by Bill Muehlenberg – CultureWatch (http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/)
In the minds of many, there are no more scarier words than these: “Hi, we’re from the government and we’re here to help youâ€. Patronising government bureaucrats can certainly come up with some nightmarish scenarios. When governments become convinced they need to micromanage parenting, for example, they end up subsuming the role of parents – usually a recipe for disaster. The truth is, parents are the best placed to know how to parent their children, not faceless government bureaucrats.
A good example of this nanny state mentality was revealed last week: $2.5 million of our tax dollars were spent on a campaign aimed at making parents feel guilty about smacking their children. The “Every Child is Important†campaign has been developed by the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF) and is supported by the Australian Government. It has produced a booklet and website to encourage parents to give up smacking. Of course the ACF had been a long-time advocate of making smacking illegal. So it is an advocacy group with noble motives – to reduce child abuse – but with misguided aims – to make smacking illegal.
While such campaigns are meant to lessen child abuse – a legitimate concern – they end up working against parental authority: the ability of parents to control and discipline their own children. This is because these campaigns effectively equate corporal punishment with abuse, or at least imply that smacking is counterproductive and leads to child abuse.
While we should all be concerned about child abuse, we should also be concerned about those who are unable, or unwilling, to distinguish between child abuse and physical discipline. We already have laws on the books against assault, abuse, and so on. But smacking is not abuse.
Most parents know this difference. They know that a smack done in love, as a last resort, is often the most loving thing they can do. It is part of parental control. The anti-smackers usually say reasoning and discussion is much better than smacking. Do these experts actually have any kids of their own? Many don’t, I suspect.
The truth is, while you can reason with a teenager, or ban a 10-year-old from the Playstation, you cannot reason with a toddler. If they are about to touch an open flame or run on to a busy street, a logical discussion of the issue is not the way to go. A quick smack of the wrist or backside may be just the thing needed to prevent harm, danger, or in other cases, disrespect and rebellion. Of course the great majority of parents know all this. But if the anti-smackers have their way, they will effectively undermine the rights of parents to set boundaries, to control their children, and to administer discipline.
I repeat, child abuse is always wrong. But smacks done in moderation and in love are not types of violence or abuse. And it is worth looking at the evidence of what bans on smacking actually achieve.
Invariably when the anti-smackers come out with their agenda, the nation of Sweden is brought up. This is because Sweden was the first nation to ban smacking, back in 1979. Part of the reason for the ban was that it was hoped that it would reduce child abuse. OK, so what does the evidence tell us? What can we learn from the Swedish experiment?
In 1996 an important study into child abuse in Sweden was published. It found, among other things, that Swedish data indicated a 489% increase in child abuse statistics from 1981 through 1994, as well as a 672% increase in assaults by minors against minors.
The study concluded with these words: “We need better research to understand the complexities involved in parental discipline, including its relationship to child abuse. We need to discriminate effective from counterproductive forms of discipline responses, including the role of different forms of corporal punishment in increasing or decreasing the risk of child abuse. We also need better evaluations of policies designed to change parental discipline, given that the effects of the Swedish anti-spanking law seem to have had exactly the opposite effect of its intention, at least in the short term.â€
A 2005 study came to similar conclusions. It finished with these words: “there is no objective evidence that the overall situation has improved for children in countries that have adopted smacking bansâ€
Much more evidence of this kind can be produced. The truth is, most parents love their children and do right by their children. They are not violent nor abusive, and they know that smacks have a place in parental control and discipline.
The next time the Government wants to spend our tax dollars on programs to deter child abuse, they should do so more wisely. For example, they should be targeting the at-risk groups. The evidence is quite clear, for example, that child abuse is much more likely to take place in broken homes, and in non-biological two-parent family homes. Thus step-parents, live-ins, de facto’s and boyfriends, for example, are much more likely to commit child abuse than a biological mother or father.
And substance abuse – be it alcohol or illicit drug use - is also a leading factor in child abuse. If we want to get serious about child abuse, we should be targeting those situations which are most likely to produce abuse, instead of seeking to make the majority of parents feel guilty for using smacking as part of parental control and discipline.
If we criminalise smacking, we will simply manage to turn millions of parents into criminals over night. This is the nanny state going overboard. And it is something we just do not need.
I have seven children in my care. Four of our own and our three grandchildren which have been put in our care by dhs. This situation has only come about as the state made it that we could not retreive our seventeen year old daughter from the place she had run away to be with her heroin addicted boyfriend. We could not force her to come home, we could see her life was in danger but were told by the authorities we could not take her out of this unless she agreed to go. That was six years ago now she is a heroin addict, mother of four children four years old and under of which we are bringing up three at the request of the state. This is hard for all concerned and it could have been avoided if we had been allowed to take her against her will into her family with people who truly love her. We did not abuse her. She was taught at school by who? The other students, teachers, civil libertarians that she had rights now where are these people who taught her this? Are they bringing up her children? Are they breaking their hearts over what has become of her? No they are nowhere to be seen we who had no rights now have to try to make good of this situation. Now it is our responsibility. If I was in the same situation again I would bring her home whatever the cost, they could charge me take me to court – whatever to save my child from the hell she now lives. These laws are stealing our childrens futures – thier potential and lives.
i was smacked as a child. but it was onlt when i was naughty. smacking can become abuse when you use any thing other then your on bare hand
It is a sad state of affairs since the rights of the parents to disipline the children has been taken away, sometimes a smack is nessesary, there is no support for the adults that are being abused by children, tbecause they do not like the rules in the home or school ect, the Goverment has given children the support to call abuse when they can not get their own way. My children had been given all the phone numbers at primary school to ring and tell on me if I said no or gave them a smack, luckily for me my children never did this as they recognized that I had their best interest, not so some of my grandchildren, 3 of them are verbally, physically and mentally abusive, 2 of them have the 3rd so intimidated he has to join in , the abuse of others, or he will be the victim again, their mother lets them run their own race and disipline of any kind is scarce she does not believe in smacking, their father is one for disipline and sometimes a smack. The parents are divorced and she regularly uses the Government non smacking Law to exclude him from access to his children, by ringing Docs to report him. I am not sure whether the Government thought that this law could be used as a weapon in this way. Children are taught to use this law to manipulate the parents. So many Government representates think it is so sad we have so many children living on the streets, and wandering the streets, but our power to keep them at home is gone. Centre link and Docs believe them and help them move out of home, and I have seen where this leads as Debra has. One of my Grandchildren, when put in time out for his behaviour said, that is deprevation of my freedom and I am going to ring and report you for abuse, there is nothing you can do. The sad thing that is while Docs are consentrating on the allegations by the manipulative children, real abuse is really not being addressed. I know of 2 drug addicted parents that constantly fight and hit, while one is holding the baby, Docs make appointments to do there checks on this couple, so they make sure the house is clean and there other drug addicted friends are not there, they only have a small maintance hit, and low and behold they have passed the inspection. But they spend so much time on I was smacked and sometimes they never were, and go after these people with avengence and prosocute them. The schools can only suspend these children from school when they play up badly, but another of my Grandsons, used this punishment to his advantage, the week the cricket was on. I can only see a very bleak future for this country. Our children do not get taught consequence for their actions, they just learn manipulation skills.
through my whole childhood, i have been smacked. I strongly think that it is an outrageuous way to disipline your children. Speaking for myself, it never tought me anything, it just made me terrified of my step dad and mother. Yes somtimes a simple tap on the bottom or slap on the hand is ok, but when it is the continuous abbusive of slapping on face, twisting of arms, smakin so hard that it feels like you are having a fist through your stomah or the wooden spoon getting smahsed agaisnt your legs, then i personally think it is too far. To parents who think it is ok to smack, i have only one thing to say… SHAME ON YOU. How do you want your children to look up to you. I was smakced when i was little, and i can never look at my parents in the same way. There are other forms of disiplne rather then smacking. LEARN SOME !!
Very interesting site, i have added it to my fovourites. Greetings
Good article, can you tell me the reference for the Swedish study that showed a massive increase in child abuse after smacking was banned?
My Dad had a novel way that didn’t need smacking-but still guaranteed i got a VERY sore bottom when i needed one!. He would lay me on my tummy across his lap or a chair and i got my bare bottom rubbed with a piece of sandpaper, hard, for about 30-40 seconds, it didn’t hurt much as he did it but after a few minutes my bum felt like it was on fire!!. Then i was marched in the corner (crying saying “sorry Daddy” and wanting a hug). There i stood with my hands on my head and a poor red little burning bottom! After half an hour he made sure my face was just as red when i poked my bum out for him to rub with cream…he gave it a good rub to add to my embarrassment!!!. My bum was sore for a good few days after though but it worked a real treat!. Still follow him everywhere!
i think that smacking is not child abuse. Depending on how hard and what the reason is. I am 15 years old and my mother still smacks me sometimes. now it hurts, but sometimes i deserve it but sometimes she smacks me for no reason.