Smacking is simply "lazy, lousy parenting" and can never be justified, an Illawarra parenting expert says.
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Through his research at the University of Wollongong, parenting expert, author and speaker Dr Justin Coulson, found between 80 and 90 per cent of parents admitted to regularly hitting their children.
"Most people don't like to do it but they think that it's the only way to discipline," he said.
"Parents want to be great parents, but because they feel like they don't have any other tools and strategies ... they yell and they shout and they intimidate, and they use force and coercion."
The issue of smacking has again come under the spotlight after an Illawarra man this week won an appeal to overturn an apprehended violence order granted in relation to his 12-year-old son, who claimed he felt intimidated by his father smacking and swearing at him.
The case tested the notion of "lawful chastisement" of a child with Judge Paul Conlon ultimately determining the man's treatment of his son, while an overreaction, was not intimidatory to the point the child needed legal protection.
In NSW the law states that if you use physical punishment with your children, don't ever use force above their shoulders. Below the shoulders don't use force that could harm them for more than a short period of time.
Regardless of the law, Dr Coulson said he believed there were no appropriate levels of corporal punishment. The father of six addresses discipline on his blog, at justincoulson.com and said there were many other kind and loving strategies available.
He said research showed children who were smacked at home were much more likely to be physically aggressive at school.
"In other words, if you bully your kids at home they are much more likely to be bullies," he said.
"When we hit our kids it's because we decided we're not going to think about our options, we're just going to use our power to force our children to do something they don't want to do."
While parents often justified smacking as a way of teaching their child a lesson, or as a disciplinary tool, he said children learnt nothing positive from it.
"The only thing it teaches them is that the one person in their life that they're supposed to be looking up to, and being looked after by, isn't trustworthy - the one person they're supposed to go to when they're scared or fearful or hurt is going to hurt them," he said.