It was interesting to see plans progress for a “ban” on parents smacking their children, with Scotland expected to become the first part of the UK to pass legislation within the next year.
What it means in practice is that the defence of “justifiable assault” will be removed from Scots law, a plea in mitigation currently actions deemed reasonable and part of “parental right”.
I come from a very loving family and would praise my parents to the hilt for everything they have done for me, but there came times where I would – and I would argue justifiably – “get the baffy” for doing something wrong as a child. Not a full blown over the knee affair, but a wee skelp on my leg with the hard side of a slipper as I tried to escape upstairs was not out of the ordinary.
It did the job of letting me know what was right from wrong, and I believe such disciplining – what I’d call reasonable chastisement, as is detailed in law south of the border – was, looking back, actually beneficial for me.
Times have changed and, as a parent myself, I’d never dream of harming my kids, although physically manhandling them away from certain situations has been known.
While I wholeheartedly support the message behind the legislation, I fear loving parents who do reach the end of their tether could become “criminals”.
I’ve heard people in the past week suggesting children deserve the same legal protection from assault that adults enjoy and that any kind of assault can never be considered justifiable. I concur.
However, I reckon an element of common sense still needs to be built into this legislation to avoid the situation where mums and dads are punished when they are genuinely trying to do the right thing.
Parents and carers need to be given more support when it comes to practising responsible parenting, but there is no one size fits all approach to this. Kids are kids, and each one behaves entirely differently from the next.
One of mine responds to a quiet talking to, the other seems to benefit from a period on the now infamous naughty step – an increasingly popular disciplinary gimmick borrowed from TV programmes like Supernanny.
It’s a complex issue that always generates healthy debate, and Scottish ministers must get this one right before any new legislation comes into force.
