Durrant – banning physical punishment

In other countries, for example Sweden where I spend a lot of time, which was the first country to prohibit physical punishment, there’s universal access to parent support and education, and all parents participate in it. So not only do they get a lot of ideas about how to handle situations, but they also learn a lot about child development and about the typical things that children do. So they’re less likely to interpret their child’s behaviour as defiance or bratty-ness or as bad. But they start to see it more as this is a developmental process. And they also are linked up with other parents, so social isolation is lessened substantially. 

So when you have a culture where virtually 100% of the population has easy, free access to very high quality parent support and parent education, you have a society that hits their children a lot less because they see children differently, they know a lot more about options, they think differently about the relationship. So other countries are doing this, and certainly in Europe, and Scandinavia in particular the model is one of truly prioritizing children and families. So the prohibitions on physical punishment in those countries are not punitive against parents, they’re actually just doing what we would like parents to do which is set the standard clearly; don’t give a mixed message, don’t give a fuzzy message, don’t say a little bit’s okay but not a lot and we won’t tell you where that line is. We set the standard, make the expectation and the limit clear and then support children and guide them in getting there. Don’t punish them when they fail. Guide them and help them to reach that. And that’s what the Scandinavian countries have put into place for adults–because we’re all learning. And parents are certainly learning. They’re like babies born without much to go on and they’re developing as well. The principals that underlie learning are the same throughout life. And that is clear communication, clear expectations, support, guidance, nurturance, encouragement, modeling. It’s true whether we’re two or we’re 50. We need support. Not punishment.