Loving smacks
Dr Punam Krishan in her 19 March article on smacking makes many assumptions.
The most prominent of these is in the headline, “You’d ban smacking if you’d seen what I’ve seen”. However, there are many GPS like herself, and indeed, many others, including those who work in the field of child protection, such as child psychologists and social workers, who have seen all that she has seen and who do not share her view.
They do not believe legislation to ban smacking will provide better protection for children, but rather that it will undermine or potentially criminalise many loving parents who bring up happy and well-balanced children, while having no impact on parents who abuse their children.
Dr Krishan speaks of cases where“light smacks have gone wrong ”. she is clearly speaking of children who have suffered excessive or inappropriate physical punishment and have therefore been abused. There are already laws against such abuse, and parents who show such lack of self-control are breaking them.
In addition, the language used by Dr Krishan is not neutral, but uses emotive terms which almost criminalise the matter without further discussion. She equates smacking with “hitting”, “assault” and “violence’ – terms associated with aggressive motivation, uncontrolled impulse
or criminal actions. These, in my view, are not appropriate or balanced descriptions of actions which include the considered, proportionate and remedial acts and intentions of loving parents.
Finally, she makes assumptions regarding the feelings and motivations of parents who endorse smacking as part of an appropriate disciplinary regime. She says, “If we use violence to express our frustrations, it would be naive to expect anything different from our kids”.
This assumes smacking is just an expression of a parent’s frustration. There are thousands of loving parents who have given their children a secure and affectionate environment and have brought them up to be good, responsible citizens, to whom such a statement will be quite an alien concept.
(PROF) TOMMY MACKAY
Ardoch House, Cardross, Dumbartonshire