[Romantic Old Bird]

Aah well, now we're on pretty shaky ground.

Perhaps I ned to state at the outset that I am a health visitor, and I have to deal with the extremes of physical, emotional, and other unspeakable forms of abuse in my daily work.

Even without that, I believe that 'smacking' is wrong. We give it a 'nice' title - 'smacking', but it really means hitting. It may not be hard, or meant to inflict real damage - in your mind - but if you did it to another adult, it would be assault, and they would be entitiled and perhaps expected to defend themselves or retaliate.

We don't expect children to do that. We expect them to cry, and say sorry, and remember that they are little and helpless and we, the person they love, are in control. If we ARE in control. It goes very wrong when that person is out of control, drunk or has a limited means of expressing themselves in any other way.

Almost every violent parent or carer I have met has been a victim themselves initially.

I feel that hitting a child is an admission of failure on the part of the parent. It means that they have probably not shown consistent boundaries or security to the child. It means that they have lost control of a situation.

There is NEVER a place for physical or verbal abuse of an innocent and far weaker child, who is just testing the emotional water around them.

can you remember ever being punished for something you didn't do, or for something you didn't realise was wrong? I can. I felt upset, confused , and ultimately angry. Had it been sustained, I too would have learnt to repond with violence to stressful situations.

I know some will argue that there are degrees of chastisement. It's a dangerous game. How about the immature parent who then thinks it's appropriate to 'smack' a baby for crying? Or worse still, kick or punch them.

I cared for a 2 year old child with 130 bruises last week.

What's the betting that his parents think a 'smack' is harmless too?