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Smacking Essay

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Good morning,
My name is Micheal and today am here to talk to you about the issue of smacking. To strike or slap someone with force using the open hand is the definition of smacking.
The issue of whether it should be legal for parents to smack their children has now become a major controversy. Today I come to you as a concerned citizen as I find it utterly disturbing that in Australia, it is currently legal for parents to smack their children. I believe that the act of parents, smacking their child should be illegal. Smacking children, in our modern society, is nothing but an ineffective form of discipline. It is actually a violation of the human rights of the child. Furthermore it has potential to cause intellectual and …show more content…

It is illegal for women to be assaulted, yet it is legal for parents to smack children. It is disturbing to see that children are the only category in Australia that can be legally assaulted. Just as all other categories have the right to not be assaulted, so should the children. The United Nations convention has stressed it duty to to give children this right to be free from all forms of violence, including cruel punishment. All children deserve to have human dignity and physical integrity. By smacking, we are violating this.

My final argument towards making smacking illegal is the risk of long-term phycological harm. In 2011, research was conducted to test the effects of smacking.
Children who were exposed in an environment where they were smacked achieved low scores in psychological assessments including planning, abstract thinking and levels of satisfaction. The scores achieved by these children were significantly lower than the scores achieved by students who were exposed to environments where they were not smacked. The results of this research proved that aggressive environments may have a impact on a child's verbal intelligence. The result of this is that children who are smacked are at high risk of behavioural problems. On top of this, further research has also shown that children who have been smacked in their childhood, have lower IQs. Professor Mark Strauss conducted research that proved that children who

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