Physical harm against another adult is illegal across the UK, but reasonable force when 'smacking' children in England and Wales is not.
Scotland has banned smacking by making any physical punishment against a child a punishable offence. England and Wales haven't, but Wales is considering following Scotland’s example.
My question to everyone is while we have varying standards around smacking children in England and Wales, should children have the right to be protected from physical punishment in the same way as adults are protected? What psychological reasons might parents and policy makers use to support for and against the banning of smacking in Wales?Gareth is a Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology at Aberystwyth University in Wales. My main goal is to examine the relevance of social psychology in understanding everyday social issues and how such issues, like group and intergroup behaviour, body image, and life skills development are amplified through everyday practices, such as during our leisure time (e.g., sport, physical activity). Detailed analysis below: In the UK, it is illegal for a parent or carer to use unreasonable force against a child (and adult for that matter) for punishment, and this has led to variability in judging what ‘reasonable’ force means.
Factors that are used to make this judgement include:
- the age and sex of a child
- the force used by the adult.
What is clear in law is that injury and actual bodily harm (i.e., grazes, bruising, swelling) is illegal and past practices, such as corporal punishment and smacking in schools and nursery is now banned.
In Scotland, the term 'reasonable force' has been removed from law and makes any physical punishment against a child a punishable offence. In Wales a similar focus upon reasonable force as punishment has been targeted by the Welsh Government as it is seen as a ‘loophole’ across England and Wales to justify hitting one’s children.
(
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/25/smacking-children-to-be-banned-in-wales)
The problem A common argument against banning smacking, usually comes from those opposed to banning smacking typically is along the lines of “I was smacked and it never did me harm” – see here for further reading (
Kish & Newcombe, 2015). The contradiction here is that those who were smacked tend to be those who also wish to continue the practice. There are of course plenty of people who were never smacked and turned out ok, too – some may support the use of smacking while others might not.
Psychologically though, the issue remains the same around mimicking and normalisation of aggression. For decades, policy has tried to intervene by restricting the violence we see on TV and music we hear, and the idea is the same with smacking – if children see it and hear it – they will do. Consider this advert as an illustration of the psychological reasoning behind it:
[video="youtube;KHi2dxSf9hw"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHi2dxSf9hw[/video]
However, the problem is actually an adult one because as adults we expect, from other adults to be protected by law against any assault especially as a disciplinary measure for poor work performance, bad behaviour, and incentive to be positive. For example, as adults we expect that if we hit someone we might be hit back or severely punished by our freedoms restricted through imprisonment, but we also expect through shared consensus that for society to operate with some structure it is in everyone’s interest that we do not hit each other.
If we as adults know and agree that hitting as punishment to correct behaviour is good for children, then why do we still grow up to be violent. Moreover, if it works, why is hitting adults also wrong?