Liljagare

I think it is like this (at least from my point of view and to clarify my previous points about Sweden). From a Swede's point of view, if we okay smacking a kid, who is to draw the line between that and what is classifed as "violence"? To us, to smack a kid is violent. I used the three year old as an example because if you hit a ten year old, what makes it more worse to hit a three year old ? Also, if a person hits the child just once, and the behavior changes, then what would stop me from doing it again and again, because one has correlated the hit with "better behavior"...maybe even beating more because that might change the behavior even more dramatically. It is like smoking, you might think that one or two ciggaretes won't hurt you because you only do it once a month. But how many people only smoke only one or two cigarettes once a month?

If you feel you are doing wrong by smacking a child, regardless of age, then why do it? How do you know that that child will associate the smack with better behavior and who has the right to justify what is worth being hit over? How do we know it doesn't cause dramatic side effects? I don't think anyone truly knows..but I do know I like living in a society where I don't have to go around seeing children being beaten over things which can be easily corrected in other ways. There is an entire generation of children here who have never been smacked/beaten into knowing the difference between acceptable/unacceptable. And they seem to be doing pretty well. To me, smacking is just about loss of self control.