Should parents smack their kids?

Smacking.

It’s a topic guaranteed to divide. Some parents see it as a useful took for disciplining children where as others go so far as to call it child abuse.

Currently smacking is still legal in Australia, within reason. There are rules for where and how a parent may strike their child which include not being able to hit a child above the head and not leaving a mark. But more and more, Australian parents are looking to alternative methods to discipline their kids.

Whatever your approach though it can be hard witnessing another parent use smacking as a form of punishment. At what point do you step in? Where do you draw the line between discipline and full on assault and do you have a right to intervene when you see another parent treating their child this way?

Smacking is still a tool used by a lot of parents. Image: istock

This is the exact situation Reddit user Foreverawino (great name) found herself in recently. She explains that she is a mother of an eight month old and due to her age is yet to find a need to discipline her child. However she does say that she and her partner are both against smacking. She also states though that while this is her personal stance she doesn't necessarily see other parents as 'bad' for doing it.

She explains that recently she stopped to change her baby's nappy at a service station and was confronted with a scene of another mother dragging her two year old to the bathroom to smack her. She says that the mother took the girl into the cubicle stall and says "I heard the little girl crying for her to stop and the mother telling her she better stop crying."

Understandably, the situation was difficult to observe and Foreverawino was unsure whether or not she should intervene. So she asked the forum for their opinions. "I try not to be judgmental of other parents as you really never know what is happening when you aren't around, but I was judging her hard. I know saying something wouldn't have done a bit of good, but have any of you witnessed something like this before?"

Responses varied, as you would expect. Many used the situation to reflect on their own memories of childhood discipline. "I remember being old enough to know that I was getting spanked for a bullshit reason (my brother lied to get me in trouble), and my mother told me she wasn't going to stop spanking me until I cried. She did not make me cry that day; she only added one more item to the long list of reasons that I no longer speak with her 30 years later." said one respondent.

Another user added "I remember being screamed at by my parents growing up (mainly my Dad) and crying. I remember being afraid of being hurt and in my stress, I would cry. I hated being told "SHUT UP! Stop crying before I give you something to cry about!"

Others noted that spanking (or smacking) was often a consequence of parents losing their cool rather than children. "I remember being spanked because my parent was angry. It was the quickest way for them to vent their rage. And I don't remember being spanked for something like, racing out into traffic. I remember being spanked because I back talked. Because I touched something I wasn't supposed to (and not like, a hot stove or something). The only tool my dad really had to parent was to spank. Angry? Spank. Frustrated? Spank. Drunk and want the kids to be quiet during Jeopardy? You get the picture. And eventually it got to the point where nothing my Dad said really meant much to me. Even now. I still to this day carry this weird image of love from men because---well, that's a different story, I guess."

Ben Fordham publicly defended parents using smacking as discipline. (Channel 9)

A lot of users noted that the situation described by Foreverawino was actually more than a simple form of discipline though and crossed the line into abuse.

A quick poll of the mums at Mamamia showed that a lot of us believed that smacking was indeed a reflection of a parent's loss of temper, rather than the child's actions. Most of us agreed that smacking was not used in our houses, although understood completely how some parents could get to that point where smacking happened.  "I would NEVER smack my kids because I was smacked/beaten as a child and it ruined me. Parents do it out of anger, it doesn't work when it comes to teaching kids a lesson. It only teaches them to be afraid of you." For a lot of us it was line we just didn't want to cross when it came to raising our kids. 

All of us agreed that it would be hard watching another parent smack their child no matter your personal stance. "I have a friend who does it in front of me and I just cringe. I hate it. I don't see a friend anymore because of it. I couldn't stand it.", said one mum. 

It's a tricky situation really because growing up a lot of were disciplined using these kinds of methods and it's hard to accept that your parents did anything wrong towards you. This is probably why a lot of people use the idea of 'I was smacked as a child and I turned out ok" rationale.

What do you think? Would you have said something?