The only other point I would make is that people often differentite between disciplined smacking and smacking in anger - whilst I understand this argument it all feels equally painful to the child. Brendan - I only used the word pathetic in response to your post as you had said my previous point was bollocks. I'm not normally dismissive of other peoples posts in that way. I do think however that smacking will be illegal at some point in the future. I think its already illegal to use unreasonable force on a child, but my guess is that many children around the country are suffering too much physical punishment. To a certain extent kids will be kids, they will occaisionally step out of line from time to time - its our job to make sure, in a humane way, that they should not repeat their mistakes. Think Moos made her points very well.