ABSTRACT

This distinction between ordinary smacking and really severe corporal punishment, while it is unlikely to have confused our findings on the one-year-old. might well give rise to misunderstanding if the discipline of older children was under discussion. One foundry worker's wife, for instance, told us firmly: 'I don't hit any of them'; it was only in further conversation that this turned out to mean that she didn't use the strap or the stick; on her own admission, she was an energetic swiper.