MANY years ago I wrote a column in The Northern Echo pontificating about how wrong it was to smack children. Under no circumstances, I loftily decreed, could it be justified. And I meant it, with all my heart. That was when I had just had one beatific young baby. Life was calm and orderly. The argument was clear. Children had the same rights as adults. It was barbaric and inhumane to treat them any differently.

But five lively boys, 4,380 sleepless nights and twelve tumultuous, chaotic, noisy years later, all I can say is, sorry. Sorry for being so smug and sanctimonious. And sorry, I'm ashamed to say, for going on to smack my own children.

New parents have to learn on the job. And sometimes the childcare books aren't much help. Like when three youngsters are rolling about on the floor, kicking and screaming as they attempt to throttle each other, or when one has leapt out of his car seat for the umpteenth time in heavy traffic or another is hurling heavy objects around the room in a temper tantrum because he can't have a Mars bar for breakfast.

I know I should use reasoned argument, appeal to their better natures, remove privileges, make them take time out or simply ignore them. But, in moments of weakness, I confess to having administered the odd swift smack to the bottom, however rarely. Each time it has been an exasperated admission of failure, a sign that I have, momentarily, lost control.

My experience in the thick of family life hasn't made me pro-smacking, far from it. Of course hitting a child is wrong and it is also counter-productive. But now I'm far more sympathetic to the plight of loving and well-intentioned parents who try their best but sometimes fall short of perfect when they are exhausted and under stress.

Parenting needs to be viewed as a whole. No child deserves to be smacked. But neither should a good mother or father be criminalised for one small lapse.

And, while the House of Lords decided this week parents should be prosecuted if their smacks causes "mental harm" or "reddening of the skin", I couldn't help thinking of all the other demonstrations of poor parenting just as worthy of being outlawed.

How about the sort of seething passive-aggressiveness or the "verbal slapping" of constant criticism, put-downs and fault-finding which can be every bit as damaging to a child's self-esteem? And what about those parents who plonk young children in bedrooms with PlayStations and televisions rather than bothering to engage with them? Doesn't that constitute "mental harm?" And is a tap on the bottom really any worse?

'NO, I'm not buying that," I told the boys in the supermarket as they begged me to buy their favourite chocolate-flavoured cereal, which is usually devoured before I even get the rest of the shopping put away at home. "Because you'll only eat it all". Call it mother's logic, but it makes perfect sense to me.