On Smacking in Jersey
There have been a lot of very vague statements about smacking children. For instance Alan Collins, who represents people who were abused in Jersey's care system, said it could have "changed attitudes". And he adds: "Lets say smacking had been outlawed 25 years ago, it's likely those children [who experienced abuse in Jersey's care system] would have been treated differently”. But he is vague as to why except that a culture which allows some physical discipline of children might turn a blind eye to other forms.
And Deputy Mary Le Hergerat, who is bringing the proposition to ban smacking in Jersey says:
‘I know that some people will say that they were smacked when they were young and it didn’t do them any harm, and so they think they have a right to do the same thing to their children,’ Deputy Le Hegarat said. ‘But I would simply question what the benefit is. Who benefits from smacking a child? Certainly not the child, as it doesn’t stop them from doing the same thing again.”
But I think that the focus is too narrow by just making it a matter of “disciplining the child” by smacking, or taking this as “violence against the child”.
Violence Against the Child?
As far as “violence against the child” goes, one would expect any law which bans any form of corporal punishment to allow some legal gradation. For instance, with physical violence directed by one adult against another, there are different kinds of offence: specific offences include common assault, actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, and grievous bodily harm with intent. Premeditation must play a part in assessing how any offense could be committed, as well as the severity and circumstances of the act.
As Dr Ashley Frawley, senior lecturer in social policy at Swansea University has noted, to lump all offenses together, and treat smacking the same way, might well actually hide real child abuse. But part of the problem is that the law is already murky. Jersey law states on “Limitation of defence of reasonable corporal punishment”
(1) Any defence of reasonable corporal punishment of a child shall only be available to a person who was at the time of the punishment –
(a) a person with parental responsibility for the child; or
(b) a person without parental responsibility for the child who –
(i) is the father or relative of the child;
(ii) had care of the child; and
(iii) had the consent of a person with parental responsibility for the child to administer such punishment.
(2) Any defence of reasonable corporal punishment of a child shall not be available if the punishment involved any means other than the use of a hand.
As Ann Smith notes in “The State of Research on the Effects of Physical Punishment”:
“Physical or corporal punishment is the use of force to cause pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control (Straus and Stewart 1999). Although researchers attempt to distinguish between physical punishment and abuse, this is very hard to do and there is no general agreement about the dividing line between physical punishment and physical abuse. It is not possible to define what a 'safe smack' is. Abusive and non-abusive parents differ mainly in how often and how severely they physically punish their child, and whether that physical punishment is purportedly for correcting children.”
Our Understanding of the Child
So how can we approach this? Louise Porter, writing in the Australian Journal of Early Childhood, December 2003, in an article entitled “Valuing Children” makes some interesting thought experiments as to how we behave and what our behaviour tells us about how we understand children.
“When I was teaching at university, my students were teachers--many of them early childhood teachers--in graduate programs. At the outset of a lecture on behaviour management, I would ask the group if it would be alright for a caregiver to smack someone who was deliberately spitting food at her during feeding. Admittedly, over the years fewer and fewer said that they would condone smacking--but some always did."
"Then I clarified that I had not been thinking of a three-year-old spitting the food, but an 83-year-old who had Alzheimers disease. The answer then would unanimously change: it was now not alright for the carer to smack the elderly person. When I asked what was the difference, on one occasion one member of the group said it was because the elder had been a person (but, presumably no longer was!). In other words, a child was not yet a person.”
That’s an interesting distinction, but it does give pause for thought as to how we are understanding children and their development. It stems, she suggests, from a point of view which sees behavioural errors as punishable, and need socialising and discipline (by corporal punishment such as smacking) as a means of behavioural control.
“This view underpins a system of behaviour modification, in which we feel that we must reward children for behaviour of which we approve, as if they will not think to act thoughtfully again; and that we must 'come down hard on them' when they act unkindly, because otherwise they will keep acting that way.”
Teaching Compliance to the Sex Abuser
Louise Porter calls this “a sour view of children”, and says that this leads to assumptions that the goal of discipline is to teach children to be obedient and to comply. When they do not, we often use labels such as 'non compliance' which suggest that children should do as adults tell them.
But, as she goes on to point out, by applying behavioural techniques such as this, we are taking morality out of the equation completely. And this is a real danger when it comes to child abuse. This is backed up by studies of abuse when children have been taught to be compliant in this way:
“Training children to be obedient endangers them because they might not resist abuse--and here I'm thinking mainly of sexual abuse--when they have been taught to do what adults say (Briggs & McVeity, 2000). In the study by Frieda Briggs and Michael McVeity, the researchers interviewed perpetrators of child sexual abuse who were imprisoned for their offences. These researchers asked the perpetrators how they had managed to get away with the abuse; all answered that it had been made possible because children had been trained to do what adults told them.”
And a second issue is that of peer pressure. We all know that bullying is a perennial problem in schools, and by prioritising “compliance” over ethical values because – just as it leads to abused children being compliant to the demands of abusers, it also teaches compliance to the dominant bully:
“Teaching compliance is dangerous for surrounding children as those who have been trained to follow others might collude with school yard bullying when directed to do so by a powerful peer. One-half of school yard bullying could in fact be termed 'mobbing' because it entails a ringleader suggesting to some followers to pick on a child to whom they have taken a dislike. If the followers had the pluck to resist, the ringleader would not have the courage to act alone--and the rate of bullying in schools would halve.”
There is certainly academic evidence that corporal punishment may legitimise violence for children in interpersonal relationships because they tend to internalise the social relations they experience. Children may “model” the behaviour they receive to use on others.
In conclusion
I am not wholly convinced that the case is wholly made against making smacking illegal, as I can see issues over criminalising more minor offenses, but as can be seen above - and I started with an open mind - there are extremely good grounds for adults not smacking children.
That’s an interesting distinction, but it does give pause for thought as to how we are understanding children and their development. It stems, she suggests, from a point of view which sees behavioural errors as punishable, and need socialising and discipline (by corporal punishment such as smacking) as a means of behavioural control.
“This view underpins a system of behaviour modification, in which we feel that we must reward children for behaviour of which we approve, as if they will not think to act thoughtfully again; and that we must 'come down hard on them' when they act unkindly, because otherwise they will keep acting that way.”
Teaching Compliance to the Sex Abuser
Louise Porter calls this “a sour view of children”, and says that this leads to assumptions that the goal of discipline is to teach children to be obedient and to comply. When they do not, we often use labels such as 'non compliance' which suggest that children should do as adults tell them.
But, as she goes on to point out, by applying behavioural techniques such as this, we are taking morality out of the equation completely. And this is a real danger when it comes to child abuse. This is backed up by studies of abuse when children have been taught to be compliant in this way:
“Training children to be obedient endangers them because they might not resist abuse--and here I'm thinking mainly of sexual abuse--when they have been taught to do what adults say (Briggs & McVeity, 2000). In the study by Frieda Briggs and Michael McVeity, the researchers interviewed perpetrators of child sexual abuse who were imprisoned for their offences. These researchers asked the perpetrators how they had managed to get away with the abuse; all answered that it had been made possible because children had been trained to do what adults told them.”
And a second issue is that of peer pressure. We all know that bullying is a perennial problem in schools, and by prioritising “compliance” over ethical values because – just as it leads to abused children being compliant to the demands of abusers, it also teaches compliance to the dominant bully:
“Teaching compliance is dangerous for surrounding children as those who have been trained to follow others might collude with school yard bullying when directed to do so by a powerful peer. One-half of school yard bullying could in fact be termed 'mobbing' because it entails a ringleader suggesting to some followers to pick on a child to whom they have taken a dislike. If the followers had the pluck to resist, the ringleader would not have the courage to act alone--and the rate of bullying in schools would halve.”
There is certainly academic evidence that corporal punishment may legitimise violence for children in interpersonal relationships because they tend to internalise the social relations they experience. Children may “model” the behaviour they receive to use on others.
In conclusion
I am not wholly convinced that the case is wholly made against making smacking illegal, as I can see issues over criminalising more minor offenses, but as can be seen above - and I started with an open mind - there are extremely good grounds for adults not smacking children.
In the context of child abuse, as research on those abused has shown, the issue of teaching compliant behaviour becomes extremely problematic. It is teaching children to obey the abuser or the dominant bully.
What we don’t want is a kind of witch hunt by social workers as has happened in the UK – I'm thinking of matters like the “satanic ritual abuse panics” – which prioritises the evidence of children complaining about being smacked without corroborative evidence, and ends up removing children from parental care as a result. I don’t think that is so likely but one can never be too sure. And yet lessons have been learned from mistakes made, and I trust to the common sense of our legal system.
It should also be noted that most people comply with the law, as can be seen in the case of the law requiring children to wear safely helmets when cycling. It is almost impossible to police this law effectively, but the fact that we are for the most part a law abiding society, when we can see laws make sense, probably made it a good change to make.
But we should perhaps also consider that a smack is a very restrictive form of discipline in that it can only be used by authorised people, and only by hand. Nevertheless, a hand can be used to punch as well as to smack, and the law could always be even more restrictive in what is meant by reasonable force. What can be a relative soft smack to a five year old can be much harder on a one year old. There are all factors which it would be well to raise.
Also it is clear that any corporal punishment must be contextualised within some kind of ethical developmental framework, so that a child is not just made to be compliant, but is taught why compliance is right in that instance. The absence of that in a lot of corporal punishment means that the wrong message is getting through.
There’s a very telling anecdote in M. Russell’s paper “The Discipline of Children: Alternatives to Smacking, with which I conclude:
“My parents were very strict. I assumed everyone was being brought up the same. You will do as you're told and you won't question. My mother would use the wooden spoon; my father was more into bare hands. There were other things: go to your room, miss out on something. If you were naughty, they almost took it as a personal affront, they just seemed so offended by it, like you were insulting them. I was basically very good and I was hit frequently. I'm sure through being smacked it made me do so silly things without thinking. It made me go out and do the same thing again, what I'd been smacked for. The message I got from them when they hit me was not "what you're doing is bad, don't do it again". The message I got was "we don't love you".
What we don’t want is a kind of witch hunt by social workers as has happened in the UK – I'm thinking of matters like the “satanic ritual abuse panics” – which prioritises the evidence of children complaining about being smacked without corroborative evidence, and ends up removing children from parental care as a result. I don’t think that is so likely but one can never be too sure. And yet lessons have been learned from mistakes made, and I trust to the common sense of our legal system.
It should also be noted that most people comply with the law, as can be seen in the case of the law requiring children to wear safely helmets when cycling. It is almost impossible to police this law effectively, but the fact that we are for the most part a law abiding society, when we can see laws make sense, probably made it a good change to make.
But we should perhaps also consider that a smack is a very restrictive form of discipline in that it can only be used by authorised people, and only by hand. Nevertheless, a hand can be used to punch as well as to smack, and the law could always be even more restrictive in what is meant by reasonable force. What can be a relative soft smack to a five year old can be much harder on a one year old. There are all factors which it would be well to raise.
Also it is clear that any corporal punishment must be contextualised within some kind of ethical developmental framework, so that a child is not just made to be compliant, but is taught why compliance is right in that instance. The absence of that in a lot of corporal punishment means that the wrong message is getting through.
There’s a very telling anecdote in M. Russell’s paper “The Discipline of Children: Alternatives to Smacking, with which I conclude:
“My parents were very strict. I assumed everyone was being brought up the same. You will do as you're told and you won't question. My mother would use the wooden spoon; my father was more into bare hands. There were other things: go to your room, miss out on something. If you were naughty, they almost took it as a personal affront, they just seemed so offended by it, like you were insulting them. I was basically very good and I was hit frequently. I'm sure through being smacked it made me do so silly things without thinking. It made me go out and do the same thing again, what I'd been smacked for. The message I got from them when they hit me was not "what you're doing is bad, don't do it again". The message I got was "we don't love you".
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