She suggests, 'parents are only human and make mistakes like everyone else'. But children are human too! They feel intimidated, feel pain, hold fears and have many more internalised experiences, just like you and me.
Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in society and rely on mature, law-abiding adults to keep them safe. Rights as parents should not give an automatic passport to bullying or abusing.
Smacking informs children that under certain conditions it is OK to physically assault another person, which in itself subconsciously teaches children a behaviour that we may later chastise them for. How can you guide a child into acceptable forms of behaviour while, in doing this, you use unacceptable forms of behaviour yourself?
I'd like to remind this correspondent that there is no such thing as a loving smack; it's a contradiction in terms. I am just as uncertain that good parents snap, at least to the extent of using physical violence.
This correspondent draws our attention to physical forms of punishment which were commonplace in the 1960s, as if to say they were acceptable. I'm sorry, they were tolerated, not acceptable; that is why they have since been abolished as appropriate forms of discipline.
One final point, which I suggest this correspondent ponders on, is the use of the term 'control their children'. Perhaps if she changed her attitude about the role of children within society, then she would no longer have to think about controlling them, but rather experiencing life with them as equal and respected citizens in their own right.
* Philip Waters, lecturer in playwork, Cornwall
