Why there are worse sins than smacking

THERE are worse things than smacking a child. Such as stuffing their bodies with junk food. Or their brains with junk television. Or giving them medicine because you can't control them - probably because they're so wired because of the rubbish they've eaten and watched.

The Children's Commissioners in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland want a total ban on smacking children. They seem unable to differentiate between a smack on the wrist for a toddler playing with a plug and taking the belt to a teenager.

Well, I think the rest of us have worked that one out. I'm with Tony Blair on this when he said: "Most parents know the difference between smacking and abusing a child."

And for those who don't, a new law won't help much.

While the commissioners were getting worked up about smacking, it took TV chef Jamie Oliver to jolt us into thinking about how we feed our children. There has been plenty of research that proves too much junk food can be disastrous.

Increasingly, young children are showing signs of diseases that used not to be seen till middle age. Last month a young Sunderland man died of cirrhosis of the liver after living exclusively on sliced white bread, fast food, chips and occasional baked beans. How many other children, if not dying, are living their lives feeling stodgy, uncomfortable and miserable because of what they've eaten? No wonder they get ratty.

Meanwhile cases o f ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are soaring. More children are having their behaviour controlled by medicine.

Yes, of course there are plenty of genuine cases where the medicine is not only necessary but an absolute lifesaver - especially for desperate parents. I recall one six-year-old who grabbed his baby sister and tried to jump through a closed window. He and his parents needed all the help they could get.

But so many? So suddenly? Are they sure about them all?

For many children, there must be a better way of improving behaviour.

And if it's a choice between a smack on the legs or a dose of medicine to keep them quiet, I know which I'd prefer.

The strange planet

of politicians

SOMETHING happens when people become politicians. They start off as ordinary people, then as soon as they get to the House of Commons, they seem to live in a different world.

What is so breathtaking about Mark Oaten and his rent boy is not the incident itself - desperate though that must be for his family - but the thought that he could get away with it and stand as leader. Just like that, with no-one finding out. He's either amazingly dim or amazingly arrogant. Or just, like so many politicians, on a different planet from the rest of us.

Well, would you tell them? A woman told a phone in on Radio Five Live last week that she'd won £1.5m and hadn't told the family. Her husband had a minor drug problem and was working and coping with it. Her children were happy. She didn't want to rock the boat. You can see her logic even as you gawp at her restraint.

She gave the family trips and treats but said the money had come from bonuses. Goodness knows what they'll think when they eventually find out - as they certainly will.

Funny, isn't it, that we've had a number of stories about men pretending that they've won the Lottery, but only a woman could pretend that she hadn't.

A MISTAKE by a company in America meant that they owed us £350. I wrote to them without much hope and prepared for one of those long drawn out battles to get money out of big companies, where you speak to a different person every time and they all deny all knowledge of your problem, complicated by the small problem of the Atlantic and a six hour time difference in the way.

Not a bit of it. A pleasant woman rang me, told me her name and department - in case I needed to get in touch again - apologised profusely and said a cheque would be posted "immediately". She wasn't kidding - it arrived by courier the next working day. I'd like to think that British companies would be as helpful, as pleasant and as prompt. But I don't believe in flying pigs either.

MANY thanks for all your email chain letters. So many. Some of them have been quite funny, some not as much fun as they make out, and others have been downright nasty.

Anyway, they've all gone now and I shall cheerfully risk the bad luck.

But if you hear I've been eaten alive by a shark in the Tees, you'll know why.

Why teens should tell mum

IF, when I was a teenager, I had needed an abortion, my mother would have been absolutely the last person I would have wanted to know. Which just shows how daft I was. Many teenagers are. It's why we have laws to protect them and also why they have parents.

It would have been much better for my physical, mental and emotional health if my mother had known if I had needed an abortion. There are some experiences that children should not have to go through alone. Abortion is certainly one of them. And in most - though not all - cases, a mother is the best person to help.

However, mother Sue Axon has lost her High Court battle for parents to be informed if an under age girl has an abortion. Never mind the morality, or the practical considerations. What strikes me as odd is the utter inconsistency of it.

If children are considered old and mature enough to make life and death decisions as the result of sex, then surely they must also be mature enough to do everything else from which they are currently meant to be protected - smoke, drink, vote, work long hours, fight wars, use dangerous machinery, drive cars.

And if not, why not?

Backchat

Dear Sharon,

WHEN I stopped work to have my first child, now 27, I was told that I would either have to come back to work full time or not at all. I went back for a brief period and then left again. While I was at home, my replacement (male) had a serious accident and was off work for six months. Because my firm was desperate, I was able to name my own terms, so I worked two days in the office and another two at home. I actually worked nearly three days at home, but as I was able to fit the hours round my son and didn't have to commute to work, I didn't mind.

The firm was willing to consider working options which were radically different for the time, because they needed my skills and experience, while I was prepared to work harder because I needed the freedom to be with my son. Since those days I have worked in a number of different companies in different parts of England and I have found increasingly that men too want a more flexible attitude to working. They might have their own family commitments (in my last place we had a single father bringing up three children) or might want time off for travel, for instance. Now I am close to retirement, I work only four days a week. If we are all to work until we are 70, then more people will want to work part-time in those later years.

We need a much more flexible attitude to work both from employers and employees, men and women, parents and the childless. We all have different needs at different stages in our lives and thinking that one sort of working pattern fits all from 16 to 70 will keep us locked in the past.

Mrs Anna Dawson, Durham.

Dear Sharon,

IF Gordon Brown wants a "Great Britain Day" perhaps he could use the old Empire Day. We celebrated this when I was a child in schools in Leeds and Stockton in the 1950s. On one occasion I remember dressing up as Children of the Empire and making and waving flags from the different countries. There were sometimes parades and a church service in the morning and th e afternoon was usually given to sports. In one school I believe we had a half holiday. Empire Day was the end of May, which in my memory at least, always gave us good weather for the festivities. I don't know when it ended, but I have no recollection of it after I went to grammar school in 1959.

Don Newton, Stockton.

Published: 25/01/2006