Scenario: I am in the drive at the side of my house separated from next door garden by a fence which is just about my height, so I can't quite be seen.
I hear this tirade from next door:- (names changed)

Ann (mother of 5):- 'Tom (aged 7-8) come here this minute ! Look I get things out for you to play with in the garden, and you go and scatter them all over the place, and then get a whole load more stuff out ! It takes me hours to clear up after you. If you want to play with something different you must put the other stuff away first! And you had better wipe that stupid grin of your face immediately, its very naughty to grin when you're being told off. Because if you don't I will spank you very hard......and your pants will be down ! (* see note below)..... and your bottom will be very sore....... and if I tell your Daddy when he comes home he can spank harder than me !

(*, I was dying to stick my head over the fence with a stupid grin at this stage, but if Tom had seen me first he would have cracked up and really been for it)

Well of course it would have been illegal to carry this out. I must say I was killing myself laughing but of course she was deadly serious !

Fortunately for most parents who are about to spank their children in these situations, it is still legal to do so.

Whether it is right is a different matter, but for the sake of the kids going into care just because mummy's temper snapped and she did spank litte Tom it is still legal... and long may it stay that way.

When absent from the situation it is very easy to say, "No Tom, I'm not getting your sand pit out until we've put the gardening set away... and what time is it now? .... Yes that's right it is tidy up time."

However I have 7 year old and quite frankly they can be brats.

"please don't shout mummy has a headache because a box of bolts fell on her head.... <volume rises>... I said don't shout <shout turns into a full high pitched wine> that sound is worse, can you stop it please ...

LATER<child unties helium baloon then denies it> give it to mummy please and I'll sort it out <Mummy tries to sort out tangles strings whilst giving other child loose baloon to hold, naughty child decides to tug on mess> please don't do that, I'm trying to sort that out after you untied it"
"but I didn't untie it"
"please don't lie to me <mummy still tries to sort out rats nest of strings, naughty child continues to yank> go to your room."
"no"

Well that was me and my two yesterday, I ended up dumping naughty child on a neighbour so I could cope without spanking him, but noone try to tell me kids between 7-10 are little angels.

It's no longer lawful (in England and Wales) to cause actual bodily harm to a child, even by way of reasonable punishment. Spanking a child hard enough to make his bottom sore would probably constitute actual bodily harm (just).

No it would not, make bottom sore is not hard enough, leave a mark, yes that's too hard.

Most of these silly Nanny-state laws have been brought in by people who think that putting a child into care is better for it than leaving it with their parent just because the parent was at their wits end. Many have never had children.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but having seen the social workers when I had Post Natal Depression, and seen how over cavalier their attitudes can be, I've really changed my tune.

Children need loving families. Families need help to stay together. The current government is too set on targets to see what families really need.

I have been to parenting classes, but out of choice not coercersion.

Parents loose it with their kids. It is easy to judge, not so easy when you are the judged.

Wouldn't redness be a mark? It doesn't matter that the harm is only transitory. If a magistrates' court decided that a sore bottom constituted ABH, it's unlikely that an appeal court would intervene.

I agree with you that it's not a sensible law.

The only way to deal with children is to set very clear boundaries. I think most of us have come close to losing it with our kids on occasion, but at the end of the day the adult is in charge, and the child knows that. A child with no boundaries is a frightened child.

Children do not respond well to negatives. Try not to say "Don't shout" - "Whisper" or "Speak quietly" usually works better imo. Also, if you drop your voice rather than shouting yourself, the child tends to notice their own louder volume and speak more quietly.

I'm with Jo on "It's easy to know what to do when you're not in the situation" - I'm just glad mine are now grown up and I didn't actually kill them after all!

The current government is a disaster. Period.

None of the alternatives look significantly better.

Previous governments were disasters too.

What is it about apparently reasonable people when they get a bit of power?

The only person I'd trust as PM is Frank the Grocer, who used to live across the road from me three houses ago.

We are becoming horrendously over-governed. At church we are planning a holiday club for primary age children for one week of the summer holidays, just 3 hours a day. The paperwork and organisation is unbelievable! You have to have OFSTED permission, CRB checks, you name it...

I know children have to be safeguarded, but does all the paperwork really lead to less abuse, or is it just that fewer and fewer clubs are organised as people weary of the effort involved?

I have QTS, am a qualified music teacher, swimming teacher and swimming coach, and can also help children with chess, athletics, and any number of other interesting things - and when I used to do these things, whether for money or voluntary, the kids both learned and had a fun time. My simulated shipwrecks at the local pool were famous.

But for the last 10 years I was in England I didn't do any of it. Two reasons:

1. I resent the implication that I am some kind of child molester that has to checked up on.
2. I just can't can't be bothered jumping through all the hoops that officialdom places in the way of me doing any kind of voluntary work (except in situations where officialdom can be safely ignored).

Sorry kids. You'll just have to make do with my ranting in these forums.

The Netherlands seem to be a lot more sensible in this (and many other) matters.

But this is just one dimension in which the Government is a disaster. The most worrying is the way that over the last 10 years it has deviously constructed all the apparatus of a Police State. IT has just not yet been fully turned on.

I don't know enough about it to know whether this is the case or not... but maybe that's telling in itself - there doesn't seem to have been any consistent or repeated outcry about it either from the opposition parties or the media, so the proverbial "man in the street" maybe doesn't really realise what's happening

Can you outline what you're referring to???

but why is a Law necessary?
Surely to any right thinking person common sense should prevail... and he shouldn't normally cause harm.
Then there is legislation for a small number of case (not condoning anything by the way) blanket legislation that then makes a mockery of the original intention.

Our children were born in France. We spent 5 years in the UK and came to work in Italy.

National and local politics in the UK is really weird. Nobody talks to each other. Nobody actually talks to mothers, fathers and asks them "What do you think?" Nobody cares. Everybody is ruled by what the tabloids and tv news says. Fashion rules the day.

Our after school facilities pick the kids up, cuddle them, kiss them, evan slap their bums if they really need it, but all in a caring atmosphere. Children come up against all kinds of scrapes, falling off climbing frames, falling out of trees, falling over, emotional hurt, being punched accidentally or not by another child...

What I want to say is that I have never heard of any child growing up scarred for life because they were spanked by their parent.

But there are thousands who are scarred because their parents don't care, who don't discipline them, who feel scared because they're lost, don't know what they're allowed to do, who don't enforce guidelines.

Perhaps the authorities could at least acknowledge the fact that the rot set in due to their own abuse of children during the 60s and 70s. The abuse of the in-loci parentis law by British teachers was famous all over the world!

Steve

PS

Why do you hear about the Jersey child abuse scandal, but not about any in the UK?

Find someone who worked in a Childrens Home and ask him/her about the small print in their pension scheme!!! The truth will come out, but not for another 20 years!