TV Scope I smack and I'm proud, UTV, Thursday, September 21st
The UTV programme, I Smack and I'm Proud, demonstrated disturbing levels of violence perpetrated by parents on their children under the guise of justifiable smacking. The images were stark and distressing to anyone who has any respect for the dignity and rights of the child.
The programme described itself as an examination of corporal punishment, analysing the behaviour of five sets of parents who believe smacking is an appropriate means of disciplining their children.
There followed disturbing depictions: particularly the single mother's relentless coercion of her sons, which interspersed verbal abuse with physical assault. Wielding kitchen utensils, she hit her children until the older boy hit her back. "I want my children to fear me," she said, "fear what I will do to them." She appeared to have achieved her goal.
Then there was the mother of two daughters who assured the viewer that smacking never did her any harm. The connection with her own harsh upbringing and later history of imprisonment for assault escaped her.
The "Christian" parents of five children were shown rearing them with Biblical justification based on "spare the rod and spoil the child".
But the image of a sad little boy distressed at being slapped for no apparent reason must send a message that this transgenerational abuse will not end until it is against the law to smack a child and until parents are helped to discipline differently - in gentle, confident non-violent ways. The tragedy of smacking is that those most brutally parented often parent their own children in the same way.
The programme, as an analysis of smacking, was disappointing. There was inadequate commentary on the horrors depicted and insufficient academic discussion about the vast research that shows the damage even "ordinary" smacking inflicts. Professional intervention was weak, with few tips on alternatives to smacking, and no details of helpline numbers or websites were given.
The parents were as much to be pitied as their children and they were as much in need of help to learn new ways of interacting as their children needed to be released from the terror of their family lives.
Yet the programme probably made an anti-smacking case better than any debate could. What was visible were wounded adults venting their rage. And the more the children were smacked, the more out of control they became.
Indeed, the children's responses showed what adults who inflict harsh discipline have too long tried to deny, that is, smacking does not work and violence begets violence.
The most prophetic words came from the 11-year-old who said: "Smacking doesn't teach us a lesson, or teach us not to do it, it just makes us angry, bottles up all our rage and then one day we will just take it out, or something."