Executive resorts to unreasonable force against parents

26 March 2002

The Scottish Executive has indicated that it is to press ahead with its controversial plans to use the force of law to dictate to parents how and when they may discipline their children. The Executive has decided to ride roughshod over concerns expressed from both within and outwith the Scottish Parliament, that the proposals to criminalise parents who smack a child under the age of three are unreasonable and unworkable.

Families First spokesman, Norman Wells, commented: 'The Executive's proposals are completely unfounded and threaten to create a climate of fear among parents throughout Scotland who are doing their best to bring up their children well. The Executive has admitted that, "the law in Scotland already protects children from unreasonable chastisement" (Scottish Executive press release, 06/09/2001). It is therefore difficult to see any justification for draconian measures that would turn ordinary loving parents into criminals overnight.

'The legislation being proposed by the Executive seriously undermines parents and represents a gross interference with parental judgment. It is an insult to Scottish parents for the Executive to imply that it cares for children more than their own fathers and mothers. The Executive needs to think through the consequences of its proposals very carefully. If the current proposals were to pass into law, valuable child protection resources would inevitably be taken up with investigating reports of moderate discipline by good parents and diverted away from children at risk of genuine abuse. The criminal law should be reserved to deal with parents who are actually harming children and should not be intervening in well-ordered loving homes where children are well-cared for.'

In its criminal justice white paper, published in December 2001, the Scottish Executive stated that

'a child cannot learn from punishment unless it understands the relationship between the bad behaviour and the punishment. Before language skills have properly developed, many children will not be able to understand why they are being punished.'

Such a ludicrous statement shows just how far the Executive is out of touch with regard to basic child development. Ideology has clouded their good judgment.

Mr Wells commented: 'Every parent knows that young children are able to understand far more than they can articulate. A child's understanding of simple vocabulary and expressions of pleasure, displeasure, happiness and sadness are not dependent on language skills being "properly developed". If it were true that a child could not understand a smack before the age of three, the same logic would require us to say that a child could not understand any alternative method of discipline before that age either. Not only would you have to outlaw smacking, but to be consistent you would have to outlaw any form of discipline before the age of three on the basis that the child would not understand the relationship between his/her behaviour and the parent's response.

'All in all, there is nothing to commend the Executive's approach. The legislative proposals on smacking outlined in the Criminal Justice Bill will do nothing to provide more protection for children. Rather they run the very real risk of disrupting some of Scotland's most stable and secure families. It's all part of a dangerous social experiment which could have disastrous repercussions for Scottish society. Rather than seek to impose an unproven style of parenting on the entire population, the Executive should concentrate its efforts on protecting children suffering real harm.'

Families First is a family advocacy group, committed to supporting parents and children in the family unit. It supports the rights and responsibilities of parents to protect and guide their children and to bring them up in a reasonable manner, according to their religious and philosophical convictions.

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