Smacking is all of our business

"If you hit and humiliate a child, the only lesson [the child] will learn is to hit and humiliate."

- From the film, Little Women

This afternoon I participated in a crime. I want to say "witnessed" but inaction by myself and everyone present made us all accessories to the crime. We all sat and watched an out-of-control mother repeatedly smack her toddler at a major shopping centre this afternoon.

As a mother, I can empathise with this mother's frustration in attempting to stop a child amid a full-blown tantrum. Sadly, she could not see her physical abuse was merely exacerbating the problem.

This mother far exceeded the "what he needs is a good smack" disciplinarian rhetoric. She was a mother out of control who could use only violence as a means of conflict resolution. A mother in need of help because she sadly lacked the coping mechanism to deal with this situation.

I cannot help but feel all of us there were guilty because we watched and simply "minded our own business". At what point does a private matter become public? When does the cry "mind your own business" become inextricably linked to my business?

We are bombarded daily with images of murder, violence, sexual abuse and war, yet I found the image of that mother pulling her son's pants down chanting "Do you want a smack?" and then smacking a red raw bottom (with another little one watching) far more disturbing. If she can unashamedly "belt" her child in public, what is she doing at home? How is she teaching her children to cope with anger and frustration? I cannot help but think the cycle of violence will seep into the playground and this learned behaviour will become a part of my children's generation.

What is our duty/obligation to our fellow citizens and children? Do we reach out to the mother obviously at her wit’s end? Do we give the child what it really needs - a cuddle?

So while I sit here trying to grapple with the notion of "it's none of my business", instinctively, I cannot help feeling it really is - all of our business.

The intention behind this Letter to the Editor (published in the Weekend Australian Magazine Nov 25 -26, 2000) was to explore the blurring between "none of your business" and "all our business".

Before I confronted this incident my views on smacking were ambivalent. Physical punishment was (and is) not a part of our family’s disciplinary repertoire. Parenting styles and techniques were as individual as the families themselves and it was not up to me to pass judgement, or rather, it wasn't "any of my business". This seminal incident cleared the blurring.

The choices and complexities modern parents face are enormous. Each decision is greeted with an expert's view on the dire consequences: to work or not to work, breast or bottle, cloth or disposable, tennis, violin, art, soccer, cooking classes, kindy gym – to smack or not to smack? What are the social and long-term effects? Will I be paying for psychoanalysis instead of university because of a few smacks? Listening to the "experts" can create mental havoc for the decisively-challenged. Just when we thought we were doing something "right" some researcher's new study "proves" us wrong.

So when it comes to smacking/spanking/corporal punishment/hitting/belting, smackers be warned. The research is not good. As with any debatable topic, opinions vary; from the militant anti-smackers to the "anything in moderation" school of punishment.

Childhood smacks have been linked to everything from anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol addiction, anxiety disorder, depression in adulthood, predisposition to violence and even lower IQ, just to name a few.

Whichever side of the smacking debate fence you sit on, it is undeniable that we as parents are the role models paving the way for our children's moral and ethical future. Children learn from us. That is indisputable. The extent a smack affects them is debatable.

Child rights campaigner James Garbarino (in his Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect article Reflections of 20 years of Searching) says children need to develop coping mechanisms to deal with everyday life. [Review of JG’s Book The Lost Boys]

"They need role models and cultural support for learning non-violent ways to respond when they are frustrated, angry, or simply want to exert their will. If the adults in their life use assault as a tactic under those conditions, how are they, as young children, supposed to 'know better' – and do better. The prospect of adults hitting kids is frightening to them as they are trying to learn how to manage their lives," Garbarino says.

Children decipher what they observe through imaginative play. They act out what they see mums/dads/ grandmas/grandpas doing. If we can accept this truth then surely, as inherent role models/leaders/adults, we need to evaluate and reassess our disciplinary armoury.

Child expert Murray Straus (Book review) in his article "Spanking teaches short-term lesson, but long-term violence" says we are teaching violence.

"It seems that, instead of being a deterrent, corporal punishment provides an example for children. When parents or teachers hit children for misbehaving, it teaches the child that if someone misbehaves towards them (an everyday event in the lives of children) hitting is a way to correct the problem. Corporal punishment also creates resentment and anger in many children, which further increases the probability of violence," Straus says.

"Spanking does work in the short run. However, the research which shows that spanking works also shows that non-violent methods of discipline work just as well. So there is no need to use corporal punishment. But what about the long-run effect? Parents spank to stop misbehavior and also to 'teach a lesson'. Spanking does teach a lesson, but study after study in the past 40 years provides evidence suggesting, but not proving, that children also learn violence and other antisocial behavior."

Considering the amount of violence a child is bombarded with via TV, film and video games, it is up to caregivers to provide a sanctuary away from our increasingly violent world.

If implications of later violence are not enough to sway the diehard smackers, let's look at its effectiveness. Does it really modify a child's behaviour or is it just a parental stress relief mechanism? Again, the research varies, but the general consensus appears to be the latter.

The American Academy of Paediatrics' position on physical punishment is unequivocal: "Spanking may relieve a parent's frustration for the moment and extinguish the undesirable behavior for a brief time. But it is the way to least effective discipline".

Parenting writer Penelope Leach, in her article "Spanking: a shortcut to nowhere…", says spanking does not offer the desired results.

"I also believe … that far from producing better disciplined people, spanking makes it much more difficult to teach children how to behave," Leach says.

"Spanking is a shortcut to nowhere. To get where we want to go with our children we need to take a longer route, teaching them with our heads and hearts rather than with our hands and belts."

"Spanking has to be wrong because we all agree that hitting people is wrong and children are people – aren't they?"

If we accept only a smidgen of the research and acknowledge smacking is one of the least effective behaviour modification tools and is associated with later violence, then the repercussions are intrinsically a societal issue.

In a law that called smacking fairly and squarely what it is: physical assault, Sweden, in 1979, became the first country to outlaw smacking and thus gave children the same legal rights as adults. Since then eight other countries have followed suit to become anti smacking nations: Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Croatia, Latvia and Italy.

These countries have recognised physical punishment is a community issue. Any disciplinary tactic parents employ on a "stressed-out" shopping expedition is our concern.

Life's general "business" and stress has made depression one of the top illnesses of the noughties. The days of over-the-fence chats, playing in creeks and neighbourhood cricket may not yet be extinct, but there is no denying these idyllic times may be numbered. Everyone's busy and the pace keeps notching up a cog.

Queensland Abused Child Trust executive director Jane Anderson says our changing society has instigated the breakdown of community which, in turn, has left parents alone and isolated with few backups in time of stress. In days gone by, extended family members were always at hand to help with rearing children and diffusing stress. Neighbourhoods were safe places where children could roam and have wide networks.

"It's sad when communities go. We're doing away with society," says Jane Anderson.

"For young mothers it's a lonely time. Being at home with children is a full-time, long job. What are we doing as a community in these difficult times?"

Could the answer lie simply in the offering of a cup of tea to the stressed-out mother in need? Are the small gestures and the random acts of kindness enough to break out of our cocoon and possibly deter potential violent episodes? Can we not act as role models for our peers?

I agree with James Garbarino who argues the way our children are nurtured and the adults they become concerns us all. He reinforces the "it's all of our business" ideal.

"We've erected a cultural superstructure around privacy and autonomy that is fundamentally not in the human best interest because it asks people to do something unnatural to them. If that's true, then we do indeed have a big agenda in changing this orientation, an orientation that says that children are the private matter of their parents. We have to see that every child is a social matter and that being a parent is a social act."