Smacking

To smack or not to smack? There are few questions more hotly contested in the world of parenting. Nothing has the power to stop a barbecue in its tracks more than the casual admission that you give your kids the occasional clip behind the ear – or conversely, the solemn declaration that you would never lay a hand on your child, which brings with it the explosive suggestion that any parent who does so must be some kind of psychotic thug.

The conversation becomes even more heated when members of the older generation are present, and quickly descends into anecdotes about how they were thrashed repeatedly as kids and turned out OK, and how walking 10 miles to school and 12 miles home wasn’t child abuse but character-building.

In recent weeks we have seen a few events which have thrown light on the issues of child rearing and corporal punishment. I read several pieces which sheeted home the London riots on the fact that a whole generation of youngsters has avoided discipline, with the end result of this life without behavioural consequence being an unprecedented collective act of mass theft and vandalism by people with no political agenda.

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