Report to the People
Protecting Kids, Protecting Parents
Easter Monday is never a recipe for domestic bliss.
If you’re not stuck in a traffic jam or in a garden centre, you’ve been despatched up a ladder to complete a piece of DIY which you probably began last Easter. And, as if that wasn’t enough, your children are screaming around you at full speed, trying to work off some of the excess energy they’ve built up from spending the past two days consuming their own body weight in chocolate eggs. Indeed, were it not for their dangerously high blood sugar levels allowing them to outrun you, chances are you would have throttled them by now.
So what better time to talk about how we discipline our children?
This is now back on the agenda after the publication last week of the Scottish Executive’s new Criminal Justice Bill, part of which aims to clarify the law on physical chastisement.
The current law is rooted in the vague concept of "reasonable chastisement." Of course, good, decent parents know what where this line is. But not all parents are good and we must be sure, while tackling the bad parents, good parents don’t end up in court for a simple smack.
New rules, therefore, are needed.
On the one hand, there is no doubt there are children in need of protection – as we saw last week when it was reported that the number suffering neglect and abuse has increased by over 50% in the past two years. Society must send a strong message to abusive parents that slapping a child about the head or a thrashing with a belt is simply unacceptable. And it’s not only parents who need to know the rules. There have been cases of neighbours witnessing abuse, unsure of the law and being afraid to intervene for the fear of being accused of meddling.
But, on the other hand, we must make sure that we do not criminalise good parents. It is a parent’s right, within accepted boundaries, to discipline their children and I would certainly never vote for any law which prosecuted a parent for a quick smack on the back of a hand which was reaching for a three bar fire.
The Parliamentary stages of this bill are just beginning. At every point of the process, therefore, I will keep up the pressure on Justice Minister, Jim Wallace, to make sure the law we finally pass protects the rights both of children and does not impinge of the legitimate rights of good parents.
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