Children are unbeatable

"Children are unbeatable!" is an Alliance of more than 350 organisations and projects, including professional and religious bodies, as well as many prominent individuals. It was formed in 1998 and campaigns for children to have the same legal protection against being hit as adults and promotes positive, non-violent discipline.

I have signed up to their campaign as I truly believe that it is wrong to hit anyone, child or adult, under any circumstances. (And if you have been following my debate about solving the problem of bad neighbours, you need to know that I wont be prescribing physical punishments.)

While I am cutting and pasting some of the text on their website, I will add this bit

For the moment, hitting children is legal across the UK, so many parents don't think twice about it But when we do stop to think about it, as the thousands of parents involved in "Children are unbeatable!" have done, then it doesn't make sense. There is nothing good or healthy or loving or safe about deliberately hurting children. It has nothing to do with effective discipline and is a lesson in bad behaviour. Most parents don't like smacking their children and want to find a positive alternative.

Find out more by looking at their website.

And remember, children learn by example, so if doing something that someone else does not approve of is appropriately dealt with by smacking, we will create a nation of bigger people hitting smaller ones.

I like to think of the old advert for Ready Brek, the child with the glowing forcefield round it because it had a bowl before it went out in the morning. So imagine that that forcefield is round every one of us, small or large and should never be penetrated with violence.

Do let me have your views - as long as they dont include the phrase "My father beat me with a belt/whip/shoe/strip of wood regularly, and it never did me any harm", because I think it probably ruined your life and is the principle reason why these days nobody much likes you and you are an aggressive bugger

Louise