What is the alternative? Well, the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse has come up with 101 alternatives to smacking children. Ore accurately, children themselves have come up with the 101 alternatives. The association asked children to come up with suitable alternatives to corporal punishment and published the results this week. Interestingly, the children did not come up with ludicrous ideas of being fed ice-cream or being sentenced to watch the next 20 episodes of the Simpsons. They took the thing seriously and put forward reasonable suggestions about non-violent punishment.
One can sympathise with the stressed parent in the super-market, the stressed parent arbitrating insoluble disputes about which television channel should be watched or dividing the small remnant of disposal income among vigorously disputing children. Too often, however, the solution is an instant resort to violence, to the smack. Surprisingly, when the children grow bigger, big enough to strike back, suddenly parents find that violence as a disciplinary mechanism is no longer available. Then they have to resort to other means, such as denying the car keys or refusing to budge on Saturday night to make way for a party. Of course, the fact that parents of older children have to resort to non-violent tactics once the physical balance with their children tilts the other way shows the bankruptcy of the earlier violent tactics. In short, violence against a weaker human being is morally inexcusable, even if it might be understandable in the context of the pressures of modern society. That being the case, the production of (ital) 101 Alternatives to Whacking a Child (end ital) is commendable and welcome. Violence begets violence. If children at an impressionable age are given the impression that it is acceptable and normal to resort to violence, they will tend to follow that pattern in their own adulthood.
The cycle must be broken. Present Australian law says that smacking is not an assault provided the force is not excessive. It is not a satisfactory position. Once there are widely known and accepted alternatives to smacking, the law should be changed so that the infliction of violence against children is illegal. It is no defence to say: “”A good smack never did me any harm.” That quip is self-evidently fallacious. The good smacks patently did a lot of harm. The results can be seen in the violence all around us.