American here. I’m writing an essay on why spanking can be considered child abuse, and I’m making an argument on what the standard is in the UK, so I’m wondering if it’s common in the UK, or if it’s frowned upon.

28 comments

  3. It’s called smacking here.

    In Wales and Scotland smacking is banned but in England it’s not. It’s not a general acceptable punishment in the UK. Some dinosaurs will tell you otherwise.

  7. In my generation (millennial) the vast majority will say its not OK. (90% +)

    In our parents generation, it was fairly debatable. Maybe 50/50.

    Before that it was common.

    Personally I agree its abuse and there is mountains of information that shows how it damages attachment and reinforces violent tendencies and doesn’t help with critical thinking.

  10. It’s illegal in Scotland and Wales which are both part of the Uk.

    You face criminal charges and might go to jail, have your children removed (quite rightly) and be labelled as a child abuser if you hit your children.

    In England, not so much as they like to abuse children from an early age in private schools

  16. Genuine question: if you don’t know about the situation in the UK why are you using it in your essay? Surely you could present your argument without relying on what is from your point of view a hypothetical.

  17. Phased out in the 80s
    Not illegal but frowned on in England.
    I went to secondary school in 79 headmaster proudly told us how he caned a boy unconscious woke him up then caned him some more.
    Would be jailed now.

  18. Some people are really “into” it from what I have seen and read but I have no interest in it personally.

    ​

    British humour, seeing a different side to your question.

    I understand that it is not permitted to hit/smack children now, it’s called progress and that is why children are so uncontrollable. My father did very rarely hit/smack me and my brother and I only on one occasion thought he was approaching going too far when he punished my brother for steeling something owned by our family.

  19. It’s certainly frowned upon – enough so that anyone saying “maybe there are situations where some restrained form of corporal punishment might be acceptable” would be vilified as a disgusting human being, and anyone saying “I occasionally got a smack on the wrist or arse and harbour no resentment toward or fear of my parents for it” would be considered to have a distorted viewpoint and thus have their opinion discounted. Enough that nobody would be caught expressing a view other than that it’s completely wrong in all situations in a public space such as this.

    It’s frowned upon enough that, even though I haven’t actually given my own opinion on it, my previous paragraph will be taken as *being* my opinion and this comment will be downvoted into oblivion.

  20. It depends on your circle. White english British people of the younger/middle aged generation will say it is abuse. African/Jamaican/certain Asian parents will continue to practice it by a large amount, some younger generations choosing not to and viewing it as abuse. So for the most part the UK looks down on smacking children, your child could also report you to child services if you hit them in any capacity.

  21. I would say today absolutely not ok, but when i was a child (80s) it wasn’t done *a lot* (as far as I know), but was seen as acceptable (I think teachers could still hit kids for being naughty at school until the late 80s) but the threat of it was used a deterrent/warning. eg if you keep kicking that man’s seat I’ll smack your bottom/slap your legs etc

  22. The arguments I’ve heard:

    1) God says it’s okay.

    2) I’m the parent, and you’re the state, and it’s none of your business

    3) Sometimes you need to do it for safety.

    There’s loads of stuff in sacred texts that we don’t do or which are unlawful, so (1) fails. (2) fails because while parental rights are important, the child also has rights.

    To me, I have a hard line against smacking, so (3) fails because if a child runs into a road it’s a failure of the parent, not the child. “I didn’t look after you well enough, so here, have some pain”? Urgh.

  23. If you want your argument for, I’ll tell it from my father’s point of view. He wanted to control his household. Keep them doing what he thought was the best way. I guess like a dictator thinks they’re doing the best for their country. A bit of fear kept his children (and wife) in check. He smacked and used a wooden shoe tree. I was a really good and well behaved child. So how right he was.

    The argument against is: I am grey rock friendly low contact and only that because I might as well get an inheritance to make up for all that.

  24. No hitting is not considered ok here, even though I’m England it’s technically legal you would still get reported for it.

    When I was a kid (I’m 31) my dad would beat shit out of me for doing something wrong, my mum would slap but not as brutal as dad. Neither of them would ever talk about why x,y and z was wrong… I turned into a shitty angry teenager and I do hold resentment towards my parents lazy parenting.

    I now have 16 and 13 year old boys, neither have been rebellious children, neither argue back with me, neither cause any trouble. Both are popular, well respected boys, they have a great sense of humour and banter. And know how to express themselves. Because I didn’t hit them, instead I did natural consequences (this was before I even knew it was called that or it was a thing), so when they drew on walls as kids do, I handed them a bucket of warm soapy water and left them to clean it up.. never did it again. That sort of shit. I would explain why we don’t behave a certain way, I wouldn’t shy away from the truth.

    Ask anyone who was smacked as a child “did you repeat the behaviour?” Most of the time the answer is “yes” usually followed by how they learnt to not get caught. So it does nothing other than create sneaky children who tell lies.

  25. Some thought behind why people used to think smacking/spanking a child was acceptable (these are NOT my own opinions, but those I was told back in the 80s):
    *The short, sharp shock of a smack (e.g slapping a child’s legs) immediately connects the poor behaviour with the punishment. Young children will not understand a spoken explanation but they will remember the sting of the smack and not want it repeated. Usually acceptable if the child’s action would have lead to them being harmed – e.g slapping their legs because they ignored a parent telling them not to run off near a busy road.*

    While this sounds logical and reasonable I would disagree.

    My parents would smack/slap and spank us, as in my mum would smack (I see this as being lighter and with a hand, versus a ‘full force’ spank with a slipper or board) or slap our bodies (arms, legs, face – whichever part she could reach first) while my dad would make us bend over a chair and spank our behinds (over our clothes) quite hard with a slipper. Imagine a grown man using his full force out of anger on a young child’s behind – he sent my brother flying on more than one occasion. Very rarely would these punishments feel fair, as most of the time it was more out of their anger than actual logical and reasonable responses to our behaviour. My parents were often stressed and took that stress out on us kids. I’m speaking honestly when I say we were not perfect kids, but we weren’t horrors either. I was pretty well behaved because I was terrified of my parent disapproval and anger, while my brother would challenge them but was also afraid of their anger. I remember us frequently being punished just for normal child behaviour, such as laughing loudly while playing together, because one of them was in a bad mood. Once my dad even went to spank my brother for screaming, until he realised it was because my brother had scalded himself badly with the kettle (ended up in A&E).
    As an adult I understand they must have been exhausted from their working week, but to take that out on their own kids was unfair and only caused us to resent them. Dad definitely had anger issues, but has mellowed in his old age, while Mum was, and still is, very controlling. (Or tries to be. Both my brother and I have leaned the importance of boundaries)

    Of course some parents would be even more extreme and move to full on physical abuse. I think that’s what lead to smacking/spanking being outlawed. While I am definitely not putter my parents in the full-on child abuser category I will say that they are an example of when smacking is not always the solution.

  26. It’s illegal in Scotland and Wales and severely frowned upon in England.

    But it still happens incredibly regularly in certain households, heavily skewed on racial and cultural demographics, in the privacy of the homes.

    The kids are generally too scared to report it to the police and the state is generally too scared to do anything because the community would just shout “racism”.

  27. It’s illegal in some parts of the UK, for others “As a parent, you don’t have the legal right to smack your child unless it is ‘reasonable punishment’ “.

    I used to get spanked (no not in the kinky way) when I was a kid. Don’t see it as an issue really.

  28. I’m over 60 and corporal punishment was already disappearing when I was at school. Smacking children is definitely frowned on today.

    Spanking is the sort of thing that adults get up to at places like Club Rub, in London.

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