18/6/00

Research on Smacking Children

I notice today that another piece of 'research' claims to show that smacking children is not a good idea. In other places on this website you will find that the evidence from this 'research' is simply not consistent with the evidence from a wide variety of sources (e.g. see The Smacking Myths).

Most importantly, the research doesn't even make an attempt to show what effects a proscription on smacking would have for the parents, for the other children in the family, and, indeed, for the rest of society.

Because this issue tends to recur as a theme on this website, one might be forgiven for thinking that I am desperately keen to promote smacking, and that, in some way, I have got a bee in my bonnet about the subject. Well, in some way, I have, but not because I want to see parents stomping around whacking their children. I don't. I am completely opposed to violence unless it is absolutely necessary to prevent a worse outcome. And, besides which, smacking children is not usually an act of violence. 

The bee in my bonnet on this issue buzzes around for three main reasons.

The first is that I have seen parents smack their children mostly in circumstances where I have no doubt that, not only was it the right thing to do given the situation, it was the BEST thing to do for the child and for the people concerned, and, further, that, in these instances, the smack probably had very beneficial long term consequences.

The second is that the usual conclusions from the 'research' on smacking are completely invalid. They are worthless in that, at the very best, they only take into account the immediate effects on the child being smacked. They take no account of the long-term effects of denying parents the opportunity to smack as a sanction. They take no account of the parents themselves, of the other children in the family, of their personal situations, of the particular circumstances resulting in the smack, of the differences between children, or of the rest of society insofar as it might be seriously affected by having hordes of undisciplined children running around happily and wantonly growing up into relatively undisciplined adults.

The third is that the anti-smacking lobby seems to consist mostly of people who subscribe to a politically-correct view of the world. Such people believe the facts to be as they would like them to be, rather than what they actually are. They also seem prone to lying or fudging the evidence; or they have proved themselves to be too intellectually impoverished to understand the full implications of what they are proposing. 

For example, I was completely opposed to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's advertising onslaught at the beginning of 1999 when it started its Full Stop Campaign. 

On TV, on billboards, in the newspapers and in the cinema, the NSPCC was bombarding the nation with images that fairly graphically depicted children being abused physically, mentally and sexually. 

I wrote to the NSPCC as well as to MPs and journalists in an attempt to make them think again about what was being done. The NSPCC withdrew their adverts as a result of this complaint together with those received from others - about one third of whom had actually been victims of abuse!

So, how did the NSPCC get into this mess? How could they get it so wrong? Aren't they supposed to be the experts on our children? On what proper evidence did they launch such an advertising campaign and what did they hope to achieve? 

In my view, their adverts were not only harming our children, they were also happily demonising ALL parents by portraying them as abusers or as potential abusers. And I can think of little worse that one can do to the nation's children than to alienate them even further from their parents.

So, what research had the NSPCC actually done before they launched their media onslaught upon the entire nation? Had they consulted the most objective, the most highly-respected child psychologists in the land?

No. As I eventually found out, the 'research' on the effects of these adverts was conducted by Saatchi and Saatchi - an advertising agency.

It was unbelievable.

So, some questions that I want to ask here of those who cite smacking 'research' in support for their position against smacking are these?

If smacking is made illegal what effects will it have on parents who are already unable to cope with children who are being particularly difficult, or who have children and circumstances that make dealing with their children extremely difficult or impossible given that they themselves are, after all, only human beings - and, in many cases, not 'strong' and/or particularly intelligent human beings? 

Will the further stresses that these parents might have to endure lead, statistically, to further violence, family breakdown or to a greater increased likelihood of 'abandonment' of the children - ranging from, "I can't be bothered any more," to "Let them watch the TV all evening," to "There is now such chaos in the apartment that the children will have to go into care." 

Has anyone done any research on this?

If smacking is made illegal what will happen as more parents are prosecuted for overstepping the mark? How many more calls will be made to Child Line, to the police and to the social services, and how many more families are going to be investigated by these very busy bodies? 

Currently, 40,000 INNOCENT families are already being investigated every year by the social services for 'child abuse' of one form or another. How many more families will have to undergo such investigations? 

How many more calls will be made to the social services by suspicious neighbours - or by those bearing a grudge, or by those who are motivated to create trouble for those, perhaps, of a different race or ideology?

How far back in time will the law be allowed to reach back? For example, if smacking is made illegal tomorrow and Sally gets her bottom smacked by her mother next week, will the law, in ten years time, reach back and prosecute, should Sally claim that her mother broke the law and smacked her when she was a child? 

If, in three months time, Sally is angry that her mother won't allow her to go to the party and she telephones Child Line to report the earlier smacking incident, will the mother then be prosecuted? 

If so, or if such is possible, what hope has Sally's mother EVER got of being able to deal with Sally effectively given that Sally will now have her 'under her thumb'? 

What hope will any parent have once they have smacked their child? 

Further, given that, for example, some 3,000,000 people every week break the law in taking cannabis or ecstasy, and, I imagine, some 10,000,000 people will break the law when it comes to giving a smack, what hope will there be for those parents who have smacked, given that their children could easily report them, and will be encouraged to do so by the anti-parent lobbyists, at any time in the future? 

So, what effects on parents and society will result from transferring even more power into the hands of the children and taking even more away from the parents? And have we not already gone too far in this direction?

Have we got any research on this?

Will a father with an IQ of 85 on a council estate be removed from his children and branded as an abuser because, perhaps, he was seen smacking one of them who was throwing stones at a window? 

In the USA, Charles Faber was given two years for roughly grabbing his son's shoulders when he was about to throw a stone. Is this the way we are heading? Is this what we want? Is this sort of thing desirable?

Have we got any research on this?

How will the law punish a single mother with three children who is seen smacking one of them? Will the children be taken into care on this basis? Will they have to testify in court against her? Will she go to prison? If she's a teacher will she lose her job? (One teacher already has, because he smacked his own child.) Or will only middle class parents be prosecuted (as it is thus far) since there is little point in prosecuting single mothers who have no jobs, and there is even less point in prosecuting those who couldn't care less?

Has anyone done any research on the long-term effects of not being allowed to smack children in situations where to do so would be extremely helpful? For example, will children in such circumstances be less likely to grow up into properly socialised adults?

As children become less controllable by their parents, will they become more aggressive? Will they be more likely to bully others? Will they more likely engage in delinquent or criminal behaviours as they get older?

How many parents are likely to end up being criminalised for smacking that they believed to be right and proper at the time? 

Are the social services and the police just going to pick off a few smacking parents every week and completely mess up their relationships with their own children just to give the public some kind of message? (This is already beginning - see Smacking Bottoms)

How will social services and the police begin to react as more and more people turn against them in anger and frustration at not being allowed to deal with their children in the way that they consider to be the most appropriate?

And what research justifies the arrogance of the government to impose upon parents through its employees a system that presumes that such employees are actually better suited to bringing up their children than the parents themselves? 

Thus, for example, I know my children far better than anyone else. I know the circumstances in which we live together. I know who I am. I know what I have to deal with and what my wife has to deal with. I know the ins and outs. And I know how to deal with my children far better than does some interfering 30 year old busybody from the social services who qualified in her position on the basis of a few politically correct essays and who has no experience of bringing up children herself.

And yet, despite all this, am I really supposed to have to answer to her? 

How many parents are going to feel the same way?

Now, it could be argued by some that a smacking law will only be used for 'serious' cases of smacking. WRONG. There are already laws against 'serious' smacking. And they are to do with 'assault'. The new laws will definitely be about non-serious smacking. And if you think that these laws will only be used against the seriously 'dysfunctional' families, you are wrong again. If anything, these families won't be touched by it at all. It will be normal, healthy families that the government bodies will go after.

How are parents going to be monitored? Are the children going to be interrogated at school? Will the children be asked to raise their hands in the classroom if they have been smacked? Will the law react on the basis of anonymous phone calls? Are children going to be encouraged to 'turn their parents in' with TV adverts (this has already been done) and with songs? (The NSPCC is currently getting children to sing songs that encourage them to be 'heard',  to 'protest', and to report on other adults, including their parents.)

Are fathers going to be excluded from their homes for smacking, or for having smacked in the past? (Almost certainly - See Smacking Bottoms.) Will a smack from the past be used as grounds for divorce? (Almost certainly.) Will a smack be termed as 'physical assault' by the legal profession and the hysterical media to make the 'crime' sound worse than it really is. (Of course it will, just as shouting is now being categorised as an act of 'domestic violence'.) What will appear on the criminal record of someone who has smacked? Will they go on the Sex Offence Register? Will a father go to prison for a smack? Will a mother?

What will the consequences of all these things mean for the family?

How many children might a law against smacking actually 'save' in reality? (My guess is, 'not many'.) And how many children might such a law damage? (My guess is, 'just about all of them'.) 

Thus, for example, my little sweet darling might never need a smack in her life. But a smack and better discipline for the boy who eventually bullied her, mugged her or disrupted her education might well have saved BOTH of them from whatever it is that he did.

Perhaps we should ask Saatchi and Saatchi - because no-one has done ANY proper research on ANYTHING that I have mentioned above.

END NOTE

I once met the head of a major social services division in Sweden or Finland. (I can't remember the country.) 

In her opinion, the damage to the children, even from really very abusive (sexual or physical) households, was not nearly as great as that being inflicted upon the children by the system itself (i.e. the social services, the police, the therapists) and she advocated that they should not be removed from their parents except under very dire circumstances. 

And you really must take this on board. This woman was STRESSING that the social services were actually causing MORE HARM TO CHILDREN than was, in fact, being done by very dysfunctional physically or sexually abusive adults within the household! 

Now that's saying something!

That's how bad the system is. That's how diabolical and incompetent the employees within the system really are when it comes to dealing with the nation's children. 

Yet, in this country, we seem to be handing over even further powers to the social services. And we are now on the verge of prosecuting decent, caring parents for having smacked their children's bottoms! 

On what grounds? Because of some completely useless pieces of 'research' by politically correct hysterics who are too blinkered to see what harm to society they are causing, and, of course, because there's money in it for a host of 'abuse' professionals and a lot more power for government.

26/10/03

A new generation of Eastern European au pairs has found a worrying trend in middle-class life — children rule the home, and parents, riven by guilt, can't discipline them

WHEN Petra Machanova sits down in front of the TV after supper with the children on a Friday evening, she often reflects on her idyllic life in Britain, 700 miles from home. She loves London, is very well treated, and even likes the food. But there is one thing she will never get used to: the behaviour of British children. “British children are some of the worst behaved I’ve met,” the 24-year-old Czech au pair says. “Not all of them — but maybe 80 per cent are pretty bad. They behave in a way that would not be allowed in my own country. Many times, I have met English families where it is not the parents who are in charge, but the kids.” Petra is one of tens of thousands of au pairs from the former eastern bloc now working in Britain. Sometimes it seems as if urban, double-earning, middle-class Britain has almost entirely placed the upbringing of its children into the hands of young women and men from Eastern Europe: nannies, au pairs and cleaners from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia have replaced the nice middle-class convent girls from Switzerland, Italy and France of 20 years ago.

But what does this new generation of au pairs make of us? Not a lot, to go by the picture painted by those working in metropolitan London. To put it bluntly, they think that we are getting it terribly wrong.

Petra has worked for several British families in the past three years. She is currently helping to look after three delightful children in a double-earner family — the father is a television scriptwriter and the mother works several days a week as a market researcher. These children are well behaved, but she says that generally British children never do as they are asked. “You see it in the playground after school. At going-home time, parents are always running after their children, asking them ten times to get their coats on and come. The children just ignore them. In my country, it would be very bad not to do what you are told.

“Children here are rude and they use bad language — and they are never punished. I know of au pairs here who have described this situation: they have asked the children to do something, but the children have just answered back and used foul language. And all the time the parents have been standing right there and haven’t said a thing.”

British children demand that adults fetch and carry, rather than doing anything for themselves, Petra says. “I just can’t imagine telling my mother ‘give me this’, or ‘do that for me’ — I’d have been smacked. I was expected to have respect.” British children do very few jobs around the house, she adds. She has become so conditioned to this that when she recently visited a nine-year old nephew near Prague she was amazed to see how much he helped his mother.

Hannah, 23, from Slovakia, agrees. Another popular au pair, Hannah gets on well with “her family” and enjoys looking after the children, three girls aged from 9 to 15. But generally, she says, British children are spoilt, selfish, lazy and rude, while most parents seem unable to do anything about it. It doesn’t matter if the children are rich or poor, from good homes or bad.

“It seems that kids here get everything they want, not what they deserve. They hardly do anything for themselves,” Hannah says. “If I ask the girls to tidy their rooms, they say: ‘But Hannah, you’re our au pair and you’re paid to do it — it’s not our job’. And the 15-year-old — she just sits at the computer all day long, she doesn’t do anything else. These are not bad children. It is the way they are allowed to be.”

During her stay in Britain, Hannah has seen children hit their parents, ignore requests, wilfully disobey, swear, make petulant demands and refuse their food — all with their parents failing to intervene. Part of her job is to serve food and drink to children quite old enough to look after themselves. “When my girls come home hungry from school and ask me to make them something to eat, I say: ‘Let me show you how to do it, so you can do it yourself’. Suddenly they ’re not hungry any more.”

Vera Cervenclova, 28, from Bohemia, also watches in dismay as British children turn their noses up at their suppers, while parents struggle to provide a satisfactory choice. “When I first came I was shocked at how much food is thrown away here, and how parents just accept what children say. When I was a child, if Mum made you a meal and you didn’t eat it you went to bed hungry,” she says.

“In Britain, children get presents all the time. By the time they are ten, they have everything — PlayStations, computers, TVs. It’s because their mums come back so late after work and feel so guilty, they buy them things to make up for it. Children in Britain just don’t know where the line is, but if they are disobedient, the parents just say: ‘Well, they’re only children’.

“Parents here don’t spend enough time with their children. Once you have a child, it should be the biggest part of your life, not just something you hand over to someone else.”

Romana Macakova, 26 — who has now returned to her home town in eastern Bohemia — thinks that British children are better off than Czech children because they have more choice, more money and better prospects. But she says that kids here are much less capable and independent. “Children don’t cook, they don’t do things around the house, they don’t walk to school. As a child I had to do things myself and I learnt a lot.”

Perhaps that is why young Eastern Europeans make such good au pairs — cultural and economic conditions mean that most (even boys) are used to looking after young children and running a home. In the Czech Republic, most mothers work, but rely heavily on family and grandparents to bring up children. Au pairs, of course, are unknown.

The nature of au-pairing has certainly changed. No longer a “mother’s help”, au pairs now often take on full responsibility for children in their parents’ absence — but as parents, are we taking too much of a back seat? Some authorities, including the Australian parenting writer Steve Biddulph, say that Britain and other developed countries have a “discipline deficit”.

Quickly leaping to our children’s defence, Debbie Cowley, of the Parenting Education and Support Forum, says that the majority of British children are not as bad as they have been painted. “In a lot of countries, the definition of ‘good behaviour’ means never questioning your parents or what you are asked to do, and generally not being inconvenient. This could be what traditional au pairs have been brought up to expect. However, these au pairs’ views may not be completely inaccurate. Over 40 years we have been moving from a strict hierarchical society, and we are still feeling our way towards a new one in which there is an element of discipline, but without the same rigidity — where children’s creative potential can be achieved. It’s urgent that we sort that out.”

The Thomas Coram Research Unit, at the Institute of Education in London, is shortly to launch a study into how children’s behaviour and parental discipline has changed over the years. According to Marjorie Smith, a psychologist and the head of the institute, “parents negotiate with children far more — and that can be a good thing. I don’t think most parents would feel they are not in control. But it’s true that some parents are just not good at getting the message across when children are out of line.”

Perhaps the influx of strict young au pairs from Eastern Europe could turn out to be the best thing to happen to today’s children. Or have the au pairs just argued themselves out of a job?

Some of the names have been changed.