To smack or not to smack?

David Lammy MP probably “sparked a furious debate about a parent’s right to smack their children”, because, the debate - like similar ‘should you / shouldn’t you’ debates – speaks to principles and beliefs. Whether or not they add to our knowledge about the riots, or ways to discipline children and young people, is unlikely.

The first point with Lammy’s comments is that he started off by claiming that his constituents told him that “you guys [the former Labour government] stopped us being able to smack our children”. During the discussion it did touch on what the legislative changes were, but stopped short of why people failed to know the law, or understand it. He did not seem concerned by the accuracy of the comments, just that they were commonplace.

Since last year’s riots I have witnessed several people trotting out the same misleading line. Whether in the office, or during debates on facebook the orthodox ignorance is “you cannot smack your kids”, or “the government is stopping us enforcing discipline”. Almost none of these people had read the law, or even a commentary on it. It is the same curse that hampers progress on tackling racial prejudice.

However, the public are only partly to blame for their ignorance. A proportion of the media need to be held responsible. It is regrettable that during a time of heightened scrutiny of the press and journalism, that very little attention will be paid to how the public are misled based purely on the political and economic motives of the media.

Two questions remain then, what is the law, and whether I agree with it. The law concerned (Childrens Act 2004) does not prevent smacking or any other physical chastisement. The law does not mention the word smacking. In fact, it does not mention the “reddening of the skin” point which was used by David Lammy.

The Crown Prosecution Service guidance on Section 58 Children Act 2004 provides that reasonable chastisement is no longer a defence against assault or any other offences against the child. For clarity they state that “in cases of minor assaults by an adult upon a child, where an injury has been caused other than reddening of the skin, (such as grazes, scratches, abrasions, minor bruising, swelling, superficial cuts or black eyes), and where the injury is more than transient and trifling, the appropriate charge will normally be assault occasioning actual bodily harm. In these circumstances, the defence of reasonable chastisement is no longer available”.

It is unclear to me why this could be confused as meaning parents cannot smack their children. The question I have is what do people who feel that the law is inadequate, advocate beyond “reddening of the skin”? Take your pick from “grazes, scratches, abrasions, minor bruising, swelling, superficial cuts or black eyes”. All of which could be seen as consequences of parental discipline where Boris Johnson believes the “State should not interfere’.

I guess you get the point that I am comfortable with the current law. That does not mean that children cannot try and test their parents by saying they will call Childline or social services. It also does not negate the fact that some of David Lammy’s constituents might feel they would be more heavily scrutinised if they were to smack their children. The law itself though, is sound.

For context, I was smacked by my parents and grand-parents. I even once received ‘the slipper’ from my grand-father (when I was 9) because I was fighting with my cousin. It was on my backside, and yes, it caused a “reddening of the skin”. Smacking was common among parents in the area I grew up in (East Manchester), but with regards to the assertion that working class children “somehow cannot be reasoned with and need corporal discipline”. I would extend that to all children. My Nana’s commentary on ‘Brat Camp’ (most of whose contestants were far from working class) would attest to that.

Where there are great differences between my childhood and the present take us to the video posted accompanying this article. During my childhood teachers were not adversaries (as many are seen now), and the wider community took responsibility to support others in their parenthood.

I acknowledge that some teachers and schools often dispense discipline in a way that is seen as discriminatory. However, I have witnessed parents interacting with teachers in an adversarial way, denying their child has done wrong, or even excusing or justifying the wrong-doing.

Viewing the accompanying video, my contribution to the debate is this: in relation to how we “offer support to families that are having difficulties with parenting”, filming their struggles for people to judge them from a distance is part of the problem. I said above that the wider community took responsibility to support others in their parenthood. Whilst I acknowledge offers of help might be met with defensiveness and hostility, and a request to “mind your own business”. You have to ask whether filming, commenting, and judging is either supportive or minding your own business.

Simon, when you state that “I would feel that as a parent I would have failed if I couldn’t demand discipline from my child without corporal punishment”, is the inference that using corporal punishment is a failing as a parent? I only ask as I recently spoke to a parent who said that removal of privileges (TV, Playstation etc.) worked for them. My question to them was “what would you do if they didn’t have these privileges to remove?”

So in conclusion, is the main thing that has changed since my childhood an almost religious devotion to spoiling our children? Is the ability to say no and resist the emotive attempts from children to plead their case the real decline? Whilst it can be argued – rather poorly – that the legislation might not be as tough, can we say hand on heart that parents are not nearly as mentally tough either?