The United Nations Human Rights Commission recently made a study, assessing legal and cultural issues in the United Kingdom. One of their proposal is for UK to declare by legislation that smacking a child as illegal, BBC reports.
Laws in England and Wales allow 'reasonable chastisement' to control a child, especially when he is acting up. This reasonable form of corporal punishment is allowed as long as it does not cause injury, bruising or cuts on the child.
Meanwhile UN strongly suggests making this form of punishment illegal. It encourages using other forms of discipline. It calls on government to have a wide-spread information campaign to educate parents on the ill-effects of smacking.
Smacking a child is a reactive response of a parent when the child has done something displeasing. It is an expression of frustration of the parent, and his feeble attempt to show the child he is in control. The effects of smacking to a child are all negative. The child feels so small. He feels helpless, not able to control an unpredictable force - the angry parent. At the height of the smacking, the child does not learn anything. His center of reason and judgment shuts down and the only thinking that remains is that someone who loves him is hurting him.
Smacking a child creates fear in him - fear of the parent, fear of anyone else in authority. He becomes withdrawn. On the other hand, he can also be aggressive, acting out as his way of expressing his own anger for being a 'victim'. He can learn to hit others, too. Perhaps, he may start bullying his classmates, and even as he becomes an adult, there is bigger tendency for him to hit his spouse.
Other forms of punishing a child can be employed, instead, like time-out. Have the child alone in a corner, or in his room with no benefits - no television, no computer. The time alone can be better for him as he thinks through what he has done.
