Spare the rod and spoil the child? A good smack? British culture is permeated with language and values that promote hitting children. But attitudes like these are beginning to seem outmoded and increasing numbers of parents no longer believe that smacking is a good idea. Recent opinion polls indicate that the anti-smackers now outnumber those who advocate physical punishment of children. And yet most parents still admit to the occasional smack. Alarmingly, three-quarters admit to smacking their babies before they are a year old. So if parents think smacking is a bad idea, why are they doing it?
Debbie Cowley, practice development manager at the Parenting Education and Support Forum, believes that most parents smack when they are at the end of their tether and don’t know what else to do. "When you talk to parents about how they feel when they smack their children, they mostly say they feel bad and out of control. There isn’t much of a job to be done in persuading them that it isn’t a good idea. People who smack frequently - usually because they are really stressed - find after a while it doesn’t even work. It becomes part of their relationship with the child."
Smacking often has more to do with how the parent is feeling at the time than how the child has behaved. Research reveals that mothers who are irritated for reasons which have nothing to do with the child are very much more likely to inflict severe punishments.1 Smith’s study also found factors such as living in overcrowded accommodation, being a single parent or having a low income do not in themselves make it more likely that parents will hit their children while the quality of the parents’ relationship and mental health strongly influence the likelihood of children being hit.
It is not surprising then that parent educators find an effective way of helping parents to stop smacking is to get them to focus on ways of looking after themselves and building their own inner resources. Part of this is about practical measures to give themselves a break, but also involves reflecting on their own attitudes which may be adding to their stress. For example, parents often believe that they should be able to protect their children from difficult experiences and uncomfortable emotions. But life isn’t like that. Cowley explains: "When parents realise that babies might be crying because they are expressing something they need to express, they feel better. It isn’t always necessary to stop the crying, but just to be for there for them."
The next step is to look at relationships within the family and to think about what it is like to be the child. Cowley says: "If parents can look at things from the child’s point of view it’s easier to see that children are behaving in a certain way for a reason and not just to wind us up. Sometimes it really feels like they are doing something just because they want to hurt us, but there’s always a reason. The reason might be developmental - they might want to be separate from us, or it might be that they are feeling left out. When you stop taking everything personally it’s a real breakthrough."
Studies indicate that parenting education is an effective way of getting parents to use more positive approaches to managing their children’s behaviour. Groups work well because parents can exchange information and experiences and support each other, often after the formal group comes to an end. But not everyone wants to go on a parenting course. Gill Keep, head of policy at the National Family and Parenting Institute, says that providing parents with basic information on child development and parenting, for example, at key stages of transition like starting primary school and again at starting secondary school, is helpful. She says: "We need to think about how we can give information to parents without it being stigmatising. There’s a strong message that parents don’t want to be preached at. Only they know their own families. They won’t access services if they feel they are being judged."
Keep adds: "It’s important that people know what the evidence is about smacking. If people think it’s effective they need to know that the research shows something different."
Keep believes that focusing on smacking independently of what else may be going on in a family may not convey a particularly helpful message to parents. She says: "You don’t want to say that smacking is ever a good idea. The issue becomes the smack rather than the behaviour. But the evidence shows that the context in which a smack is delivered is an important factor. It depends on family relationships. If it’s a warm and loving family a smack is not likely to do much harm." She points out that the kinds of methods usually advocated as an alternative to smacking can be just as harmful, depending on the family context. "If you are a family where you ignore the children anyway, time out and ignoring bad behaviour are really damaging strategies. Our message is ‘look at the quality of relationships’."
Cowley agrees that distinguishing smacking from other coercive or abusive methods gives a confusing message. She says: "Smacking is bad because it means children are experiencing a relationship which is coercive. The way in which discipline is being delivered is damaging to the relationship. We build our children’s mental well-being through our relationships with them. But I wouldn’t separate smacking from a lot of things, like yelling at children how stupid and useless they are."
Nevertheless the NSPCC believes their "no smacking" campaign is playing an important role in changing attitudes to physical punishment. And the evidence so far suggests it is working. An NOP survey found that following the charity’s poster campaign, 79 per cent of parents said that they were more aware of the negative effects of physical punishment, and 48 per cent said it had made them think about how they discipline their children. Fifty-four per cent now say that smacking a child aged between one and four is cruel, compared with only 43 per cent in January 2002 before the campaign was launched.
Sue Woolmore, policy officer for the NSPCC in the North East, says that public education campaigns are crucial. "You need to see the advice everywhere. We would like to see public education on television, through soap opera storylines, in the doctor’s surgery and on cereal packets, constantly reinforcing the message that smacking doesn’t work and with practical advice for alternatives."
But Woolmore would also like to see more support for parents to help them stop smacking. She wants all professionals working with children and families, including health visitors, doctors and teachers, to reinforce the "no smacking" message. Early next year the NSPCC will be publishing a leaflet providing practical advice and research findings for professionals working with parents.
Woolmore acknowledges that professionals who have smacked their own children may find it difficult to support other parents. Rather than retreating from the debate, she says people need to come to terms with their regrets. "We can empathise with the pressures everyone’s under to smack. Chances are you’re exhausted a lot of the time. And we have all been brought up in a society that condones smacking and encourages people to think that sometimes, as a last resort, it is the best way to teach right from wrong."
Woolmore adds: "It is a sensitive issue. The vital thing is not to go in criticising. We need to help people to see that hitting children doesn’t achieve what they want."
1 C Henricson, A Grey, Understanding Discipline: An Overview of Child Discipline Practices and their Implications for Family Support, research cited is by Marjorie Smith, NFPI, 2001
