Slovakia in the footprints of the UK: Criminal sentence for bringing up your child?

As a parent in Slovakia, you could face unprecedented limits in applying your way of bringing up your children in the upcoming years.

On 28 January 2009 Slovak government has namely agreed on the National Action Plan for Children 2009-2012. This has been done without much public attention, therefore many parents might not have realised the consequences.

In part 2.4 a) of the material mentioned, the sub-chapter called “Corporal punishment” states as follows: “To consider the means of implementation of zero tolerance towards corporal punishment and other rough or humiliating forms of punishment in every environment, including a family. Reconsider in this sense the legal regulations in relevant fields concerning this matter.”

Obviously no sane human being could approve of cruelty to children, humiliation or child abuse. But “zero tolerance” mentioned in the new governmental Action plan seems to be implementing state control over the right of parents to chose the way of bringing up their children. Taken to the extreme, parents may face a criminal prosecution simply by smacking a furious child. Sensible carrot-and-stick approach to parenthood, praised and applied by numerous generations of parents, may not be freely applicable any more.

“It is not allowable for a state to deprive the parents of a significant tool of exercising their authority,” says Marcel Podolinský, deputy chairman of NGO Pastor bonus. NGO Pastor bonus stands behind many public petitions on various subject mostly related to traditional values. According to a child psychiatrist MUDr. Anna Ková?ová, „we can't speak of a parent's failure, if all the other alternatives have been exhausted and a parent knowingly, without anger, uses a corporal punishment against a child in a form of a smack on the bottom. It's about upbringing and setting limits for children. After a punishment it is important to assure the child knows that despite the deserved punishment it is still beloved by the parents.”

I think the government should be sensible enough not to complicate the relationship between parents and a child. I see this already happening in the USA and UK as well, where laws concerning corporal punishment are very strict in comparison with Slovakia. The cases of parents being sued for an innocent smack are not quite rare in the UK and the USA. There is an existing trend of government strengthening its control over family. On the other hand, the authorities often fail to act more effectively in cases, where real violence and child abuse is involved.

I acknowledge the attempt of Slovak government to find a way of prevention of violence against children. But on the other hand, the fragile and sometimes thin boundary between the normality and excess can be easily misused. If a state takes away the right of parents to set limits for their children, they'll have to be set ex-post after the destructive results of actions of these “children with no limits” later on. Which definitely will be more difficult, expensive, and above all, too late.

Gita Hulmanova

Information sources:

National Action Plan for Children 2009-2012 (Narodny akcny plan pre deti 2009-2012)

PastorBonus.sk