Doctors Are Officially Attempting To Outlaw Spanking From Households

Parenting; it sure as heck ain’t easy. There’s no manual to read from, most of the time it’s just sheer guesswork, and because of this – every parent has their very own parenting style… which is fine, because if it works, then it works right?

For example, some parents out there prefer to let their children go without discipline, as they believe that their children will eventually learn from their mistakes and thus will become stronger adults because of it. There are also other parents out there who are so strict that they don’t even give their children a chance to make mistakes because they monitor their children’s every. single. move thus they don’t have to discipline them because they aren’t actually able to do anything wrong.

And then there are the other parents who fall somewhere neatly in between, and they will only hand out discipline when it’s extremely needed. Well… they try to at least, that is. 

The question burning on everybodies mind, however, is this; which type of parenting is the best? Well, there’s no easy way to answer this, as I’m sure you can imagine, and what most people would say it to just do what works best for you and your family. When it comes to spanking, however, everyone chooses a side it seems. People are either totally for it, or totally against it… there’s often no in-between.  Even parenting “experts” have an opinion.

John Drewicz, Association of Educational Psychologists national executive committee member, has said:

“Smacking is harmful to a child’s mental health, it models aggressive behavior and it says to them that it is OK to use violence. Sixty countries already have full bans, including Sweden, Ireland, Spain, Germany, and Portugal, and it is time to make violence against children illegal in the UK in all settings, including the home.”

However, not everyone seems to agree that this is the right answer, surprise surprise.

There are some people out there who support the parents who choose to use spanking as a way to discipline their children. They claim that telling people how to parent and telling parents when they are “wrong” only undermines them, which isn’t a good thing. Still, they want parents to understand that spanking their children is technically different from physically harming them or actually abusing them. There has to be a line drawn somewhere.

Dr. Mary Bousted, who is the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, explained that parents have the right to set boundaries for their children and discipline them in a reasonable way.

She added:

“However, we need to ensure that children are legally safeguarded in their own homes. We are not talking about dictating to parents how this is done but what we are saying is that it in 2018 beating children in anger, or as part of a pre-meditated punishment, is neither acceptable or defensible.”

Dr. Stuart Waiton, who is a sociologist and campaigner at Be Reasonable Scotland, does NOT agree.

He explained that many of the types of discipline parents use would, in fact, be illegal if it was used on other adults. He said;

“What about grounding a child? If you grounded in an adult it would be a criminal offense.”

PJ media has also offered some interesting statistics on how different cultures actually view spanking. According to their own website:

“Only 30 percent of Asians approve of spanking, while a whopping 82 percent of African-Americans do so. The numbers for Caucasians, Native Americans, and Hispanics follow the national average, at 71 percent, 75 percent, and 74 percent, respectively. Spanking is most popular in the South, where 78 percent support it. It is least popular in the Northeast, where 63 percent do so. 78 percent of Christians call this practice acceptable, while only 66 percent of non-Christians agree.”

The study also found that education and politics play a role in whether or not parents choose to spank their children as a strong form of discipline.

The website added:

“Interestingly, the more education a person has, the less likely he or she is to support spanking. 87 percent of men with only a high school diploma call the practice acceptable, while 67 percent of women with that level of education do so. Even fewer men with a college degree (64 percent) agree, and only 57 percent of women at that level do so. Nevertheless, this is still a majority. Self-described Republicans (80 percent) are more likely to agree with spanking than self-described Democrats (65 percent).”

At the end of the day, it’s incredibly likely that this topic will ALWAYS be debated because let’s face it, it’s highly unlikely that all the parents and parenting experts of the world will 100% be on one side or the other.

And anyway, most parents are literally just flying by the seat of their own pants and are just trying to do the best that they can. We can only hope that we ourselves are making the right choices when it comes to disciplining (or not) our children and that we are raising kids that are functioning members of society as adults.

But what do you think about it? Are you team Spank Your Kids, or team DON’T Spank Your Kids? Either way, let me know in the comments! And don’t forget to share this with your friends and family so that they can join in on the debate too! AAx

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