Scoville - my comment above about 'do-gooders who haven't a clue' did not specifically refer to the anti-spanking lobby. You've read something into my words that I did not say.

Quite the contrary - my remarks are tempered by many years of primary school teaching. In the 1980s I had classes of over forty nine-year-old children, and such 'do-gooders who haven't a clue' were being paid by the local education authority as 'advisers'.

These people would go into a classroom and try to tell the teacher how to organise their classroom. Yet these people had no formal teacher-training, and had no first hand experience of teaching. They were a waste of space in many cases, and there for political reasons rather than educational.

That is the thinking behind my remark - parents are in a better position to advise other parents tempered with experience.

Rather than waste effort on banning smacking, I believe parent training would be more useful and effective.

I could plainly see the results of poor parenting when I was teaching. Some children were constantly talking, and it emerged their parents rarely chatted with them at home. Children who were aggressive often had aggressive parents...

My own daughter (29) has two children of her own now, aged 6 and 3. She is not a violent person, and was not brought up ruled by violence. She is a very caring Mum, and makes sure they know what constitutes acceptable behaviour, and what does not. Even so, they will push the boundaries, as they are intelligent, inquisitive children.

It is impossible for anyone to comment accurately about circumstances they neither know nor understand. That is why educating the parents is the correct answer, I believe.