Should it be criminal to smack children?

[RagnaToad]

I'm surprised by how many of you justify the use of smacking a kid as a response to bad behaviour.

Doesn't it seem wrong to teach a kid how to behave in life but punishing it yourself by physical abuse (which smacking is in a way)? (Cf. my example of me and my brothers fighting in my previous post.) You shouldn't waste the opportunity of teaching your child some basic values (love, respect, discipline etc.) by just using violence as a response to its wrongdoings. If you're going to use smacking as a last resort, you should make sure that the child understands that its behaviour was só intolerable that it had violence as a result.

You can teach your kid about tolerance, respect and reason all you want. If you're going to smack it for every little thing, you're showing it that violence is a normal response to wrongdoings in real life. The home of a child should be both a safe place and a reflection of how an individual should act in society.

After all, isn't it the challenge of being a parent to learn your child to argue and take responsibility for its actions without always lowering yourself to the level of physical abuse? That's just giving the wrong message to a highly impressional person.

P.S. I'd like to know if those who are justifying frequent smacking have had the pleasure of being smacked around as a kid themselves.

Rags

[Alpha]

he didnt have mental issue's. Well may be his docter killed him. She made him take all these pills. also everbody hated him, called him gay.

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You can teach your kid about tolerance, respect and reason all you want. If you're going to smack it for every little thing, you're showing it that violence is a normal response to wrongdoings in real life. The home of a child should be both a safe place and a reflection of how an individual should act in society.

I'd just like to take this a little out if context. Actually, quite a lot out of context. In terms of two countries having a disagreement, what should be the first, and main, approach? Answer: diplomacy (not war). When a child behaves inappropriately, what should be the first, and main, approach? Answer: talking to the child, time outs, etc. I'm a pacifist, war isn't an option.

I know a lot of you have said that smacking is a last resort, but why? Is it because that is how we have been raised? Maybe if your non-violent approaches to correction and discipline are not working, you should try some new, possibly more effective, non-violent approaches. There are plenty of methods. As it has been said, children do not forget violence. This fact should not be exploited in order to pass on a message about correct behaviour. Children do not forget disappointed parents, and nor do they continue to show attention-seeking behaviour when they are no longer getting attention. There are viable alternatives to smacking children, that can be equated to effective diplomacy in terms of rogue states.

The issue at hand here is really that people have used the excuse "reasonable force" to justify harming their children in order to 'correct' their behavior. It's a shame that these parents don't realise that what also needs 'correcting' is their response to their children. As a child, I did not think my Dad loved me when he smacked me. After a smack, I would go and cry in the cupboard under the stairs for an hour or so. When my Dad came to coax me out to have dinner or something, I wouldn't let him touch me at all. Instead, I would sprint around him and go seek solace in my mother, who never smacked. I struggle to see how people (such as that guy in the video in the last link I posted) can say that they are "loving parents who smack their children". To me that's an oxymoron, as I never felt any love when I felt that slipper on my ass.