat the same.

Franski - parental separation has absolutely no comparison to child abuse and murder.

Farzanah

I don’t believe violence is ever the way to teach a child, but I do think some parents need help and support in how to manage children if they’ve had a poor experience in their own childhood.

Some introspection, useless to many, might help.