It's a question that carries a lot of weight
across different societies and generations, and the answer isn't the same for everyone.
This can be very controversial, but I don’t think so.
Any kind of violence towards children is a no go.
It does cross your mind, like it depends what it is, but no I don’t think it is.
It’d be alright to teach them a bit of a lesson.
A little smack and that. You know, a little, to kind of get them to do the right thing,
that’s fine, but just not over the top, alright.
In many countries around the world corporal punishment is outright
illegal and has been for a while. But, here in Australia it's a different story.
Corporal punishment is referring to the use of physical force, some would say violence
as a means of discipline for children.
My God, that would’ve been horrible. Why you little...
And in Australia, the use of physical punishment is explicitly illegal in most contexts. So,
you're not allowed to use it in early childhood education settings, in schools,
or even in out of home care. And yet in their home with your own parents, there's
an exemption that's available under all of our criminal codes, and in what's called Common Law.
Professor Daryl Higgins is a leading researcher in child protection studies
at the Australian Catholic University. Recently, he teamed up with a bunch of
other researchers to explore the effects that this kind of discipline has on young people.
And what we found with the young participants, so that's three and a half thousand,
Australians aged 16 to 24, we found that 61% of them had at some time during their childhood,
and not just one, but four or more instances of corporal punishment. Those who had experienced
four or more instances of corporal punishment had almost doubled the risk of depression and anxiety.
Depression and anxiety are two of the most common mental illnesses affecting young people in
Australia and reported cases of these illnesses have been on the rise over the past decade.
We've got high on our priority of governments to be addressing the prevalence of mental
illness. And yet, we've got very clear data here showing one of the contributors,
that doubles the risk of mental illness at this young age is experiencing corporal punishment.
Some experts also say that children who've experienced corporal punishment are more likely
to end up in domestic violent relationships later in life. Professor Higgins reckons that one reason
parents might use corporal punishment is that children usually immediately do what they're told,
but new evidence suggests that over time it loses its effectiveness. Their research also
suggests that the use of corporal punishment is generational. In other words, parents or
caregivers may discipline their children the same way they were disciplined growing up.
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study found that 38% of people over 65 said corporal
punishment is necessary to raise a child, while only 14.8% of 16 to 24-year-olds think the same.
Well, we’d teach them to be well-behaved.
If it’s done too much or not in the right way it
could lead to mental health issues that would need to be addressed.
My parent’s generation grew up with more discipline like that,
but then again there was caning at school and so forth, so that wasn’t really appropriate.
Generations past, that’s what they did. This is a new generation. Times have changed.
In the absence of better knowledge and understanding,
we often end up reverting to the way that we were raised to say, this is how it's done.
Stop! You might be strangling him because of your own conflicting feelings. Oh you thoughtful...
And I think it really points out a problem that we have in Australia,
which is we don't have a conversation around what are appropriate parenting practices,
and corporal punishment is not on the menu.
I think generational trauma can be a real thing.
It just passes down, like if you grow up getting smacked,
you’re probably going to then smack your kids.
If it’s brought up with them, they’re probably going to bring it up with their own children.
While a smacking is still technically legal, there are limits. So, in these parts of Australia
parents and caregivers can discipline children in the home with "reasonable" physical force,
and in these it's much the same, unless the child isn't able to understand what they've done wrong,
which then makes it illegal. The bottom line is though wherever you are in Australia,
you can hit a child in your home, even wash their mouth out with soap. Yeah,
that's legal. But experts like Professor Higgins are pushing to change that.
There's now 65 countries around the globe that have explicitly outlawed
use of corporal punishment in all settings, including the home. And so,
we're calling on Australia to join the ranks of those 65 that are already well ahead of us.
Sweden was the first country to outlaw hitting children in 1979,
which opened the floodgates for all these other countries to follow suit. New Zealand
was the first English-speaking country to get on-board in 2007,
and they've had a massive drop in physical punishments since then. Australian researchers
have tried to go down this path before, back in 2013. But lawmakers here didn't buy it.
I think part of the reason why it hasn't been effective is perhaps it's not had a groundswell
of support from across the country. It's been dedicated individuals, but
it’s been in isolated pockets and it’s not being coordinated. The other reason why perhaps it’s
not been so effective is that we haven't had the Australian data to be able to back up the claim.
This time though, he reckons they've got a better crack at it.
The data is unequivocal. We have the information to show that continuing
on the path that we're currently going on,
is unhelpful and is contributing to one of the real scourges on Australian society.
If their push gets through the legislative maze this time, Professor Higgins says the
changes would be pretty straight forward. Only a small change would have to be made
to the current laws around assault, there would be new ads and resources to help educate parents,
kind of like road or sun safety ads, and the police would help spread the message.
The idea is not to criminalize parents for doing what they think is the right thing.
It's about sending a clear message so that they know what is the right thing.
There’s definitely other ways you can go about disciplining your kids,
rather than just going straight to hitting. Just, kind of, getting down to their level
and maybe just kind of explaining to them in a nice, kind of firm but not aggressive way.
Taking away something they enjoy.
Something that will actually affect them, make them think that wasn’t a good idea.
Talking to them about what they did wrong,
and like, other ways like they can help to not do that next time.
It’s just a matter of finding the right line in terms of disciplining your children, I guess.
The biggest challenge is that legislative change requires politicians to stand up and
take action. And most politicians are scared of doing what they call interfering in family
life. And so the main way in which we need to overcome that is to actually speak up.
It's actually the voice of young people that's really, really powerful here so I
would urge those who care about this issue, and who want a safer future for not only yourself,
but for the next generation of children and young people, to speak up and take action.
Parents need to lead by example.
Anything to help children just not experience things like that.
It’s just not something that should be continued.