Should slapping children be made illegal in Ireland?

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Doctor ANNE MARIE HALPENNY of DIT’s Early Childhood education programme, joins Ger Leddin to discuss a recent call on the government, made by the Children Rights Alliance, to ban violence against children within the home, aimed at discouraging slapping or physical punishment in the disciplining of children in the home.

Anne Marie speaks of  a study which found just over 25% of parents indicating that they have used a form of physical disciplining in the year previous to the study. Roughly 64% of parents stated that they had no problem with a light form of physical punishment in the home and 33% of parents felt that smacking of a child should be made illegal. They move on to discuss the outlawing of physical punishment in the education system in the previous decades.

Anne Marie speaks of findings that children who had experienced physical discipline were more likely to create or retain an aggressive personality trait. They discuss the reality of the grey area which exists in society between what might be acceptable in terms of physical punishment and where it is culturally frowned upon. They also discuss whether there is a more effective way of dealing with emergency situations, using an example of a child running into the street and risking being knocked down. They talk of how the initial response of slapping the child is not the best course of action in the long run.

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