Smacking cops a whack
Most Aussies over 60 probably copped the occasion smack from a parent, but research that shows 60 per cent of Aussie kids today have been physically punished has sounded alarm bells.
The findings of the national study of 8500 Australians have led to calls for the removal of the legal defence of “reasonable chastisement” in Victoria, which allows parents to use physical violence on their children.
“Children deserve equal protection against physical violence as adults,” said one of the lead researchers, Australian Catholic University Professor Daryl Higgins.
“In Australia right now, you have better protection from violence as a female adult or a pet than you do as a child,” he told the Herald Sun.
“If you want to reduce population level anxiety for women and men, don’t hit them as children. There is a very real connection between corporal punishment and current and lifelong experience of mental ill health,” said Prof. Higgins, from the Institute of Child Protection Studies.
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study shows 61 per cent of Australians aged 16 to 24 experienced corporal punishment from their parents on more than three occasions while growing up.
Females who experienced corporal punishment from their parents were 1.8 times more likely to suffer a major depressive disorder and 2.1 times more likely to experience generalised anxiety. Males were 1.7 and 1.6 times more likely to develop depression and anxiety respectively.
Were you smacked by a parent as a child? Did that have a big effect on you? Did you smack your children on occasion? Should smacking be regarded as an offence?
Yup! stop it right now. Buy a punching bag instead.