Defying Human Nature
Helen Clark was right.
When asked in 2005 if she wanted to see smacking banned, Helen Clark replied.
““Absolutely not. Well, I think you’re trying to defy human nature”.”
Today a poll was released that confirms Clark’s observation. Apparently 86% are keen to see Section 59 reinstated in some way. I find it very hard to believe that these people are all rabid child beaters. I don’t even think that most of them would be part of the “loving smack” brigade. They are just people who feel they have been disempowered as parents.
Sue Bradford continues with her somewhat disingenuous line that:
““While this survey shows that many of the people polled believe `a smack should not be a criminal offence’, the question fails to recognise that smacking has never been a criminal offence, and still isn’t,” she said.”
Actually, Sue, as the law is currently set up, smacking is indeed a criminal offense. Children have been afforded the same rights as an adult. I can guaranteed that if I smacked Sue Bradford’s bottom, she would (quite rightly) lay assault charges. It is only police discretion (as suggested by John Key, I might add) that prevents a massive tidal wave of trivial assault cases.
Unfortunately, what this does to parents is place them in a position of having no clear idea what is an acceptable smack. Worse still, it allows children to threaten their parents, thereby seriously reducing their authority, even if the child has no intention of notifying the police.
What was lacking from section 59 was a precise description of acceptable discipline. I am certain the vast majority of people who are unhappy with the current law would be satisfied with a simple definition such as “open hand only, not on genitals or face”. This eliminates all the idiots who think that belts, riding crops and sticks are okay to use against children. There may need to be an additional rider of not bruising, breaking skin or otherwise injuring a child to ensure that those creeps who smack a child right across a room have nowhere to go (although these true child abusers rarely used section 59 as a defense anyway).
This is a topic with much heat in it and little logic. It is clear that repealing section 59 has made parents across New Zealand very uncertain and upset. It is also clear that it has made precisely zero difference to the child abuse statistics. Section 59 obviously needs to be reinstated and revised. We need consensus amongst New Zealanders, not just parliament.
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Sep 30 08 12:09 pm
The referendum question was heavily loaded and I wonder if you asked people “should reasonable force for the purposes of correction’ be used as a defence in cases where parents are charged with assaulting their children” you might get a very different result.
As for parents not knowing about how to smack, the old law never gave any guidance on that either. One person’s ‘reasonable force’ could easily be another person’s child abuse. As you rightly point out, there were many parents happy to use all sorts of implements and plenty of juries that didn’t see this sort of behaviour as being assault.
Even with with the not on the genitals nor face rule you suggest there are still huge loopholes. Should parents be able smack children under the age of 12 months? 24 months? What about the stomach? The neck? Inside of the thighs? At what age do parents stop having the right to smack their children for the purposes of correction? 16,18, when the child leaves home? Never?
Sorry to be pedantic but these are the bodies of the smallest members of our society and if you want adults to be free to use force against them, you better make sure the laws surrounding them don’t allow adults the legal right to make any sort of serious physical damage.
This new law does give children a right to pull the ‘going to the police’ card which is forcing parents to stop and think before hitting. And I’m starting to think perhaps that’s a good thing.
Having done seven years at the scene of many childhood tantrums, the supermarket checkout, I noticed that hitting is often done out of parental anger rather than the purposes of correction and being in a state of anger is actually the wrong time to be physically disciplining children when the level of ‘reasonable’ force may be far higher than it would be otherwise and in fact they may find that in a calm state of mind they wouldn’t hit the child at all and find other ways to discipline their kids.
Sep 30 08 2:23 pm
Pedantic is good. The problem with the current law and with section 59 is that it was never precise enough.
Smacking is certainly a poor form of discipline. Removing section 59, however, is the equivalent of taking away a child’s rubber-ring and throwing them in the deep end of the pool. They might learn to swim that way, but they might just simply drown. Making smacking illegal is, likewise, a very poor way of teaching parents better skills. Parents may indeed refrain from smacking, but usually at the expense of any discipline at all.
The correct way to teach NZ parents better parental skills is through education rather than legislation.