The Smacking Questionnaire has now been removed from the site. Many thanks to all of you who took the time to share your views.

Once again, your comments and views on this topic have made fascinating reading and it has been especially hard to summarise the excellent responses so many of you have made on this controversial topic.

The overall finding was that over 70% of the 240 respondents were against an outright ban on smacking.

The overriding reason most respondents gave was that a tap on the hand or bottom was sometimes the only way to warn a small child of immediate danger or injury.

A quote from one respondent illustrates this point:

"You cannot always reason with a 3 year old! "Now then young Zanthe you really shouldn't push Jack into the path of an oncoming car that's naughty." It just doesn't work. See the words fly over their heads as young Jack goes flying into the road."

Also, there was a fairly common view that it is the right of every parent to decide how to discipline their child, not the Government.

Interestingly a significant number of parents felt that banning smacking would not in any way help in the fight against child abuse:

"Banning smacking will not stop child abuse - it will just criminalise proper parental discipline."

"The sort of parent who uses smacking to the point of physical abuse will ignore any law and other parents will be deprived of a valid form of dealing with bad behaviour."

Also, problems with definition and scope of the proposed legislation were raised by many parents both pro and anti a smacking ban:

"I'd like someone to define smacking for me. If I tap my 2 year old daughter on the hand am I really scarring her physically or emotionally?"

Some respondents felt that only if a smack resulted in bruising or a physical manifestation of the smack itself, should it be banned.

Others felt that a tap on the bottom and the hand was OK but not around the head.

Others again felt that there should be a total ban on smacking babies as they would not realise why they were being smacked in the first place and so the action was not justifiable.

The above comments show the complexity and potential ambiguity of any legislation in this area.

However, while some parents anti a ban had been smacked as children themselves and said they had not been scarred by the experience, several parents in favour of a ban spoke of their own experiences, as children:

"Smacking is emotionally and physically damaging and as this is hard to measure it should not happen at all. I was regularly hit as a child (leaving no marks) and it took a long time to get over."

Other parents spoke of the fact that smacking had not worked as a deterrent in bringing up their own children:

"I've come to the opinion the hard way, every time I have smacked my daughter I was left with the feeling that an alternative would have been a more successful strategy. It makes children more likely to punish other children by hitting them. As a method of changing behaviour it does not work and exclusion, ignoring and privilege removal have all worked far better in the long run."

No doubt the debate will run and run on this subject, but thanks again for all your views.