You are quite right that this is unenforceable in most private instances, but what it does is say clearly that society as a whole does not accept the corporal punishment of young children, even by those who have care responsibilites for them. It says too that the old Jasper Carrot question - Why do parents take their children to supermarkets to smack them? - had enough truth that society should be rightly ashamed of its treatment of the young. As to checking, we already do that. Health Visitors are particularly good at spotting non-accidental bruising on children and the best Health Visitors can spot too, children who flinch from supposedly caring adults.

No other members of this (UK) society are liable to corporal punishment legally. Why are children different? I have every sympathy for the adult who strikes a child under stress, but that sympathy is for someone who has lost control. It does not deny their guilt of an assault. They need support if they are to retain that level of responsibility for care. I once smacked one of my children when he was young. The provocation was extreme, but I have never forgotten how awful it made me feel, nor how hard it was to build back the trust between us, including his brother and sister who witnessed the event. Thankfully, we were successful.

Smacking does do harm. It confirms the right of the strong to use physical power to coerce compliance. That  lesson is learned (like all lessons) more easily and more completely when you are very young. Barbara Dockar-Drysdale is right that immediate and full confession of wrong by the adult can mitigate the effects, but not if the offence is repeated, nor if it is accompanied by any sense by the adult that they feel they are right or justified.

Stephen Rennie, Leeds Metropolitan University

> -----Original Message-----
> From: G.F. Phillips [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 3:46 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: the price of democracy
>
> Hello Paul
> Thanks, I'd forgotten about the latest from the Scottish Parliament.   To be
> honest I can't see how this can be policed,unless a special force is
> employed to check the hands, legs and bums of all children under three.   To
> be honest I don't think that when all else has failed a little tap to the
> little one will do any harm at all, whether British or Scottish.   The late
> Barbara Dockar Drysdale, who founded the Mulberry Bush School used to say
> that if a grown up hits a child in a moment of anger, the most important
> thing was for that grown up to realize that they were under stress and that
> they should acknowledge that to the child as well as to themselves.   I
> doubt very much if this law in Scotland is really enforceable.  It was
> probably drawn up by someone who has never had kids of their own or worked
> with them professionally.
>
> Corporal punishment in schools years ago, used to be a ritualized sadistic
> process from which the teacher derived great pleasure.   Often the boy
> (usually) would find pleasure in being beaten by a particular teacher and a
> beater beaten syndrome was established.  Not good.
>
> Anyway, I think that if a parent occasionally taps, not slaps or beats a
> child under three, then no damage either psychological or physical will
> result.   I can understand the parent who slaps their sassy adolescent son
> or daughter.   Not to be recommended, but sometimes unavoidable, in order
> for the parent to feel better.  Of course in an ideal world none of this
> would happen at all.
> Best
> Gerald
>