Should child smacking come back? How should it come back?

Introduction

The child smacking law was banned in New Zealand in the year of 2007 and it still has citizens objecting to the government.  However, the ironic story of this law is that the Government declared that the police officers will not prosecute parents/caregivers for "light smacks". From the poll  87.6% rejected to the idea of establishing the child smacking a law.  In contrast to the remaining 12.4% who agreed to go ahead with this law, the percentage of the rejection was decent enough for the government to reconsider.  The parents who admitted that they are still smacking their children did this action "to correct their behaviour when [they] believed it was reasonable and appropriate to do so".

Countries such as Austria, Denmark, Germany, Portugal and some others also established this law. England and Wales also had this same debate over child smacking. Eventhough the government did not grant a free vote to whether to maintain the law or not, the result had 250 people rejecting to the idea of totally banning the child smacking law. In comparison to the 75 people who agreed to totally ban this law, this number was enough for the law to be reconsidered.  The opinions on this law from some of the people from Wales and England vary from reasons such as "smacking grabs a child's attention and gives them an initial shock" to " a criminal attack a child unableto defend itself".  Apart from the risk of  smacking causing "bruises, scratches and red marks", it is reasonable for the government to establish a law such as a limited ban for adults to make it more difficult to hit their children.  'Maud de Boer-Buquicchio', the deputy secretary general of the Coucil of Europe, thinks that "children have the same human rights as adults, but they are more vulnerable than adults. They need more protection,  not less."  This comes to a question to whether smacking is an appropriate way to descipline children.  In United States of America, this law also has not been established yet.  There are teachers who are wanting to start this bill.  Marjorie Gunnoe, a professor of phychology in Michigan's Calvin college in US, said that her studies have shown that "smacking leads to violent behaviour or long-term harm."

How does prime minister John Key think about it ?

Interestingly, for prime minister John Key, he repeated his answer of whether to ban the child smacking law with his straight decision; "there is no change needed".  However, he agrees to the idea that "lightly smacking a child will be in the course of parenting.. that's acceptable."  With that idea in note, how would the law identify whether the smack was a hard smack or a light smack?

What is happening with this law persisting ?

With prime minister John Key's decision, a woman was jailed for assaulting children with a weapon with Judge 'Stepthen O'Driscoll' saying that "the children had suffered tremendously".  Assuming that this was the reason why PM John Key had his straight decision, statistics from the NZ Herald showed that there were 33 complaints which could have been taken into account that the smack was a "light or an inconsequential smacking and no prosecutions " compared to the 83,000 who have caused reasonable actions to get prosecuted. Surprisingly, this is a fair result to show that this law is doing its job. However, it is not 100% effecient to the whole nation.  The 33 complaints made by the victims could still have been procecuted for something that they did not intend to do.  In reality, parents who have been prosecuted unfairly are loud with their opinions to ban the law.  This could be a real hassle and is difficult to prove that they were not intending to smack their children with anger and so on.  'James Louis Mason' a father who lives in Christchurch was found guilty of assaulting his children.  It took nine hours of deliberation for the District Court jury to find out that he was not guilty of assaulting his children.  Also, facing the truth, people are not alarmed by it and most importantly the police are not prosecuting it, despite the fact that those actions are the reasons why the law was made.

Verbal Violence should be dealt whilst dealt with child smacking

Smacking is acceptable only when deciplining children.  On the other hand, looking at the law in a different perspective, physical violence could be a big issue but verbal violence could be more severe.  Surely not just adults, but children also have feelings.  Because children can be more gullible than adults, of course the physical wounds may disappear but the verbal wounds can be hard to cure.  Verbal violence is not just swearing or insulting, but it also includes sarcasm or withdrawal of affection which can be more damaging. Possibly this verbal violence can be equivalent to bullying which even teenagers find it hard to cope with these days.  Lain Bainbridge, a development officer from the Christian Institute, also conveys this idea that "kind physical impact is ..seen as acceptable" but at the same time think that "violence is wrong."  Preferably, disciplining their child is what every adult wants and every action which is done wrong need to have its consequences however the way but in a sensible way.