Speech on Smacking Children

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Good Morning/Afternoon teachers and classmates. Today im here to tell you my opinion on whether it should be illegal for parents to smack their children. 20 years ago, spanking your child wasn’t even an issue. People just did it. It seemed to be the most effective and typical way to discipline their kids. Today spanking or smacking is a major issue in todays society. Many more people these days believe that smacking children is a form of child abuse and if a parent smacks a child in public there likely to be stared at, have something said to them or in extreme cases might be reported for abuse. Having been smacked as a child a few times for naughty behaviour, I now believe that smacking should not be illegal and that it is a vital part in helping develop discipline , understanding the hierarchy between parent and child and keeping the child and others out of harm. I am a firm believer that a short, sharp smack can keep children under control. This doesn’t mean they should be beaten up or even marked, but strict and fair punishment will benefit a child in the long run. Smacking or corporal punishment, as it commonly referred to, is both a contemporary and an emotive issue. The definition of corporal punishment according to Clark (2004) is ‘the infliction of physical pain on some offender for his offence’. This definition encapsulates smacking. Under current law, parents can smack their children providing no marks are left and only ‘reasonable chastisement is used’ . While the wording is contemporary, the issue is not. Chief Justice Cockburn stated in 1860, ‘ by the law of Australia, a parent… may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child, inflict moderate and reasonable corporal chastisement’ (Roberts, 2000, p. 259). The language of the current law may be different but the underlying message remains the same. Yet nevertheless there is still a debate

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