Smacking children is not an effective way of instilling discipline and should be banned - Jayne Dowle
It’s time to ban the “Victorian” practice of smacking children, says Professor Andrew Rowland, a leading expert in child health and welfare. He’s calling for an immediate amendment to legislation currently going through parliament, in order to enshrine such progress in law.
Some 67 countries around the world, including Scotland and Wales, have already adopted smacking bans, with a further 20 committing to do so. So, apart from the fact it makes sense, this is only right.
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’? The very notion of this has surely been disproved. Spare me the ‘nanny state’ criticisms instead.
We protect dogs and horses from physical violence, but not our smallest people, children? In a civilised country, in the 21st century, not doing so is simply unacceptable.
Recent horrific cases of children dying at the hands of parents and guardians remind us that some people need a sharp, swift reminder that hurting children is wrong. In August last year, the NSPCC reported that concerns about children being physically punished had more than tripled in a year.
In December, Dame Rachel de Souza, the children's commissioner for England, demanded urgent reforms following the murder of 10-year-old Sara Sharif by her father and stepmother. Calling into question the defence of ‘reasonable punishment’, de Souza called Sara’s death, “a heartbreaking reminder of the profound weaknesses in our child protection system.
"What haunts me the most about Sara's death is that her father used the words 'I legally punished my child' believing this to be a defence to murder.”
And most people agree. A poll of 3,500 adults in England carried out by YouGov on behalf of the NSPCC in January 2024 found that 71 per cent think smacking, hitting, slapping, or shaking a child is not acceptable.
Professor Rowland, a consultant paediatrician and officer for child protection at The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), rightly argues: "[The] defence of reasonable punishment of children in England has been around since 1860 but, in recent legislation, it was introduced in the Children Act of 2004.
“Now is the time for this Victorian-era punishment to go and the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill amendment will do that if passed."
Rowland, on behalf of RCPCH, would like to scrap the defence which allows a parent to hit their child where it is judged “reasonable punishment”.
RCPCH says that anyone opposing a smacking ban should look at the scientific evidence which shows that it causes physical and emotional damage, agreeing with so many experts – and parents - that it “doesn't benefit them [children] in any way whatsoever”.
Lash out with the rod, the hand, the fists, or in my own childhood case, the slipper, and all parents do is instil fear in their children; not respect. I was smacked regularly as a child by my mother, and I can honestly say it caused far more harm than it ever did any good.
It led to resentment, anger, alienation and sadness and a lot of childhood hours wasted wondering exactly what I had done wrong; dropped a plate by accident, failed to listen attentively enough, dared to put across my own point of view.
I suppose my mother’s generation was caught between the ‘it never did us any harm’ approach of their own parents, born well before the First World War, and the more liberal attitudes of the 1970s.
Over the years, you forget. But I vowed when I had my own two children, now aged 19 and 22, I would never use physical beatings of any kind as a punishment.
I can say, hand on heart, that I have slapped each of them only once; my son on the back of the legs, for running across a busy road after his football, despite being warned several times not to, and my daughter, as a teenager, on the arm, for running over my fingers when messing about on a wheeled chair.
The slaps were not part of an arsenal of punishments I kept at my disposal; more a fear-driven reaction. I felt immediately sorry afterwards and apologised. Perhaps it’s indicative that my two were never physically scared of me, that if we ever start talking about the subject of smacking, both incidents stand out to them as the only examples they ever saw me lose it.
And believe me, especially with my then-rebellious, often exasperating son, I was no pushover parent. Withdrawal of privileges worked best. This demanded some thinking, but it was far better than allowing him to grow up hating me, or worse, learning from his very first teacher that lashing out with violence was the only resolution to conflict.