Corporal punishment of children is still the primary parenting method. Changing parents’ awareness is proving to be one of the more difficult tasks facing the state and the associations and organizations supporting it in this area. During a recent sitting of the Sejm, MPs voted on amendments to the Act on Counteracting Domestic Violence. The amended act is considered controversial and disruptive to family peace.
The amendment to the Act on Counteracting Domestic Violence assumes a change to the Family and Guardianship Code. It concerns a ban on corporal punishment, inflicting psychological suffering and other forms of humiliating a child. It would be the first legal regulation in Poland to directly address the prohibition of harming children (Aneta Mościcka/lex.pl).
Czy zwróciłbyś uwagę rodzicom, którzy obrażają dziecko?
Suddenly, it turned out that hitting children had divided Poles into two hostile camps. Groups of supporters of hitting were formed (the “I Love, I Don’t Raise” campaign), as well as determined opponents (“Hitting Is Stupid,” NieBije.pl and “I Love, I Don’t Hit”). The issue of hitting children arouses such strong emotions that it has become a political matter. Politicians can now choose whether to be supported by an electorate that wants to hit children or by an electorate that has no intention of hitting its children.
And the problem is more complex. There is no one who would consciously want to harm a child. The difficulty lies in changing society’s understanding of how to raise children and how to build parental authority through new, unfamiliar parenting methods.
A Father’s Right
Raising children with a firm hand, especially sons, is considered the privilege and duty of the head of the household—the father. The Bible says: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but whoever loves him is diligent to discipline him.” (Proverbs 13:24, according to the Millennium Bible). The most common argument for raising children with a firm hand is: “I was hit, and I grew up to be a decent person.” It is difficult to argue with such a claim, because one would really have to tell that person that they were hit, are not decent because they are prone to aggression, and have low self-esteem. The question that should be asked of such people should be: “Can’t someone grow up to be a decent person without being hit?”
Unfortunately, 85% of parents in Poland consider hitting a child on the bottom with an open hand acceptable. More than half (54%) allow for the possibility of hitting a child several times with a belt (OBOP survey, cited by Antyakcja BijmyDzieci.pl).
A father’s—or, as we say today, parents’—right to physically punish children is deeply rooted in our consciousness. It is considered something natural. People often say that children need a father, meaning that they need someone to punish them. Otherwise, they will be spoiled and disobedient.
Banning all physical punishment of one’s own children raises fears that the state is taking away the only chance to raise a child to obey and according to rules the parent respects. We fear that we will be unable to control our offspring in a world that is also slipping beyond our control. Hitting seems like a proven method of controlling a child and one’s family, and the only way to preserve authority. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hitting undermines parental authority and ultimately destroys it. It causes a child not to turn to their father or mother for help, but to choose peers who accept them. An “innocent smack” has no educational value whatsoever. It is merely an outlet for one’s frustration and a demonstration of the parent’s helplessness.
Children need authority, not a firm, hitting hand. They need boundaries, prohibitions and consequences. They do not need humiliation, degradation or psychological abuse. Other parenting methods are not ineffective or more difficult at all. They are simply different. And that is what makes the change so difficult: changing our approach to old rights and introducing a new way of raising children without aggression.
Hitting in Passing—the True Face of Violence Against Children
Under the Blue Card procedure (an intervention procedure in cases of domestic violence), 763 victims were recorded in Bolesławiec County in 2009, including 533 women, 74 men, 102 children up to the age of 13 and 54 children aged 14 to 18 (data from the Bolesławiec Police). No direct physical violence against children was recorded. A child is most often an observer. They see their father or their mother’s live-in partner beating her.
Where can you get help or report domestic violence?
“Blue Line”
National Emergency Helpline for Victims of Domestic Violence
tel. 801 1200 02
District Family Support Center
Boleslawiec, 9 Zwycięstwa St.
tel. 75 73530 48
information on available assistance
Polish Red Cross
Boleslawiec, 30 Tysiąclecia Ave.
tel. 75 73803 47 (open 24 hours)
legal and psychological advice
Society of Friends of Children
Bolesławiec, 2a B. Chrobrego St.
tel. 75 73247 47
“Together” Association Against Violence
Bolesławiec, 1B Widok
tel. 75 73258 98
Municipal Social Welfare Center
Bolesławiec, 7 Cicha St.
tel. 75 64578 23
Gromadka Municipality
Municipal Social Welfare Center
18 Szkolna St.
tel. 75 73823 42
Nowogrodziec Municipality and Town
Municipal and Communal Social Welfare Center and Support Point for Victims of Violence
42a Lubańska St.
tel. 75 73163 79
Osiecznica Municipality
Municipal Social Welfare Center
43 Lubańska St.
tel. 75 73125 11
Psychological Counseling Point
School Complex in Osiecznica
35 Lubańska St. (counselor’s office)
Warta Bolesławiecka Municipality
Municipal Social Welfare Center
Warta Bolesławiecka 40 c
tel. 75 73893 38
The most common form of violence is parents’ neglect of children. Parents are most often under the influence of alcohol or drugs and are unable to provide a child with basic care. Such children are transferred to foster families or care facilities. Foster-family roles are taken on by close relatives, often grandparents, who also abuse alcohol and repeat the same parenting mistakes with their grandchildren as they did with their own children—the parents.
Neglected children develop survival habits. They get dressed in advance because they do not know how long they will remain away from home or whether they will be able to get back in. They also eat their fill in advance. When they take part in talks about violence at social welfare centers and are asked to define it, they list the objects used to hit them: a belt, cable, rod, rope. Social workers say that hitting always goes hand in hand with neglect; it occurs in the course of it. An inability to care for a child results in a blow. Most often, it is an outlet for a parent’s frustration directed at the child.
Psychological violence is just as common. It takes the form of shouting and threats: “I’ll drown you in the pond,” “I’ll bury you three meters underground,” “I’ll smash your head against the wall.” These are promises children hear from their parents. Violence against a child in the family is also often a shared secret among the victims. Sometimes a violent father is the sole breadwinner. The mother obliges the child to remain silent because “when the police take Daddy away, there won’t be any money to live on.”
Beaten children have no sense of self-worth. They consider themselves inferior. They are convinced that they deserve such treatment. Moreover, they believe that poor relations with a parent are normal behavior. They therefore repeat them in adulthood, even believing that someone who does not hit does not love. And so violence is passed from generation to generation.
I Love, I Don’t React
Although domestic violence, publicized by the media, is a hot topic, society does not react to acts of violence against children. Andrzej Pyszka, head of the district officers of the Bolesławiec District Police Headquarters, says that over the course of four years there has not been a single case of a neighbor going to the police to report witnessing violence and being able to testify about it. The principle that family matters belong to the family still prevails in society. The victim—a husband, wife or cohabiting partner—calls the police.
Neighbors may be driven by the fear that the victim will withdraw the charges and that the consequences will then fall on the witness. Victims themselves must find the minimum strength to fight for their own welfare. Often, after an argument, when the abuser promises to improve or exerts other pressure, frequently financial pressure as the sole breadwinner, the accusation is withdrawn.
Employees of the District Family Support Center in Bolesławiec say that the people most likely to notice and help a child are teachers—class teachers and physical education teachers. A physical education teacher can see a child wearing shorts and a T-shirt. They can therefore most easily notice bruises or marks from beatings. A class teacher can observe a child in a group and notice troubling behavior.
Unfortunately, the problem with schools is that it is still a matter of luck whether a child subjected to violence encounters a humane and sensitive teacher. There is currently no effective mechanism ensuring that teachers treat responding to domestic violence as a priority. Schools’ responses are therefore extreme. Either they help the child exemplary well, or they avoid the problem for six years, until the child leaves primary school. The problem is then taken over by another institution: middle school. By then, however, it is usually too late for help. Among teachers, as in society, there is also a persistent belief that one should not interfere in family matters, even at the cost of a child’s suffering.
Only in the “I Love, I React” advertising spot is Ania Przybylska able to call the attention of a huge tracksuit-wearing father who is shouting at his little son in a park. In reality, no one dares to reprimand parents who insult their children.
“Are you an idiot to do that?” a woman asks her daughter in a supermarket checkout line. No one reacts.
“You idiot, stop!” a father shouts after his son in a store parking lot. The same lack of reaction.
Why do we not approach these parents, like the brave Przybylska, and reprimand them? Because we have been taught that we must not interfere in how someone raises their child. And we do not want to take on someone else’s troubles when we already have enough of our own. This belief will be the hardest to change.
How can anyone hit such a beautiful baby?
In advertising spots, loving parents embrace beautiful little children who are happy because they are not hit but loved. Then each of us asks a somewhat childish question: how can anyone hit such a beautiful baby? They can. They can even beat the child to death. The mature question is: what can be done so that the state can, and society wants to, counteract this? There are no easy answers, but concrete action must be taken. According to statistics, half of families in Poland have a problem with violence. The figures may be disputed, but reality cannot be denied. Hitting children is regarded by society as a positive parenting method. We fight for the right to give an “innocent smack” as if it were independence. At the same time, we have developed no mechanisms that would enable us to oppose violence—neither in our homes nor in the homes of close relatives or neighbors. In truth, the best place to start is with ourselves. It is a change in the way we think.
Everyone should decide for themselves what they think about it. This concerns our children. We have influence over very few things. We do not know what our child will do with their life. We cannot control how the world will receive them or what harm or good others will do to them. We can only—or at least—choose not to hit them when they begin to have opinions of their own, when they begin to build their character and test the limits of their abilities. As parents, we can teach them self-respect.
(information by Grażyna Hanaf)