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You are > Home > A sharp slap can tackle the brat culture
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
A sharp slap can tackle the brat culture
BY TP O’MAHONY
TO slap or not to slap? Two beautiful and formidable women have taken opposite sides on this question.
Model Jerry Hall, the ex-wife of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, is adamantly opposed to smacking children.
She even wrote an article for a magazine in which she berated parents who smack their children.
Former Miss Ireland Amanda Brunker, on the other hand, admitted on TV3 to smacking her sons when all else fails.
I’m with Ms Brunker on this one. Indeed, I go further: I firmly believe that the decision taken on February 1, 1982, to outlaw corporal punishment in Ireland’s schools was a bad one.
It seems clear to me now in retrospect that the decision to ban corporal punishment in schools was as foolish as it was short-sighted.
Twenty-eight years ago the do-gooders had their way. They deemed corporal punishment to be politically incorrect. But who is having to live with the consequences of what was then seen in some quarters as a liberal initiative?
We see loutish behaviour and hear foul language all around us today, and the spread of what I can only call brat culture. And there is respect among many sections of the young for neither persons nor property.
Elderly people are afraid to go out at night. And town centres all over the country have become no-go areas after dark. Indiscipline is widespread and bullying is often the norm.
So what is to be done? In schools, teachers have to be given the wherewithal to teach effectively – and they cannot do that if disorder, disrespect and disruption are rife in classrooms.
There is also a longer term implication – if we are rearing a generation of young people among whom the belief that it is cool to give two-fingers to authority is widespread, then God help the Ireland of 2020 or 2030.
The Constitution acknowledges (Article 42) that the family is the primary and natural educator of the child, but in modern society schools have a huge complementary.
That said, the task for any school is made enormously onerous if the home environment is chaotic.
Where there is indiscipline and blackguardism in schools, we are entitled to trace its origins, in part, to the home.
So if discipline is to be imposed, and respect for others nurtured, then the process must start at home. That’s why the latest attempts to prevent a parent from slapping a child are crazy.
We’ve moved now to the ridiculous stage where, not only is it verboten for a teacher to administer a slap to a pupil, but soon it may be the law that parents should not physically chastise their own children.
The idea that a parent may not slap a child, in any circumstances, is intolerable. Indeed, I hope I do not live to see the day when this is the law of the land.
Ms Brunker is right: there are times when the only effective remedy for persistent unruly behaviour by children is "a sharp smack".
The debate about smacking has been reopened amid reports that an outright ban on the smacking of children by their parents is being considered.
The Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has said the prohibition is being kept "under review", and attempts by other countries to legislate for an outright ban are being examined.
According to a recent survey, a majority of parents (58%) believe that smacking should remain legal, but only a third believe it should be legal in all circumstances.
We actually need now to copperfasten the right of parents to administer reasonable chastisement.
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