Strains placed on family relations

Geoff Earl, a 60 - year- old nurse who lives in Edinburgh,decided never to smack any of his four children due to the experience of his mother Emily.

“I’ve always been against smacking children ,” he says .“My mother was smacked by her father. I remember her saying to me that while there were times when she’ d been naught y, there were also times when she felt very unfairly treated. She felt it was more to do with her father being cross.

“Sometimes the judgment that you make becomes blur red with your own feelings of frustration, anger and disap - point ment. I’ ve looked into the issue, and all the evidence points to the fact that parents sometimes do lose control of themselves and unfairly chastise their children.

“For my mum, it affected her relationship with her father. He was avery honour able man, a great man, but she could never totally respect him because she felt he had violated her rights as a child, because he thought he had a right to hit her.

“I remember as a young child going around to my grandfather’ s, and my mother was never 100 per cent at ease. There was just something slightly false, which was a great shame.”