We now know that the parents of Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler never hesitated to use
corporal punishment to teach their delicate offspring the difference between right
and wrong.
This is the fundamental objection to slapping, smacking and caning: it helps to perpetuate
a culture of violence.
Fear may be effective in suppressing tendencies to misbehave, but what are children
learning when their parents hit them? Dads who are about to beat their kids often say,
as they roll up their sleeves, "I'll teach you a lesson." In that lesson kids don't just
learn that they have been naughty, they also learn that it is permissible to use violence
to impose your idea of what is right. Some children will be forever shocked by their
parents' brutality, but many others will harden themselves and grow up ready to beat their
own children. The same people are likely to support oppressive policing practices and
military invasions overseas.
Parents who have hit their children and are honest with themselves will admit that the
violent outburst was probably not part of a carefully thought out strategy to educate
their offspring. More than likely, it was an instinctive reaction providing a momentary
feeling of satisfaction for the parent. The kids don't do what you say, they start winding
you up, your pride is hurt, they are being too noisy and happy and full of themselves,
you hit them, they sit down and shut up and you feel better.
There are alternatives to this approach. Admittedly, they require more patience, thought
and understanding, but it is surely better to take the trouble to find ways to encourage
kids to behave well rather than rely on inflicting pain when they behave badly.
Children don't learn right from wrong by being beaten. They simply learn how to avoid pain
by doing what they are told. That's not morality, that's just survival. Children learn
about morality and ethics from those they respect, love and trust, not those they fear.
Children who grow up in relationships in which they feel valued will quite naturally want
to maintain those relationships and will regret doing anything that damages them - and
preserving relationships like those is precisely what ethics and morality are all about.
When children are beaten they may well learn to abide by the rules but something will
be lost. Particularly for young children, the attitudes of parents towards them can be
internalised so that they become formative for the child's relationship to him or herself.
Parental aggression can in some cases lead to children being overly severe with themselves.
Outwardly these children may be very well-behaved, but inwardly they may feel repressed
and be troubled by tendencies to self-abuse - tendencies that in later life can be almost
impossible to overcome. There are lots of examples of self-destructive behaviours,
from minor ones like biting your nails to major problems like bulimia and anorexia.
In a world dominated by unneccesary violence wouldn't it be better for parents to
demonstrate unambiguously that violence is wrong? And in a society which will expose
individuals to tremendously high levels of stress and instability wouldn't it be better
for the home to be a haven of security, free from violent outbursts? The political
philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously said in the eighteenth century that life is nasty,
brutish and short. Shouldn't we try to shield children from that brutality in the home?
They will experience it soon enough beyond the garden gate.