Dialogue: Sparing the rod essential for future of our society

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JOSEPHINE BOWLER* says legislating against hurting children to any extent is extremely difficult, but attempts to do so are prompted by a public recognition of the need to protect and nurture children.

On Saturday the Herald reported the court case of a man who struck his 12-year-old daughter with a hosepipe for talking back to him.

The father was said to have claimed "a victory for parental rights" after the Hamilton District Court jury found him not guilty of assault with a weapon.

The jury, who were shown photos of the resulting 15cm lump on the girl's back, took one hour to decide on acquittal under section 59 of the Crimes Act, which gives parents the right to use force if it is "reasonable under the circumstances".

These events are reported to have taken place in a home where corporal punishment was culturally acceptable, and a hosepipe hung on a kitchen nail for the purpose of threat.

One thing is certain: this type of parental authority does nothing to improve communication with adolescents and is not guaranteed to keep them safe from other developmental minefields as they move towards adulthood.

In August the Scottish Parliament introduced a bill intended to outlaw corporal punishment for children under 6. This provoked a widespread reaction across Britain on the grounds that this was a denial of parental rights. The biblical exhortation of "spare the rod and spoil the child" was much quoted in British media.

In Australia last year, New South Wales Independent MP Alan Corbett introduced a bill intended to give a legal definition of the degree to which physical disciplining was unacceptable, and by implication the degree to which it might also be considered acceptable.

No state or territory had previously enacted legislation to ban smacking. Mr Corbett proposed making parents liable to prosecution if they struck a child around the head, hit them with any object or caused physical harm that lasted for more than a "short period".

Public controversy resulted. What was a "short period"? Five seconds, five minutes or five hours?

Critics argued that such legislation would take away the rights of caring parents to discipline their children for the purpose of raising them as responsible citizens.

Subsequent polls showed that more than 90 per cent of Australians supported parents' right to smack their children.

A common opinion is that such a law will criminalise ordinary, loving parents and put a legal weapon in the hands of zealous teachers, social workers and police.

The first legislation to outlaw physical violence against children was passed in Sweden in 1979. Eight European and Scandinavian countries now have similar laws.

Legislating against hurting children to any extent, whether by smacking, shaking or pinching, is extremely difficult. But attempts to do so are prompted by a public recognition of the need to protect and nurture children.

Those who oppose smacking point to the need for education in parenting. When smacking is used as a form of discipline, the danger of it escalating into physical abuse is always there.

Parents who maltreat children are often referred by courts to parenting courses, but there is no research on whether they attend, or how much, if at all, they benefit.

A verbally abusive child can be provoking but there are alternatives to hitting. Parenting programmes offered through Plunket, Banardos and other organisations aim at early intervention through education.

Some rehabilitation programmes for adults, such as the Odyssey House drug programme, teach alternative ways to handle anger.

While these efforts are admirable they are stacked against a deeply ingrained culture of violence that finds an echo in the language used on sports pages of newspapers on every day of the week.

Words such as "thrashed", "punished", "belted" enshrine the dominance of the strong over the weak.

In schools throughout New Zealand and Australia, the banning of corporal punishment is relatively recent, and not without its critics.

Jane and James Ritchie wrote of the dangers of growing up in New Zealand two decades ago, and films such as Once Were Warriors have portrayed it visually.

It is fear, not respect, that is learned from a stick and this is a lesson that does not necessarily help to deal with other challenges in life. Hospital staff all too often see the trauma inflicted on children punished by parents who have lost control.

It will take more than one generation to lower the level of abusive parenting in our society, since we learn our parenting strategies from our own parents.

Advocates such as the Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, want the same level of concern under the law for children as for adults.

This is an issue on which the community should expect leadership from the law. Within a pluralistic democracy laws set, and enforce, standards that apply to all cultures and subcultures. When the community fails its children perhaps it is time for legislation.

The jury's finding in the Hamilton case will disappoint many.

Changing patterns of punitive parenting behaviour is hard work for individuals, but imperative for the future of our society.

* Josephine Bowler is an Auckland psychologist.