I would never condone kids being taken away from their family because they spanked them. That would harm a lot of children. That would be silly and achieve nothing.
Then what would be the legal consequences for spanking? Small fine similar to a parking ticket? How many tickets is too many?
The goal of such a law is to prevent it from happening rather than introducing petty fines with the expectation that the law will be ignored.
It seems that the countries who have already taken steps to ban all forms of corporal punishment have had desirable effects. The focus being on education more than prosecution.
This article is a little dated, (2002) but does give an idea of how the policy has been working in places like Sweden.
http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/725230/ Laws against physically punishing children have been used to educate parents rather than prosecute them. Jackie Cosh reports
Aban on smacking children was implemented in Sweden in 1979. Since then only four children have been killed after being assaulted by an adult, and only one of these was at the hands of a parent - one child in 23 years, compared with Britain's one child a week.
Last year the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment was launched in Geneva. Endorsed by both UNICEF and UNESCO, it is made up of prominent individuals from children's organisations worldwide. Its members call on governments to declare their opposition to corporal punishment of children and to set a timetable for eliminating corporal punishment.
A number of European countries have introduced some form of anti-smacking law - Austria (1989), Germany (2000), Croatia (1998), Cyprus (1994), Latvia (1998), Denmark (1997), Norway (1987), Finland (1983) and Sweden (1979). Generally reform has tended to be proposed not for the purpose of punishing people, but educating them, and so legislation has been passed under family or civil law instead of penal law, without automatic penalties.
Lena Nyberg is the Children's Ombudsman of Sweden, a position set up to safeguard the rights and interests of children and young people. She says, 'I think Sweden is a safer place for children since the introduction of the law in 1979. Opinions concerning physical punishment of children have changed drastically since then. Fewer persons find corporal punishment acceptable.'
Lasting effects
Sweden, the first country in Europe to ban all forms of corporal punishment of children, has conducted several studies into its effect. Much of this is documented in A Generation Without Smacking: The impact of Sweden's ban on physical punishment, a research paper by Dr Joan Durrant of the University of Manitoba, Canada, and published by Save the Children.
Dr Durrant found that Sweden has experienced a drop in the number of children taken into care and a decrease in compulsory measures of social work intervention. Concerns that the law would lead to an increase in prosecutions also appear to be unfounded. Dr Durrant discovered that the proportion of reported assaults legally pursued without trial has remained steady in Sweden, while prosecution rates have declined.
Likewise, Austria and Germany have reported no increase in prosecutions for child abuse, while in Denmark there have been no prosecutions since its law was introduced in 1997.
Adults, referring back to their own childhoods, often use the argument 'it did me no harm' to defend smacking. But in Germany, research had established a clear link between childhood experiences of physical punishment and the likelihood that young people would turn to violence and other anti-social behaviour. Concern about youth crime was high and anti-smacking laws were seen as a far-sighted way of dealing with the problem for years to come.
Lena Nyberg believes that teenage drug abuse would have been an even more widespread problem in Sweden had corporal punishment not been forbidden. 'The psychological and sometimes physical injury felt by the child or young person might provoke him or her to protest against his parents by resorting to anti-social behaviour such as drug abuse,' she says.
In Finland, Save the Children is working with schools to investigate the effect of violence on children. 'Two years ago we introduced a questionnaire to schools and kindergartens,' says the organisation's Jari Virtanen. 'The children answer simple questions on their lives in school and at home, and we hope to add in a further question to obtain a clearer picture about the level of violence in homes.'
Changing attitudes
It has been argued that legislation is not what the public want, and that the law of a country will not work unless it reflects this. But none of these countries introduced reforms in response to public demand.
Soren Gade Hansen, secretariat for the National Council for Children in Denmark, says, 'In 1998, 6,000 mothers of children born in 1995 were interviewed, and figures compared to a similar survey in 1968. It was found that parents are now less likely to hit their children than 30 years ago. Danish parents are much more interested in the child now as an interacting and participating person and treat their child according to that interpretation. They do not use physical power as much any more.'
Anti-smacking reform has always worked best when combined with education programmes. In Finland, the Ministry of Justice and National Board of Social Affairs launched a campaign with leaflets entitled 'What is a good upbringing?' and 'When you can't cope, find help: don't hit the child', which were made available in health clinics and social welfare offices. Just before the law came into effect, it was publicised on television at peak viewing times.
Attitudes have certainly changed in Finland. As Jari Virtanen of Save the Children Finland explains, 'Corporal violence and punishment towards children is seen as a barbaric method of educating or bringing up human beings. The phenomenon of smacking children in our country is very rare. If someone does it in a public place, you can be quite sure the person is not Finnish.'
In Sweden, the Ministry of Justice led a large-scale public education campaign in 1979. Pamphlets distributed to every household that had children emphasised that 'the law now forbids all forms of physical punishment of children, including smacking etc, although it goes without saying that you can still snatch a child away from a hot stove or open window if there is a risk of the child being injured.'
Information about the law was printed on milk cartons for two months in order to have information present at mealtimes when parents and children are together to discuss it. Parents were given paid time off work to attend parenting classes before and after a child's birth.
Lena Nyberg believes that this level of publicity was necessary. 'An important part of the success of the legislation can be attributed to the information campaign,' she says.
Alternative education
Germany also launched a public awareness campaign to accompany its law reform. This involved posters, advertisements and television spots. Projects and community initiatives were set up all over Germany, with prominent personalities appointed as ambassadors to promote non-violent methods of managing children. Slogans such as 'Help, instead of punish' and 'More respect for children' were used. Again, a wide range of media were used to get the message across - television, leaflets, public events, workshops and courses.
The purpose of reform is to educate parents about other forms of discipline, not to punish. This is the aim of EPOCH-worldwide (End Physical Punishment of Children), an informal alliance of organisations, whose members in Britain include Save the Children and Barnardo's. EPOCH has produced booklets and pamphlets promoting alternative forms of discipline (contact it on tel: 020 7700 0627).
It makes sense to look to Europe and learn from other countries' experience that education is the key to change.
As Lucy Thorpe of the NSPCC explains, 'The NSPCC doesn't believe that legal reform on its own would be fair or workable. Public education needs to go hand in hand with legislation, as has been the case in other European countries. We need mass media campaigns backed up by written information and sustained programmes of parenting education and family support.
'Here in Britain we tend to focus heavily on antenatal care, but relatively little help is available to parents to help them with the emotional side of parenting and behaviour difficulties. For attitudes to change, professionals must be able to educate parents and discuss alternatives to physical punishment. Change will only come through such sustained educational programmes, backed up by professional advice, guidance and support.'
