It is never acceptable to smack kids – of course it should be banned
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Children are among the most vulnerable members of society. They deserve our protection, our love, our care – and our role modelling.
By Victoria Richards
If there’s one thing that divides parenting today from parenting in the past, it is surely the way we discipline our children.
When my daughter was small, I remember taking her to a local toddler singing group. There, a mum smacked her son because he wasn’t listening. The entire room fell quiet.
It seems to me that we’ve undergone a profound societal change in the past 30 years or so; both in the way we view parenting (see the many books on ‘attachment parenting’ for one example), and the way we view punishment. Within the space of a single generation, the once-socially acceptable method of smacking kids – on the arm, on the bottom – has become, largely, a source of horror. Which is exactly how I believe it should be.
Smacking is already illegal in Scotland and Wales. And now there are calls from doctors to finally introduce a ban ...
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