Re: Smacking children
Like many on here as a child I was subjected to a 'light smack' on the back of the legs for doing wrong, "it never did me any harm", which is what is usually thought. However, after a close family member went in for a career in child nursery nursing, that is learning everything about children, from birth through their development, looking after children etc., etc. my view on 'smacking' was changed. Talking with her about her career and what she was learning, one thing, a very simple thing, did stand out a mile on the subject of smacking children, something that up until then I always agreed with and was subjected to myself.
Where one child will accept that smack as 'a punishment' for doing wrong, another will see that smack as being shown, by example, that violence works – a person can make another do something they want them to do by using violence. Often what is forgotten, both in children and adults, is that we are not all the same, similar but vastly different in 'how we tick'. It's all down to our genes, how our minds work and many, many other factors. One factor that does have a very great bearing on how we develop from babies to young children, then into adults is that from birth we learn by example, everything we see and hear has a bearing on that. Put quite simply when in some instances the child that is 'smacked' is being taught that act is a punishment, in some others though that can show them violence works, it makes people do what is required so that can become part of their learning experience in upbringing and they can become violent people as adults.
That close family member has never smacked her own children and from her training has been taught that if you have to resort to smacking a child, then it is you, the adult who has failed. What should be done is to teach any child from a very young age, to recognise they have done something wrong just by using a strict, disapproving tone of voice and facial expression.
Also another very important part when it comes to even 'light smacking' is that we as adults are obviously so very much bigger than children. While for most a 'light smack' is exactly that there are those adults who do not realise their own strength or become so exasperated by the child's unacceptable behaviour, that the 'light smack' then becomes a violent blow to what is a small child.
I do know that learning the psychology of 'how we tick', as I had to at one time so as to help me understand about someone's mental health problems with depression, and then listening to how training in child care from birth into young children is undertaken, my view of 'smacking' children as being acceptable changed totally. It can and does do harm psychologically to some youngsters and while that risk is always there, as we don't know how that individual child's mind works, it's better and safer to use an alternative, readily available way of showing adult disapproval of a child's bad behaviour.