I remain very concerned that Bradford’s bill is being touted as an ‘anti-smacking’. It is not that at all. This bill will outlaw ‘all’ forms of violence toward children which, on face-value, seems like a damned good idea.
However, what is completely missing throughout is a definition of violence.
Over the years, at this site, we have all read reports from men who have been deemed violent for little more than a look or a huff.
The power this bill will give to the small group of CYF mad-persons amongst the sane CYF workers, to wreck even more families, is beyond imagination.
This small group of CYF mad-persons, which from what I have observed on CYFWATCH, is limited to about 100 out of some 1500 otherwise decent social workers, will have a field-day with this new legislation if it passed.
These social misfits will be able to remove children and bust up more families with even less substance for reason than they are required to have now….and even now it ain’t very much.
This bill must be stopped.
Personally, I have never had to do much more than give my kids the ‘evil-eye’ to get them to understand that some behaviours were unacceptable….but then I do really good line in ‘evil-eye’, even though my kids learned quickly that it was an act.
But I find it perfectly acceptable to force a child away from danger, and although I don’t actually understand why some children need a smack, I accept a mild jobbie to a hand as okay when parental skills, or whatever influence is working to muddle the amazing results returned from mutual love and respect between adult and child fails.
But as soon as that light slap turns into a thwack, then my red-lights turn on. Countless now are the times I have stopped to ask a ‘parent’ why they just hit (not slapped, but hit) a small child, or have remonstrated with a small child with language fitted only for the gutter, and had the pleasure of seeing utterly perplexity on the face of the hitter, followed by a violent response.
But, so far I have managed to talk my way past the inevitable angst of a challenged ‘parent’ and been rewarded with an attenuation of vitriol.
Don’t get me wrong here. They haven’t all stopped to consider the error of their ways and thanked me for interceding, but the F-words and C-words (all adjectives used to describe me, in front of the children concerned) have slowly died away to mumbles and the odd ‘bugger’.
The only people (and I use the word loosely) who have the wish and ability to enforce the ‘letter’ of the Bradford Bill , are those few utterly mad CYF workers mentioned ealier herein. But the power it will deliver into their deranged hands is incomprehensible.
Real anti-violence is not a government issue, it is a family and social issue. So long as families refuse to do nothing it will continue. So long as folk, unlike me, who refuse to intercede, it will continue.
But the potential for family violence which is being delivered into the hands of the fractous few is beyond imagination.
David