Research shows that small children below the age of five or six lack the mental capacity to comprehend the reasons for smacking.13 This not only means that the smacking has no benefit as the child is unable to link the punishment to the behaviour and learn for the future, but it increases the risks of the negative consequences which are borne out of the child perceiving abandonment and rejection by their parents. To summarise: 1. The Fa’asamoa and human rights both enshrine the role of the parent to guide a child’s development and that the standard for parenting is to ensure it is in the child’s best interest. 2. The range of negative consequences of violence towards children can never be said to be in their best interest, therefore any actions which increase the risk of these consequences constitutes violence. 3. All forms of physical and harsh verbal punishment towards children can lead towards these consequences, therefore all physical and harsh verbal punishment amounts to violence towards children. It is therefore the widespread belief that physical and verbal punishment of children is acceptable in any form that causes family violence both directly and indirectly. Directly in that all physical and harsh verbal punishment constitutes violence towards children and indirectly because it increases the risk of the child later becomes either a perpetrator or victim of violence. INQUIRY FINDING 12: All forms of physical and harsh verbal discipline 14 are forms of violence, which directly contribute to the prevalence of family violence and indirectly by increasing the risk of a child becoming either a perpetrator or further victim later in life. 7.1.4 Lack of parent-child communication A feature of the common approach to parenting is that there is little dialogue between parent and child. It is considered that parent knows best and therefore communication is a one way process of instructing the child how to act and behave, to achieve their positive development. However, the Inquiry found this lack of communication to have negative consequences, among which were the perpetration of family violence (and violence more generally). “The most important thing in parenting is communication. Currently there is hardly any communication. A child should be seen and not heard. They are told what to do, they have no say and if they don’t do what they are told they are physically abused. It wounds them not only physically but emotionally and mentally. Then he or she grows up believing this is normal. It is handed down from 13 Lisa Belkin. “Does outlawing spanking lower the crime rate years later?” (17 July 2013). Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/outlawing-spanking_n_3606886.html. 14Definition at Info Point 6.