Street smack whips up hysteria

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CORONATION STREET have reignited the debate over whether it is right for adults, especially parents, to smack their children.

The ITV One soap’s builder Owen Armstrong, played by Ian Puleston Davies defended the Street’s decision to tackle the controversial storyline on Loose Women today, and added: “don’t shoot the messenger.”

It all sparked off earlier in the week, Monday, when the actor builder was left babysitting Anna’s adopted child Faye on the popular prime time soap, on Monday.

She had been wreaking havoc on the couple for the past few weeks.

He smacked her on the leg while the adopted mother was out attending to her ill brother, because she had been the one who had poisoned his pot fish on purpose.

Anna dumped the aggressive builder on tonight’s episode, but the bigger picture is whether it was right for him to smack the child, given that he was not the adopted father.

There’s several sides to this. Firstly, the kid is a little madam – and did poison the fish. FACT. The other side of the coin is that both Anna and Owen never discussed so called parental guidelines with Faye. FACT. And finally, the media have indeed hyped the whole episode up to make Owen seem like a kid beating psychopath. FACT?

There’s also the semantics of the difference between “smacking,” and “hitting”. Words such as thumping, whacking all whip it up and make the character appear to be a bully boy kid beater.

The street should be congratulated for tackling the story line, but the problem is that when the media enter the debate, the whole debate becomes whipped up like a 99P Flake.

Personally, maybe I am old fashioned, but I am in favour of a light smack now and again if children do wrong, or misbehave.

I was smacked when I was a kid, and I did not end up a psychotic adult menace to society. Kids need discipline. They need to know where the boundaries lye. And they need to know that if they do “very” wrong, they will be punished.

Kids nowadays now unfortunately have the law on their side, when it should be the parents.

In my day, you were scared of doing wrong because your father would be on to you.

“Don’t tell daddy will you mummy?”

Fear is not the sign of potential violence, it’s a sign of structured discipline.

Discipline. Discipline. Discipline. That’s what this youth of today need.

What do you think Prime minister?