if you are bigger than them (since smacking is always the case of a "bigger" adult hitting a "smaller" child). What happened to the moral of the story? Your child might behave in front of you but how will you know what goes on behind your back? Discipline should be about raising morally-aware children with a social conscience, and not creating fear-inspired behaviours in children that don't last once they are out of sight.

There are Other Ways to Discipline

There is a common misconception, especially among those who believe in smacking, that if a parent chooses not to discipline a child by smacking then that parent is choosing not to discipline the child at all. Perhaps such thoughts are limited only to those near-sighted enough to believe that the only way to discipline a child is through violence.

There are other ways to discipline a child. They are generally more time consuming and require more effort on the part of the parent. It is easier to yell at your child and smack him (or her) for misbehaving than it is to utilise other methods of discipline to correct your child's bad behaviour. Smacking and yelling doesn't require much thought and the action alone will help you let off some steam from the anger buttons your child has just pushed.

Unlike our parents' day, there are now plenty of resources available to parents who truly wish to practice non-violent methods of discipline. And unlike our parents' day, we can no longer claim the excuse of ignorance as a reason why we continue to practice such barbaric methods of disciplining children.

Resources:

1. Plain Talk About Spanking - http://nospank.net/pt2009.htm

2. Spanking by Parents and Subsequent Antisocial Behavior of Children - http://www.geocities.com/kidhi story/ja/spankms.htm

3. Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Cognitive Development of Children: A Longitudinal Study - http://nospank.net/straus3.htm

4. Slapping and spanking in childhood and its association with lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.g ov/picrender.fcgi?artid=123065 1&blobtype=pdf

5. The Influence of Corporal Punishment on Crime - http://nospank.net/maurer1.htm

6. The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland

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