Who really wants a law against smacking?

Nicola Wells reports on a survey she undertook of organisations which allegedly support a legal ban on all physical discipline

Whenever the 'smacking issue' next hits the headlines, as it invariably does once or twice each year, the anti-smacking lobby spearheaded by EPOCH (End Physical Punishment of Children) will be sure to seize a further opportunity to advance its oft-repeated yet rarely-questioned claim that professional opinion is unanimously in favour of a legal ban on all physical discipline of children - including ordinary smacking by parents within the family home.

Since its birth in 1989, EPOCH has written to scores of children's organisations to canvass support for its campaign. Eight years on, it boasts that over 60 major child welfare and professional groups in the UK support its campaign 'to end all physical punishment of children by education and legal reform' (emphasis added).

An impressive claim, no doubt - and there are some respected names on the list alongside a number of smaller and lesser-known ones. But are they allreally calling for legislation against a parental smack?

A little while ago, I decided to conduct my own survey to seek out the views of the organisations on EPOCH's list of supporters with offices in England and Wales. The only exceptions were two organisations for whom the National Children's Bureau could not trace an address, the Children's Rights Development Unit which is chaired by EPOCH's co-ordinator and a further two groups who share an address with EPOCH.

I asked them three simple questions:

• At what level within their organisation was the anti-smacking policy agreed?
• On what research was it based?
• Did their opposition to smacking really extend to supportinglegislation against loving parents smacking their own children?

Unfortunately not all the replies I received were quite as straightforward as the questions! One might have expected these organisations to be eager to explain the reasons for their support of EPOCH to a woman who was obviously confused. After all, I had confessed that as the mother of young children, I had found that a controlled disciplinary smack, given in the context of love and for the good of the child, is a highly effective tool in correcting unacceptable behaviour and in helping to teach the difference between right and wrong. As it was, I had to cope with months of frustration as I chased up busy Company Secretaries and Directors in an effort to get some straight answers.

However, I finally managed to obtain the views of 39 organisations (representing over 80% of EPOCH's support in England and Wales) and received some surprising replies.

Two organisations advised me that they were emphatically not supporters of EPOCH's campaign and would be writing to request the removal of their names from any future published lists. Significantly, perhaps, one of these was a national association of childcare workers which had individually balloted its members on the question of smacking and received an overwhelmingly negative response to adopting EPOCH's position. [1]

Perhaps not surprisingly, other organisations had lacked the courage to canvass grassroots opinion and had left policy decisions on such a contentious issue to Executive Members, Committees or even resolutions at Annual General Meetings where the activists in attendance could be relied upon to toe the politically correct line.

Research

When I requested references to the research studies the childcare professionals had found persuasive in arriving at their anti-smacking policies, I expected to be overwhelmed with impressive lists of academic papers and learned tomes. However, I needn't have worried. I can count on the fingers of one hand the organisations who were able to cite any specific research in support of their position whatsoever. And even here, the studies cited deal with physical and sexual abuse rather than with ordinary parental discipline of a moderate and caring kind.

Many simply referred me to EPOCH, including a somewhat cagey Chair of the Children & Families Committee of the influential Association of Directors of Social Services, who wrote:

I think you would find all the information you need most easily available from an organisation called EPOCH... I am not sure otherwise it would be particularly helpful for me to give you details of the Association's policy making or decision making processes... I see no merit in spending time on researching when and how the discussions (sic) were reached.

A few of the organisations surveyed were honest enough to admit that they had not used any research as a basis of their support of EPOCH. The Co-ordinator of Defence for Children International, UK Branch (DCI-UK), in a thorough and helpful response, explained the basis for his personal position, but confessed that with regard to the Committee which unanimously agreed to support EPOCH in 1990, 'it was disparate rather than common persuasion. I think other committee members at the time may have reacted emotively rather than informedly.' Interestingly, the little-known DCI-UK was involved in the drafting and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to a greater extent than any other non-governmental organisation.

Also refreshingly honest was the Chair of the Children & Families Sub-Committee of the British Association of Social Workers, one of EPOCH's more recent recruits:

We are not aware of any research which demonstrates that children who have received physical punishment fare better or worse than others. This is not surprising as such research is notoriously difficult. Given this 'not proven either way' position, however, we do believe that the onus of proof should be on those who favour smacking.

Others of us may feel that the onus of proof falls on those who want to criminalise parents who use a time-honoured smack as a disciplinary tool to bring their children into line. Nevertheless, here we have a tacit admission from a childcare professional who is an avowed supporter of EPOCH that their position cannot be proved by research, as is so often claimed.

Legislation

But my biggest surprise was reserved for the responses I received to my enquiry concerning whether the organisations on EPOCH's list really support legislation against parents who smack their children.

A considerable number of the groups I surveyed replied that parental smacking within the home lay outside their brief and that their opposition to physical correction did not extend beyond their particular area of interest. So, for example, the National Childminding Association, whose officers are well-known for their opposition to smacking by childminders, very properly has no position on the use of smacking by parents. Neither does Kids' Clubs Network, nor the National Association of Nursery Nurses, nor the Daycare Trust, and so I could go on.

The same goes for the relevant committees of the Association of Directors of Social Services and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities: their support of EPOCH does not extend beyond local authority residential and daycare provision. And the Enuresis Research and Information Centre quite naturally 'does not have a view on the use of physical discipline for reasons other than bedwetting.'

Then consider the following responses - all of them from officers of groups which EPOCH claims support the campaign 'to end all physical punishment by education and legal reform':

'ChildLine takes no position on whether smacking can be the subject of legislation.'

'Not all our members would seek new legislation and we have not had a referendum on the subject... The British Association for Community Child Health has not committed itself to campaigning for legislation.'

'[The British Association of Social Workers] recognises that the law currently allows parents to smack children and would wish any legal reform to be considered with great care. Certainly parental smacking of a limited and caring kind should not be criminalised.'

'[The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health supports] a campaign to limit physical punishment of children. We recognise the difficulty in defining and enforcing legislation in this area.' The Hon Secretary acknowledged there was no consensus among his members and indicated that the College does not 'support the aim of ending all physical punishment by legal reform.'

Even Save the Children Fund, for all its loaded language against smacking in its position statement, recognises that 'this is not an issue to be addressed by legislation.'

Minority View

At the end of the day, the number of groups surveyed who have clearly and unambiguously stated their support for legislation against the parental use of physical discipline does not even reach double figures. At the very least, this raises serious questions about the integrity of an organisation which makes such extravagant and impressive-sounding claims.

The time has surely come for EPOCH to be recognised for what it is: a tiny minority group which does not even fully represent the views of childcare professionals working in a highly-charged politically correct climate, let alone the overwhelming majority of responsible and loving parents throughout the UK. And the philosophy it is seeking to undemocratically impose upon us all woefully lacks the support of empirical research.

The spectre of rebellious children hauling their mothers and fathers before the courts for nothing more than a time-honoured disciplinary smack, should send a shiver down the spine of every well-ordered family in the land. Yet what is a nightmare scenario for most of us would be the inevitable outcome of the legislation EPOCH dream of. To that end they ceaselessly try to persuade politicians, policy-makers, the media and the general public that the level of support for their campaign is far, far greater than it really is.

This article was originally published in Families for Discipline newsletter, Issue 5, Spring 1997.

Notes

1. In a letter received at the end of 1994, the Assistant General Secretary of the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses (PANN) advised me that the association had written to EPOCH expressing concern that information had been issued inaccurately indicating PANN's support for the anti-smacking campaign. EPOCH assured PANN that future literature issued by them would not include their name.

However, an updated list dated May 1996 still included PANN among EPOCH's supporters. When this was drawn to the attention of the Association's General Secretary, he confirmed that their name should have been removed from EPOCH's list some time before.

Copyright © 2001-2007 Families First. All rights reserved.