Right: While children may respond to physical punishment by changing their behaviour, many researchers believe that a smacked child "learns" that problems can be solved by violence.
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Arguments in favour of making smacking illegal
1. Smacking is generally not an effective means of discipline
The most recent international research consistently shows that physical punishment does not achieve what the disciplining parent wants.
In 2011, United Stated researchers Elizabeth Gershoff and Andrew Grogin after analysing a wide range of American studies stated, 'In a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of 11,044 American children, we found that corporal punishment predicted increases in child behavior problems from age 5 to age 8 equally across White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American groups.'
Gershoff and Grogin concluded, 'Corporal punishment does not make children more compliant in the short term. Corporal punishment does not foster long-term compliance or internalization of morals. Corporal punishment does not reduce aggression, defiance, or antisocial behavior.'
Australian child and clinical psychologist, John Waring, has written, 'Research has confirmed that smacking children teaches them to use acts of aggression and violence to solve their problems. It teaches and perpetuates violence as a way to solve one's problems.
Children who are smacked ...often develop resentments towards their parents and get angry with them and sometimes seek revenge. Smacking a child does not educate them about appropriate behaviour. Smacked children change their behaviour out of fear of pain while non-smacked children learn to change their behaviour on the basis of right and wrong and eventually require less parental intervention.'
John Waring further wrote, 'A child who has been smacked may learn to cover up their mistakes or misbehaviour. They may become secretive, blame others and even lie to avoid being smacked. Smacking is ineffective as research shows us that children cannot remember what they were smacked for. They find it harder to develop remorse, empathy and compassion for others because they are overwhelmed by pain and anger and are not able to focus on the effects of their misbehaviour.'
2. Smacking can be a precursor to more extreme forms of physical abuse
It has been noted that smacking children tends to normalise the use of violence against children and that parents who smack their children are more likely to inflict more extreme forms of physical assault upon them.
In a study 2008 based in North Carolina, parents who spanked their children were three times more likely, and parents who hit with an object were nine times more likely, than parents who do not use these methods to report also engaging in potentially abusive behaviours such as kicking, beating, burning, or shaking.
In 1981 a series of United States interviews with physically abusive parents revealed that as many as two thirds of their abusive incidents began as attempts to change children's behaviour or to 'teach them a lesson'.
A 2003 review of child maltreatment cases in Canada determined that three quarters of substantiated physical abuse cases involved parents' intention to corporally punish their child.
Thus, in the minds of many parents there is no clear distinction between moderate and more extreme forms of physical punishment or between punishment and abuse.
3. Smacking is a violation of the human rights of the child
It has been noted that no other section of Australian society can have violence inflicted upon them other than in self-defence. This has been condemned as inequitable in that it denies children rights that are allowed to all others.
On October 7, 2011, in The Conversation, Bronwyn Naylor, Director, Equity and Diversity at Monash University and Bernadette Saunders, Senior Lecturer, Social Work at Monash University wrote, 'In Australia the only category of victims who can lawfully be assaulted is children, by their parents. There is no defence for a boss, a teacher or a childcare worker. There is no defence for a husband - domestic violence is now named and criminalised.'
On February 12, 2012, a similar point was made in a Canberra Times editorial, 'We have made rape in marriage illegal. We have abolished hanging and whipping in the criminal justice system. We have abolished corporal punishment in schools. Yet today in Australia it is still legal for parents to physically assault their children - provided it fits the woolly criteria of being "reasonable chastisement" or "reasonable correction".
Many opponents of the corporal punishment of children point to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in support of their position.
In September 2001, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child called upon all States to 'enact or repeal, as a matter of urgency, their legislation in order to prohibit all forms of violence, however light, within the family and in schools, including as a form of discipline, as required by the provisions of the Convention ...'
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stresses the obligation to protect children from all forms of violence including cruel or degrading punishment, which conflict with the child's human dignity and right to physical integrity.
In terms of discipline, the Convention does not specify what forms of punishment parents should use. However any form of discipline involving violence is unacceptable. There are ways to discipline children that are effective in helping children learn about family and social expectations for their behaviour - ones that are non-violent, are appropriate to the child's level of development and take the best interests of the child into consideration.
4. Smacking can cause long-term intellectual or psychological harm
In July 2011 the journal Social Development reported that children in a school that uses corporal punishment performed significantly worse in tasks involving 'executive functioning' - psychological processes such as planning, abstract thinking, and delaying gratification - than those in a school relying on milder disciplinary measures such as time-outs, according to a new study involving two private schools in a West African country.
The findings suggest that a harshly punitive environment may have long-term detrimental effects on children's verbal intelligence and their executive-functioning ability. As a result, children exposed to a harshly punitive environment may be at risk for behavioural problems related to deficits in executive-functioning, the study indicates.
University of New Hampshire professor Murray Straus has conducted research which suggests that children who are spanked have lower IQs. Straus found that children in the United States who were spanked had lower IQs four years later than those who were not spanked.
Straus and Mallie Paschall, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, studied nationally representative samples of 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. Both groups were retested four years later.
IQs of children ages 2 to 4 who were not spanked were 5 points higher four years later than the IQs of those who were spanked. The IQs of children ages 5 to 9 years old who were not spanked were 2.8 points higher four years later than the IQs of children the same age who were spanked.
Professor Straus stated, 'How often parents spanked made a difference. The more spanking the slower the development of the child's mental ability. But even small amounts of spanking made a difference.'
5. Making smacking illegal would have a significant symbolic effect
It has been claimed that one of the functions of the law is to represent what a society values. Thus the law serves to symbolise a society's norms.
Supporters of making smacking illegal would serve an educative function. It has been suggested that parents, while they may still smack their children moderately within their own homes, would be less likely to do so publicly or in a more extreme manner if they were aware that the action was illegal.
The fact of making smacking illegal not only means that it may carry a penalty, it also makes it apparent that society as a whole does not approve the action.
Bernadette Saunders, a senior research fellow at Child Abuse Prevention Australia, part of Monash University, has stated, 'The aim is not to criminalise parents for the occasional smack. It's more an educational message that there are more effective and less harmful ways to discipline children.'
Saunders has further stated, 'Many parents hit children ... just because they can. They don't have to think about better alternatives.'
Dorothy Scott, director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection, has stated, 'Community attitudes and norms have definitely moved in the direction of less physical discipline of children over recent generations and we want to maintain that momentum. The law can be a powerful symbolic stimulus to continue this evolution...'