A collective approach to smacking children

The smacking debate is not a contest between the rights of parents and those of their children. Their interests are harmonious. Children grow to be adults and it would be misconceived to adopt norms which make their lives more difficult when they grow up. That’s why we should never say never to smacking. However, on the basis of the current information the circumstances in which smacking is permissible should to be considerably restricted - only to situations where it is necessary to protect children or others.

To smack or not to smack? That’s the issue dividing many Australians following the $2.5 million federal government funded “Every Child is Important” campaign developed by the Australian Childhood Foundation telling parents to stop chastising their kids.

Is the campaign the mother of all nanny laws, constituting an unreasonable incursion into family affairs, or is the government right to try to curtail the actions of the three-quarters of Australia parents that smack their children?

Regrettably, the campaign by the ACF will do nothing to resolve the smacking issue. The lynchpin of the campaign is that smacking children teaches them that violence is acceptable.

Parents, even when they are sleep deprived and exhausted, can see through hyperbole and spin. They also place enormous weight on their own personal experiences. Most parents were smacked when they were children and it is incontestable that we live in a society which strongly disapproves of violence but which is demonstrably harmful.

There is also a vast difference between the occasional controlled, strategic disciplinary tap on the bottom and an uncontrolled violent assault. It is absurd to think that parents aren’t morally sophisticated enough to recognise this difference.

The law recognises that it is acceptable to use reasonable and moderate force to chastise children and while there is no bright line between acceptable and excessive force, few parents are investigated - let alone - convicted of child assault.

There is surprisingly little concrete information regarding the long term impact of smacking on children. There is strong evidence suggesting that violent criminals are disproportionately subjected to smacking as children. However, nearly all adults who were smacked as children don’t grow up to be murderers, rapists or even “road-ragers”.

Thus, the “smacking leads to problematic violence” mantra won’t cut it with most parents.

The only way to sensibly deal with the smacking issue is to stop beating up on the truth and rationally look at the interests of all parties concerned against the backdrop of accepted moral principles and empirical data regarding the effects of smacking.

The intentional infliction of harm is undesirable. Certain consequences, in the form of pain caused to children, carry more weight in the moral calculus than speculative consequences, such as teaching children behavioural lessons. These principles provide powerful reasons against smacking.

Moreover, parents don’t have an inherent right to smack “their” children. Liberty is an important ideal but children are autonomous human beings with full moral standing and liberty is not so boundless to entitle individuals to restrict the liberty of others by directing their behaviour through acts of violence.

The fact that smacking children is part of our culture provides no justification for the practice. To the contrary, if smacking is wrong the tolerance which we as a community have shown towards it would be cause for nationwide regret.

In evaluating the legitimacy of smacking it is, however, crucial to keep in mind the perspective of the parent. Adults too have moral standing. This is something that children if they were properly informed would enthusiastically endorse. Children grow to be adults and it does them a disservice to entrench norms that will make their lives more difficult when it comes time for them to raise their children.

Harm comes in a variety of forms. And sometimes the, albeit, unintentional harm inflicted by persistently disobedient children on the psyche of a parent may in fact be greater than the sting of a behaviour modifying smack on the bottom. This is the strongest argument in support of smacking.

But does it outweigh the reasons against smacking? There is no clear answer and it is for this reason that smacking is such a controversial issue. Both sides of the argument have merit, but neither can deliver a know-out blow.

Yet, this doesn’t mean that we have to permanently live in a moral fog when it comes to smacking. Now that the moral framework has been laid, we simply need to prevail on science to overcome further hyperbole and conjecture.

To this end, we need reliable wide-ranging objective data on the long-term effects on children of minor levels of chastisement. Data regarding the impact of serious assaults on children is useless. That is already illegal and will remain so.

If the research shows that children who are subjected to mild levels of smacking do not disproportionately experience psychological or behavioural problems, then smacking should remain permissible.

However, until such data is available the default position is that smacking is morally wrong. Smacking proponents have not rebutted the starting principles that we should avoid intentionally inflicting pain and that certain (physical) pain carries more weight than remoter forms of harm (in the form of parental distress).

Still, like all moral principles, the prohibition against smacking is not absolute. There are worse forms of physical harm than smacking and no kid is more important than the next. It follows that it is OK to smack where it is the only way to protect the child or another person from serious physical harm.

In the meantime, both sides of the smacking debate should stop abusing the rest of us with their hysterical tantrums - for them no amount of smacking would be too great.