It’s no secret that at Researching Reform we are advocates of an assault-free childhood, and have written extensively on the subject, but this new warning from the Council of Europe directed at Ireland, should be heeded world-wide.
The latest statistics on smacking children in Ireland, though dismissed by their government, indicates that a quarter of parents still hit their children. And in the UK, six out of ten parents of children aged four and under, say they regularly assault their children.
Whilst hitting children is currently banned in England within most institutions like schools and care homes, as is the case in Ireland, the Council of Europe continues to fight for the removal of hypocritical distinctions which allow for assaults of this nature to take place in the home, at the hands of parents. It’s a point we make often, but if it is illegal to ‘tap’ an adult, whether a relative of the victim of not, then the same must also be true of assaults against children.
It’s time to address this embarrassing double standard and show our children we genuinely value them and their place in the world.
If you’d like to read more on our anti-assault campaign, you can do so here.
Researching Reform 
Natasha when are all of these do-gooders going to get it right, no one and I mean no one has ever addressed the facts that children report to social services of being abused many taken into care only to be FORCED into having contact with the abusers. we have good families who would never hit their kids and cannot have contact with a kid in care, so abuse an adult if found guilty they can go to prison, abuse a kid and its forced contact, bloody do-gooders all they do is learn in a collage so they can earn a wage.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Ah..hem Maggie, Contact is still on a selective basis!
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Sorry, torture? Continual smacking perhaps, but the odd clip round the ear, torture? I think this demeans the word. Maybe ask those who are still alive who were in the Japanese Death Camps if they would consider a smack ‘torture’. We really don’t know, most of us, what torture is, thank God. Not physical torture, anyway. Losing your child to forced adoption is torture, mental and emotional torture. This preoccupation with smacking is akin to fiddling while Rome burns. And a law won’t stop children being smacked in the home, anyway. I don’t condone smacking as you know, but to describe it as ‘torture’ seems to me to be just plain daft.
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Hi Roger, I think the torture element has to do with a combined physical and emotional harm that hitting breeds, which is not too far removed from the feeling that you are being subjected to treatment that feels threatening and unpredictable. For what it’s worth, I don’t think we should send parents who smack kids to jail. I think this requires a shift in thinking. We don’t hit co workers who annoy us, no matter how stressed we are in the work place, because we know they will either hit us back and/ or get the police involved. So we create a boundary. We need to do the same with kids. The reason we don’t, in my opinion, is because this kind of assault happens behind closed doors, and if not it’s deemed socially acceptable so people do it anyway. And children can’t hit back – they’re small. Which is why, to my mind, we need to protect them from hitting.They need the protection of the law the most. Yes, I think we should make it illegal, but we also have to shift away from what is widely viewed as an acceptable practice. Yes, some children get hit and they grow up and they don’t make much of it, others suffer. This is to do with a combination of factors – the child’s own character, the kind of hitting and the regularity, sometimes, amongst other things. But we shouldn’t be taking that kind of risk.
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Thanks Natasha,
I think I accept most of what you say, though I still feel ‘torture’ a bit strong a word. And it doesn’t really cover the mental anguish of children who are endlessly told they’re stupid or weird or whatever, which I think can be considerably worse as it goes on (usually) for longer. I think we should give equal priority to this and I agree it involves a shift in thinking. Perhaps the mental/emotional abuse of kids is more difficult to pinpoint than physical assault, but that’s not really an excuse to make one illegal and the other not, especially if one does more lasting damage.
After half-term, I’m going to try and gently ask some of the children I take to school each day what they actually think about punishment at home. Don’t worry, I’ll be very tactful. If I get any interesting feedback, I’ll let you know.
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Hi Roger, I had to laugh when reading your last post as it reminded me of what my daughter said to me many years ago. As an early advocate of the no smacking set I found myself pilloried not just by my friends and family for not smacking, spare the rod, spoil the child mentality but by my daughter too. Kids know when they have done something they shouldn’t have and my daughter was no exception. After I caught her playing up or making mischief, she confessed and said she didn’t want to talk about it or why she did it but would much prefer a smack, it would then be over & done with! I think I may have mentally tortured her!
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Hi Dana,
You hit the nail on the head (pardon the wording!). ‘It will be over and done with’. Exactly. As a child I hated talking about what I’d done wrong and why I’d done it. I couldn’t answer. Dad tried an experiment because he didn’t believe in smacking or hitting, and got me to sit down and engage in ‘meaningful discussion’ over what I’d done wrong. There was no discussion, never mind any ‘meaningful’ one! ‘Would you prefer a wallop then?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘Yes, if it means I can go out and play after’. ‘I’ll be damned’ he said, gave me a clip round the ear, and said ‘don’t come back ’til tea-time’. A result, as far as I was concerned! He didn’t try ‘discussion’ again.
I mentioned asking the kids about punishment, on my school-run. I make a point of talking to them about almost everything so this won’t be out of place. It will be interesting, I think, to hear the views of a new generation – if they have any on this subject!
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