To slap or not to slap?
It is a question that divides many parents. Most of us will flinch at any level of aggression shown towards a child. And yet in our darkest, most strung out, exasperated moments we have perhaps done it. Hit our child.
Last year, the British child protection agency, Approach, lodged a complaint with the Council of Europe regarding laws that a number of countries currently have in place. They feel the laws violate the European Social Charter – a treaty established in 1961 which seeks to protect human rights and to ensure there is legislative conformity across all member states. Yesterday, the Council ruled that France are in violation of the charter because they do not have any law prohibiting the use of physical discipline with children. Ireland is among the six countries next in line for investigation.
The ISPCC has long campaigned to change Irish laws. Currently, Irish parents are allowed to physically discipline their children and in the eyes of the law this is seen as “reasonable chastisement”. This may be about to change in the coming months with the Council of Europe's intervention.
The question has generated endless debate in the last few years with numerous studies carried out to analyse our nation's attitudes to smacking. It seems reasonable to assert that most of today's parents were of the generation that got "the wooden spoon" or a "bit of a smack" and this can be a parent's way of rationalising their treatment of their own children. Aoife Griffin of the ISPCC told the Irish Independent:
"People who grew up getting slapped often say, 'Well, it didn't do us any harm', but did it do them any good?"
In 2010, anonymous surveys of parents were carried out by Dr Elizabeth Nixon of Trinity College Dublin's School of Psychology and Children's Research Centre, who found that just over half the parents had never smacked their child.
"58 percent said they'd never smacked their child, meaning 42 percent would have used physical punishment... 58 percent didn't think it worked to prevent misbehaviour into the future."
This certainly begs the question, if over half of us don't believe smacking is working as a method of discipline than why are nearly half of us still doing it?
The reality is that stress and frustration can lead to loss of control. As a society, we need to stop judging parents and instead support them. We need to offer real, practical solutions for managing anger and dealing with feelings of frustration towards our children before we end up slapping them. And hating ourselves for it.
