The Children’s Commissioner for England, Maggie Atkinson, speaking to the left-wing Independent newspaper said that parents should be banned from smacking (AKA spanking across the pond) their children under any circumstances.
Atkinson states that both adults and pets are better protected under the law and says “It’s a moral issue! The morals are that, taken to its extreme, physical chastisement is actually physical abuse and I have never understood where you can draw the line between one and the other. Better that it were not permitted.”
However Colin Hart, Director of The Christian Institute responded by saying: “The link being made between smacking and physical abuse is ridiculous. Parents should have the right to discipline their children and the current law allows them to do so with the defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’. Banning smacking will only serve to criminalise innocent and responsible parents who are seeking to do what’s best for their children”.
Reasonable chastisement in England has been the standard for legal parental smacking since 2004 with the definition that it doesn’t cause bruising, swelling, cuts, grazes or scratches. The standard is similar in Scotland and Northern Ireland and violators can be jailed for five years.
MP’s seem to support the current legal position. Justice Secretary Chris Grayling told The Mail on Sunday last year "You chastise children when they are bad, as my parents did me. I'm not opposed to smacking. It is to be used occasionally. Sometimes it sends a message - but I don't hanker for the days when children were severely beaten at school."
Grayling was supported from across the aisle by Labour MP David Lammy who said parents should be allowed to smack their children without the fear of facing jail. He said it was "too easy for middle-class legislators to be far removed from the realities of the typical single mum", and that politicians should spend less time telling parents what to do (yes that was a lefty saying ‘politicians should spend less time telling parents what to do’).
Philip Noyes at the NSPCC though, supported Atkinson’s comments . He said: “It’s right that we continue the push to get children equal protection in law. It would not be intended to criminalise good parents but to put into law what more and more parents are already moving towards – finding better ways than smacking to discipline their children.”
But therein lays the problem when the progressives get involved. Whereas Atkinson stated her department would not be lobbying for legal change they still see the necessity to legislate. Whereas helping parents to understand all methods of discipline is helpful, the likes of Atkinson and Noyes want to move public opinion sufficiently so as to gain support for their agenda.
Atkinson further added in her interview that her department would not be campaigning for a ban on smacking because it would be a “poor use of resources (where) the behind-the-scenes conversations don’t stop.” She added that the debate on smacking “becomes very emotive really quickly” and that she wanted to be a “measured” voice on the issue.
This statement is something of an enigma that shows, far from being a ‘measured’ voice; she is purposefully stirring the pot. She has already removed herself from being a voice of reason by her partisan first-strike position. To then claim that this is an issue but it will not be pursued is a passive-aggressive way of telling the government they need to come up with more money.
Her bio states that “Maggie works on the assumption that children and young people are citizens now, with much to offer and a right to be heard. … She lives by her conviction that most children and young people are positive contributors to society.”
Children should be treated as children. They should not be given the responsibility and authority of citizenship in the same way as adults! Her viewpoint by-passes the concept that parents should be the primary determiners of their children’s welfare.
In fact both Atkinson and Noyes are likely people who’ve grown up with blurred boundaries. Atkinson’s comments (“I have never understood where you can draw the line”) suggest that she herself may have experienced abuse of some kind since typically this is the kind of person who loses the ability to distinguish a healthy or appropriate activity from a similarly abusive one.
The ban is up for debate in Australia having been instituted in New Zealand in 2007 and retained in 2009 despite the government referendum being defeated 87%-13%. But New Zealand should be able to give us some insight as to the effect of the change should it occur elsewhere.
Three things are standing out in the land of the Kiwi. 1) Since the ban, child abuse is UP by a whopping one-third. 2) When police are called and there is an investigation, only 1 in 11 cases end in charges even being filed. 3) Still more than 75% of New Zealanders favour overturning the ban with only minor variations of opinion through the age groups, between genders, as well as between metro and rural parents.
All of this points to policies that people don’t want, are willing to defy (two-thirds surveyed), and are wasting significant government resources. But progressive and liberal thinkers keep thinking of new ways for the government to make things better.
When Atkinson was appointed by the Labour government in 2010 she had to be vetted by the Education Select Committee. Despite the fact that the Labour Party controlled the committee it would not endorse her and Schools Secretary Ed Balls made and end run to appoint her anyway. Balls lost his job when his party lost the last general election, it’s time this government followed the advice of the Daily Telegraph and replaced Atkinson as well.
David Lammy was heavily criticized in 2011 when he stated that parent’s fear of disciplining their children was partly responsible for the August 2011 London riots. But we should take his words to heart and the politicians should, as he suggests, ‘spend less time telling parents what to do’.
